Hit points- The final frontier

[ExploderWizard]

Hit points……………..the final frontier. These are the voyages of the circular arguments…..

OK. After reading a very long thread that has become focused on the definition of hit points I have decided to try and propose some solutions. Both camps in this debate have made valid points while still chasing their tails.

It’s a simple question of what do we want hit points to be. I posted a solution of sorts in that thread which I am using in my own system. Since then I have been thinking of ways to adapt the basic idea to be usable with all D&D type systems.

If hit points and healing are not a problem for you then please skip the rest of this, because it may bore you.

Hit points as they currently stand try to be too many things to different people. They are physical toughness, actual wounds, resolve, luck, magical protections, and to some, even morale. That’s asking a lot out of a hit point, especially if what it represents changes depending on not only how many you have, but how many you started with.

What I propose is body points . CON score is a good starting point. The body points do not have to actually be CON if you use a system where ability damage would create unwanted recalculations of saves, defenses, ect.

Who has body points:
Every living creature has body points. Undead, animated items, and constructs do not. If these types of creatures are brought to 0 hp they are defeated, destroyed, broken or whatever.

Hit points would become purely a measure of being fresh, rested, and willing to fight. Damage from all sources would reduce hit points as the hero gets winded, and more worn out. It will also be very reasonable to see why all hit points are regained with a full days rest. No gaping wounds knitting overnight to explain at all. There would be no need to track negative hit point totals. When hit points reach 0 the body damage starts. This also serves as a good cue to use narration that would depict a physical wound because it has actually happened.

Body points would be the measure of physical wounds that hit points do not represent. The degree to which body damage is taken and the difficulty and time required to heal it can vary depending on the level of grit desired. Since body points would be based on CON or something similar, characters with identical actual wounds will heal at comparable rates.

For example: Bob and Joe are both fighters. Bob is 1st level and being mentored by Joe who is 6th level. Bob has 12hp and a 16 CON. Joe has 62hp and a 16 CON. Each fighter has 16 body points. Assuming these guys had a bad day, went down to 1hp each and took 6 points of body damage each, it would take them the same amount of time to heal both their hp and body damage.

When to use body damage:
This is another matter that can be adjusted to taste. Assuming a fully heroic game like 4E we will say that body damage only occurs after hp are reduced to 0.

Default body damage rules ( adjust to taste):

Body damage up to 1 point below max body points-
at this stage the character has suffered physical damage. This damage cannot be cured by the same healing magic that restores hit points. 1 round after the damage occurs the character takes an additional 1-6 body points of damage per round until attended to. Spending 1 round to do whatever needs doing will prevent further damage but will not restore any body points. Magic to restore body points will be more rare and/or expensive than hp cures. At this point the character can be brought back to an effective state if hit points are healed to at least 1. Thus the character could continue fighting with body points and hit points down to 1.

Body damage from max body points up to 1 point below 2X body points-
as above but the character is in a sort of coma and cannot be brought to an effective state until body points are at least a positive 1. This stage represents grave injuries and whatever magic is used to restore effectiveness quickly ( if it exists at all) is very rare and/or expensive. Time required to heal from this state should be rather long too, as a general rule.

2X body points is dead-go through the pockets and look for loose change.

In grittier games body damage can be used for a coup de grace, for poison, when the victim is bound or helpless, and other situations.

For fantasy simulation the body point concepts works for some stock fantasy situations.

Example:
Billy the barbarian was attempting to put an end to the evil cult by raiding the cultists’ temple. Billy is a tough adventurer with 56 hp and an 18 CON. Billy got caught sneaking in and was overcome by a foul cultist’s sleep spell. Billy woke up chained in the dungeon. Billy never got a chance to swing his sword and has suffered no damage.
The cultists begin to torture poor helpless Billy, beating him and burning him with hot irons. Billy has taken 6 points of direct body damage from the torture, and another 2 from the lack of food and water over the next day or so. Considering that the average man has a 10 CON and would be close to passing out from this abuse, Billy is holding up well.

Some adventurers happen by to sack the Temple. They free Billy and give him a sword!! This is what he has been wanting to do!! Billy charges into the fray chopping and slicing through his enemies. He is wounded, but full of rage and vitality. His wounds will be a factor if he should be defeated ( easier to kill) but his fighting effectiveness (HP) remains intact, allowing his wounds to become merely painful reminders of why this filth must die. If Billy had taken HP damage from the torture instead then his chances of being able to fight his way out would be reduced.

Body damage can provide a strategic resource to manage. The defender may be down to 9 body points and there is no magic available to cure it. Can the group afford several days of healing time or press on with the adventure?

Body damage can also help falling damage stop being so much of a joke for high level fighters. 1d10 per 10’ fallen with each full 5 points also doing 1 point of body damage will make these characters less careless about leaping just “because they can”.

That’s the basics, enough rambling for now. The concept is generic enough to use with any edition. Thanks for reading.

 

[mmadsen]

What I propose is body points . CON score is a good starting point. [...] Hit points would become purely a measure of being fresh, rested, and willing to fight. Damage from all sources would reduce hit points as the hero gets winded, and more worn out. It will also be very reasonable to see why all hit points are regained with a full days rest.

This is what the original d20 Star Wars game did, calling them Wounds and Vitality.

As I recall, critical hits did not do multiple damage, but instead went straight to Wounds, bypassing Vitality. This had the unintended effect of creating a threshold, where weapons averaging more damage than a typical Con score were particularly lethal.

 

[Morrus]

CON isn't a good figure to use because it doesn't track with level in the same way that "-10" became irrelevant at higher levels in 3E. Damage is so high at higher levels that the chances of being between o and -10 in 3E were pretty small: in reality, you'd be at psotove hi topins (alive and well) or -80 (well and truly dead).

4E solves this by tracking unconsciousness to level by way of making it your bloodiied score (or half hit points).

The reason you need a negative damage score to track with the same damage as level-appropriate monsters do in a round is that, if you don't, the negative damage score is irrelevant. Might as well not have it.

So - the idea is good, but link it to level or hit points, not to CON. It seems realistic (heck, it is more realistic), but it doesn't make for more fun for your players. Unless you like half your players sitting round twiddling their thumbs all evening, with their unconscious or dead characters, watching other people enjoy themselves, and wondering if they'd be better off just going to the pub next week.

It's all about the fun. Fun trumps realism.

 

[mmadsen]

CON isn't a good figure to use because it doesn't track with level in the same way that "-10" became irrelevant at higher levels in 3E.

This is an excellent point and an example of just how roundabout cause and effect can be in a complex system like an RPG -- because monster damage goes up dramatically with level largely because PC hit points go up dramatically with level, etc. There's a bit of a "Red Queen" situation, where we run faster and faster to stay in place, and any element that doesn't keep up gets left way, way behind.

 

[ExploderWizard]

CON isn't a good figure to use because it doesn't track with level in the same way that "-10" became irrelevant at higher levels in 3E. Damage is so high at higher levels that the chances of being between o and -10 in 3E were pretty small: in reality, you'd be at psotove hi topins (alive and well) or -80 (well and truly dead).

4E solves this by tracking unconsciousness to level by way of making it your bloodiied score (or half hit points).

The reason you need a negative damage score to track with the same damage as level-appropriate monsters do in a round is that, if you don't, the negative damage score is irrelevant. Might as well not have it.

So - the idea is good, but link it to level or hit points, not to CON. It seems realistic (heck, it is more realistic), but it doesn't make for more fun for your players. Unless you like half your players sitting round twiddling their thumbs all evening, with their unconscious or dead characters, watching other people enjoy themselves, and wondering if they'd be better off just going to the pub next week.

It's all about the fun. Fun trumps realism.

Thats a good point on the playability front. The purpose of the body points not scaling was that, underneath the mantle of heroic hit points, heros are people too. A battered, worn out, exhausted (0hp)fighter is about as easy to kill with a sword thrust as a farmer. The difference is that farmer (5hp) only takes a minor amount of effort to wear down, while our hero (80 hp) takes quite a bit of effort to do.

 

[LostSoul]

How would you deal with things like poison and level drain - things that need to hit the body in order to deal damage?

I used a system like this in 3e, and I was never sure how to deal with that.

 

[Minigiant]

CON is too low at high level to more alone. It's too swingy and offers nothing to the hero's skill to avoid lucky shots. That's why I combine CON with a condition track and "reverse healing surges".

The way I do it is through Wound points. Any time you take damage higher than your CON score plus half your level or are a hit with a damaging critical hit, you gain a wound point. If you are hit with a critical that deals higher than your CON you gain 2 wound points.

Uninjured: 0 wound points
You're at perfect health.

Minor Wounds: 1 wound point
Minor scrapes and bruises. No real effect on you. A Short rest, action point, or second wind removes all wound points and brings you to Uninjured due to natural body healing.

Light wounds: 2 wound points
Creatures under level 5 are instanly dropped to -5 hp. You take a -2 penatly to attack rolls, defences, and skill checks due to pain and wounds. An extended rest or action point removes all wound points and brings you to Uninjured due to basic first aid.

Moderate wounds: 3 wound points
Creatures under level 11 are instanly dropped to -5 hp. You take a -5 penatly to attack rolls, defences, and skill checks due to pain and wounds. An extended rest or action point removes all wound points and brings you to Uninjured due to basic first aid.

Serious wounds: 4 wound points
Creatures under level 21 are instanly dropped to -5 hp. You take a -5 penatly to attack rolls, defences, and skill checks due to pain and wounds. An extended rest or action point removes 1 wound point and brings you to Moderate wounds due to basic first aid. The Cure Disease and Raise Dead rituals removes all wound points.

Critical wounds: 5 wound points
Creatures under level 21 are instanly dropped to -5 hp. You take a -5 penatly to attack rolls, defences, and skill checks due to pain and wounds. An extended rest removes 1 wound point and brings you to Serious wounds due to basic first aid. The Cure Disease and Raise Dead rituals removes all wound points but the caster takes a -5 penalty to the heal check.

Lethal wounds: 6 or more wound points
You are dead at -1000 hp. The Cure Disease and Raise Dead rituals removes all wound points but the caster takes a -10 penalty to the heal check.

 

[FireLance]

The way I do it is through Wound points. Any time you take damage higher than your CON score or are a hit with a damaging critical hit, you gain a wound point. If you are hit with a critical that deals higher than your CON you gain 2 wound points.

Your wound point system doesn't look too bad, but it looks like it might break down at high levels because damage output usually increases faster than Constitution score. Perhaps Constitution + level, or healing surge value might be a better threshold?

 

[half-dragon dragon]

While the body points idea may not apply to 4e, I do think the body points = CON could work, for a heroic/beginning tier. You could start off with the basic idea that body = CON for the first tier of play or whatever level range, etc would describe the characters as mortal. From there you could scale it by tier with a multiple of the character's CON.

So for 4e it would something like:
Heroic: Body = Con
Paragon: Body = Con x 2
Epic: Body = Con x 3

If you wanted some realism left in it, you could explain it as the character's getting closer and closer to legendary status, and thus wounds that would fell a mortal, are more like inconveniences to epic heroes.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

How would you deal with things like poison and level drain - things that need to hit the body in order to deal damage?

I used a system like this in 3e, and I was never sure how to deal with that.

You seriously weaken such effects if they only work on receiving "body" damage. (And might make them superfluous - you die quickly anyway once you take body damage). Maybe take a cue from 4E - Poison and similar effects deal ongoing damage when hit points are still there, and their "real" effect when you deal body damage. So you could have a sleep poison that deals ongoing 5 damage,but if hit points drop to 0, you drop unconcious. A deadly poison kills you outright (well, after failing your fortitude save or it succeeding an attack against fortitude or what-you-have).



The 4E damage scaling is relatively predictable, so maybe increasing your "body points" by +1 for every level (or every 2?) might be sufficient - representing an improved ability to withstand pain (martial characters) or subtle magic protecting you.

Warhammer 2E no longer tracks hit points below 0 - if you take damage on 0 hit points (called "critical"), you count how far in the negative you would go and then see what debilitating effect you suffer. One could do something similar in D&D.
If at 0 hit points, all attacks are threats (in 4E, this term is unused so far ). Now insert a mechanic how to treat damage (taking into account hit points, levels or whatever else you like)
Example:
Compare the damage to your Constitution Score:
Damage <= 1/2 CON Score => Target is dazed and knocked prone. Roll a Death Save
Damage <= CON Score => Target is stunned and knocked prone. Roll a Death Save every round.
Damage > 1 1/2 CON SCORE => Target is lethally injured and drops unconscious. Automatic Death Save Failure.
Damage > 2 x CON SCORE => Target is lethally injured and drops unconscious. Treat as Two Death Save Failures
Damage > 3 x CON SCORE => Target is lethally injured drops dead.
(Note: You only need to make death saves now if you take damage. As in 4E, three death save failures kill you. Only if you take "enough" negative damage you actually have to save every round. Particularly lethal if you are "mobbed" and take a lot of attacks while at 0 hp.