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

[Reynard]

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.

I had not considered the idea of folks just retiring to avoid their ultimate fate. That feels like cheating?

 

[Reynard]

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

Ahain, it is literally only PCs.

 

[Charlaquin]

So, let’s just assume for the sake of the thought experiment that we’re able to work out the math and find exactly how much HP the average PC loses over the course of X levels, and give the PCs that much HP at the start of the campaign. We can even assume we have a formula, so we can just plug in the level we want the campaign to go to, and it’ll spit out how much HP they’ll lose by then, and we can just give the PCs that many hit points (or maybe slightly more or fewer if we want to adjust the difficulty up or down from the baseline). What would the result be?

Well, my first thought is that this would flip the normal feeling of progression on its head. Instead of feeling like you could die to any random crit or hot streak from the monsters at level 1-2 and growing to the point where nothing really meaningfully threatens you, you would start out feeling invincible, but the closer you got to the planned end level, the more fragile you’d feel. I suppose there’s something kind of interesting about the idea that you’re at your most defensively effective when you’re at your weakest offensively, and as your offense gets stronger your defense gets weaker. But I don’t think this would make for very good play patterns, as it would make characters that should feel in over their heads invincible and make characters that should feel like powerful heroes feel the need to minimize any possible risk of harm.

Another effect I think this would have is making a huge potential for disparity between the expected outcomes and actual in-play experience. Yes, on average the PCs’ should last to somewhere around the expected level, maybe a bit higher if they’re lucky or a bit lower if they’re unlucky. But, sometimes you’re going to have a character who dies way sooner than that, or one who lives way longer. Over enough campaigns played this way the number of outliers will be small compared to the number of cases that fit the expectations, but that’s not much consolation to the players whose characters died way early. And this is all ignoring the psychological impact of having a pool of HP that feels inexhaustible until it doesn’t. I think campaigns would be very likely to end at much lower levels than the formula expects, because the players just aren’t likely to think about it in terms of how many HP they can afford to lose per level.

Another thing to consider is that current CR math is based on assumptions about how much damage the monsters can output in the time they’re alive, which is in turn dependent on the PCs’ damage output. So, if the players are punching above their weight class because they have the HP to absorb it now, those higher-DPR enemies will last a lot more rounds than expected against these lower-DPR PCs, which means they’re likely to output significantly more damage than expected in total. So the PCs will lose more HP than expected in those early levels.

Another thing to consider is, what will happen when a PC does die? Do they start their new character at the same level as the rest of the party? If so, you’ll also need to figure out how much HP they should have lost before reaching that level to stat them off with the appropriate amount.

I think if you want to play with this idea, I would be more inclined to give PCs all the HP they’re expected to need for their level instead of for their entire career. So, let’s just say a 1st level PC is expected to go through about 100 HP by the time they reach 2nd level. Give them all of that HP up front, and then when/if they make it to 2nd level, they gain another 200 HP (or whatever it is a 2nd level PC is expected to go through by the time they get to 3rd). Then you’ve still got some of that dwindling plot armor feel, but your plot armor refreshes on level up instead of being one giant pool. Instead of having a pool of 1,000 HP at a time when everything hits for 5-7 damage and dwindling down to a few dozen when everything makes 2 or 3 attacks per turn for 20 or 30 damage each, you’d have a pool of HP that you know you have to make last through about 6 3-round combatants against monsters that hit for about an 18th of that pool each round. Thats something you can more reasonably budget. And, you’re going to be more inclined to push through that risky stage when your HP pool is almost out if you know that if you can just get through a few more fights you’ll get that HP pool not only filled back up, but filled even higher than it’s ever been before. That, I think, would create a really nice tension sine wave, where there are peaks and valleys of feeling powerful and feeling vulnerable, instead of a steady, inexorable descent from security to vulnerability.

 

[Reynard]

So, let’s just assume for the sake of the thought experiment that we’re able to work out the math and find exactly how much HP the average PC loses over the course of X levels, and give the PCs that much HP at the start of the campaign. We can even assume we have a formula, so we can just plug in the level we want the campaign to go to, and it’ll spit out how much HP they’ll lose by then, and we can just give the PCs that many hit points (or maybe slightly more or fewer if we want to adjust the difficulty up or down from the baseline). What would the result be?

Well, my first thought is that this would flip the normal feeling of progression on its head. Instead of feeling like you could die to any random crit or hot streak from the monsters at level 1-2 and growing to the point where nothing really meaningfully threatens you, you would start out feeling invincible, but the closer you got to the planned end level, the more fragile you’d feel. I suppose there’s something kind of interesting about the idea that you’re at your most defensively effective when you’re at your weakest offensively, and as your offense gets stronger your defense gets weaker. But I don’t think this would make for very good play patterns, as it would make characters that should feel in over their heads invincible and make characters that should feel like powerful heroes feel the need to minimize any possible risk of harm.

Another effect I think this would have is making a huge potential for disparity between the expected outcomes and actual in-play experience. Yes, on average the PCs’ should last to somewhere around the expected level, maybe a bit higher if they’re lucky or a bit lower if they’re unlucky. But, sometimes you’re going to have a character who dies way sooner than that, or one who lives way longer. Over enough campaigns played this way the number of outliers will be small compared to the number of cases that fit the expectations, but that’s not much consolation to the players whose characters died way early. And this is all ignoring the psychological impact of having a pool of HP that feels inexhaustible until it doesn’t. I think campaigns would be very likely to end at much lower levels than the formula expects, because the players just aren’t likely to think about it in terms of how many HP they can afford to lose per level.

Another thing to consider is that current CR math is based on assumptions about how much damage the monsters can output in the time they’re alive, which is in turn dependent on the PCs’ damage output. So, if the players are punching above their weight class because they have the HP to absorb it now, those higher-DPR enemies will last a lot more rounds than expected against these lower-DPR PCs, which means they’re likely to output significantly more damage than expected in total. So the PCs will lose more HP than expected in those early levels.

Another thing to consider is, what will happen when a PC does die? Do they start their new character at the same level as the rest of the party? If so, you’ll also need to figure out how much HP they should have lost before reaching that level to stat them off with the appropriate amount.

I think if you want to play with this idea, I would be more inclined to give PCs all the HP they’re expected to need for their level instead of for their entire career. So, let’s just say a 1st level PC is expected to go through about 100 HP by the time they reach 2nd level. Give them all of that HP up front, and then when/if they make it to 2nd level, they gain another 200 HP (or whatever it is a 2nd level PC is expected to go through by the time they get to 3rd). Then you’ve still got some of that dwindling plot armor feel, but your plot armor refreshes on level up instead of being one giant pool. Instead of having a pool of 1,000 HP at a time when everything hits for 5-7 damage and dwindling down to a few dozen when everything makes 2 or 3 attacks per turn for 20 or 30 damage each, you’d have a pool of HP that you know you have to make last through about 6 3-round combatants against monsters that hit for about an 18th of that pool each round. Thats something you can more reasonably budget. And, you’re going to be more inclined to push through that risky stage when your HP pool is almost out if you know that if you can just get through a few more fights you’ll get that HP pool not only filled back up, but filled even higher than it’s ever been before. That, I think, would create a really nice tension sine wave, where there are peaks and valleys of feeling powerful and feeling vulnerable, instead of a steady, inexorable descent from security to vulnerability.

Thanks for the very detailed response. I will mull some of this and respond later. But I just wanted to ne sure to express appreciation for taking the thought experiment seriously.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

As the title says, this is a dumb idea but it might be an interesting thought experiment.

What if instead of "health" or "willpower" or whatever, Hit Points were explicit Plot Armor points? And what if once that Plot Armor is gone, your character dies? NOTE: This would be a PCs only rule.

It might look something like this: every PC starts at first level and all the normal rules apply EXCEPT each PC has 1000 HP. HP, once damaged away, never regernate or heal, even with magic. The PCs go on their regular adventures, gaining XP and leveling as per normal, except that ever dwindling pool of HP. A character that runs out of HP has run out of plot Armor. The next successful hit drop them -- forever. No resurrection allowed.

How would this work in play? What impact would it have on player behavior and the feel of PCs? What happens as the PCs gain more power but get ever closer to final death? What do you do with healing magic? Change it or just eliminate those spells? Do you still use temporary HP?

I like the idea in principle but needs refinement:

1. Characters should still be knocked unconscious.
2. Different classes get hit more. I play a wizard and almost never took hits because the wizard was squishy so I avoided direct combat and used ranged. So, the question is, should some classes get more PA (plot armour)?
3. How many points - you seem to have tried calculating that.

So, I'd keep regular HP. Or use some kind of alternate HP system (maybe your CON+level) with armour being Hardness....whatever, it doesn't matter. Or maybe 3 consecutive successful hits renders you unconscious - whatever!

Every hit removes from regular Hit points and your Plot Armour. When you drop unconscious, you lose 5 Plot Armour and Every failed Death save = minus 10 Plot Armour Point (APP?).

You can Spend Plot Armour Points to get back up or get dropped unconscious.

I love the idea of burning points to avoid short term death but bringing long term death closer.

 

[kermit4karate]

As the title says, this is a dumb idea but it might be an interesting thought experiment.

What if instead of "health" or "willpower" or whatever, Hit Points were explicit Plot Armor points? And what if once that Plot Armor is gone, your character dies? NOTE: This would be a PCs only rule.

It might look something like this: every PC starts at first level and all the normal rules apply EXCEPT each PC has 1000 HP. HP, once damaged away, never regernate or heal, even with magic. The PCs go on their regular adventures, gaining XP and leveling as per normal, except that ever dwindling pool of HP. A character that runs out of HP has run out of plot Armor. The next successful hit drop them -- forever. No resurrection allowed.

How would this work in play? What impact would it have on player behavior and the feel of PCs? What happens as the PCs gain more power but get ever closer to final death? What do you do with healing magic? Change it or just eliminate those spells? Do you still use temporary HP?

You're blowing my mind right now!

 

[kermit4karate]

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.

Ooh! I'm intrigued by the idea of keeping the uber-PC's remaining plot armor hidden from them. How would THAT impact play?

 

[Alas]

I've toyed with the idea of something tangentially similar: pooling low level characters' hit points into a "party HP" total. Like, instead of the 1st-level party of five having 8, 15, 9, 11, and 12 hp, they have a group pool of 55 hp. Whoever takes the hit that drops the pool down to 0 falls and starts the death-save process, but the pool then resets to 55 and they can start over. The intent is that nobody falls to a single hit, and the whole party can't wipe at once, but somebody will go down every so many combats. They get to see it coming, and practice dealing with it, but there's guard rails of a sort in place. Once the party gets to a high enough level (maybe 4th), the rails get taken off and everybody starts managing their own hit points.

I was mainly speculating about this when dealing with a crop of brand new to D&D players.

 

[Seramus]

Ahain, it is literally only PCs.

What kind of IC justification would you use for such a thing? That they are "Fated Ones" designated by prophecy or something similar? And that new Fated Ones only appear when the old ones die?

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

What kind of IC justification would you use for such a thing? That they are "Fated Ones" designated by prophecy or something similar? And that new Fated Ones only appear when the old ones die?

Everybody dies. Including the PCs. What's the difference between 12hp/level and a single pool of 240hp?