Are Hit Points necessary?

[UngeheuerLich]

Actually I treat concussion hits and 4e hp identically. I am glad however, that there are no crits in 4e.

But: maybe some kind like a condition track which worsens when you get >con damage or >hs damage in a single blow would have been a cool optional rule.

 

[Celtavian]

re

No. I don't think they're necessary.

You can make up whatever means you want to decide what happens to your players. If you're a good enough storyteller, players will play with you even if you just tell them they get knocked down and their arm broken.

Hit points make things a little less arbitrary and little more defined.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

They can work that way without even significantly changing any rules or the game itself. Just write down your total Defeat Points (HP's) number - then instead of subtracting points, just add up all the defeat points you acrue. When your defeat points equal your defeat points - you lose (insert whatever effect you want - unconciousness, death, dying, etc.).

You can track Hit Points this way also (since they are the same thing that is). Saves on erasing holes into your character sheet.

That's what I usually do - track the damage taken, not the hit point lost. Addition is easier than substraction.

 

[Dausuul]

While in principle I like the idea of an alternative mechanic, in practice I've had trouble coming up with one that does the job as well.

Honestly, my only real problem with hit points is their free-floating abstractness. The concept behind hit points in D&D is too squirrelly; 4E shone a spotlight on it, but the problem existed before. I'd like something a little better defined. Even if it's just, "Your hit points represent your ability to defend yourself from serious harm."

(This does have mechanical consequences; for instance, unconscious characters should automatically have zero hit points under this definition.)

Also, if hit points are going to represent something other than physical toughness, they should be renamed. "Hit points" strongly implies that you're losing them as a result of getting hit. This concept is reinforced by every video game ever, where loss of hit points corresponds precisely to getting slammed by enemy attacks - not narrowly dodging those attacks - often with a spatter of cinematic gore.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

there are RPGs that differentiate between endurance and damage and have conditions which hit does which kind of damage. Also there are effects as a result of hp loss.

the result usually is that increases bookeeping and increases suspension of disbelief.
A hit is deadly. A Hero is able to evade a hit.

the only unreasonable thing is beeing able to kill people with charm effects... But you can easily rule that if the last hit was a charm effect it just reults in the charmee beeing turned into a vegetable or running into the next sword...

hp is the easiest way for a system which doesn´t want fights to be ended a the first hit...

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

For a more fantasy-like example, Dragon Age (the computer game) has a decent concept whereby damage heals quickly out of combat, but people who drop accumulate "injuries" and accompanying penalties. Not directly adaptable to D&D, but I like the thought.

Actually. I don't think it is that difficult to adapt at all. I was having a discussion with a friend of mine over the nature of hitpoints a short while ago and am already considering a house rule whereby any time you reach 0 hitpoints you acquire a permanent injury of some sort. It doesn't require any change to the system at all except for some rules on what kind of injuries you can get and what effect they have.

 

[1Mac]

am already considering a house rule whereby any time you reach 0 hitpoints you acquire a permanent injury of some sort.

I'm doing something similar, triggered not by dying but by failed 4e-style death saves. Multiple failed saves leads to worse injuries.

Just make sure you clear such a system with your players first. Some would rather die (in character of course) than play a debilitated character.

 

[Dausuul]

Actually. I don't think it is that difficult to adapt at all. I was having a discussion with a friend of mine over the nature of hitpoints a short while ago and am already considering a house rule whereby any time you reach 0 hitpoints you acquire a permanent injury of some sort. It doesn't require any change to the system at all except for some rules on what kind of injuries you can get and what effect they have.

I also have been considering something along these lines. Not only is it more realistic, it also addresses the tendency of 4E PCs to be extremely cavalier about being reduced to zero hit points - if the warlord's turn comes before yours does, all it costs you is a move action to stand up, and thanks to the "count up from zero" rule, you actually get more bang for your healing buck by going unconscious first. My PCs are like jack-in-the-boxes, always falling down and popping back up again.

I'd prefer the zero hit point mark to have some bite to it. Make players work to keep their PCs on their feet.

The house rules I'm contemplating are something like this:

• Once you have been reduced to zero hit points, no healing effect can bring you up to more than 1 hit point for the rest of the encounter. (So you can still act - you're not a complete spectator - but you're effectively a minion and should get out of the line of fire ASAP, unless the situation is truly desperate.)
• If you failed any death saves, the effect is worse. The failed death saves stay with you; after each extended rest, you can make a saving throw to get rid of one. As long as you have any failed death saves, you do not recover healing surges, though you still regain hit points after an extended rest.
• An ally can make a Heal check to help you get rid of failed death saves. Divide the result of the Heal check by 5 and round down; apply that as a bonus on your saving throw to recover. If you're the one making the Heal check, divide by 10 instead.
• As compensation for the above nastiness, when you would be reduced to zero hit points, you can spend your second wind as an immediate interrupt. If you do so, you are stunned until the end of your next turn and don't get the usual defense bonus.
• The victim of a coup de grace must immediately roll three death saves, with all the usual effects attendant upon failure.

Still polishing - the above is more complicated than I like my house rules to be, I might start with just the one-hit-point rule and the immediate-action second wind - but you get the idea. I thought about imposing penalties to attack rolls and skill checks, but decided that was a) too much number-crunching and b) less fun than simply making the PC more fragile.

Not sure if I'd want rules for permanent injuries. If so, they'd be a special case, probably triggering on your third failed death save as an alternative to dying outright... and I think I would allow the player to choose from a list of effects. I don't normally hold with systems that separate player decisions from PC decisions during play, but when it comes to things that will permanently alter a PC's character concept, I believe it's important to let the player choose.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

Could a simple rename actually be enough for how generic hit points works? Simply calling it Stamina or Endurance could help with how its interpreted, since hit points are (as the majority interpret them, and this is where the issue sort of comes in in how they are interpretted) considered a overall, generic template of how long you survive in a combat but don't represent actual, real hits until you get taken down to zero or less... so a simple rename to represent this overall abstraction could be one option.

And adding some kind of system, like in d20Modern, where if you take a single hit compared to a certain value, you either go down to 0 Stamina automatically or you suffer a Wound, which that could be a penalty of sorts, like a Condition Track of its own, and these Wounds can impose certain penalties... maybe based on where you suffered the Wound...

So you could implement a Hit Location effect, but only when you suffer a Wound, and maybe each body location can only take so many Wounds before you suffer a permanent Injury...

But if your overall Stamina reaches 0, then you start to die, or something like that...

What about a system of health like that?

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted