The Issue of Hit Point Inflation and Related Materia

[Jack7]

Or maybe you're saying that you don't want HP to be what ends a fight. I don't know what other methods you're thinking of, though.

I'll try to explain a bit below.

Yeah, hit point totals like that make me want to not use hp either. Any ideas on a replacement? Active defenses? Maybe we should fork this to another thread.

I think that's a good idea EW as you'd probably pick up interesting ideas from others as well.

As for me I'm experimenting with play-testing three different methods for the Conjunction Contest, including Weal. Weal is simply one's Physique score, or it would be Constitution score, in regular D&D.

But it is modified by other factors as well, and as one's Weal falls then it has other effects, such as weakened resistance to attack and weakened strength, speed, agility, etc.

Let me put it to ya this way, if you've ever been knocked around in a boxing match or stabbed then you know such wounds don't just "reduce hit points" they also slow you, make you sluggish, you don't react as well or as efficiently as when you are uninjured, etc. It's not just a matter of being injured, being injured has "systemic effects" not just "loss of hit points."

(Though you do reach an accommodation point, a sort of point where you become accommodated to the pain and less worried or resistant to it, and you actually start to loosen up again, which is why I don't mind "Second Winds," though the idea of healing surges is kinda silly. It's at least a misnomer. You don't heal anything, you just become less influenced by pain and injury at a certain point, and then it goes the other way again once things like adrenaline start to wear down and you become "reconscious of your situation.")

I'm thinking when it comes to certain monsters Weal will work in a little different way than with characters, that is to say they don't wear down as fast, but then again they don't get second winds much either. Many monsters would act like reptiles, a lot of energy up front, with very slow reduction to abilities, then once they crash then they start to fall quickly. Like a lizard or an alligator or a snake. They are extremely dangerous and they don't lose their lethality immediately, but once they do they sort of "collapse." Many reptiles absorb energy directly from the sun, and less through chemical means. That means they do very well in certain conditions (no man could outsprint a man-sized lizard, but then again a lizard could never run a marathon either. Men would easily out-distance lizards.) but once they exhaust their energy reserves they "crash quickly." (You might could use "bloodied" as a "crash-point" for some monsters.) Humans on the other hand get most of their energy through chemical means which means less immediate and direct applicability but it also means they carry internally more stores of energy and they hold energy stores longer and can operate in nearly any environment because of that. So I picture many monsters as ambient energy absorbers, and therefore more like reptiles, and characters as being the opposite. I definitely don't like the idea that monsters and people would be identical in the way they behave, operate, or fight.

Combats would then become a lethality challenge between the extremely vicious and up-front lethality of some monsters (some monsters being more like people) - can they kill quickly enough to overcome the character's Weal - or the longer term, tougher, more enduring, but less powerful up front lethality and Weal of the characters. The characters will be looking to inflict intense immediate lethal wounds to overcome the "breaking point or collapse point of the monster," and the monster will be looking to kill characters quickly so as not to have to risk the danger of collapsing against a foe who may be tougher in the long run.

This gives characters and monsters different kinds of "Weal and lethality advantages and disadvantages," but also encourages both groups to be as lethal as possible as immediately as possible (for different reasons). And that's what real killing fights are like. Optimally you don't want your opponent to survive his first encounter with you. If he does then it just becomes progressively more dangerous for you every second thereafter. So as a combatant you have no interest in combat per se, instead you want to kill. Combat then is just a medium or method of killing, it is not a method of "attriting and brawling." You wouldn't enter a combat against a monster "to fight," you'd enter it to kill.

But Weal is one method I am experimenting with.
The best method I'll put into my game work-up.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Sorry to quote you again, but the comment about player damage is true for all classes except wizards, whose damage remains about the same, perhaps lower. Metamagic feats and 3.0e haste allowed wizards to keep up in the damage causing stakes, but in 3.5 they didn't have a chance to match up with the damage caused by fighter or flanking rogue full attacks (and that is before energy resistance is brought into play)

But 3E wizards had other means to take out an opponent without causing damage: Stone to Flesh, Hold Monster, Power Words, Polymorph... or any other spell which simply incapacitated a creature (stinking cloud). Saying wizards didn't do as much damage is a little misleading... because they didn't need to.

 

[Spatula]

Sorry to quote you again, but the comment about player damage is true for all classes except wizards, whose damage remains about the same, perhaps lower.

Spell damage for the legacy stuff is roughly the same, but 3e characters have more spells (all casters getting bonus spells for high ability scores), have various ways to customize spell damage (as you note), and have lots of new spells - mostly in the Magic Compendium or whatever, but also some core ones like scorching ray - that are simply better (more damage, ignores SR/resistances, etc.) than what you could previously get at those levels.

It doesn't compare to full attack damage (which is why I think some of the "3e wizards are all powerful" talk is a bit overblown), but spell damage still ends up inflated compared to 1e and (I think) 2e.

 

[billd91]

I've got no interest in fighters who win combats through no better, more efficient, or more clever means than by slow attrition because that is the way a system is designed to promote the idea of combat.

Combatants should be efficient and effective killers, not brawlers, (especially fighters, in any other situation professional combatants are trained and practice to kill, not to "attrit away hit points") and monsters should be dangerous and highly lethal, not fat piñatas that it takes an hour to break open.

For some reason, the extra long fight scene from They Live comes to mind...

 

[JohnRTroy]

The one thing I hated about 3e and the HP inflation is that some spells weren't adjusted. While I can understand some logic of fireballs having damage limits, stuff like Power Word, Kill was supposed to be very very powerful. A PWK in 1st Edition could kill a powerful dragon or huge monster. But with HP inflation, PWK only worked well as a "showboat", killing a bunch of low-hp monsters, which 3e sort of discouraged.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Let me put it to ya this way, if you've ever been knocked around in a boxing match or stabbed then you know such wounds don't just "reduce hit points" they also slow you, make you sluggish, you don't react as well or as efficiently as when you are uninjured, etc. It's not just a matter of being injured, being injured has "systemic effects" not just "loss of hit points."

GURPS models the shock effect of injury. "Hit points" don't really increase with skill and getting hit causes penalties on your next turn. One solid hit from a broadsword to an unarmored regular man and he is pretty much done for. I really enjoy playing GURPS combats, the only problem is that I find it just a bit too simulationist for exploration style D&D gaming.

 

[pawsplay]

GURPS models the shock effect of injury. "Hit points" don't really increase with skill and getting hit causes penalties on your next turn. One solid hit from a broadsword to an unarmored regular man and he is pretty much done for. I really enjoy playing GURPS combats, the only problem is that I find it just a bit too simulationist for exploration style D&D gaming.

Just allow hit points to equal 2xST and make sure everyone has Rapid Healing, and it works fine. Crippling is rare, injuries tend to get better, and instant kills are rare.

 

[FireLance]

How many hit points the monsters ought to have is really a function of how long you want the combats to last.

Want fights to be over in one or two rounds? Give them fewer hit points. Want fights to last longer? Give them more hit points.

I personally don't like short fights because they don't give the PCs much time to think tactically or to react to the changing circumstances of battle. For me, a fight should ideally last anywhere from five to ten rounds, with the PC spending the first few rounds getting the measure of their enemies, and the next two to seven rounds reacting accordingly (up to and including running, if the monsters are too tough for them to handle and/or the dice are against them).

1,525 hit points (for Orcus, I assume) seems like a lot, but as a thought experiment, I put together a party of five 30th-level PCs who were able to take Orcus from 1,525 hit points to 0 in just over four rounds (the rogue who took the first action in the fight dealt the finishing blow in the fifth round) as long as nobody rolled a one and everyone did average damage. 1,525 hit points doesn't seem like a lot when a party of five (admittedly, a well-optimized party of five) can blow through them in less than half a minute.

 

[Jack7]

I don't really mind Weal increasing with level as a factor of physique EW, because Weal is about general bodily well being (it includes things like Hit points and general health, freedom from diseases and injury, physical performance, etc.) and because experience and exposure to dangerous situations, over time, makes you tougher, stronger, and more capable.

As a matter of fact that's the way I devised it. So I'm having Weal increase by level like hp totals, but it works differently because it is directly tied as a factor to your physique.

However strikes against your Weal also weaken strength, slow reflexes, and cause other problems, so being wounded doesn't just subtract hit points it actually lowers capabilities. This gives everyone incentives to fight hard and fast as quickly as possible because as your Weal fails then your overall effectiveness in combat is reduced as well. That's true for men and monsters.

Therefore the longer you fight the less incentive there is to remain "brawling" because you weaken, not just reduce in hit points, as you fight. Two or three serious injuries reduce you significantly (whereas four or five smaller wounds might have the same effect) and by percentage of your Weal rather than by hit points per se, and as Weal fails so do other things.

So everyone, character and monster, has a built in incentive to strike hard and effectively, and lethally, as quickly as possible.

A higher level character will not be killed by a single strike in most cases, but that is possible under the right conditions, but his attrition rate is comparatively far faster than in 4E, and the same for monsters, though monsters can take it up front better, but after reaching their "breaking point" they decline in Weal rapidly.

Characters can't take as much damage up front but they can take it longer. Their rate of Weal decline is more proportionately even, and steady.

So monsters have the up-font advantage, but characters the long term advantage, but the incentive is to kill quickly to avoid serious injury which reduces capabilities from the start. This also encourages and incentivizes combatants to become better "killers" and not just better "fighters."

Being a good fighter can get you killed, but being a good killer will get the opponent killed.

Now as an attribute I'm including Will, which is of course Will-power. Will is an attribute, like Strength or Physique, but it can affect every other attribute. Will scores can be temporarily expended or used to bolster other abilities, or capabilities.

For instance Will can be temporarily used to reinforce Spares (Saving Throws), to bolster Wisdom, to augment Strength, or in combat even to temporarily reinforce Weal. As examples of how Will works as a "reinforcement attribute."

So in combat situations Will, or force of Will, can be used to reinforce and strengthen a flagging or injured Weal. Because I've seen more than one fight resolved by little else than "force of will."

Fairly evenly matched, one party ends up defeating or killing the other because the first party used their "force of Will," and their training, to bolster their effectiveness in combat or a fight.

So in combat it is Weal as a measure of injury and capability, and Will as a measure of control over ability. so it's Weal and Will. Then Will has to recharge after being expended, just like Weal has to regenerate through rest and recuperation.

So if you have a Weal Score of 16 (attribute scores run from 1 to 20), and a Will score of 19, and you are a second level fighter then your Weal score is 32.

A single serious injury might reduce that (your Weal) by 50% to 16 and lower his Strength by 2 and his Dexterity by 3(and thereby lower his ability bonuses correspondingly), and then the character could expend 10 points of Will to give him a temporary combat score of 26 Weal, raising his strength back up to normal and his dexterity, or agility, by 2 for the rest of the combat, or until taking another blow to Weal.

A monster could also use Will to reinforce Weal, but some monsters would not possess Will. Most monsters would be more resistant to injury up front, in the early stages of a battle injuries scored against them would do less Weal damage, but after a certain point injuries against them do more damage. So they are harder to kill up front but easier once they become exhausted and worn down.

So the incentive for the character is to do a lot of real damage to a monster right up front and thereby push him quickly past his exhaustion and breaking point, and theater he is less dangerous and easier to kill (many musters anyways, there would be exceptions). The incentive for the monster is to do a lot of real damage up front to the character because by doing so they not only kill the characters more efficiently, they also weaken their effectiveness in counter-attack.

A character could also get Second Winds but they only last for 3 combat rounds and then he falls back to his pre-wind condition.

(Will can also be used to temporarily boost offensive capabilities, like striking and damage bonuses, but if you expend Will for offense you cannot expend it then for defense until after it is recovered. In combat situations you might think of will as "focused determination," whereas in skill challenges it would function more as "focused concentration.")

Nobody wants to see long drawn out battles in this system because the monster knows if he is worn down quickly he is killed more easily (so he wants to kill fast and first), and the character knows that even if he survives initial vicious attacks and can better withstand damage long term, he also becomes a less effective fighter the longer he is in the fight. And so by becoming less effective he makes it harder on himself to cross the breaking threshold of the monster. (A lot of more intelligent monsters will surrender at this point if they feel they can because they know that they will be dispatched quickly after they "break.")

Long term injuries or serious diseases can errantly lower Weal and Weal can be increased by level gains, experience, exercise, and toughness training.

I am experimenting with a system in which a single die roll (d20) will tell you whether or not you successfully struck, what part of the body, how much damage you did to the opponent's Weal, how much damage you did to armor, what effect you had on their ability to want to continue fighting (morale, important if they are not really wanting to fight or are uncommitted to the fight), if an injury inflicted is debilitating in some way, etc.

Monsters fight on one advantage chart, characters on another, but those trained to be lethal (monster or man - and any character, no matter class, can undergo lethality training - but combatants [fighters] do as part of their professional training) fight on a "Lethality Chart."

If you are trained to be lethal then you are trained to kill, not just fight.
And you are trained to destroy your opponents Weal and Will and thereby quickly overcome or kill him, not just reduce his hit points.

I personally don't like short fights because they don't give the PCs much time to think tactically or to react to the changing circumstances of battle. For me, a fight should ideally last anywhere from five to ten rounds, with the PC spending the first few rounds getting the measure of their enemies, and the next two to seven rounds reacting accordingly (up to and including running, if the monsters are too tough for them to handle and/or the dice are against them).

I agree with that too FL. but then again fights shouldn't become a brawl instead of what they really are, a lethal combat.

It's not like a real fight in the fact that things move relatively slowly, and you can see the fight from a bird's-eye view, or almost as a disinterested, objective bystander (instead of really worrying if someone is gonna off you or your buddies). Then again you want fights to be far more dangerous, lethal, and fluid then just a hit point exchange.

I think it's a balance between tactics and maneuver (which is the stage play aspect and wargaming interest of an RPG fight), and purpose and lethality (which is the real intent of the fight - to kill the opponent).

You want it to be dramatic and fake enough to be an interesting mental exercise, but dangerous and lethal enough to stimulate real excitement and emotion. You want it to look dramatic, but feel dangerous.

 

[Raven Crowking]

But the question you need to ask yourself is if that's really fun?

Yes.

@ Jack7: While it uses hit points, you might want to give codex martialis a look. CM requires tactical decisions, and allows for fighter skill, without requiring a grid. It has to be one of the best OGL suppliments out there.


RC