Why rename HP & Saves?

[3 Man]

Since no one has mentioned it, then i will. I have always kinda liked the Earthdawn system for dealing with damaged. You have 3 things based on your constitution : wound threshold, unconcious threshold and death threshold.

Any time you take damage, it is added to how much you have. Once you reach the unconcious threshold then you fall unconcious and death you die of course. The trick to it, is that if you take more damage in one blow than your wound threshold, then you recieve a wound. More than one wound will give you negatives to your skills.

There is a mechanic to adding to your unconcious and death thresholds, but your wound threshold will remain the same unless your constitution increases.

This is a great system since it does seperate your grazes and your really damaging blows. Eventually as you gain levels you toughen up so you can take more grazes, but your hefty damage pretty much remains the same.

Something like this can be developed for D&D, but it will take a bit of playtesting to work it out. Look into Earthdawn for possibilities on it

Great post. I think to some extent you could argue, though, that 4E has these thresholds: full to half HP's is vitality damage (pre-bloodied HP's), half to 0 is wound damage (bloodied HP's), 0 to -10 is unconcious and -10 and under is dead. A good option might be to track the vitality damage (pre-bloodied HP's) seperate from the wound damage (post-bloodied HP's). Then cool feats and criticals (in lieu of extra damage) could potentialy skip vitality damage and directly wound a character/monster. The solution would be generaly within the rules, easy to track and add an extra level of threat to encounters. What does everybody think?

 

[mmadsen]

Drama or fate points are an excellent co-mechanic with D&D hit points.

I think that fate points are an excellent replacement for hit points and an excellent co-mechanic with saving throws or AC-like defenses.

Hit points work in a gamist sense, but they don't model injuries well at all -- and not simply in their lack of gruesome detail. Saves and defenses model combat fairly well -- abstractly, certainly, but fairly well -- but making every attack effectively save-or-die obviously doesn't work in a gamist sense.

Fate points turn a bad model of combat injuries into a good model of heroic fiction.

And that's why I think they should have (a) changed the name of hit points to something like fate points, and (b) why I think the designers should have expanded their scope, not just their recovery options.

 

[mmadsen]

Can you provide an example or two of games that use this type of system?

No, I don't think I can. I can point to games that use some kind of fate-point mechanic -- the names are varied: drama points, hero points, conviction, bennies, etc. -- but I don't think I can point to a game that calls its hit points fate points and acknowledges that they're metaphysical, not physical.

Few game designers embrace D&D-style escalating hit points, because they're unrealistic, and those who do embrace them seem reluctant to run with the idea that they shouldn't even try to make hit point realistic; they should make the explicitly outside reality. (4E goes partway there.)

I suspect that a big part of this is that most designers feel comfortable with hit points; they just think D&D characters get too many.

Anyway, if you simply want examples of games with fate-point systems (by whatever name), there are many:

• Mutants & Masterminds is a d20 game with Toughness Saves and Hero Points.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer has Drama Points, and the high-power Slayer gets fewer than her low-power team of White Hats.
• Warhammer has Fate Points, which serve as "lives" rather than hit points. You didn't really die; you were mostly dead.
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