Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Without Hit Points?

[arkham618]

For those with a good head for the rules, what would be the repercussions of replacing hit points in Pathfinder with a Toughness save and damage track, à la Mutants & Masterminds or True20? Immediately, I can see the need for a Base Defense Bonus (since armor adds to Toughness under the save mechanic), but what else would be affected?

 

[pawsplay]

You would need to come up with a system for scaling damage by spell level, irrespective of a spell's other effects.
You get to spend a lot of time defining healing effects under a system that doesn't like them very much.
PCs are likely to be, in general, more resilient and able to bounce back, but in the long term, you can forget about a 20-level campaign unless you introduce Conviction/Hero/Action points. Damage saves take people out.
On a related note, you have to decide on deadly DCs versus non. If you allow deadly attacks, a good roll could kill anyone in one go. If not, then being chewed in half by a Gargantuan dragon is potentially survivable. Different d20-based games have set different defaults, whether an unharmed character can end up, at most, dead, dying, or unconscious, after a nasty damage save.
Obviously, Favored Class bonuses will have to be restructured.
If Toughness steadily advances, you end up with nearly invulnerable PCs, even without strong defenses. If it doesn't, the genre conventions will be affected, as even the most powerful heroes will think twice before going toe to toe with something like a giant or a hydra.

 

[arkham618]

You would need to come up with a system for scaling damage by spell level, irrespective of a spell's other effects.
You get to spend a lot of time defining healing effects under a system that doesn't like them very much.
PCs are likely to be, in general, more resilient and able to bounce back, but in the long term, you can forget about a 20-level campaign unless you introduce Conviction/Hero/Action points. Damage saves take people out.
On a related note, you have to decide on deadly DCs versus non. If you allow deadly attacks, a good roll could kill anyone in one go. If not, then being chewed in half by a Gargantuan dragon is potentially survivable. Different d20-based games have set different defaults, whether an unharmed character can end up, at most, dead, dying, or unconscious, after a nasty damage save.
Obviously, Favored Class bonuses will have to be restructured.
If Toughness steadily advances, you end up with nearly invulnerable PCs, even without strong defenses. If it doesn't, the genre conventions will be affected, as even the most powerful heroes will think twice before going toe to toe with something like a giant or a hydra.

Thanks for your analysis. I'm not terribly concerned about breaking genre conventions: I am contemplating this substitution for a swashbuckling campaign in which combats will need to be resolved quickly, with maximal style and minimal dice-rolling/bookkeeping. I therefore intend to use Hero Points to provide a mechanic for acts of daring-do -- and, based on your input, to mitigate the increased lethality of the Toughness save, if I go that route. I think it would be appropriate to cap the result of a badly failed damage save at dying, rather than dead, to give PCs the opportunity to attempt a recovery. I personally feel that Toughness shouldn't scale, but Defense should, so higher-level characters would be harder to hit, but not necessarily to damage. Regarding healing effects, could one not simply have Light, Moderate, Serious, and Critical Wound steps on the damage track, which would be eliminated by the corresponding Cure spell? Heal is more problematic: it's still useful for removing adverse conditions, but the 10 hp/caster level restored would have to be factored some other way. Any suggestions?

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

For those with a good head for the rules, what would be the repercussions of replacing hit points in Pathfinder with a Toughness save and damage track, à la Mutants & Masterminds or True20? Immediately, I can see the need for a Base Defense Bonus (since armor adds to Toughness under the save mechanic), but what else would be affected?

This post doesn't answer this question, so feel free to ignore if it doesn't help. Not sure when your campaign starts, but Ultimate Combat comes out in Aug and wil include both armor as damage reduction and new ways to track character health. You might look at the options there as well as the M&M method.

 

[pawsplay]

Regarding healing effects, could one not simply have Light, Moderate, Serious, and Critical Wound steps on the damage track, which would be eliminated by the corresponding Cure spell? Heal is more problematic: it's still useful for removing adverse conditions, but the 10 hp/caster level restored would have to be factored some other way. Any suggestions?

Here's my suggestion: Cure spells, of the correct severity, reduces your wound condition by one step (or two, maybe, if the spell is two or more grades over what you need). Heal will simply make you unwoudned, period. How's that? I don't think it makes Cure Light Wounds etc. too weak.

 

[dystmesis]

Injury :: d20srd.org From Arcana Unearthed for 3.5 Horribly clunky, though