Counting blows instead of HP

[BryonD]

Get over yourself. I'm not threadcrapping.

But for someone who wants to "talk about the idea" you certainly had no hesitation for turning to personal comments about me. And I've made no personal comments about you so far.

I'll readily agree that I simply cracked a joke here. But if you want to start making completely unfounded claims about my posting history, then I'm going to respond.

I frequently comment on what I like and dislike. And I explain why I see it that way. If that is tiresome simply because the explanations don't support your tastes, then you should work on accepting other points of view.

Again, I cracked one simple joke here that directly, and on-topic, responded to another poster. All you had to do was let it pass.

 

[ferratus]

[MENTION=34194]byron[/MENTION]D - That is indeed why the ignore list was created. Goodbye.

 

[JamesonCourage]

[MENTION=9618]You only need 3 inches to kill a man, so why does a plunging dagger do less damage than a longsword?

Because unless the hit was equally lethal, the longsword does more. It's much easier for me to deal a grievous injury to someone with a longsword than with a dagger (as long as I have enough space). Especially when you start counting in thick hides and the like, which could basically make my dagger worthless, while a longsword would still be somewhat useful.

A longsword doesn't create more grevious wounds than a dagger, it simply has better capabilities of reach and defense.

A longsword does more damage than a dagger. If this is a sticking point for you, that's fine, but I don't know how I can constructively add to the discussion (which I would like to do) when a premise is this faulty.

If the premise is, "I know that a longsword is more damaging than a dagger, but both can kill potentially kill a lot of things" I can work with that. If the premise is that a "longsword doesn't create more grevious wounds than a dagger" then I don't know how to build on it, other by disagreeing or asking for clarification before I can begin to help out.

As well, remember that unless we're dealing with the last body blow before death, the character isn't considered to be physically wounded.

Up to this point then, the weapons are just dealing "fate, luck, skill" damage, then? Okay, seems reasonable enough to have them be the same-ish until the actual physical damage is dealt.

An axe is only slightly more lethal than a club when your defenses are down, but an axe is much better at tearing apart defenses like shields and armor (especially chainmail). So maybe that's where we should look for differentiation.

This part I'm shaky on as well (and I'm not talking about the axe vs. club lethality part). Would factoring for weapon vs. armor only apply when the enemy runs out of "fate, luck, skill" hits? If you factor armor vs. weapons against all of the attacks, then are the first hits truly representing "fate, luck, skill"?

As for the difference of raw strength, I think that can be accounted for simply by having the orc with the great axe hit more often in melee due to his strength influencing the attack roll.

That's one way to look at it. Though now you have brawn only equates to accuracy and not to damage, which is something you may or may not be going for.

I'm not saying not to explore this system. I love messing with mechanics (it's one reason I made my own game). However, it seems like you're making things more abstract (getting rid of HP for hits) to add areas of realism (axe vs. chainmail), while handwaving certain areas (brawn only means accuracy and not damage anymore). I think you're getting mixed results on abstraction as of this point, and may want to streamline it slightly from how it's presented thus far.

But, that's just my two cents. I'm trying to give constructive feedback. The idea of hits isn't a bad one, but I don't think you should offset it with "axe vs. chainmail" as it seems counter-intuitive to your goal of further abstraction. Then again, I might have really missed the point of your goal. As always, play what you like

 

[Nagol]

There are a bunch of systems that take this basic approach. Ars Magica is the first that springs to mind.

Humans typically have 6 "body levels" (hit points). Damage is still rolled, the victim tries to eliminate it with a Soak (mainly based on armour worn) roll and then 1 body level is inflicted for every 5 points of daamge that gets through.

A typical weapon wielded by a typically strong and talented human is likely to do 0 - 2 body levels to a typically armoured foe.

 

[mmadsen]

The thread about HP/Healing Surges got me to thinking that perhaps the problem of "realism" is HP itself.

Obviously hit points aren't realistic -- but they're not unrealistic in the way most people seem to believe. Realistic combat isn't hyper-lethal, but it is quite random:

From a realism perspective, the problem is not that a high-level D&D fighter can survive a dozen sword cuts and spear thrusts but that he cannot die by any one attack.​

HP is basically a flexible system of randomly determining how powerful each successful attack is, and how well the character can withstand it.

I'm not sure how flexible the hit point system is, since it doesn't provide any hooks for the many things players want to do in combat. Trips, disarms, bull-rushes, etc. all side-step the hit point rules, and "interesting" wounds never happen via the hit point system.

Anyway, forcing a Fortitude Save would also be "basically a flexible system of randomly determining how powerful each successful attack is, and how well the character can withstand it" -- as would folding damage into to-hit and non-armor toughness into AC and treating all "hits" as potential fight-enders.

What if instead of counting HP you counted how many blows your character can take?

That doesn't solve anything; it just reduces the precision of hit points and rounds all attacks to hit dice of damage.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Red this over. Several other systems have a model similar to this but this one seems like a good representation for the DND system.

The only major issue I have is that I don't know if the damage thresholds scale properly. For example, at 1st level the damage threshold is 4. Considering most players have a 16 if not an 18 in their prime stat at 1st level then everyone is going to be dealing hard hits.

I can attest to that in our last game (2nd level) we only had one soft hit. It may very well need some adjustments. I didn't mess with the thresholds, but I lowered the number of hit boxes for each monster (and increased the damage output accordingly) just because I like to keep things speedy and my players are largely inexperienced, so things have a tendency to slow down.

Now, being a low level group, nobody rolled damage under the soft threshold, but I don't plan on narrating those as 'non-hits'. Just narrate them as I would any low roll.

Also, I think the x2 threshold is important for big damage, but once you start going to x3 and x4 your expecting the same kind of math that the standard system requires.

Well, I think the tables are very handy. I just look up the numbers on the table.

I like this for the DM side of things because I find it makes keeping track of things a lot easier. The player tells me the damage he rolls and I consult the table and tick the appropriate number of boxes. Somehow, it just feels more intuitive to me.

 

[Smoss]

I took a similar approach to thinking when I created the damage system for my RPG system. I wanted something the "felt" real, had simple math and bookkeeping, and was easy to play/GM.

It makes being "one shotted" possible (If not always likely). My basic solution was that all people have one "hit" (I went with the term "wounds"). If your damage beats their resistance to damage by enough, they take a wound (And are likely now bleeding to death).

There are ways for heroes and tougher creatures to take multiple wounds, and quick and simple rules for vicious wounds (scars, dismemberment, etc) - all based on orders of success (Beat numbers by 10, 20, 30, etc).

Nothing that has not been done before (Though a mix of various sources were used to come to my final solution) - but I was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked - and the final elegant simplicity. The feel works well to inspire some fear in PCs (the "I only have 1 hit point left" fear - even if it can be difficult to actually TAKE that one hit, the worry is still ingrained in most of my players)

Smoss

 

[Plane Sailing]

[MENTION=34194]byron[/MENTION]D - Usually, when you post in a thread I start, you are being tiresome and derail it. So given that you are not interested or willing to discuss the topic, I would like you to stop being tiresome and derailing this thread by being negative. Either talk about potential pitfalls of this idea, or how the basic idea could be expanded and/or improved.

In other words, if it isn't a good idea contribute by explaining how instead of threadcrapping.

~ he isn't threadcrapping, he is joking with someone. Which is allowed and encouraged. I don't understand why you are trying to make this personal though. Just gloss over it, don't pick a fight. Because if you do, the moderators will do their job. Plane Sailing, ENworld Admin ~

 

[mmadsen]

What if however you were willing to trade a little bit of flexibility for a little more narrative cohesiveness?

I suppose we should ask what you mean by flexibility and narrative cohesiveness, and how do you see them trading off?

The standard complaint against hit points -- which I think goes to your point about narrative cohesiveness -- is that a game-mechanical hit is calculated against armor class, which implies that such a hit is not only an actual hit, but one which overcomes the target's armor, but the target can conceivably take, say, nine such sword blows without dropping or even being impaired, implying that he's somehow not really hurt by them, but he nonetheless needs potent healing magic to recover from them, etc. If the weapon's poisoned, or the attacker only needs a touch attack, then the hit is even more explicit.

If you really like the way hit points play, but you find that they don't make sense, then I suggest that the problem is in (1) calling them hit points, (2) losing them on a "hit" that does "damage", and (3) recovering them via "healing".

Instead, we might call them Grit Points and use them like Fate Points, Drama Points, etc. in other games, just way more common and usable for "momentum" in a fight, completely untied to damage; you could use them to adjust to-hit rolls against you, saving throws (including damage saves), etc.

 

[pauljathome]

The thread about HP/Healing Surges got me to thinking that perhaps the problem of "realism" is HP itself.

What if however you were willing to trade a little bit of flexibility for a little more narrative cohesiveness? What if instead of counting HP you counted how many blows your character can take?

Mutants and Masterminds and Blue Rose (and probably other games) use a mechanism that is fairly similar to this. Basically, every time you are hit you make a saving throw to see how much it affects you. Most of the time the effect is to get a cumulative -1 to future rolls.

One doesn't have a set total of hit points and different amounts of damage do different amounts but those seem more like features than bugs to me.