D&D General Dumb Idea: Hit Points As Ablative Plot Armor That Doesn't Regenerate

[Reynard]

Seems like it would make 1st level characters invincible and ensure you never reach 20th. I don't see it working on any level of play.

I do think a "knockout threshold" of some sort would be useful to alleviate a little of that. And you would want to do some math to actually know where those thresholds lie. For example, before I did my math I expected 1000HP to be much higher level than 9th or 10th.

 

[billd91]

I think a major risk would be the ability to know what the PC's lifetime budget is from the beginning without necessarily having a sufficiently motivating reason to save those points over time.

But then, why are we reinventing a wheel when we've got something already around we can use - Constitution. Back in the AD&D days, being raised/resurrected cost you a point of Constitution. Once you ran through that (which none of us ever really did), the PC was dead and couldn't come back. Maybe a better alternative is to have hit points as normal but start tapping Constitution again. And to make it a bit more spendy than actual raise dead spells, maybe include a charge to their Con on any day they reached and failed a second death save. That would encourage them to move heaven and earth to help a downed PC within one death save.
I'm not entirely sure that would work, but it at least fits in with pacing resources they've already got and understand well rather than come up with a lifetime pool they could too easily squander too quickly.

 

[Deset Gled]

That sounds like you're punishing adventurers for adventuring.

What could make a character risk combat with that type of permanent record? Basically nothing short of the world ending is a viable plot any more. And the role of front line warrior/tank is no longer a job for anyone with an Int above 6.

I think it might just be simpler to just implement Logan's Run rules and declare everyone dies at level 10. At least those schlubs had the hope of Renewal dangled over them.

 

[Reynard]

That sounds like you're punishing adventurers for adventuring.

Why could make a character risk combat with that type of permanent record? Basically nothing short of the world ending is a viable plot any more. And the role of front line warrior/tank is no longer a job for anyone with Int above 6.

I think it might just be simpler to just implement Logan's Run rules and declare everyone dies at level 10. At least those schlubs had the hope of Renewal dangled over them.

It is a THOUGHT EXPERIEMENT.

 

[Composer99]

I wonder if, instead of a large, hard-to-conceive-of number, you could, say, go with a game statistic. Call it Fate, call it kismet, call it "plot armour", call it whatever you like.

Each player character begins with a certain amount of Fate; in honour of cats, let's say 8, so that you have "nine lives" - your starting "life" plus eight more from your Fate. But you could make the number as big or as small as you like.

When a player character reaches 0 hit points, they don't go through the death saves business while unconscious. Instead, they lose 1 Fate and are restored immediately to full hit points.

If a player character reaches 0 hit points while they have 0 Fate, that's it: they die.

 

[Reynard]

I wonder if, instead of a large, hard-to-conceive-of number, you could, say, go with a game statistic. Call it Fate, call it kismet, call it "plot armour", call it whatever you like.

Each player character begins with a certain amount of Fate; in honour of cats, let's say 8, so that you have "nine lives" - your starting "life" plus eight more from your Fate. But you could make the number as big or as small as you like.

When a player character reaches 0 hit points, they don't go through the death saves business while unconscious. Instead, they lose 1 Fate and are restored immediately to full hit points.

If a player character reaches 0 hit points while they have 0 Fate, that's it: they die.

Interesting.

What do you think is gained by separating it out like that? And do you think they would run out of "lives" faster than if you just counted HP/plot armor?

 

[Basic Expert]

I don't see any advantage to a "lifetime hp" system. There wouldn't be any tension until characters got low on hit points, then their players would retire their characters and start fresh, no?

See also: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.

 

[billd91]

Interesting.

What do you think is gained by separating it out like that? And do you think they would run out of "lives" faster than if you just counted HP/plot armor?

Same as with my suggestion, it gives the PCs a smaller, regular budget they can understand better (their hit points) while strongly encouraging them to not overspend it.

 

[Composer99]

Interesting.

What do you think is gained by separating it out like that? And do you think they would run out of "lives" faster than if you just counted HP/plot armor?

I'm mostly thinking that it's easier to keep track of? Since hit point totals are now staying the same, though, there's every chance player characters could run down their total of "lives" much more quickly - depending on how many they're assigned to start with, of course.

In both cases I think players would be more cavalier early on and more cautious later - perhaps to the point of retiring characters à la Puss in Boots, once they're down to low hit points or their last "life".

But I do wonder if there would be a difference in incentives, especially if characters found ways to be cagey about the encounters they get involved in, in order to preserve their number of "lives". Where you can't avoid running low on a single, large but unrecoverable total of hit points, you can potentially hang on to an acceptable number of "lives".

I do, in any case, think the concept, whether implemented as a single large hit point pool or in a chunkier format, is worth thinking about and exploring. D&D might not be the game for it, but I think there's a cool concept for a game in there somewhere.

 

[Seramus]

I wonder if you could devise a spell to locate these fated individuals, and have them at the front of your armies?