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Message: <blockquote data-quote="schnee" data-source="post: 7104544" data-attributes="member: 16728">Yeah, if you lurch backwards to avoid a Frost Giant's sword a dozen times, and one blow kills you, then each dodge was HP damage. It's pretty crazy to think a 10' long sword literally hits you with glancing blows that scratch and bruise in the same way you'd get, for example, fighting an incredibly quick handling with a quarterstaff.I can see where the confusion comes from due to the language of the game, though:DM: And... the Frost Giant hits! Take 12 hit points.It's a bit weird to say:DM: And... the Frost Giant barely misses as you lurch out of the way! You get more fatigued. Take 12 points....I've played all sorts of home-brew that tried to fix this.On of the ones I was proudest of in my AD&D days was inspired by Champions. (I'm pulling this from memory, so I'm making up some of the numbers on the fly.)Your HP has two tracks: Body and Fatigue. At first level, your total HP is your actual 'physical body'. Each level you gain after that, your 'Body' increases by 1 point, and the rest of the HP you gain are considered 'Fatigue'. So, a Fighter with average CON has 10 Body HP, and at 5th level has 15 Body HP and (on average) 20hp Fatigue HP. This simulates long-term adventurers getting literally tougher due to the rigors of their career, but the vast majority of their HP are due to the 'luck and skill' in Gygaxian terms that gets worn down over time in a fight.You then have separate 'Fatigue' vs. 'Body' rules: You function at 100% until your Fatigue HP are gone. Then, you can have penalties on your attacks and saves based on Body damage, like -1 at 1/4, -2 at 1/2, etc.You then tweak massive damage rules: If one single attack is strong enough, like '50% of your total HP in one blow' then some portion of it can go directly to Body.You can then tweak critical hit rules and weapons: Each critical hit does 1 HP Body. Sword of Sharpness critical does 1d4 HP Body. Vorpal Sword critical does 2d6 HP Body.You then tweak healing magic: Cure Body and Cure Fatigue are different things, so we can fix the weird issue of high level characters healing more slowly. So:Cure Light: heals 1d4 Body, and 1d4 Fatigue for every character levelCure Serious: heals 3d6 Body, and 1d8 Fatigue every character level And so on....Here's the deal: after getting that system really dialed in, we realized it added a significant burden to healing after every combat. The 'realism' and 'believability' it added was outweighed by the bookkeeping. It felt like scrupulous encumbrance, timekeeping with torches and rations, and by-the-book Wizard spell re-memorization times. Those are all good things if you want to play a logistics-heavy turn-based wargame, but we were skewing towards heroic fantasy. Stuff like that was meant to be the things you worry about at low levels, then once you get a certain level of magic, it just goes away.We used it for one campaign and then didn't go back.</blockquote>

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