Mark Chance
Boingy! Boingy!
Here's a not-so-well-kept secret: I don't really like high-level D&D, especially with the d20 System. I like low- to mid-level play. For me, that's where the good times are, which is one of the reasons why my Pathfinder campaign will be going something like E6. (Well, almost certainly E8, to be precise.)
One of the ubiquitous complaints about low-level play is that characters are too fragile. While I'm not convinced this is a bug rather than a feature, I get the complaint. It can be annoying to have your hard work creating an interesting PC shot down by lucky critical hit or failed save. Of course, it's easy enough for the DM to fudge such events, but that's often viewed as a less than satisfactory solution. The excellent Trailblazer recommends giving every 1st-level PC a one-time hit point bonus equal to the PC's Constitution score. Pathfinder's playtest suggested a few different options, including ranking races by durability and giving bonus hit points based on race. Thus, dwarves are hardy, but elves aren't. I've tried this. It works fairly well, but I think it's not the best idea out there.
At OwlCon this past weekend, I played a game of Atomic Sock Monkey's Truth & Justice. This supers game uses the PDQ system. Characters don't have ability scores or hit points. Instead, they have prose descriptive qualities (hence, PDQ) that have a bonus typically ranging from -2 (for a bad quality) to +6 (for a really good quality). You narrate your character's actions and then apply narratively appropriate trait modifiers to your die roll to meet or beat the action's difficulty number. Pretty simple system with a lot of flexibility.
For example, at OwlCon, I was the Black Vision, a mash-up of Luke Cage and the Vision. Two of my qualities were Brawling +2 and Super-Strength +4. In a fight, I could narrate how Black Vision used both abilities to get a +6 bonus to my attack roll.
Since characters don't have hit points, you take damage to your qualities, reducing your bonuses by 2 points for each rank of damage suffered. When all of your ranks in all of your qualities are gone, your defeated. Along the way to unconsciousness, your character becomes increasingly less competent.
For example, during one fight, the Black Vision got clocked by the Abominaut, an Abomination-Juggernaut mashup. I took five ranks of damage. I applied two ranks to Brain Like an Encyclopedia, reducing it to +0; two ranks to Enhanced Senses, reducing it to +0; and one rank to Streetwise, reducing it to +0. How did getting hit damage these traits? Well, it whatever way seems narratively appropriate. So, for example, the Abominaut's mighty punch scrambled the Black Vision's neural network.
I got to thinking: Would it be possible to do something like this with the d20 System?
Of course, with the d20 System, character's don't have PDQs, but they do have skills and feats, which are kind of the same thing. Monkeying around with skills seems like it'd open a door to the Realm of Too Much Bookkeeping. So, that leaves feats. Could feats be used to simulate damage? Well, let's assume the answer is, "Yes."
Here're my initial thoughts:
Feats as Bonus Hit Points
Any time a character suffers damage, he can opt to have a feat soak some of that damage. Each feat (except Toughness) can soak 3 hit points, at which time the feat becomes unusable. If the feat is a prerequisite for other feats the character has, then the character cannot use those feats either (and the feats cannot be used to soak damage).
Toughness can be used one time to soak up to the character's level in damage, at which time the feat cannot be used to soak damage again until it is recovered. Using Toughness in this regard does not make the feat unusable except for purposes of further soaking.
When a character recovers hit points, he can recover feats by "healing" them instead of his normal hit points. It takes 3 hit points to heal a feat, except for Toughness. Toughness requires "healing" equal to character level to recover.
With this system, every character would start with the potential for 3 bonus hit points. Humans would have a little more, as would classes with bonus feats, such as fighters.
Limitations to Soaking Feats
I think it's probably best that item creation feats be excluded from the list of feats that can be used to soak damage. There'd be little actual impact to the character. "Oh no! I can't Craft Wand during the current fight!"
So, what do you think? Too crazy? Not crazy enough?
One of the ubiquitous complaints about low-level play is that characters are too fragile. While I'm not convinced this is a bug rather than a feature, I get the complaint. It can be annoying to have your hard work creating an interesting PC shot down by lucky critical hit or failed save. Of course, it's easy enough for the DM to fudge such events, but that's often viewed as a less than satisfactory solution. The excellent Trailblazer recommends giving every 1st-level PC a one-time hit point bonus equal to the PC's Constitution score. Pathfinder's playtest suggested a few different options, including ranking races by durability and giving bonus hit points based on race. Thus, dwarves are hardy, but elves aren't. I've tried this. It works fairly well, but I think it's not the best idea out there.
At OwlCon this past weekend, I played a game of Atomic Sock Monkey's Truth & Justice. This supers game uses the PDQ system. Characters don't have ability scores or hit points. Instead, they have prose descriptive qualities (hence, PDQ) that have a bonus typically ranging from -2 (for a bad quality) to +6 (for a really good quality). You narrate your character's actions and then apply narratively appropriate trait modifiers to your die roll to meet or beat the action's difficulty number. Pretty simple system with a lot of flexibility.
For example, at OwlCon, I was the Black Vision, a mash-up of Luke Cage and the Vision. Two of my qualities were Brawling +2 and Super-Strength +4. In a fight, I could narrate how Black Vision used both abilities to get a +6 bonus to my attack roll.
Since characters don't have hit points, you take damage to your qualities, reducing your bonuses by 2 points for each rank of damage suffered. When all of your ranks in all of your qualities are gone, your defeated. Along the way to unconsciousness, your character becomes increasingly less competent.
For example, during one fight, the Black Vision got clocked by the Abominaut, an Abomination-Juggernaut mashup. I took five ranks of damage. I applied two ranks to Brain Like an Encyclopedia, reducing it to +0; two ranks to Enhanced Senses, reducing it to +0; and one rank to Streetwise, reducing it to +0. How did getting hit damage these traits? Well, it whatever way seems narratively appropriate. So, for example, the Abominaut's mighty punch scrambled the Black Vision's neural network.
I got to thinking: Would it be possible to do something like this with the d20 System?
Of course, with the d20 System, character's don't have PDQs, but they do have skills and feats, which are kind of the same thing. Monkeying around with skills seems like it'd open a door to the Realm of Too Much Bookkeeping. So, that leaves feats. Could feats be used to simulate damage? Well, let's assume the answer is, "Yes."
Here're my initial thoughts:
Feats as Bonus Hit Points
Any time a character suffers damage, he can opt to have a feat soak some of that damage. Each feat (except Toughness) can soak 3 hit points, at which time the feat becomes unusable. If the feat is a prerequisite for other feats the character has, then the character cannot use those feats either (and the feats cannot be used to soak damage).
Toughness can be used one time to soak up to the character's level in damage, at which time the feat cannot be used to soak damage again until it is recovered. Using Toughness in this regard does not make the feat unusable except for purposes of further soaking.
When a character recovers hit points, he can recover feats by "healing" them instead of his normal hit points. It takes 3 hit points to heal a feat, except for Toughness. Toughness requires "healing" equal to character level to recover.
With this system, every character would start with the potential for 3 bonus hit points. Humans would have a little more, as would classes with bonus feats, such as fighters.
Limitations to Soaking Feats
I think it's probably best that item creation feats be excluded from the list of feats that can be used to soak damage. There'd be little actual impact to the character. "Oh no! I can't Craft Wand during the current fight!"
So, what do you think? Too crazy? Not crazy enough?
