Good Ol' Alternate Hit Point Systems

[Jack Daniel]

Right out, I'm not a fan of the "Grim-n-Gritty" system, mostly because it's so darned grim. Regular hit points are well and good, but some people just don't like the abstraction -- argue about it all you want, it's still a fact. Hit points with a massive damage threshold fall back into that first category -- just too gritty for any sort of high fantasy. And then there was Star Wars, the game system that gave us wounds & vitality, the perfect setup for a small group of powerful heroes razing row after row of faceless mooks to the ground. That's my kinda combat system! Be it stormtroopers or orcs, the VP/WP system rocks, and while I'm not the first person to convert it to D&D, I do believe I come closest to the spirit of the rules without wrecking the integrity of either the system or D&D.

«The Hit Points & Fatigue Points Sysem»

Has it been on this board before? Sure, though never in quite so pretty a format (let me tell you, just writing up the html and sticking on the web is far faster and much nicer looking than diddling around with UUB format every time I want to share my house rules). Why do I call wounds 'hit points' and vitality 'fatigue points'? Partly because I was inspired to port the system by my very Arcanum-like campaign world... partly because it exploits a legal loophole in the d20 System Liscence (you're not allowed to redefine 'hit points,' and wounds/vitality is held by the Star Wars game and certain Polyhedron games already anyway).

Anyhow, take a look!

 

[DonAdam]

Why not make the monk's current AC bonuses act like armor and reduce damage to HP?

 

[Jack Daniel]

Because that makes the monk too powerful and it makes taking one monk level a very attractive idea. Plus, armor protection really works better as a random number in D&D, lest you get platemailed knights impervious to daggers.

 

[Norfleet]

I tend to combine "hitpoints" with "injuries". For example, a high-hitpoint character could be decapitated, but still have 30hp remaining. In this case, his severed head is still alive, and remains capable of using any abilities which don't require the presence of a body. He could, for instance, bite someone in the ankle, if close enough, or stare menacingly. Speaking is right out, however, since he'd lack lungs. He could still cast those silenced, quickened, stilled spells with no components, though. He'd eventually bleed to death or asphyxiate if unaided, but until such occurred, he'd be alive, albeit decapitated, where a lesser individual might have perished instantly.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Uh...
...
...
...
...okay, good for you, man.

 

[DonAdam]

Because that makes the monk too powerful and it makes taking one monk level a very attractive idea. Plus, armor protection really works better as a random number in D&D, lest you get platemailed knights impervious to daggers.

I was thinking you could do it as a random number; compare the AC bonus to the type of armor they would have.

I don't allow 1-out multiclassing except in very specific circumstances in my campaign (like a dragon disciple, and even then I made the guy burn a 1st level feat to have the bloodline), so I didn't consider that aspect.

Hit points probably work better, though.

If you want them to be really nasty, something I did back when we played with wound points was to make a natural 1 on a save vs. a damaging spell act like a critical hit. If you like the idea but the numbers are off, you could always make a "confirmation" roll like with a critical hit. If you roll a 1, roll again, and if you fail it goes to hit points (that's how I do fumbles on attack rolls).

 

[Jack Daniel]

The idea's workable, but since I already do that with spells that have attack rolls (and thus, can crit) I don't see myself being that mean to my PCs. Failing a saving throw can be bad enough as it is without critically failing. (And besides, the one attack in Star Wars that behaved like an attack spell, Force Lighting, couldn't crit either, and one of my aims for these rules was some measure of consistency).

 

[Jack Daniel]

Bumpage most heinous

 

[DonAdam]

Something else that I ran into when trying to implement this in my game:

Sneak attack is an unholy monstrosity. I don't recall if you addressed it in your document.

There are several possible solutions if you consider that a problem:
1) Sneak attack goes to FP regardless (I don't like this one, but it's the simplest)
2) Change it to precise attack from SW revised (I used a variant of this; +1/4 levels, doubled when you would normally get sneak attack).
3) On any critical, let the player choose between dealing normal sneak attack damage against FP or +1 per die on HP.

 

[Jack Daniel]

It says right there, any damage that is expressed as extra dice (which includes everything labeled as "not multiplied by a critical hit" in the core rules) never bypasses fatigue.

Here's an example: take a level 10 rogue with a flaming burst battleax, who manages to sneak attack on a critical hit. A normal sneak attack deals 1d8 slashing + 1d6 fire + 5d6 sneak attack, all fatigue damage. With a critical hit, his battleax (an x3 weapon) adds +2d8 slashing and +2d10 fire damage to this total. So the total damage would be 1d8 slashing damage to hit points, and 2d8 slashing + 1d6 fire + 2d10 fire + 5d6 sneak attack, all to fatigue.

In comparision to normal hit points, the damage value is exactly the same (3d8 from the axe, 1d6 + 2d10 from the flaming burst, 5 dice of sneak attack damage); the difference is that the base damage die, the original 1d8 from the axe, is wounding damage. It's more deadly than the standard system, but this offset in part by the fact that that 1d8 wounding damage can be reduced or even negated by armor protection rolls.