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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Herremann the Wise" data-source="post: 4504126" data-attributes="member: 11300">Hello Ishmayl,I moved this over to its own thread as I thought it deserved specific attention.Your example clarified quite a few questions I had. If you do away with hit points, what is it that matters? With your ideas, it is the concept of advantage, balanced until it eventually tips irrevocably in one participant's favor - at which point, they succeed in the outcome they were looking for.With Alex and Bruce, I can see a problem or two but at the same time, I think I can add a couple of ideas into the mix.1. The preferred destination of combat is victory. However, in this situation, it appears that Alex is trying to achieve more than what Bruce is. Alex wants to catch the guy and manacle him up. Bruce on the other hand is just looking to escape. To have to go through the steps from even to slight to major to overwhelming to victory seems a lot of things to do just to escape. I would say in this case (Bruce is just against one guy), if Bruce can turn any sort of advantage into his favor, he should be entitled to escape - or perhaps just getting to major advantage is enough?2. While I like the idea of big shifts from one side to the other, it does mean that as written, the only challenge that matters is the last one, where victory goes to one or the other (or you have a situation similar to deuce in tennis). My point being that the first few challenges had little impact on the final result. With whatever your resolution mechanic is, perhaps you could have a regular win, and then an extraordinary win. A regular win just moves things back the other way one step, while an extraordinary win gives you the big shift you are talking about.Tell me your thoughts?On a related issue, I'm pondering some of the effects of doing away with such a staple of D&D such as hit points - something which as I mentioned on the other thread is the most sacred of sacred cows aside from the six standard attribute scores. You mentioned something that I thought cogent:If combat is just the wearing down of hit points until one combatant's health bubble bursts, then I agree that things are going to become boring if this is the standard. Combat will be mechanical, and it will all be about who can dish out the most damage.I think what is important here is to be very clear on the DMs side of the screen how your monsters/npcs are going to react in combat and use that as the key to combat. For example:A Pack of Wolves: They will attack unless they sense they are easily outmatched (usually being outnumbered). Or if the pack leader is slain or is made to run away, the rest of the pack will scatter. Also, they will act cautiously around fire. This gives the party plenty of tactical options other than "kill them all".Bruce the Fugitive: Fresh from outrunning Alex, he has the PCs to outrun otherwise they're taking him to their underground leader to give up some information (a fate worse than death and poor Bruce knows it). In this case, Bruce will run and do the most desperate things to escape. Keeping up with Bruce will not be enough. They have to find some way of catching him, and him winding up dead is not good enough (the PCs do not want to force him into a situation where he will jump off a building to escape - even if it's to his death).A Band of Street Thugs: This might be where a fight to a "bloodied" condition might be enough to get one group or the other to back down and/or look to run. I think perhaps one of the greatest errors in D&D is that it's so difficult for the PCs to run away. Most creatures fought move more quickly and so the only reasonable means of withdrawal is the use of magic (teleport at higher levels). Aside from that, there seems an in-built motivation to stay and fight - encounters in the main are generally won if the PCs stay around long enough to win and maintain firepower rather than looking for a tactical withdrawal. The use of overwhelming encounters seems almost discouraged in the main - and I suppose with good reason. If a character falls, the rest of the PCs will generally be forced to stay around trying to win, rather than abandoning the PC.Zombies: Perhaps the most frightening thing about these creatures (and this only works if this is more the exception, than the rule) is that they will always fight to the death. They will wear you down, and they will not run. Your character is going to get hurt, it's just a case of by how much. In this case, a group will hopefully look to escape and play it smart rather than just treating it as a test of different bags of hit points.Anyway, I suppose what I'm trying to say is that if there is good variation in terms of how an encounter may be won, hopefully this situation of constantly trying to burst the hit point bubble won't be such an issue - and thus when it is a fight to the death, it actually means something.Best RegardsHerremann the Wise</blockquote>

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