D&D 5E Embracing Hit Points as Fatigue

[Dausuul]

(HP/VP systems rarely if ever work well in practice. Either you have enough VP that you always lose suddenly to critical hits, or you have so few that you might as well add the two pools together.)

If you're going to implement a WP/VP system, you should never ever ever EVER allow crits to bypass VP. The whole idea of VP (and hit point systems generally) is to provide a buffer against random instant death. If a lucky attack roll can bypass VP, then what have you got? Random instant death! It completely defeats the point.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Frankly, given that hp-as-fatigue fails hard against pretty much any attack/effect that creates a condition, hp-as-fatigue is a bad idea if you want conditions as more than flavor for "and that was how I died". You could have a rule where grappling was a special effect of taking someone below 0 hp non-lethally, but then you could never grapple someone who hadn't already lost the fight.

Given that grappling has never been modeled flawlessly in D&D, this is a sacrifice I'm willing to make. An elegant system with no room for grappling (except for a clunky add on) probably suits our needs better than a complicated system where grappling is a natural component. Grappling is not very important in D&D even though it's vital in UFC.

I'd like to point out a weakness of the fatigue as hp-concept: You can't have conditions and keep on fighting. At zero hp a character is defeated, unable to continue fighting due to lack of life, lust or zeal. If you are brought to 0 hp by Tasha's Hideous Laughter you are not exactly bleeding out - you are simply ROTFLYAO.

 

[Blackbrrd]

What about all damage above 0 hp is fatigue, while all damage taken below 0 hp is wounds? I think 4e did a good job with it's death saving throws. It puts a clock on action needed after somebody goes down: in 3+ rounds the character is dead if not healed or stabilized. As a character goes down, the tension goes up a lot, but it's way less random than 3e's way of handling sub zero hp characters.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I don't think HP should be "primarily" anything. They're just HP, and they work best when you don't think about it.

I agree with Rodney: any time something happens that makes you think about what HP represent, that's a problem.

This, a thousand times this. HP as meat fails on the no long term wounds and recovery times without healing is too swift but very few people really want to play a fighter that moves at half speed because of the gammy leg he got from that ogres mace, nor roll every second round to see if he collapses due that Skullcrusher tribe arrow that is lodged in his spine that causes him to fall over whenever it touches his spinal chord.

 

[DonAdam]

I don't want to respond at length to the transcendent comments that amount to "why start this thread?" except to say that I prefer hit points as fatigue primarily for fluff/fiction reasons. In the version of heroic fantasy in my head the average character in a group of 4-6 does not get stabbed once per fight, much less 2-3 times per fight. Usually there are 1 or 2 notable wounds in a big fight and lots of little scrapes and bruises. That corresponds more closely to the frequency of crits or dropping below zero.

So no, more magic healing availability is not a solution for this problem (recognizing it is not a problem for everyone), and that all solutions will have to hand wave at some point. I'm just trying to find a sweeter spot.

 

[jrowland]

We have to keep in mind the context of D&D Next. The ship, while it hasn't sailed, is beyond structural changes. We can't make a speedboat into a super tanker or visa versa.

The BASIC version is probably best with HP as-is and its best not to think about it.
The STANDARD version could support some simple "Module" to incorporate the Fatigue/Wound distinction, whether actual wounds or simply below 0 hp equals meat.
The ADVANCED version is a complex "Module" (Its my understanding that using complex modules makes the game "advanced") that truly separates HP as fatigue/wounds

That said, it is possible designers could see a simple "module" for the STANDARD game and be so impressed as to make it a part of the STANDARD as default (yeah, I won't hold my breath). With that in mind, a good "module" would be something that could be reduced to the BASIC version easily. Ideas such as "Wounds are physical hits from Crits, blows that drop you below 0 hp, or special attacks that specifically call out the damage is a physical hit. Everything else is fatigue", fleshed out of course, are good candidates. Ideas where wounds are simple add-ons that don't need a re-write are good as well.

My 2 cp.

 

[Greenfield]

Without having read most of the replies, I'll comment on the original post: If I'm reading this right, one proposal is that, somehow, an attack becomes easier to dodge if it has poison on it?

That is, incurring a penalty to hit because you have to aim for the soft spots means that, somehow, the defender has to expend less energy (read "fatigue") dodging the blow.

That, on the surface, just seems wrong. It presumes, in fact, that the target always knows if a weapon or monster is poisonous.

Hit points have always had a paradox: Presuming that the increase over levels reflects an improved skill at rolling with blows or avoiding them with less effort, we have the paradox that experienced characters get harder to heal. 10 hit points of damage to a 1st level character is a life threatening injury, major body trauma. To duplicate that major body trauma on a 10th level character you'd need to a lot more damage. So, faced with similar levels of trauma, why is one character ten times harder to heal than the other?

D&D 4 tried to address this with Healing Surges, so healing scaled with character levels. Sometimes. (Many healing powers still did fixed numbers of points per healing.) The oddity there was that there was little reason to introduce or use higher powered healing magics. The 1st level ones that could heal a major body trauma at 1st level still work just as well at 10th level.

Treating wounds as a combination of actual trauma and fatigue works out, when dealing with poison, if you take Saves into account. That poisoned dagger that does a D3 of damage, plus poison, leaves a deep cut in a low level character, and thus there is more poison exposure. As the target's hit points go up with levels that same strike is cutting less and less flesh, leaving less poison in the wound and making it easier for them to Save against.

The monkey wrench in the mix comes when you consider targets that have a lot of hit points not because they're nimble or experience at dodging, but just because they're big and tough. Things where, in 3.5 terms, their Flat Footed AC is the same as their full AC. Their HP aren't the result of being experienced fighters or knowing how to minimize the blow, and the poisoned blade strikes deep every time. They may or may not have a good Fortitude/Poison save, regardless of their hit points.

Because their Hit Point/Level/AC/Save structure isn't the same as for a PC race, the rationale for how poison does or doesn't affect them gets harder to justify.

So "Hit points as Fatigue" is a great concept, for PC types who acquire "unnatural" levels of hit points through level advancement, but demands a heavy dose of "suspension of disbelief" when applied to creatures that have a lot of hit points because they're naturally big and tough.

Which brings us back to your "Wand of ignoring inconsistencies".

The sad fact is that HP, as they've always been played, by any rationale, pretty much requires that aforementioned magic item.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I had a thought. What if additional effects had a minimum damage threshold to take effect equal t the target's level?

Thus, an 8th level character has to receive 8 points of damage for poison to take effect. Anything less isn't meat.

 

[Ratskinner]

I'd like to point out a weakness of the fatigue as hp-concept: You can't have conditions and keep on fighting. At zero hp a character is defeated, unable to continue fighting due to lack of life, lust or zeal. If you are brought to 0 hp by Tasha's Hideous Laughter you are not exactly bleeding out - you are simply ROTFLYAO.

Perhaps HP damage in such a system isn't the best way to model such a condition? Tasha's sounds more like AC, Attack, and Dex-check penalties to me.

Although in this case, I would argue that you could sustain a heart-attack, stroke, head injury, or seizure. I mean, it is magical laughter, innit?

Nonetheless, strictly non-damaging conditions can be handled in multiple ways in a hp=fatigue system including more traditional modifiers to movement, etc. and supplanting the standard wound conditions when 0hp kicks in. The only conditions that really matter in such a system are the SoD conditions. So for example, Hold Person might deal <X> damage and impose a movement penalty. If you are reduced to 0hp while still held, you freeze in place (or whatever) instead of rolling on the wound table. In the harder direction, being reduced to 0hp while engaging a Medusa means you've looked at her and are turned to stone. Whether that means she has some additional damage/round effect to represent the difficulty of fighting without looking is optional.

Just because 0 HP would represent any condition that takes you out of the fight doesn't mean that all conditions have to be represented that way.

 

[Ratskinner]

What about all damage above 0 hp is fatigue, while all damage taken below 0 hp is wounds? I think 4e did a good job with it's death saving throws. It puts a clock on action needed after somebody goes down: in 3+ rounds the character is dead if not healed or stabilized. As a character goes down, the tension goes up a lot, but it's way less random than 3e's way of handling sub zero hp characters.

yup. Just add things like "Light", "Serious", and "Critical" to the list of results in the death save mechanics....a little tweaking...