Grim-N-Gritty Hit Point and Combat Rules

[FraserRonald]

In the latest issue of Sword's Edge E-Zine I've written an article on the Grim-N-Gritty Hit Point and Combat Rules from Sleeping Imperium. I personally found the rules useful.

Has anyone else tried these rules out? Any variants on this variant?

Take care all!

 

[Albert_Fish]

We are runninga full low-magic campaign using ken-hoods rules with slight modifications.

We use a Vitality statistic as well. It is dereived fromyour Hitpoints. I can't recall if we decided to allow for added Vitality points for High CON scores, i dont think we did.

WE give monks ( we do not use Ken-hood's martial arts rules) a Penetration value equal to 1/3 ( round up) of their level and allow a trade-off of Stunning blows for Peneterating blows (adds to Pentration equal to WIS Bonus)

Critial hits and most called shots go straight to HPs. If a weapon fully penetrates the targeted armour half of the damage goes to each Vitality and Hit Points.

Damaging Spells do the Odds equal to one rule as presented by Ken Hood ( when dicing for Damage every odd number rolled ona die is treated as if rolling a one). This keeps magic low level but potentially very very Dangerous.

We change the rules a bit every week as we discover other things are thrown out of whack by our Vitality rules or the penetration rules. Currently we are workingon expandinghte penetration tables. Perhaps making them armor type specific.

 

[FraserRonald]

We are runninga full low-magic campaign using ken-hoods rules with slight modifications.

We use a Vitality statistic as well. It is dereived fromyour Hitpoints. I can't recall if we decided to allow for added Vitality points for High CON scores, i dont think we did.

Good ideas. It's interesting as I had heard of VPs before, but hadn't actually seen the rules until this weekend. I can't say I'm a fan, as they are simply another layer of the abstract hit point rules I was fleeing from. I think they could have a place, perhaps as you have indicated their use, though I would rather see them, or a variant of them, used as a type of fatigue monitor. I think the other aspects incorporated into the regular hit point rules are covered in Mr. Hood's system, save perhaps luck, which might be hard to quantify.

WE give monks ( we do not use Ken-hood's martial arts rules) a Penetration value equal to 1/3 ( round up) of their level and allow a trade-off of Stunning blows for Peneterating blows (adds to Pentration equal to WIS Bonus)

Don't have martial arts in this particular campaign, but you have brought up a blind spot in Mr. Hood's rules. Nice innovation.

Critial hits and most called shots go straight to HPs. If a weapon fully penetrates the targeted armour half of the damage goes to each Vitality and Hit Points.

The critical rule makes sense, but the penetration variant seems strange, if I understand it right. I'm not sure how this would work, unless all weapons are given a penetration value. Even then, armour would become useful only against weapons of lower penetration, which seems contrary to Mr. Hood's penetration rules, which I rather like. Am I misunderstanding your comment? Wouldn't be the first time.

Damaging Spells do the Odds equal to one rule as presented by Ken Hood ( when dicing for Damage every odd number rolled ona die is treated as if rolling a one). This keeps magic low level but potentially very very Dangerous.

Absolutely. Actually, in my campaign, I've instituted the "odds equal one" rule as well as the "diminished dice" rule. Certain NPC spellcasters only deal with the "dimished dice" rule, but that is simply to make them even more frightening, like those sorcerers and wizards in the Lanhkmar books and Conan.

We change the rules a bit every week as we discover other things are thrown out of whack by our Vitality rules or the penetration rules. Currently we are workingon expandinghte penetration tables. Perhaps making them armor type specific.

Innovation leads to innovation. That's cool. I have little time to work on rules these days (which is why I was so happy to find Mr. Hood's work, which mirrors very closely what I had been hoping to achieve with my own work) but when I have more time, I'm, hoping to flesh out the Grim-N-Gritty rules to better work in my particular campaign.

Thanks for the input! Take care!

 

[Albert_Fish]

look here fora discussion we had on the house rules thread.

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39196

there is even an alternative system that is fully developed.
I have it in print form but have not looked at it.

I got the idea for Weapons that fully penetrate an armor doing half of their damage to HP and half to Vitality (which is basically fatigue) From the Forbidden Kingdoms Pulp Roleplaying game by Otherworld Press.
I did this because i felt that the penetration factor should count for something but i didnt want it to just be a cheap critical.

oh and a note on criticals. X2 weapons do normal damage directly to HP, X3 do double damage and X4 do 3 times the damage.

 

[FraserRonald]

Thanks for the info. I had looked for a thread on the subject before I posted the notice re: Grim-N-Gritty, but it seems I didn't look hard enough. Lots of stuff to chew on.

Thanks again. Take care!

 

[Prisoner]

I've been thinking about using the Grim-N-Gritty Hit Point and Combat Rules for a d20 Call of Cthulhu game. I think the rules would be a perfectl fit for Cthulhu.

 

[FraserRonald]

I've been thinking about using the Grim-N-Gritty Hit Point and Combat Rules for a d20 Call of Cthulhu game. I think the rules would be a perfectl fit for Cthulhu.

I've never played Call of Cthulhu, but I think the Grim-N-Gritty rules certainly belong in any modern game. It just seems more realistic. I mean, to my mind--and this is just an opinion--the kind of heroic battles that the d20 abstract combat system simulates doesn't really fit in any kind of modern campaign. I guess perhaps a superhero one, but anything like a supernatural or spy campaign begs for Grim-N-Gritty, or something similar.

Take care all!