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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 130333" data-attributes="member: 1757">I'm afraid I don't agree with several of the above posters regarding hp.Hit points, according to the D&D design team, represent a number of factors: Sheer hardiness (ergo Con modifier to hp), martial training (ergo higher HD types for fighters than for wizards), and the "gray areas" of skill, combat experience, and sheer luck, all of which enable a character to avoid potentially deadly blows entirely, or at the very least to turn a deadly blow into a nick, graze, or clobbering but not killing attack. The hp system is, IOW, very abstract. For games in which a more realistic combat style is desired, the WP/VP system therefore may be a better fit. Call of Cthulhu, however, is not necessarily such a system. The game is not combat-centered; rather, it focuses on mood, problem-solving, and storyline... and of course on scaring the players senseless.  Thus, a more realistic combat system, which may in fact CENTER emphasis on combat rather than de-emphasizing combat, isn't the greatest idea.  Giving Investigators d6 hp per level shouldn't make them combat powerhouses in a properly-run CoC game; shoggoths will still suck their heads off, and pretty much any high-CR monster will drive them all insane. Moreover, guns in CoC are deadly. The generic CoC rifle does 2d10 damage with a x3 crit multiplier, which essentially means a Fort save or die with every hit and enough potential damage to take out a 10th-level Investigator with one shot. Throw in the fact that Investigators are likely to be very easy to hit, and you can see how deadly the game will be.Of course, if you have 20th-level Investigators, you will have characters who are likely to survive one shot from pretty much anything. However, I find it hard to imagine any Investigator surviving to 10th level, much less 20th, in a stereotypical CoC game, and if you did have such a high-level Investigator, I'd see him more as an Indiana Jones type than a Professor Armitage. Just as 20th-level D&D games approach the realm of the superhero genre, 20th-level CoC games are likely to approach the realm of the pulp hero genre. IMHO, nothing wrong with that.</blockquote>

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