Fear causing HP-loss

[Frostmarrow]

You've all read the rationales behind hitpoints. That it's not necessarily a measure of your body's ability to sustain damage. That it's a function of dodging and weaving, parrying, and the ability to predict combat. Sometimes it looks like hit points is a measure of courage, luck or life force.

In earlier editions there were rules for knocking someone out. If you managed to knock someone out they were still loaded on hitpoints but they were at your mercy; to tie up or to kill. This was changed in 3E because it was pretty weird that bypassing hitpoints was possible. Sort of takes away from the idea of having lots of hit points if it can side-stepped easily.

I've never liked the idea of horribly scary monsters sending adventurers running after a failed save. Your party enters the monsters chamber and all members get to save vs fear. Those who fail run screaming from the encounter. Basically this means you are out of the game for the next two hours. That's no fun.

The point of this is: shouldn't fear causing monsters do hp-damage instead? I mean if you encounter a chimera then you'd save vs fear. If you fail you would lose courage, luck, and life force. -Say 1d6 worth of it.

Once you have very few hitpoints left you can decide to flee. It feels a lot better to be in control of a frightened/fleeing character than losing control of the character to a game mechanic..

 

[Darklone]

Humpf. I'd like to expand this HOUSERULE screaming rules set with:
- str/dex temp damage for being paralyzed
- con/int damage for fear
- wis/cha damage for... whatever.

 

[Frostmarrow]

It's not about houserules. At least not at this point. I just want to discuss whether hit points could be used as a "courage-meter". I.e. if your character is afraid of something then perhaps his hp should take a penalty and allow for the player to deal with that. Rather than having the character simply run away - regardless of how the player feels about it. It gives tha player control over his characters valor.

I don't think that using the stats as points to be reduced is a good idea. I just doesn't flow well (since you need to do a lot of recalculations if you do) in the game. That was probabley why they had to redesign the psionics. No DM on this planet is going to feel comfortable lowering a goblins Wis by 2 points rather than just slam him for 6 points of damage.

 

[Mulkhoran]

I don't think that using the stats as points to be reduced is a good idea. I just doesn't flow well (since you need to do a lot of recalculations if you do) in the game. That was probabley why they had to redesign the psionics. No DM on this planet is going to feel comfortable lowering a goblins Wis by 2 points rather than just slam him for 6 points of damage.

Um, I imagine they more redesigned the psionics because the whole six-stat thing was unworkable and sucky. But, maybe that's the same thing.

As far as your 'recalculations' thing.......I see where you're coming from, it is a lot to manage, but it's already a major part of the game. Ray of Enfeeblement, Touch of Idiocy, shaken, stunned, dazed, any number of status effects, Prayer, etc.... the DM already has a lot of adjusting he could have to do in response to spells and abilities.

I think temp ability damage could be a good way to go with this, instead of hp. I'd have to disagree with Darklone, though, I think Wis / Cha would be best candidates for "fear damage".

 

[Frostmarrow]

That's sort of my point. You see, if you have an attack that will make it easier for you to defeat your opponent than lowering hps to zero then you will use that attack to the exclusion of all else. Now, this isn't such a big deal when monsters do it, but in the hands of a PC it sort of ruins the game. (Not to the extent that you can't play it anymore it just becomes something else.)

(By the way, lowering a character's wisdom or charisma will do little to strike fear into a player's heart when faced with a monster. Now, lowering strength might humble a fighter but hit points would affect anyone.)

The conditions characters can be affected by is a competetly different animal. The conditions are great and I have no beef with them. For instance, if you are drained you get a negative level instead of losing a level. That's just neat, and good games design. However, it seems to me to be a logical extension of the hps to be the measure of how much you need to punish you enemy to defeat him. Most save or die stuff has gone and been replaced with a fixed amount of hp damage, so we see the game developing in this direction already.

As you can see I'm not trying to fix the fear thingy - I'm just trying to see where this development will take us.

Consider this for example. If you make a class with the ability to hog-tie just about anything, you have two options. Either you come up with a mechanic that pits your rope use against the opponent's escape artist or you make the hog-tie schtick into an attack that does hp damage. If you go the rope use route you risk affecting the game greatly and balance issues are sure to come up. If you make it an attack that does damage you are home free.

I'm not saying that I'm correct, but it seems to me that a grapple attack should do hp damage (perhaps with a condition added to it) instead of being a complicated system of opposed rolls and stages of "grappled-ness". Because, as it is now grappling is a near useless mode of attack, which takes to much effort on part of the players, considering it's chances of being something you defeat opponents with. It's a bad attack form because if it was better than attacking with your greatsword, greatswords would seize to be used. Though, since grappling, at least in my opinion, should be a part of the game it would be better design if grappling did damage just like everything else - and so could be compared with other attack forms on an even playing field.

Phew. I realise that this might sound a bit contrived. All I can hope for is for you to at least consider this. The main point is: Hit points is a measure of how much damage you must deal to your opponent to defeat him, whatever means are used.

 

[Mulkhoran]

Hmm, it would appear we profoundly disagree

I think the myriad possible alternatives and effects you can achieve during the game are what makes the game so great. True, the single most effective way of ending an armed conflict situation is to reduce the opponent's HP, but then, it's supposed to be. That's the baseline that makes everything else so interesting.

The other situations and abilites aren't there to stand up to HP-reduction, but to add flavor when the situations they're called for come into play. Grapple *is* a viable means of ending a combat, just as long as the situation calls for it. True, it's slightly more complicated than "swing, attack, damage", but it's also more flexible.

Last time I gamed, I was in solo combat with an opponent somewhat more powerful than me. We were in an arena with several dangerous pit traps. During the combat, I was able to Disarm his weapon onto one of the trap doors, and then, because of the position he was in to retrieve it, Bull Rush him into the pit. The resulting damage helped to balance the scales and give me a decisive edge. If we were to go the way of HP-modification for these maneuvers, I'd be dead right now.

The game is moving away, to some degree, from "save-or-die" effects, but that's in specific instances where it's more logical to have a damage progression, to better represent varying levels of power.

The whole of the mechanics, as they are, serve to create a massive variety of potential situations and methods of conflict resolution. The more you remove these options, the more you remove replayability. Few people want to go through the same situation week after week, just whittling away at HP of opponent after opponent. *That* gets boring real quick.

I agree, by the way, that the "Fear -> Run Like Hell" thing does lead to some boredom for the "gone for hours" characters, but most of the spells only last a few rounds, effectively taking the character out of the combat for a while until they get back. It *could* be changed to a different kind of penalty, although I'd lean more towards a condition like Cowering, than a HP-reduction, myself.

Thanks!

 

[Frostmarrow]

Lol! We don't need to disagree profoundly. You have valid points. It's in no one's interest to reduce the game in any way. This discussion has been purely academic and I hope you get to pull more stunts like that in your game.

 

[Mulkhoran]

Lol! We don't need to disagree profoundly. You have valid points. It's in no one's interest to reduce the game in any way. This discussion has been purely academic and I hope you get to pull more stunts like that in your game.

How positively civilized

Thanks for the discussion