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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 8939818" data-attributes="member: 15700">Kinda inspired by a few other threads that have popped up over the past week or two.At this point I'm kinda feeling like this is the holy grail of Hit Point/Health design. How do you handle a system where taking damage counts, but also avoids the death spiral that most people hate. Is it truly an opposed design theory, kinda like how Old schoolers are opposed to Modern gamers (more lethal, rulings over rules, etc.)? And therefore not achievable because you can't make both happy? Some people like grittier more punishing systems and others hate it?A very simple explanation of the problem:Right now it feels like to make damage feel like it counts, then you would suffer effects other than HP loss when you take damage. The argument of "funny how you have 100% your fighting capacity even at 1 hp, but then 1 tiny wound later and you're unconscious." Right now it feels like monsters and many PCs are just bags of hit points where they don't really mean anything until that last shot.But on the other hand, if you start doing things like wounds, or detrimental effects, you start a death spiral, and based on feedback I've received, no one seems to like those.So what's the answer to that?How you make hit points, and hit point loss matter beyond that binary >0 or =0 determination while also avoiding death spirals?A week or so ago I mentioned how you could have two layers of "health". You've got something like vigor, which is your combat staying power. Then you've got your actual health, which is measured in much lower values. When your vigor drops to zero or less, you reduce your health by 1 and take a fatigue level, then roll 1 dice for every two tiers you are based on your vigor die, setting that as your new current vigor. Drop to zero health and you die. Vigor recovers fairly quickly on rests, health much more slowly.Example: Bob the warrior is an adventurer (tier 4, d8 for vigor die). Bob has 22 vigor and 3 health. In combat he takes 16 damage. Vigor is now 6. He takes an additional 8 damage (more than his current vigor). His health drops by 1, he takes one level of fatigue, and rolls 2d8 (1 dice for every 2 tier levels), making that his new current vigor. (for you math nerds, this means a Bob would have a total of 8d8 vigor before health goes to zero)Every level of fatigue reduced your movement and imposed a -1 penalty to all attack/skill rolls.But that right there is the death spiral.  And there's not enough...meat there to warrant separating vigor and health. Q: Why not just keep hit points if that's the case?A: Ok, to address this, you can use vigor (since it's kind of like endurance and adrenaline and willpower all into one) to fuel some of your PC abilities.  Want a bonus to attacks? Or increase movement? Or overpower a spell? You can use vigor for that.Q: OK, but what about that death spiral?A: Now we get into the real question. We know taking a penalty every time you lose health is part of a death spiral. There are two solutions I can see for this:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Some classes have traits to avoid taking fatigue. E.g., a fighter can use a defensive stance that prevents fatigue from being imparted when health is reduced if they want. Others can choose a class feature if they want that helps. The key is that players have the choice to go more conservative and avoid fatigue, or go more aggressive and use their choices for more offensive tactics, risking fatigue as the drawback.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The second is something I was working on when I was writing Bugbears&Borderlands OPEN: Desperation points. Every time you lose health, you also gain a desperation point. If you current health is half or below your maximum total, you can use a free action to spend a desperation point to gain a benefit. Choices include but are not limited to damage reduction, extra movement, skill bonuses, remove a negative condition, bonus spell points, etc.</li> </ol>Thoughts? Does this achieve a goal of making hit points actually count and taking damage have a factor, while also mitigating the death spiral?[ATTACH=full]275742[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

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