Inez Hull
First Post
This idea occured to me whilst daydreaming on the train trip to work this morning. It's thoroughly untested or overcontemplated but I thought I might just put down some rough ideas for your opinions.
I like the ideas of VP/WP for making combat gritty but don't like the distinction of two types of hit points and find it makes critical hits too deadly for something which is more a random event than skill based.
I was thinking of leaving hit points as is but changing the way hit points are healed. The common explanation for Hit Points is that they are an abstract concept representing a mixture of toughness, endurance, pain tolerance, acrobatics, rolling with blows, fitness and combat experience. However, if hit points don't always represent the same thing, then surely the different parts of the concept 'hit points' should heal at different rates. Making sense so far?
What if the part of 'Hit Points' that are purely physical fitness and exhaustion healed really quickly, say ten minutes of rest after a combat?
What if the part of 'Hit Points' that represent the muscular ache of extreme overexertion (like after a game of paintball - if you've played and are less than a paragon of fitness, you'll know what I'm talking about) and the shock and pain of blows healed after 24 hours of complete rest?
What if the bruising, contusions and minor cuts healed completely within a week of rest?
What if the few genuinely serious wounds that were incurred as you began to slow and drop your guard took a further two weeks of complete rest to heal?
Ratios? I'm thinking maybe 1/3 hit points return after 10 minutes, a further 1/3 return after 1 day, the next week heals an extra 1/6 and the last two weeks rest heals the last 1/6 of damage taken. Now these figures are just off the top off my head, but seem about OK to me - a combat which doesn't incur mortal wounds is likely to be more just exhaustion, pain and roughing up.
To make this system a bit tougher there could be special effects that take place on critical hits or when hits points are reduced to 'disabled' and 'dying'. (I think the AU versions for this would work better with this system). I'm thinking something in the order of a -1 or -2 stat penalty (in addition to damage multipliers with crits), to represent some lasting effect other than mere hit point loss. Since this is the real debilitating effect of a major blow or unconciousness it should be more than just temporary attribute damage. Permanent attribute loss may be too harsh in some campaigns - perhaps a new duration of ability loss is needed [persistant attribute loss - heals 1 point per month???].
In fact using attribute loss in this way would probably work best if crits did temporary attribute damage [Con?], blows which reduce a combatant to 'disabled' status causes "persistant" attribute damage [Con, Str or Dex?] and blows which reduce a combatant to 'dying' status cause permanent attribute damage [Int,Wis or Cha?]
This system would require some extra book-keeping, mainly the recording the time and amount for any damagae taken as seperate accounts rather than one homogenous total. It would mean that in a short period of time a combatant would heal back 2/3rd's of wounds taken but lasting wounds and 'complete' healing would take weeks, or months if the combatant received a critical hit or was knocked unconcious. This would give combats a lasting effect without debilitating characters overly in the short term.
One obvious problem arises looking over this, which is the effect on clerics in the game. On the spot use of healing magics would likely be avoided to focus on healing 'wounds' after exhaustion has recovered naturally. It would reduce the time for healing markedly when combined with healing magic (which I don't really have a problem with as waiting for PC's to heal is pretty much thelow ebb of roleplaying) but would also lead to risk taking behaviours as Parties tried to wait out the first day without healing before seeking out healing magic.
Anyway, I'd be interested to hear opinions even if just to say "are you mad?"
I like the ideas of VP/WP for making combat gritty but don't like the distinction of two types of hit points and find it makes critical hits too deadly for something which is more a random event than skill based.
I was thinking of leaving hit points as is but changing the way hit points are healed. The common explanation for Hit Points is that they are an abstract concept representing a mixture of toughness, endurance, pain tolerance, acrobatics, rolling with blows, fitness and combat experience. However, if hit points don't always represent the same thing, then surely the different parts of the concept 'hit points' should heal at different rates. Making sense so far?
What if the part of 'Hit Points' that are purely physical fitness and exhaustion healed really quickly, say ten minutes of rest after a combat?
What if the part of 'Hit Points' that represent the muscular ache of extreme overexertion (like after a game of paintball - if you've played and are less than a paragon of fitness, you'll know what I'm talking about) and the shock and pain of blows healed after 24 hours of complete rest?
What if the bruising, contusions and minor cuts healed completely within a week of rest?
What if the few genuinely serious wounds that were incurred as you began to slow and drop your guard took a further two weeks of complete rest to heal?
Ratios? I'm thinking maybe 1/3 hit points return after 10 minutes, a further 1/3 return after 1 day, the next week heals an extra 1/6 and the last two weeks rest heals the last 1/6 of damage taken. Now these figures are just off the top off my head, but seem about OK to me - a combat which doesn't incur mortal wounds is likely to be more just exhaustion, pain and roughing up.
To make this system a bit tougher there could be special effects that take place on critical hits or when hits points are reduced to 'disabled' and 'dying'. (I think the AU versions for this would work better with this system). I'm thinking something in the order of a -1 or -2 stat penalty (in addition to damage multipliers with crits), to represent some lasting effect other than mere hit point loss. Since this is the real debilitating effect of a major blow or unconciousness it should be more than just temporary attribute damage. Permanent attribute loss may be too harsh in some campaigns - perhaps a new duration of ability loss is needed [persistant attribute loss - heals 1 point per month???].
In fact using attribute loss in this way would probably work best if crits did temporary attribute damage [Con?], blows which reduce a combatant to 'disabled' status causes "persistant" attribute damage [Con, Str or Dex?] and blows which reduce a combatant to 'dying' status cause permanent attribute damage [Int,Wis or Cha?]
This system would require some extra book-keeping, mainly the recording the time and amount for any damagae taken as seperate accounts rather than one homogenous total. It would mean that in a short period of time a combatant would heal back 2/3rd's of wounds taken but lasting wounds and 'complete' healing would take weeks, or months if the combatant received a critical hit or was knocked unconcious. This would give combats a lasting effect without debilitating characters overly in the short term.
One obvious problem arises looking over this, which is the effect on clerics in the game. On the spot use of healing magics would likely be avoided to focus on healing 'wounds' after exhaustion has recovered naturally. It would reduce the time for healing markedly when combined with healing magic (which I don't really have a problem with as waiting for PC's to heal is pretty much thelow ebb of roleplaying) but would also lead to risk taking behaviours as Parties tried to wait out the first day without healing before seeking out healing magic.
Anyway, I'd be interested to hear opinions even if just to say "are you mad?"
