Counting blows instead of HP

[Janx]

That's just realistic combat, actually.

My own goal for a combat system is one that looks realistic, but supports heroic play. It's pretty easy to make a gritty realistic system. Give few HP...

That said, in real and movie sword fights, there are very few Solid hits.

In a real sword fight, it's actually not good to clash the swords too much either (puts huge dings in the blade's edge). So ideally, a few blocks and a killing move later and it's on to the next guy.

In movie fights, the commonality is, you're injuries trend to be:
a nick, that you might make a Wince check when it gets cleaned later (earning or losing reputation, depending on who's doing the cleaning)
Dead, which pretty much takes you out of the scene/game
KO, not actually dead, but out of the fight. Your buddies might carry you off, or you might really be dead.
Debilitating wound that you might recover later from after reciting "You killed my father, prepared to die" a whole lot.

That's about all you'd need to model (which some prior examples do).

In fiction, KO and Dead are the same thing. NPCs are Dead, unless it was useful to plot to have them return. PCs are KO'd unless it is useful to plot/punishment to have them written out of the story.

Debilitating is like KO, except you can say stuff and encumber the rest of the party. In a way, John McClane was close to this state for most of the Die Hard movie. He'd take a whooping, then get back up.

Which brings us to plot protection points. HP in D&D is basically that. It is padding that says the normal combat system doesn't Dead a PC right away most of the time.

PCs want Nicks to be common, Dead to be rare. Debilitated to be a setback/complication

Players want NPCs to be Dead frequently, and the rest is just a nuisance as they hope to roll a Dead hit.

I suspect that's the crux of what a combat system should be balancing, per tastes of the genre.

 

[MoxieFu]

How about getting rid of hit points entirely and using conditions instead? We already have a number of conditions for the game already, why not just make "Damaged" a condition that can be made progressively worse?

Nicked, Injured, Damaged, Bloodied, Beaten, Dying, Dead.

You could also pair this with an Attack Track, but maybe we would need some new terms:

Ho, Ha-ha, Guard, Turn, Parry, Dodge, Spin, Ha, Thrust!


;o)

 

[Ariosto]

Basically, Hit Dice/Levels started out (in Chainmail, progenitor of D&D) as so many man-equivalent "lives".

Expanding those to multiple hit points allowed both for very powerful attacks (e.g., giants dealing 2 dice of damage or more) and for those with very little likelihood of being deadly (e.g., a fall with a 50% chance of doing 1-3 points).

The "deadly house cat" issue (raised by stats in Monster Manual II) stemmed from the small number of h.p. when 6 -- or fewer! -- represented the toughness of a typical human, even a fighting man.

 

[howandwhy99]

You could also pair this with an Attack Track, but maybe we would need some new terms:

Ho, Ha-ha, Guard, Turn, Parry, Dodge, Spin, Ha, Thrust!


;o)

Hooray for attack sequences!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw9vaNS3b0s]Robin Hood's Moves Part 1 - YouTube[/ame]

 

[mmadsen]

My own goal for a combat system is one that looks realistic, but supports heroic play.

Agreed.

It's pretty easy to make a gritty realistic system. Give few HP...

Realistic combat actually is not that grim. While skilled fighters can die from a single blow, ordinary people have survived many, many hits from knives, arrows, bullets, swords, etc.

That said, in real and movie sword fights, there are very few Solid hits.

Well, each fight includes just one solid hit...

Which brings us to plot protection points. HP in D&D is basically that. It is padding that says the normal combat system doesn't Dead a PC right away most of the time.

The problem, in my opinion, is that D&D doesn't go far enough in embracing hit points as plot-protection points. It still treats them too much like toughness, only usable against hits that do damage, when they really should be usable against to-hit rolls, for saving throws, in a grapple, etc., and most competent NPCs should have none -- but still be competent and tough, just not blessed.