D&D 5E (2014) My homebrew go at changing HP.

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

Here is a little idea I've been bouncing around.

What I would do for Next is separate hit points into two categories. The first would be stamina points and the second would be hit points. Now of course the math will need to be worked out but this will give you a general idea of what I am talking about.

1: During character creation, just take your total HP and divide it by half. Half goes to stamina and the other half goes to hit points. If your total is av even number, then apply the largest to your HP total.

2: Every time you level up, just divide the points by half and apply them to each. Again, if you get an odd number, then apply the larger to your HP.

Now the way it works is that only healing spells, potions, etc, can only heal your HP, while stamina points can be healed through hit dice. When ever you are hit, you subtract from your stamina first, what this does is simulate the moving, dodging, luck etc. After your stamina points are depleted, you then subtract from hit points. When hit points have reach their negatives then the usual death saves begin. Hit points must be brought to 1 in order for stamina points to be regained.

This is the very early stages of this idea and I am going to further work on it before I do a test run on my next 5th edition game.

 

[pemerton]

only healing spells, potions, etc, can only heal your HP, while stamina points can be healed through hit dice. When ever you are hit, you subtract from your stamina first, what this does is simulate the moving, dodging, luck etc.

Two comments: is it really your intention that only magic can heal hit points? What about rest, surgery etc?

And do all attacks really come from stamina first? Even assassination attempts, being swallowed by a purple worm, etc?

 

[dd.stevenson]

What design goals are you shooting for here?

It seems like a fair amount of work, for something that could be handled almost as well by handing status conditions to characters that drop below half hp.

 

[GMMichael]

What design goals are you shooting for here?

Or in other words: what's the point?

If you're dead-set on playing 5E, Xun, you might want to wait for the actual rules to come out before you homebrew them.

Now, the main problem that I've seen with hit points from Pathfinder and earlier is that they don't mean anything until you're dead. Then, you really wish you had them back. Which might be why Charles Ryan (from today's News Front Page) loves the Bloodied rule. Don't tell anyone, but 3.5 had bloodied too, but it was called morale, and I've only seen it mentioned in Heroes of Battle and the Miniatures Handbook.

Before I go crazy with suggestions, I'll make a request: write us a rule for hit points that makes them mean something useful. Wounds and stamina are a good start.

 

[Ichneumon]

Adopt the bloodied status from 4e, say that you can't spend hit dice while bloodied, and you've encapsulated what your rule was aiming at, with no need for an extra term (stamina points). I doubt that you really wanted to deny bloodied characters the chance to heal from resting.

It's not a bad optional rule for groups who want a bit more danger in their adventuring if they get hurt enough. Personally, I'd modify it to allow bloodied characters to spend one hit die during a short rest, so that those unlucky enough to drop just below the threshold can get back into the black.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

Adopt the bloodied status from 4e, say that you can't spend hit dice while bloodied, and you've encapsulated what your rule was aiming at, with no need for an extra term (stamina points). I doubt that you really wanted to deny bloodied characters the chance to heal from resting.

It's not a bad optional rule for groups who want a bit more danger in their adventuring if they get hurt enough. Personally, I'd modify it to allow bloodied characters to spend one hit die during a short rest, so that those unlucky enough to drop just below the threshold can get back into the black.

A short rest is what five minutes? How do you justify someone healing by non-magic in five minutes?

 

[Mistwell]

A short rest is what five minutes? How do you justify someone healing by non-magic in five minutes?

It's an hour.

 

[Sadras]

What I would do for Next is separate hit points into two categories. The first would be stamina points and the second would be hit points. Now of course the math will need to be worked out but this will give you a general idea of what I am talking about.

It seems like too much work with half here and a quarter there and all that.
Keep it simple, either use the bloodied system suggested above or introduce a wound system. Determine how many wounds kills a character as in a range from 3-5 and treat hp solely as non-meat (luck, morale, stamina, divine intervention...etc).

Upon Crits, Successful attacks of opportunity..etc, the characters make an unmodified save 1-9 they receive a wound, 10-20 its a normal attack. The reason I thrown in AoO is because sometimes you have players that believe with their massive hp they can just do anything like charge 10 orcs with readied shortbows - they will think twice about that if they know there is a good chance that upon hit they can accumulate wounds. This can be expanded upon for falling damage and other corner cases.
If you want, failed death saves can auto add to the Wounds.

HP are healed through morale, words (warlord,bard) and reserves (surges/HD), so short rests work better (at least in my mind). Wounds can only be healed through complete rest or divine intervention Cure Wounds.

You can add further granularity by creating death spirals if you so wish, timelines for rest required depending on the wound (1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 1 month, 6 months) and wound severity can only be sure by certain level of spells, such a 2 Wounds requires a 2nd Level Cure Wounds spell, after which the Wound drops to 1 and you need a level 1 Cure Wounds. You can also have the required resting period work the same way. i.e. 3 wounds requires 1 week & 4 days rest.
Cure Wounds of course still restore hp, so nothing changes there.

Also now that HD (I still prefer the 4e thematic-sounding name Surges) represents luck, stamina, morale..etc and not-meat you can open it up to be utilized in other ways/areas than just restoring hp...
Cost for Rituals, +2 bonus on die, disease/poison damage, calling on additional divine powers...etc

That's my take. I find if you're going to purse this route of grittier combat, its simpler to have players record a number from 1-5 than another set of hp which sounds like more work to integrate into the system.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

It's an hour.

Okay, unless you're playing Wolverine five minutes or an hour might as well be the same.

 

[Li Shenron]

Now the way it works is that only healing spells, potions, etc, can only heal your HP, while stamina points can be healed through hit dice.

I think it can work. You also have to define what happens during a long rest. Basically you have at least 3 means of regaining HP in the game:

- short rests: makes sense to let them regain only stamina points
- long rests: regain stamina (maybe all of it), why not some slow recovery of wounds also (eg same rate as previous editions)?
- magic: regain wounds, or regain every kind of HP loss

(note: special non-magic healing is not included, AFAIK there's no such option yet in the game)

Optionally, you could eliminate hit dice rules, and just have any short rest regain all stamina. It depends on what is your target pace for the campaign: if you want a lot of battles in a day, removing the HD limitations would help. The current rules want to put a limit on battles per day, that's why they use hit dice for short rest healing.