Hit Point style preference

[RangerWickett]

A discussion with a GM friend about possible 5e mechanics led to the conclusion that in a game it's okay to scale HP & damage during character advancement, or to scale attack stats & defense stats, but there's no reason to do both.

For instance, in Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader (which we play a lot), you have like 15 hit points, and that doesn't really increase. A gun always does, like, 10 to 20 damage, but more experienced PCs can dodge better. Also, their aim gets better. So high level PCs fighting mooks just don't get hit, and when they do, we can easily equate the damage amount to actual wound severity.

Because PCs can still die in 1 or 2 hits, we call this game style Rocket Tag.

In a lot of video games like old school Final Fantasy, your hit points increase by level, but so does damage. You might have only 70 HP at the start of the game, but you're up at 9999 at the end. You can get hit by a planet and only take a couple thousand damage. Since lower-level enemies don't do much damage, you can wade through lots of them without needing healing.

This style gives you plenty of time to adjust tactics as you get low in HP, and you're almost never killed before you can react. We call this game style Plot Immunity.


Now, old school D&D did sorta half-and-half, by having attack bonuses scale, and HP scale, but damage and defenses didn't. So high-level combats have you hitting a lot more, but you don't actually kill your opponent faster. You have to describe hits as 'near misses,' because there's no clear correlation between 'damage' and actual wounds. Cure light wounds will fully heal a mortally wounded commoner, but you'd have to use it a dozen times to heal a mortally wounded high-level PC. There's a weird breakdown of the mechanic=narrative connection.

And then 4e got out of hand, I feel, by having everything scale. Numbers get bigger but it doesn't feel impressive.



So, in a hypothetical new game, designed to be fun and fast to play, which would you prefer?

Rocket Tag - One or two hits will probably drop anyone, and the arms race is between your aim and their ability to dodge. Hits represent actual hits, and damage is actual wounds. A 20 ft. fall always does the same damage, and is always painful. However, a 1st level man in full plate is AC 20, while a 20th level guy might be AC 40.

Plot Immunity - Hits don't correspond to actual wounds, and you either have people surviving great falls, or you have to make falling do more damage against higher level people. But you have more leeway to change tactics based on how well you're doing. Also, a man in full plate is always AC 20.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Of the two, rocket tag.

Simpler, faster, more fair, and more real.

 

[Roland55]

I'm very willing to be flexible, but I admit I do like the Rocket Tag.

Heck, I even enjoy "Save-or-Die" spells.

I think it's the adrenalin junkie in me.

 

[Hassassin]

Rocket tag, except 3-4 hits average might be the sweet spot. It's just so much simpler in its implications.

That said, I doubt we'll see something like that. I'd settle for a significantly slower progression of dmg/hp increases than 3e or 4e.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Of the two, I prefer Plot Protection, but I think there's plenty of room for both in a modular system.

Really though, you can have static attack/defenses (which we recently started using in a fellow DM's homebrew system and has been very well received) while still playing rocket tag. Just scale both hp and damage so that 1 or 2 hits will probably incapacitate a character.

That said, it's just as easy to change the ratio of damage to hp in order to support a low lethality game, which is why I like this approach. It's very easy to tailor your game to your desired difficulty.

Four defenses that all progress at varying rates, on the other hand, can make it very difficult, or even impossible, to tailor the difficulty of the game. It can quickly get out of hand, where the high level fighter can guzzle the most horrendous poisons without effect, but can be charmed by an apprentice mage. You end up having to cherry pick challenges just to challenge, or avoid excessively challenging, the party (IME).

As such, I think there should be an option for attack and defenses to remain static. At most (IMO), they shouldn't change by more than about +2 once per tier. That should keep them from scaling out of hand, while allowing variation of play between tiers.

 

[mmadsen]

Of the two, rocket tag is more realistic -- which is why PCs need plot protection layered on top of it.

A PC expects to survive hundreds of violent encounters. Even a one-percent chance of death per encounter would prevent that.

 

[RangerWickett]

I guess an easy third option would be:

Plot Immunized Rocket Tag - Attacks and defenses are fairly static. You have a stable pool of 'Wound Points,' and damage to that represents actual physical wounds. Then you have 'Hit Points,' which represent you turning a hit into a graze. When someone 'hits' you, you lose HP, and if you're out of HP you take WP damage.

You might also make it so HP soaks all but 1 damage, and attacks always deal at least 1 WP (that's the graze).

Design mechanics with this logic. So poison only affects you if the attack deals any WP damage. Falling down a steep hill? Maybe HP mitigates the fall. Falling with no way to catch yourself? WP damage. Caught off guard by an assassin? WP damage. A purple worm has a 'swallow' attack? It only works if the PC's out of HP.

You might recover all your HP after a short rest, and warlords might be able to shout at you to restore your HP, but only rest or magic can fix WP damage.

Monsters would have to be designed with some odd mix of WP and HP. Humanoids would have low WP and get more HP based on level/challenge rating. Big monsters might have no HP and just WP, or a lot of each.



And the fourth option is:

Fated Rocket Tag - Rogue Trader does this. When you would die, you can spend a fate point to survive somehow. You get a finite number of fate points per character. So the sword nearly killed you, but amazingly you survived. In Rogue Trader you have to keep whatever horrible wounds you suffered from, but you can also get cybernetic arms and stuff, so you'd probably tweak this a bit for D&D.

Maybe just give you the option, when reduced to 0 hit points, to become 'disabled' instead of 'dead.' As long as the party survives, they can keep you from dying. Only if someone coup de graces you, or you're the victim of a truly unsurvivable thing (fell in lava, swallowed by dragon and it flies away) do you die. But you could maybe spend a fate point to survive that, invoking some bizarre stretch of plot.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Of the two, rocket tag is more realistic -- which is why PCs need plot protection layered on top of it.

A PC expects to survive hundreds of violent encounters. Even a one-percent chance of death per encounter would prevent that.

The scaling defenses of rocket tag are only realistic when kept within reason.

If a soldier needs a natural 20 to hit a high level fighter, that's not particularly realistic, especially if he's backed by 9 of his buddies and none of them can hit the guy.

 

[RangerWickett]

'Reason,' though, depends on the narrative implication of high level.

Say a 1st level guard needs a 10 on a d20 to hit a 1st level PC. If a 10th level PC is just a better trained fighter, needing a 15 might be fair (especially if ganging up provides bonuses).

What about a 20th level PC? Well, if a 1st level PC is a random LARPer with a sword, and a 10th level PC is Arnold Schwarzenegger from True Lies, then maybe a 20th level PC is Kratos from God of War, and normal guards shouldn't be able to hurt him except on a natural 20.

 

[mmadsen]

The scaling defenses of rocket tag are only realistic when kept within reason.

If a soldier needs a natural 20 to hit a high level fighter, that's not particularly realistic, especially if he's backed by 9 of his buddies and none of them can hit the guy.

While I agree with your point, that's a terrible example, since most soldiers never hit anyone with any of the shots they fire. It's the true professionals who even hit on a natural 20. (Snipers are the notable exception. They hit more than half the time.)