Removing Hit Points from the Game

Retreater · Mar 16, 2019

If something as fundamental to the game as HP is a problem, I'd look at another system. There are countless other fantasy RPG rulesets that don't have high level "superhero" characters.

Satyrn · Mar 16, 2019

Reynard said:
The more I think about it and read responses in this thread, the more I think the appropriate solutions are a) start at and design he world around a level I prefer (say, 4th), and b) make leveling happen very slowly over long periods of both in game and real world time. Now, could I get buy in from players for such a thing?

"We're starting at 4th level. You guys should make 6th about this time next year."

I'd probably buy in if I could get some "sub levelling" in. Like, even if it took 6 months to get to 5th level, if I gained an extra ASI or a feat halfway through, that would satisfy me.

Caliburn101 · Mar 16, 2019

How I deal with it to make things gritty for longer without making low levels unsurvivable.

Each HD (except monsters) is -1 step - so 1d6 becomes 1d4, 1d10 becomes 1d8, etc.

Everyone gets double normal HP at 1st level.

Injured Condition (at 50% of HP or lower)
1. Resistance to Healing
2. Disadvantage on Athletics and Health Checks
3. -10ft movement

I also only have anyone make Concentration checks when they are suffering the Injured condition.

Also, when on 0 HP, Healing takes 3 rounds to take effect (so there must be at least 3 Death Saves) and this includes stabilisation etc.

A small change but it makes the game grittier and less counterintuitive as far as HP are concerned.

DND_Reborn · Mar 16, 2019

S'mon said:
If you're designing around a level, I recommend starting at a lower level and letting the PCs grow into it. Eg for 4th, you could start at 3rd.

Reynard said:
The more I think about it and read responses in this thread, the more I think the appropriate solutions are a) start at and design he world around a level I prefer (say, 4th), and b) make leveling happen very slowly over long periods of both in game and real world time. Now, could I get buy in from players for such a thing?

"We're starting at 4th level. You guys should make 6th about this time next year."

I think starting at 3rd, the archetype level, is a good place to begin. I think it wouldn't be a hard sell with award ideas such as Satyrn suggests once in a while.

Satyrn said:
I'd probably buy in if I could get some "sub levelling" in. Like, even if it took 6 months to get to 5th level, if I gained an extra ASI or a feat halfway through, that would satisfy me.

One idea is to look at what gaining a level would give the PC. Instead of getting it all at once, maybe every few weeks or a month, award 1-2 HP, eventually a prof bonus increase, maybe a new skill or feat, etc.

Actually, now that I think about it--I might look more carefully into this idea myself.

Jacob Lewis · Mar 16, 2019

Satyrn · Mar 16, 2019

Jacob Lewis said:
View attachment 105440

This is why I don't play with critical hit charts that cause severe injuries. The results are ridiculous.

Prakriti · Mar 16, 2019

The issue for me is that combat drags on foreeeeveeeer at the higher levels. By level 12 or 13, a hard or deadly encounter can easily take an hour (or more) to resolve. That's way too slow-paced for me.

I haven't come up with the perfect solution yet, but one thing I did that seemed to work in my last campaign was to design monsters that basically had 1/2 the usual HP and did *2 the usual damage. So they hit twice as hard, but died twice as fast. Combat was a lot quicker-paced as a result.

DND_Reborn · Mar 16, 2019

Interesting. Instead of real-time, how many rounds do they usually take for your group at that level?

S'mon · Mar 16, 2019

Prakriti said:
The issue for me is that combat drags on foreeeeveeeer at the higher levels. By level 12 or 13, a hard or deadly encounter can easily take an hour (or more) to resolve. That's way too slow-paced for me.

I haven't come up with the perfect solution yet, but one thing I did that seemed to work in my last campaign was to design monsters that basically had 1/2 the usual HP and did *2 the usual damage. So they hit twice as hard, but died twice as fast. Combat was a lot quicker-paced as a result.

Yeah, I've noticed that this is an issue - there are a lot of bag-of-hp, low damage monsters. Your solution of half hp & x2 damage works well for some cases. As an alternative you can double damage and reduce the number of monsters - if you put the number to 2/3, with x2 damage, the overall encounter threat level stays constant. In practice I tend to do more like +50% damage and 3/4 numbers.

A final solution that is very popular with players is to hand out means of increased PC damage via items, boons etc, while using some high damage homebrew or 3rd party (eg Tome of Beasts)
monsters.