Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Forked Thread: Alternatives to mountains of hit points
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4661292" data-attributes="member: 40961"><p>It depends on what sort of fights you want to model, and what role fighting plays in your game system.</p><p> </p><p>In 4e, fighting has a very clear role- it is the thing that your characters rock at, and the thing that makes them special, and you win it through tactical decision making. This favors longer, less swingy combat. Under this paradigm you want combat to take up a reasonable amount of time, and you want the random factor to force the players to adapt and augment their tactics on the fly, but you don't necessary want the random factor to turn what should be a victory into a rout due to a few rolls of the dice. Higher hit points support this goal.</p><p> </p><p>In a different game system, with different goals, you want different hit points. To use an extreme example, in Og: Unearthed, combat has a very different goal. The focus of the game is on player interaction, and on the game's unique language issues. Combat is intended to be nasty, brutish, and to go very bad for the PCs. So the rules of combat are very short, very easy to understand, and characters die very fast. There are hit points, but you get very, very few of them.</p><p> </p><p>So... really, it depends on your goal. What do you want the focus of your game to be? How much time do you want to spend on combat? How do you want combats to be won?</p><p> </p><p>Here are different ways I've seen things done.</p><p> </p><p>1. 4e style, tactical combat.</p><p>2. Simulationist.</p><p>3. Combat description focused.</p><p>4. Combat as something you get through in order to get back to the real game.</p><p>5. "Creativity" combat. By this I mean, your characters win fights by ignoring the rules and doing things like lobbing fifteen pound barrels of alchemist's fire into the enemy stronghold.</p><p>6. Poorly written, unfocused rules that don't know what they're trying to accomplish, or that try to accomplish too much and fail at everything.</p><p> </p><p>Each one of these rewards different ways of handling combat, and therefore different ways of handling hit points. Well, [6] doesn't reward anything at all, but you know what I mean. There are probably even more options than this, and some of these categories could be broken down a bit more, but this is a start.</p><p> </p><p>So in order to know what should be done with hit points, decide where you are on the chart. Or add to it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cadfan, post: 4661292, member: 40961"] It depends on what sort of fights you want to model, and what role fighting plays in your game system. In 4e, fighting has a very clear role- it is the thing that your characters rock at, and the thing that makes them special, and you win it through tactical decision making. This favors longer, less swingy combat. Under this paradigm you want combat to take up a reasonable amount of time, and you want the random factor to force the players to adapt and augment their tactics on the fly, but you don't necessary want the random factor to turn what should be a victory into a rout due to a few rolls of the dice. Higher hit points support this goal. In a different game system, with different goals, you want different hit points. To use an extreme example, in Og: Unearthed, combat has a very different goal. The focus of the game is on player interaction, and on the game's unique language issues. Combat is intended to be nasty, brutish, and to go very bad for the PCs. So the rules of combat are very short, very easy to understand, and characters die very fast. There are hit points, but you get very, very few of them. So... really, it depends on your goal. What do you want the focus of your game to be? How much time do you want to spend on combat? How do you want combats to be won? Here are different ways I've seen things done. 1. 4e style, tactical combat. 2. Simulationist. 3. Combat description focused. 4. Combat as something you get through in order to get back to the real game. 5. "Creativity" combat. By this I mean, your characters win fights by ignoring the rules and doing things like lobbing fifteen pound barrels of alchemist's fire into the enemy stronghold. 6. Poorly written, unfocused rules that don't know what they're trying to accomplish, or that try to accomplish too much and fail at everything. Each one of these rewards different ways of handling combat, and therefore different ways of handling hit points. Well, [6] doesn't reward anything at all, but you know what I mean. There are probably even more options than this, and some of these categories could be broken down a bit more, but this is a start. So in order to know what should be done with hit points, decide where you are on the chart. Or add to it. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Forked Thread: Alternatives to mountains of hit points
Top