This would imply two sets of HP. A bit like at la Palladium game system. In that game you have HP and SDC.
Or Star Wars RPG with its Wound and Vitality Points, yes.
May be it would be easier to separate HP according to initial level and leveled hp?
Example: 1st level fighter. 13Ihp. Every hit affect initial hp. Every hit are potential wounds, thus a roll on a wound table such as the one in the DMG but only if a character goes down?
2nd level fighter, 13Ihp + 9Lhp. Now no potential wounds until the 9 Lhp wounds are gone. The 9 Lhps can be cured by any magic but the 13hp could only be cured via potions, or cure wounds. Word of healing (and mass healing) would only cure Lhps.
We already have something similar in our 1e game: Body Points and Fatigue Points, the sum of which are your Hit Points.
All creatures have body points. For most "kindred races" it's a d4 to d6 worth of these, depending on race, with a minimum set by your Con. Commoners, adventurers, everyone gets these.
On top of these come your fatigue points. These are what you roll for each level...and yes this means everyone has a few more h.p. than RAW would suggest once you add in body points...and progress as normal.
B.p. are harder to cure and-or rest back - cure spells roll lower dice to fix them, and so forth, and my game doesn't have healing word or any other ranged curing so I happily get to ignore how that would work. But you can rest them back, even if slowly.
This could be viable for some people. But it has some perverted effects...
1) It introduces a new complexity that is not necessarily required. More realism but at the cost of complexity.
2) More math will be involved, especially in games where people roll their hp, even at first level.
It's not hard at all to get used to...and hit points are always rolled.
3) Monsters will have to redesigned. Curing might not be something in some games, but it is mine as I rarely pitch my players against only a single type of monsters. How much Ihp does a dragon, an ogre or even a kobold sorcerer should have?
Again, not that difficult: just determine how many b.p. a monster might have (e.g. a kobold might have d3 at best) and either add that to their h.p. total or - in the case of giants and other big things - just assume that most of their h.p. are body points. It's not often anyone bothers curing up the monsters they just beat, so that shouldn't be a concern.
4) Some magic items might require some tweaking too. What about the potion of vitality? Should it restore a bit of Lhp now?
I just have curing potions work the same regardless of the type of points being cured...part of the benefit of the magic in the potion, I suppose.
5) The mecanic of temporary hp might need some more thoughts.
Trivially easy: temps are always fatigue points - even if you're otherwise at less than full b.p. - and always get "used up" first when taking any damage.
Our system is written up at the link below if you want to look at it in more depth.
http://www.friendsofgravity.com/gam...ecast-blue-book-in-html/decbluebook4.html#hit
Blue said:
Among the points I'm looking for in an RPG damage system are:
1. Avoiding death spirals.
The simplest way to avoid or break death spirals is to rest until you're fully recovered. If there's a time crunch to the mission then there's some hard choices to make...odds of survival vs. odds of success. I like this.
2. Avoiding requiring a player to be "the healer".
If a healer is needed and nobody wants to play it (rarely a problem IME) then the DM can always chuck an NPC healer into the party - if the PCs are wise enough to go out and recruit one.
Lanefan
