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Tink-Tink-Boom vs. the Death Spiral: The Damage Mechanic in RPGs
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<blockquote data-quote="zhivik" data-source="post: 7756369" data-attributes="member: 6966637"><p>What I believe some of the people discussing here miss is that the two health track systems are designed for very different settings. The TTB system goes very well with an epic fantasy setting as D&D or Pathfinder are (and many others, naturally). It is an essential part of an epic fantasy setting that you may have heroes fighting as well at the brink of death as they do when they are unharmed. The settings that use a Death Spiral system are much more nitty gritty, they bet on more realism so threats are much more immediate and it makes sense PCs to start feeling the effects of taking too much damage. Both of these approaches have their pros and cons.</p><p></p><p>The best part of the TTB is that it encourages bold, heroic play, which is what you would expect from an epic fantasy. This can be a lot of fun and there is nothing wrong in that. A Death Spiral system encourages more tactical play because a rash action could have very serious consequences. It favours encounters that are of a smaller scale, rather than the hordes of enemies you start facing at higher levels in fantasy settings (or the larger-than-life antagonists, like ancient dragons, for instance). Along that line of thought, a Death Spiral system isn't as punishing as it appears, as you don't bleed out immediately after you have your last health box filled with damage - in most cases, you have to roll to stay conscious, which is similar to how levels of exhaustion work in D&D 5e. Speaking of that, you could easily introduce a house rule that gives you a point of exhaustion if you go below a certain hit point threshold (for instance, 20%) to account for the fact that you have difficulty holding it together.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="zhivik, post: 7756369, member: 6966637"] What I believe some of the people discussing here miss is that the two health track systems are designed for very different settings. The TTB system goes very well with an epic fantasy setting as D&D or Pathfinder are (and many others, naturally). It is an essential part of an epic fantasy setting that you may have heroes fighting as well at the brink of death as they do when they are unharmed. The settings that use a Death Spiral system are much more nitty gritty, they bet on more realism so threats are much more immediate and it makes sense PCs to start feeling the effects of taking too much damage. Both of these approaches have their pros and cons. The best part of the TTB is that it encourages bold, heroic play, which is what you would expect from an epic fantasy. This can be a lot of fun and there is nothing wrong in that. A Death Spiral system encourages more tactical play because a rash action could have very serious consequences. It favours encounters that are of a smaller scale, rather than the hordes of enemies you start facing at higher levels in fantasy settings (or the larger-than-life antagonists, like ancient dragons, for instance). Along that line of thought, a Death Spiral system isn't as punishing as it appears, as you don't bleed out immediately after you have your last health box filled with damage - in most cases, you have to roll to stay conscious, which is similar to how levels of exhaustion work in D&D 5e. Speaking of that, you could easily introduce a house rule that gives you a point of exhaustion if you go below a certain hit point threshold (for instance, 20%) to account for the fact that you have difficulty holding it together. [/QUOTE]
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