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

[TaranTheWanderer]

Didn't play many campaigns with evil or morally very dark grey PCs i guess. Seen it happen few times, as low as level 10-11.

My point is that’s a problem with the player and not the system.

 

[Reynard]

I haven't run the math but I don't think a party of 4 1st level characters each with 1000 HP could actually defeat a a CR 25+ Great Wyrm or Demon lord or whatever. Even with "infinite HP" that just isn't how D&D combat works. Levels still matter beyond HP.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Didn't play many campaigns with evil or morally very dark grey PCs i guess. Seen it happen few times, as low as level 10-11.

That's my experience. Let's say that my group is mostly morally gray... they won't outright say "let's kill the king, who can stop us anyway? The 3rd level court wizard?" but "Man, this decision to instate a parking fee for our carriage in the capital is outright bad... this country absolutely need a regime change for the benefit of the citizens at large... it is our duty, as heroes of the realm, to take things into our own hands..."

I don't necessarily see this as a problem. If you know you're the equivalent of a top-tier army, you behave like a top-tier army leader, and many of them have waged wars to promote their personal interests. European history is full of them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To a certain extent, it will also fall on the players not to abuse the system so blatantly and cooperate to create the fiction and gameplay that will benefit the table as a whole. Any TRPG system can be exploited and abused because it's all humans interacting and negotiating with each other, based on slightly different interpretations of the rules between each other.

That true, but this system seems tailor-made to be abused to me.

 

[GrimCo]

Ancient dragon Cr23 does 73 damage per turn with 3 attacks. It has 385 hp and AC 21. Your lv 1 fighter has at best +6 to attack and does 2d6+4. So average 11 damage per round. It also hits 25% so every 4 rounds. It would take him 140 rounds to solo a dragon. Now, with little help of friends, say friendly rogue, wizard and cleric, just spamming basic attacks and hiting him 25% of time, that drops to 35 rounds. With dragon hitting every time, no one critting, it would do 2590 damage. So, mage is fine, wizard is half dead, cleric and fighter are dead, but 4 lv 1 characters killed ancient dragon.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I also concur that the idea of having "9 lives" or "heroic comeback opportunity" (omg! he fell off a cliff! well I caught a tree branch actually and slowly got back up!) is mechanically easier to follow than the kilohp. It could pair with a very lethal system if the combat system is deadlier than D&D, like RQ's.

Not sure how that works. It's not a lethal combat system if you can't die.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Didn't play many campaigns with evil or morally very dark grey PCs i guess. Seen it happen few times, as low as level 10-11.

Yeah, I've seen it happen a few times with PCs who absolutely were not immune to death. How much more often would it happen if they were?

 

[Basic Expert]

If you change it to more of a hit point pool/quest model, now you're moving back into 70s-era D&D territory, where in-dungeon resting and recovery was very much an exception. Hit point pools are strictly a "per delve" resource. If you run out, you die.

The "lifetime hit point pool" has a bit of an analog in the Call of Cthulhu sanity system wherein your investigator slowly depletes their sanity reserves and goes irrevocably mad. Sanity awards and recovery are, in my experience, usually insufficient to mitigate the losses so the end is a foregone conclusion. That's part of the appeal of the CoC genre. You play to find out what terrible fate befalls your character. However, the sanity system doesn't replace the hit point system, so death in any particular encounter is also possible (or even likely). It adds immediate suspense while the sanity track adds impending doom.

I would consider trying the "lifetime hit point pool" system only with the understanding that:
1. It would be for an adventure or mini-campaign. I wouldn't attempt to use it with the expectation of 1-20 or even 1-10 level of play.
2. The tone of the adventure, setting and game reflected what it does. A story in which the PCs' luck is actually running out and they are on some sort of critical timer. Ideally, it would be set up to accentuate the expected lack of resources towards the later stages of the game.
3. I would probably random generate the PCs' pools in secret. That would add suspense to how much luck they actually have left.
4. Replacement PCs don't get the full complement of hp, but some lesser amount based on the expecting time remaining in the campaign. Or possibly don't allow replacement PCs. You have one PC and one stack of hit points. Good luck, brave adventurer!
5. I wrote the adventure content in such a way to accommodate the system. This would probably include additional traps and random encounters designed to sap hit points.
5. This would require a great sales pitch to my players.

Given all that, I still probably wouldn't bother with the system as I don't think it would lead to fun gameplay. Consequences early in the game, such as losing 100hp in a fight, won't be felt until many sessions later.

What's worse, if you have very careful players, they might not feel any tension in the game AT ALL. If they studiously avoid dangers, they could end their run with the bulk of their hit points remaining. They will end the game either never feeling challenged or never engaging with the adventure.

That doesn't match my value system as a player or DM. I prefer systems or encounters were something is at stake. Consequences are felt immediately and occur naturally from the situation and the responses of the PCs. Any particular encounter might be deadly to the PCs, but they can mostly mitigate these risks with clever ideas, bold actions or, failing that, plain old luck.

Any system that is too harsh ("fail and you're dead!") usually means the players won't engage with the game. They won't take any chances and be paranoid about everything. I find that dull. I prefer to give them a bit of rope and see what they do with it...

Any system that's too lenient ("lose 20hp, which you won't feel for another 6 games") means that the players won't be engaged with the game (care about the consequences). At that point, why bother?

 

[GrimCo]

Yeah, I've seen it happen a few times with PCs who absolutely were not immune to death. How much more often would it happen if they were?

I would guess not any more often than without plot armor pool. Players do it because causing regime change is fun sometimes. If they aren't in the mood for good old coup, they won't do it.

 

[Umbran]

So, to make things easy, let's assume that on average a character should lose half their hit points in any given Hard fight. And we need 5 hard fights to level. Further, let's use a d8+2 HD as a rough average with no increases based on ASIs.

Interesting, but I expect this approach will also change how the party approaches combat, which will change how many hit points they lose in a given fight.

I don't know that it changes how fights go in a predictable way, though. With a fixed, never regenerating resource, some individuals or groups will become extremely averse to spending that resource. Others will find this makes their characters nigh invulnerable to start with, and will only be risk averse near the end.

But... it will probably make everyone really risk-averse at the end - the point at which you probably want the highest drama, they're going to be avoiding conflict and each and every bit of damage. I am not sure that's a great dynamic.