Something that has to be modeled in this game and currently is not

[Sadrik]

Something that is not modeled in the game is certain types of critical damage that would ignore HP. HPs are described as durability, health, quickness, energy, luck, favor, and magic. An abstraction. 1/2 HP and above you show no injury and below 1/2 you get cuts and bruises.

Taking that description and then

Things like falling, starvation, suffocation, thirst, toxins of all types, diseases, heck radiation, pressure, vacuum, coupe de grace (sneak attack), energy drain or any other type of catastrophic damage.

Certain types of damage should not go to HP. They should be handled by some other method. That is what this thread is to debate, what types of mechanics can be applied to the game to represent this type of damage. HP are not enough. If you believe HP are enough explain how your mechanic would work.

So, here are a few options that can handle it:
By having different conditions perhaps multiple conditions for each type. Poison perhaps could have sickened at first then poisoned and then dieing. Each could have a condition track. Falling might apply a broken condition if you fail a save and if you fail another you are dieing.
By utilizing the negative HP as "wounds". So you either make negative HP as a second bucket of points to mark off or you lower max negative number, either way it is the same effect. While suffocating you mark off 1d6 per minute and make a save or something. when you fall you apply damage here rather than you HP.
By utilizing stat damage, however, I think this is not being seriously looked at but it could accomplish this easily.

Something needs to be in the game that does not heal quickly and easily in the HP short rest cycle. Also something that can allow certain dangers and hazards be that real dangers and hazards (suffocation, falling, energy drain etc.)

So what say you...

 

[Magil]

4E modeled these kinds of damage mostly as losing healing surges, which would in Next translate to losing HD (or taking that much damage if they had no HD).

I don't know if that's the kind of modeling you are looking for, but it's at least a possibility that doesn't require too much extra bookkeeping (which is a big plus).

 

[JeffB]

Wound/vitality from the original SWD20 is somewhat similar.

In that game I felt it added more complication than it was worth.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

It would be possible to extend the current Coup de Gras mechanic, which has you immediately drop to 0 hit points when hit, and die when hit again.

My thinking is that anytime you take something that straight up injures you, you lose all of your hit points. If it's a condition, you don't get them back until the condition is gone.

But, this would require that you be able to be conscious while at 0 hit points or below, which is something I already advocate for, but which is not traditional.

Another possible mechanic: Roll all your hit dice. Take that much damage.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Things like falling, starvation, suffocation, thirst, toxins of all types, diseases, heck radiation, pressure, vacuum, coupe de grace (sneak attack), energy drain or any other type of catastrophic damage.

Falling and Sneak Attack are already modeled through HP damage; what's the problem with this?

Starvation and thirst would probably be modeled as failed Survival or Endurance checks. In D&D terms, I'd think their effects would be negated by eating/drinking and having a long rest. As someone mentioned, though, losing HD would be a decent way to model the effects if you wanted to have the party fighting despite their hunger and exhaustion.

Pressure, vacuum, and suffocation would probably be modeled as flat HP damage per round - maybe an Endurance or Con check to avoid it for a few rounds.

Disease and poison would clearly depend on the type of disease or poison. Since poisons are often used by monsters and PCs, they'd have to be balanced with interesting in-game effects (like disadvantage on certain rolls). As for disease... well, if you don't have a cleric on hand to cure your bubonic plague, you've probably got a fair number of issues.

In other words, all of these things have already been modeled in previous editions of D&D without a specific condition track. I can see the OP's issue with the fuzziness of the HP mechanic (if I get stabbed in the neck by a rogue, how is a warlord going to "inspire" me back to health?) but I think that can be resolved by making curative mechanics at least semi-magical.

Healing kits are a great example of this, IMO: it's unrealistic that you could patch up a bunch of knife wounds and be good to go in 10 minutes, but hey, in the fantastic realm of MyCampaignWorld there are common enchanted herbs that blah blah blah. Bards and paladins can heal without much issue too, since a bard or paladin's "inspiration" is infused with magic. Warlords are the only real stumbling block here. If you kill or "fix" warlord healing, we can all go back to thinking of HP as at least 75% physical wounds.

This is a bit far afield, but I think even this hurdle could be overcome. Just say that a warlord's expertise in combat includes advanced medical training, and give him abilities that let him use healing kits more effectively (and even in combat). Maybe even an out-of-combat Speechify ability that lets party members "dig deep" to gain extra HD, so that the warlord wouldn't be strictly inferior to a cleric who doesn't need to spend your HD to heal you.

 

[Sadrik]

Ok so a vote for losing HD, a vote for not SWSE, a vote for expanded coup de grace, and a vote for adapted HP damage and or conditions.

I think this is an area that a strong and unified mechanic could be a real boon to the game to take some of the more tricky adjudications and book look ups out of the game. This is also an area where rules modules would be pretty common (damage, healing and HP). That said the core base level of the game needs something imho. Hodge podge mechanics are not cutting it for me.

 

[Mallus]

Things like falling, starvation, suffocation, thirst, toxins of all types, diseases, heck radiation, pressure, vacuum, coupe de grace (sneak attack), energy drain or any other type of catastrophic damage.

My old college DM, running a blend of AD&D and 2e, used a very elegant houserule to model falling/sudden impact damage.

You rolled a saving throw --I forget which-- to see if your PC broke a limb. If your PC did, then you suffered the realistic consequences of breaking something. Spells like Heal, and (I believe) the higher level Cures could repair breaks. Otherwise, it took time.

This neatly solved the "I have 100 HP, I'll jump off the cliff!" problem.

 

[Sir Brennen]

My old college DM, running a blend of AD&D and 2e, used a very elegant houserule to model falling/sudden impact damage.

You rolled a saving throw --I forget which-- to see if your PC broke a limb. If your PC did, then you suffered the realistic consequences of breaking something. Spells like Heal, and (I believe) the higher level Cures could repair breaks. Otherwise, it took time.

This neatly solved the "I have 100 HP, I'll jump off the cliff!" problem.

I'm not sure it solves it so much as shifts the problem elsewhere. Make a save and you can suffer a 100 ft fall with no repercussions at all. At worst, you break a limb, no matter how far you fall. With the regular mechanic those hit points lost are still important if the fall happened in the middle of a battle with a dragon.

Straight damage from falling is suffice and simple enough for my purposes. While I have no alternate solutions to offer for the other types of damage, I will say any mechanics which ignore character level I'd not use in my games. A 10th level PC should be more resistant to poison, drowning, what have you, than a 1st level character.

If you want to inflict more serious damage on higher level characters, many of these things scale in severity as well. My 10th level fighter shouldn't be sidelined with the flu; however, Black Swamp Fever from a scratch of powerful hag's fetid claws could be a problem. Giant centipedes just give him a rash now, but the venom of spiders in the Demonweb Pits is still a thing to avoid.

HP damage models that just fine. Ongoing damage (existent in previous editions but more formally codified in 4e) also fit into the model just fine. I can see an argument for loss of Hit Dice, since they also scale with level, and could offer a "wound track" separate from Hit Points. So there's a central unifying mechanic. Everything else - additional effects, amount of damage, saving throw modifiers, damage and saving throw frequency, spells, skills or actions to counteract - is just window dressing.

 

[Mallus]

I'm not sure it solves it so much as shifts the problem elsewhere. Make a save and you can suffer a 100 ft fall with no repercussions at all.

To clarify: a PC took the standard HP falling damage and in addition had to make saving throws vs. limb breakage.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Things like falling, starvation, suffocation, thirst, toxins of all types, diseases, heck radiation, pressure, vacuum, coupe de grace (sneak attack), energy drain or any other type of catastrophic damage.

Falling and CdG/SA should just go to hps. CdG/SA are just attacks, and luck can be a big factor. Falling, likewise, you can fall a short distance (slip in the shower) and die instantly, you can fall a long distance and miraculously survive. Hps exist, in part, to model the way protagonists tend towards miraculous survival, in general.

Things like disease, starvation, thirst, longer-term toxins, and debilitating injuries could certainly be modeled with something behind hps. Preferably not some alternate abstract numeric total, though, but a disability track that models the penalties and limitations imposed by the condition as it progresses (be it getting better or worse).

Level Drain is an oddity of the classic game and doesn't really model much of anything. Energy Drain could be just hps damage, or it could be a condition (like ongoing damage or weakened) or a longer-term affliction like diseases &c.

Certain types of damage should not go to HP. They should be handled by some other method. That is what this thread is to debate, what types of mechanics can be applied to the game to represent this type of damage. HP are not enough. If you believe HP are enough explain how your mechanic would work.

Bottom line, for me: HPs are 'plot armor,' they should work to help PCs survive the kinds of deadly threats and insane risks that are par for the course in heroic fiction and legend - and that's just about anything.

What hps lack is any way of modeling disability, and you do see heroes in genre struggling against disabling wounds, curses, and other circumstance, even if they generally are able to overcome them just long enough to do something heroic at the critical moment. Some sort of system to model disabling afflictions would be good.


Oh, and I'll also chime in as against any sort of wounds/vitality system, it just creates two kinds of hps, one of which ends up not mattering.