JohnSnow
Hero
Okay, so I was kicking around an idea of trying to strike a balance between the lethality of games like the various OSR systems, Shadowdark or early editions of D&D with the more durable characters of 4e, 5e and the like, and I kinda hit on an idea that preserves the simplicity of hit points, but adjusts the dial for recovery rate based on how many hit points the character has remaining.
The first question I usually get is: "What problem does this solve?" For me, it solves the problem of aligning the abstract nature of what hit points represent with how they are recovered. I have always had trouble with hit points as just "the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage," and always aligned myself with what Gygax wrote way back in the 1e DMG that a good percentage of them represented "skill, luck, and sixth sense." But the natural hit point recovery system was never remotely in line with this definition until the last couple editions. Now we come to 5e, and characters can recover some hit points from combat to combat, and all of them with a night's rest, regardless of how badly hurt you get.
I know that opinions on this vary, but I think there's an interesting middle ground here.
The preamble out of the way, my first cut at the system goes like this:
Natural Healing Rate (By HP remaining):
0 hp: Magical healing or 1d4 weeks to recover 1 hp. (1)
1 hp -> 25% total hp: Complete a Rest to recover hit points. (2)
25%+ hit points = Recover hit points equal to LV x HD after 15 minutes.(3)
(1) Almost dying should suck, so try not to do it. This is where magic is useful. AD&D characters could recover 1 hp/day of rest, but needed a week to recover from 0 (if they could), but would recover all their hit points if they rested for 4 weeks.
(2) Shadowdark's default level of healing. A Rest consists of food and sleep - what 5e calls a "Long Rest."
(3) This plus the above is where 5e lives, and its primary purpose is to let characters retain more combat durability from fight to fight.
Obviously, the different D&D-adjacent systems extend the various recovery rates outside of the ranges to which I have confined them, but I think there's a virtue in merging them. And before anyone asks the obvious: "Since this is sort of two separate pools with different recovery rates, why not track them separately, like VP and WP from d20 Star Wars?" I guess you could call them different things if you want, but I'm just after general feedback on the concept, not the semantics, and I don't see any particular reason to give them different names.
So, what do people think?
The first question I usually get is: "What problem does this solve?" For me, it solves the problem of aligning the abstract nature of what hit points represent with how they are recovered. I have always had trouble with hit points as just "the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage," and always aligned myself with what Gygax wrote way back in the 1e DMG that a good percentage of them represented "skill, luck, and sixth sense." But the natural hit point recovery system was never remotely in line with this definition until the last couple editions. Now we come to 5e, and characters can recover some hit points from combat to combat, and all of them with a night's rest, regardless of how badly hurt you get.
I know that opinions on this vary, but I think there's an interesting middle ground here.
The preamble out of the way, my first cut at the system goes like this:
Natural Healing Rate (By HP remaining):
0 hp: Magical healing or 1d4 weeks to recover 1 hp. (1)
1 hp -> 25% total hp: Complete a Rest to recover hit points. (2)
25%+ hit points = Recover hit points equal to LV x HD after 15 minutes.(3)
(1) Almost dying should suck, so try not to do it. This is where magic is useful. AD&D characters could recover 1 hp/day of rest, but needed a week to recover from 0 (if they could), but would recover all their hit points if they rested for 4 weeks.
(2) Shadowdark's default level of healing. A Rest consists of food and sleep - what 5e calls a "Long Rest."
(3) This plus the above is where 5e lives, and its primary purpose is to let characters retain more combat durability from fight to fight.
Obviously, the different D&D-adjacent systems extend the various recovery rates outside of the ranges to which I have confined them, but I think there's a virtue in merging them. And before anyone asks the obvious: "Since this is sort of two separate pools with different recovery rates, why not track them separately, like VP and WP from d20 Star Wars?" I guess you could call them different things if you want, but I'm just after general feedback on the concept, not the semantics, and I don't see any particular reason to give them different names.
So, what do people think?