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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 6019695" data-attributes="member: 1645">After playing Knights of the Old Republic, the Star Wars video game based on the d20 tabletop game, Shamus Young wrote about redefining hits and hit points in a way that would make sense for <a href="http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=188" target="_blank">duels with deadly weapons</a>:The first step is to throw away the hit point bar. We don’t need it. If someone gets hit, they die. Instead of hit points, we have “Focus”. You can call this whatever you like: Balance, focus, concentration, defense, ki, zen, or whatever label you think best conveys to the player “this is your ability to defend yourself”. When your foe takes a swing at you, your character will deflect the blow with their weapon, and you will lose a bit of Focus. If your Focus runs out, you will fail to stop their attack and they will fatally run you through. With this small change we now have a system that works just like the old hit-point system, except the game will no longer show the combatants hacking away at each others’ midsections until one of them falls over. The gameplay will work the same, but look a lot more reasonable. But we can do even better… The Stamina Meter Boxing games have this. Every time you take a swing, your stamina goes down a bit. You can take between five and ten swings before this meter is empty. At that point you need to stop and recover for a few seconds, and your foe will have the opportunity to strike back. If you continue to attack, your exhaustion will cause your swings to be slow and clumsy. Your foe will be able to fend off your blows easily, and you will not damage their Focus. Furthermore, pressing the attack when you are drained will damage your stamina, meaning your meter will either fill more slowly or not fill all the way, thus reducing the number of useful attacks you can make in the future. This is a gradual thing: Occasionally taking an extra swing is no big deal, but relentlessly abusing your arm will seriously weaken you and put you at a great disadvantage.Read the <a href="http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=188" target="_blank">whole thing</a>.</blockquote>

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