My HP Fix

[Lanefan]

More generally, the whole notion of two pools, and of choosing which pool, or both, you are in, is trying to impose a process-simulation approach onto hp - which is already taking a side in the great hit point wars.

First off, I have no idea what you mean by "a process-simulation approach".

That said, a body/fatigue system does not necessarily end up as two different pools of h.p. With what we use, your FP kind of sit on top of your BP; damage almost invariably goes against FP first, and if you are low enough to be "in bodies" as we say, curing always goes to BP first. But it's all one bucket.

That's why I think the starting point has to be traditional D&D - a single pool

With you so far

with a uniform recovery rate

Lost you. BP loss, being actual physical injury of some sort, should be more difficult to recover either by rest or by magic.

and two states - alive, conscious and unimpeded, or down and out.

I'd like a few more:

- alive, conscious, still in fatigues (unimpeded)
- alive, conscious, in bodies, will recover (movement slowed, fully curable)
- alive, conscious, below 0, dying slowly (penalties to all actions, can only be cured to full BP)
- alive, unconscious, below 0, dying quickly (non-functional, can only be cured to full BP)
- dead

Lanefan

 

[Crazy Jerome]

First off, I have no idea what you mean by "a process-simulation approach".

The simulation of the steps to get from A to B--in contrast mainly with result-simulation which is ok with abstraction or even non-intuitive methods, as long as the final result is in accord with the rest of the game. Rough examples:

Process-simulation: Every swing of the sword is an attack roll. When you hit, you do damage. At higher levels, you get more attacks in a given unit of time.

Result-simulation: You swing a few times (whatever makes sense in the round), all rolled up into a single attack roll. You might get increased damage as you level.

In both cases, you can set up the math so that the damage works out about the same. Someone was waving a sword around, and goblins ended up dead. The differences will come in how the mechanics work with other parts of the system. Process-simulations tends to break down if you are serious about the simulation but try to keep them simple. Result-simulations can have non-intuitive results for some people, but tend to be more resilient across the whole system. And of course, neither is usually found in a pure form.

These are both in contrast to gamist and narrative constructs which often may work very similarly, but are not explicitly concerned with either the process or the results matching exactly something in the game world itself. For example, fate points that let you narrate your way out of trouble are metagame, and need not simulate something in the game. Naturally, because result-simulation is so elastic, however, you can often have gamist or narrative mechanics that work a lot like result-simulation and vice/versa. (A thin patina of "in game results" on an otherwise gamist mechanic can pass for result-simulation if you don't look at it too close.)

The assumption that process simulaton is automatically the correct way to do X in D&D, as opposed to one possible way, is the root of a considerable amount of disagreement on these boards--and indeed, the root of many letters to Dragon, long before anyone thought to give names to these distinctions. (The assumption of process-simulation as "the way" to do things is also not an infrequent source of lousy software design by amateurs, but I digress.)

Oh, and pemerton, I'll need to spread some more XP.

 

[pemerton]

First off, I have no idea what you mean by "a process-simulation approach".

What Crazy Jerome said. To add my 2c worth, I think of it as "the actual process of resolution at the table models/simulates the causul process that is occurring in the gameworld".

In this particular context - Gygaxian and 4e hit point people narrate hit point loss sometimes as meat, sometimes as fate. But nothing in the mechanics matches these differences in the fiction. That is a failure of process simulation.

KM's proposal would impose process simulation by creating two pools - one for meat, one for fate. Now the mechanics at the table - deducting points from a pool - would reflect the underlying fiction, because when meat is hacked off you'd deduct hp, and when luck is used up you'd deduct fate points.

That's fine as far as it goes, but it would have the effect of not letting me use hit points in the way that I want to use them.

That said, a body/fatigue system does not necessarily end up as two different pools of h.p. With what we use, your FP kind of sit on top of your BP; damage almost invariably goes against FP first, and if you are low enough to be "in bodies" as we say, curing always goes to BP first. But it's all one bucket.

Yep. In my post that you replied to, I described this sort of system - the CON kicker to hp are the body points. So there is still one pool, but it has "tiers".

Lost you. BP loss, being actual physical injury of some sort, should be more difficult to recover either by rest or by magic.

I think that uniform recovery rate (but on a dial) should be the core, because (i) it is the closest thing to a D&D tradition, and (ii) it's simple, and therefore most amenable to modulisation.

In my post that you replied to, I canvassed non-uniform healing rates of the sort you describe - body takes longer to heal than fatigue - as one obvious option for departure from the uniform recovery rate. So I'm happy for you to have what you want, but think that good design mandates it be an option rather than the default.

In my preferred version of D&D - 4e - there is also a non-uniform recovery rate (the short rest/extended rest system). That would be another obvious option to stick into D&Dnext. For crystal clarity - I think my preferred hp mechanic also has to be an option, rather than the default. Otherwise modularisation won't work.

To generalise: the advantage of a uniform recovery rate as core is that it makes it easier to bolt on a range of non-uniform options, most of which probably aren't compatible with one another, but each of which is comptabile with the underlying maths of damge and healing (ie substracting and replenishing points from the single pool).

I'd like a few more:

- alive, conscious, still in fatigues (unimpeded)
- alive, conscious, in bodies, will recover (movement slowed, fully curable)
- alive, conscious, below 0, dying slowly (penalties to all actions, can only be cured to full BP)
- alive, unconscious, below 0, dying quickly (non-functional, can only be cured to full BP)
- dead

Nothing wrong with them. Again, I think that they are most naturally handled as options that fit around a simple core of (i) single pool, (ii) uniform rate of recovery, and (iii) binary states. (This core, obviously, is derived from OD&D and B/X, although it is more abstract than them because it allows that the "down and out" state doesn't have to be death - it can itself be tweaked for group taste.)

Your "alive but taken body damage" state is a type of wound system, isn't it? I think they've indicated that a wound system might be a module they're looking at. On my suggested approach, the obvious way to do a wound system would be to link it to a system based on Body/Fatigue (=Wound/Vitatlity). But a quite different wound system could also be come up with that fits with a more 4e approach - with wounds being outside the hit point pool altogether, and tracked like diseases.

I think it would make for better design if both systems used the same condition rules (if you're wounded, this happens to you) although they use different recovery rules. That way other parts of the game (say, a Cure Wounds spell) can refer to wounds without caring which particular wounds infliction and wounds recovery module you are using.

Your other two states are variants on "down and out" - "down but not quite out", and "out but not dead". I think it's important that both be implementable. I discussed the second of these in the post to which you replied - the "down and out" state can be tweaked to reflect 1st ed AD&D norms (down but not quite out means you'll need a week's rest before you can start healing your hp) or 3E norms (down but not quite out leaves you fine when you're stabilised) or 4e norms (down but not quite out leaves you fine when you recover, and recovery can be a matter of healing or morale or both).

I don't have any suggestions on how to implement the first. I know in 3E there are feats and prestige classes that can do it. I think also in 4e (though I've not seen them in play). I'm sure there's a better way of approaching it then just tacking on feats, though.

Anyway, I hope that makes some sense about how I think modularisation can work to give everyone the options they want, without making anyone take on options and interpretations they don't want, and without requiring major surgery to the underlying spine of the game every time an option is switched on or off. And I hope that also explains why I think a single pool, with a uniform recovery rate, and with a binary state, should be the core around which those modules are constructed.

 

[pemerton]

Oh, and pemerton, I'll need to spread some more XP.

No problems. And anyway, I imagine you are able to see the influence of some of your posts on hit points and modularity in the approach I'm putting forward.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

That's fine as far as it goes, but it would have the effect of not letting me use hit points in the way that I want to use them.

Are you sure? Is there any workaround you can do so that you can? Explicitly, what do you wish to be able to do and how does a split system stop you from doing it? [I like thinking up solutions to problems]

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Lanefan]

What Crazy Jerome said. To add my 2c worth, I think of it as "the actual process of resolution at the table models/simulates the causul process that is occurring in the gameworld".

So, let me put this n my own words, so I get it clear:

Process-sim worries about the steps, and lets the results fall where they may
Result-sim worries about the results, and lets the process figure itself out later.

About right?

KM's proposal would impose process simulation by creating two pools - one for meat, one for fate. Now the mechanics at the table - deducting points from a pool - would reflect the underlying fiction, because when meat is hacked off you'd deduct hp, and when luck is used up you'd deduct fate points.

Sounds more like SWSE Wound-Vitality than what I'd use.

Yep. In my post that you replied to, I described this sort of system - the CON kicker to hp are the body points. So there is still one pool, but it has "tiers".

Are you saying that each person's BP is equal to their CON score? If so, that would certainly solve the commoners-are-fragile issue.

To me, BP *are* the h.p. a commoner gets, ma-aybe with 1 or 2 FP tacked on. Every being has BP in some form.

Your "alive but taken body damage" state is a type of wound system, isn't it? I think they've indicated that a wound system might be a module they're looking at. On my suggested approach, the obvious way to do a wound system would be to link it to a system based on Body/Fatigue (=Wound/Vitatlity). But a quite different wound system could also be come up with that fits with a more 4e approach - with wounds being outside the hit point pool altogether, and tracked like diseases.

Hmmm...could lead to some messy narration when someone's supposedly at full h.p. but has a set of wounds or two hanging around. If this wasn't built in, I'd probably make it that each wound you had reduced your max h.p. by a certain amount; you're just that little bit slower as that wound is fatiguing you.

Your other two states are variants on "down and out" - "down but not quite out", and "out but not dead". I think it's important that both be implementable. I discussed the second of these in the post to which you replied - the "down and out" state can be tweaked to reflect 1st ed AD&D norms (down but not quite out means you'll need a week's rest before you can start healing your hp) or 3E norms (down but not quite out leaves you fine when you're stabilised) or 4e norms (down but not quite out leaves you fine when you recover, and recovery can be a matter of healing or morale or both).

I don't have any suggestions on how to implement the first. I know in 3E there are feats and prestige classes that can do it. I think also in 4e (though I've not seen them in play). I'm sure there's a better way of approaching it then just tacking on feats, though.

Allow me to oblige; we've been doing it this way for a very long time...

If you go to or below 0 you get a roll-under d20 (there is just about nothing in the game that can modify this roll) with the target being your Con score modified by your current total h.p. So, if you've Con 14 and you're at -5 you need to roll 9 or less to stay awake; roll higher and you collapse unconscious.

A conscious person below 0 can act, though melee and missile attacks are at significant minuses* (the DM has a chart) with much greater likelihood of fumbling, your AC is somewhat worse*, your movement is slowed*, and if you try casting a spell or doing anything requiring exertion e.g. climb a rope you need to roll another Con check or you pass out in the attempt.

* - all of these are variable depending on your current h.p. - someone at -8 is functioning at much greater penalties than someone at -2.

And to add to the fun you are slowly bleeding out. If you take a few rounds and apply some first aid you can stabilize for a while, but if left untreated beyond that you'll eventually bleed to -10 and die.

0 h.p. is the tipping point. At 0 and awake (thus able to care for yourself) you will slowly but surely recover. At 0 and asleep or unconscious you will slowly slip away, and die.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

Are you sure? Is there any workaround you can do so that you can? Explicitly, what do you wish to be able to do and how does a split system stop you from doing it?

A spilt system makes it hard to do the following sorts of things:

* This round, you lose 6 hp from fallin in a pit - it's a strained ankle!; next round, you lose 6 hp from a hit from a spider at the bottom of the pit - it's a near miss!

* I just collapsed because my pools are all empty - am I dying from a serious wound, or just swooning? We won't know until the death saves are rolled.

* I've taken a slash to the thigh from the hobgoblin captain's sword, and the stinger from his wyvern narrowly miss skewering me (but a bit of poison got in nevertheless, and is now coursing through my veins) - luckily the commander has my back ("Inpsiring Word"), and so I can keep going despite my injuries.​

The first involves narrating a "fate" loss after a "meat" loss, without any intervening healing - this doesn't work with a layered system, unless you introduce some additional complexities like that falls always go to the second layer (and with that complexity, I lose the narrative space of heroes jumping off cliffs to escape their foes, and surviving).

The second is the standard 4e death and dying mechanic - its fortune in the middle character depends entirely on it being mechanically ambiguous whether that final blow was a serious blow to your meat, or an unlucky twist of fate from which you'll shortly recover.

The third is inspirational healing to meat hit point loss.

As I see it, the examples all have a common underlying structure - they do not fit with a process-simulation constraint, because they treat excalty the same mechanical event - the deduction or addition of some numbers from or to a single hp pool - as sometimes meat, sometimes fate, depending not upon any further mechanical considerations (such as which "tier" has points left in it) but upon context and narrative.

I like thinking up solutions to problems

I'm interested to see what your solution looks like. But I'm a little bit sceptical. The divide between process-simulationist mechanics and other sorts of mechanics (especially fortune-in-the-middle ones) is a pretty deep aspect of RPG design, I think. And the affinity between certain sorts of mechanics and certain sorts of playstyles is also, I think, non-accidental.

And again for maximum clarity - I've got no objection to any one using "tiered" or "multi-pool" hit points. I just don't think that should be core. Because once it's core, modularising in non-process simulation approaches is likely to be a challenge.

 

[Kavon]

The thing that is most important to me, is that I will have a choice in determining how easy or hard it is to restore HP.

I can see the terminology that is used really influences how we receive something, so let's forget all terminology we've thought up for a minute here, and I'll try to explain how I see things.

One way, you have HP that is very slow to recover itself naturally.
Divine magic heals your wounds, but some bloke yelling in your ear isn't going to help you much.

Another way, you have HP that is fully restored in one night's rest.
Your commander is your friend, and you value him just as much as your priestly buddy.

Now say we have third way, where you combine the slow healing HP with the fast healing HP.
Your commander can help you, but only up to a point. During a battle, if you've at some point lost your fast healing HP and taken a bite out of your slow healing HP, your effective max HP is lowered. It'll take some time for you to recover from the wounds you took before your commander upped your morale. Your strained ankle might hurt, but you push through it - you won't be on your top performance though.
Who knows, there might be certain things that are severe enough to ignore the fast healing HP and go straight to slow healing HP, depends on how you want it, I guess.

Note that the first method is basically 'pre-4e' and the second '4e'.


Basically, it's a "harsh method", a "gentle method", and the varying shades of gray which go inbetween. It doesn't have to be a matter of "this is actual physical trauma" or "this is just your stamina getting worn down", unless you want it to be.

Like I've said before - let the basic premise be "you have HP" after which you can see what those HP mean to you.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I do think it is useful to look at what the 5e rules are right now. While they can change, they're at least a stating point.

Right Now the 5e HP rules represent 99% luck, chance, small scrapes, little nicks, divine favor, fate, ankle twists, etc.

The last HP in 5e is different, though. That last HP takes, by itself, either magic, or 2d6 hours to get back.

This is conceptually the same as someone using the proposal with 1 HP and all the rest Fate.

We don't have any "inspirational healers" in 5e yet. What we do have is a nightly rest that restores all your HP unless you're unconscious, and a short rest that restores a good chunk of your HP unless you're unconscious. In the "Everything but the last HP is Fate" model 5e is currently employing, this makes logical sense. Unless you're unconscious, you're not suffering from any physical wounds greater than nicks, cuts, and bruises. The moment you take any actual injury, you also fall unconscious and begin to die, and that takes longer (2d6 hours) to recover from.

It doesn't seem that this is what a significant portion of D&D players actually enjoy, judging from the complaints about an extended rest being too much. We need "more meat" in HP for those people. My proposal basically sets that at half.

In the model that we have now, an "inspirational healer" in 5e wouldn't be able to use their HP healing abilities on an unconscious character, but on anyone else they'd be fine. Said healer might have some other way to revive an unconscious character (such as a "First Aid" ability that makes them conscious with 1 hp. Can be refluffed as an elfy kiss, if you'd like.).

In the model where half your HP is harder to recover (where the other half is Fate), an "inspirational healer" in 5e wouldn't be able to use HP healing abilities on a bloodied character, but on anyone else they'd be fine. Said healer might have some other way to heal a bloodied character (such as a "First Aid" ability that can restore HP to a bloodied character.).

The trick is, this point is set-able for different people at different points. Someone who for whatever reason didn't like First Aid could just remove that restriction on inspirational healing, regardless at what point that was set. It's not hard to change to whatever you want, for whatever reason you want.

Without resorting to labeling the things in different terms, 5e already has this distinction. Just set at a slightly different point than in my proposal.

So I basically solved everyone's problems by giving you what 5e already gave you, just articulated a little differently.

KM said upthread that what I'm doing is just restating his proposal, but I hope I've succeeded in explaining why I'm not just doing that.

It really seems like the big material difference is what the thing is called. Because an Meat+Fate system lets you adjust the amount of each, thus letting you determine the narrative you want to tell, and an "HP is meat + fate" system also lets you determine the narrative you want to tell, by letting you determine on the fly which is what.

That on-the-fly ambiguity is a problem, since a lot of gripes about a given healing mechanic (inspirational or rest-wise) boil down to "It doesn't fit my vision of what makes sense in the world given how I see HP." What HP are meant to be in the game needs to be announced in big bold letters so that future designs can take them into account, so that we understand what "makes sense" in the realm of D&D, so that we have an objective point for talking about these things.

A clear label would at least allow us to use a single definition for each word. "I'm using all Fate" or "I'm not using Fate" would have some meaning that telegraphed the expected play experience to those who otherwise didn't know. It would avoid discontent when the warlord did pop psychology on the unconscious person to make them get back up, because it would be clear that it was not healing a wound. It would avoid discontent with the inability of a full night's rest to heal you to full, because it would be clear that a full night's rest won't erase all your wounds. It would avoid snarky resistance to a bard's words dealing damage, because it would be clear that they are not actually breaking bones and impaling organs.

As long as that label was fully adjustable, it also doesn't invalidate any given mechanic.

That's why this cosmetic difference causes a problem. Because what people expect when they hear the term "HP" is different. Because it can mean so many different things at once. Rather than forcing the audience to embrace ambiguity as a core game mechanic, the proposal allows you to be clear with what your intent for your game and game-world is.

 

[pemerton]

say we have third way, where you combine the slow healing HP with the fast healing HP.
Your commander can help you, but only up to a point. During a battle, if you've at some point lost your fast healing HP and taken a bite out of your slow healing HP, your effective max HP is lowered. It'll take some time for you to recover from the wounds you took before your commander upped your morale. Your strained ankle might hurt, but you push through it - you won't be on your top performance though.
Who knows, there might be certain things that are severe enough to ignore the fast healing HP and go straight to slow healing HP, depends on how you want it, I guess.

Note that the first method is basically 'pre-4e' and the second '4e'.

The second is not 4e. It doesn't give me the same hit point balance entering each combat (except the on where I've run out of surges). 4e is not "two pools of hp". 4e is "two rates of healing" - heaing is fast (short rests) until it becomes slow (extended rest), but all healing is to a single pool (hp).

Without resorting to labeling the things in different terms, 5e already has this distinction. Just set at a slightly different point than in my proposal.

I'm not here defending 5e. It doesn't use a uniform rate of healing, and so doesn't put forward what I think should be the core. But I here they're revisiting core healing!

It really seems like the big material difference is what the thing is called.

<snip>

That on-the-fly ambiguity is a problem

<snip>

A clear label would at least allow us to use a single definition for each word.

<snip>

As long as that label was fully adjustable, it also doesn't invalidate any given mechanic.

That's why this cosmetic difference causes a problem. Because what people expect when they hear the term "HP" is different. Because it can mean so many different things at once. Rather than forcing the audience to embrace ambiguity as a core game mechanic, the proposal allows you to be clear with what your intent for your game and game-world is

The difference in labelling causes a problem because it is not just cosmetic. As you yourself state, it makes on-the-fly ambiguity impossible ie it invalidates some mechanics. It imposes process simulation. That is not cosmetic. That is a substantive game design choice that departs from (some) D&D tradition.

You think on-the-fly ambiguity is a problem. I don't. Some others don't either - we think that fortune-in-the-middle is a virtue in some mechanics.

And having a single pool as core doesn't force anyone to embrace ambiguity. It is open to them to impose clarity if they want (eg all hp are meat, or all a fate, or all are meat but the last, or whatever - and the rulebooks could talk about this without any problems).

But having a single hit point pool with a uniform recovery rate and only two states - up or down - is the only way I can see to avoid imposing process simulation as the core.