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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 6557132" data-attributes="member: 6778044">I've done a lot of thinking and tweaking in my campaign regarding hit points. I find it an interesting subject in game design because it really is about balancing a number of different, and not entirely compatible, goals - fun, game pacing, "realism," etc,Healing speed itself is interesting because it defines the base hit points in your game. For example, you think that regaining 100% of your hit points each night is too much. So you set that to 50% instead. All you've really accomplished is to halve the PCs hit points. Without magical aid, each day they will start with half of their hit points. So on the first day they are at 100% and OK for monsters with a challenge rating of their level. But after that first day, they now will always start with half their hit points.So you've basically accomplished the same thing as halving each class's Hit Dice, unless they have magic to make up the second part.The real problem, in my opinion, is that hit points are a great way to pace the game, but not a great representation of health. I look at hit points as health (1 hp) and skill and stamina (the rest of the hit points). This explains very easily why higher level characters have more hit points.But this doesn't satisfy the feeling that wounds are "realistic." Rather than try to define that vague term, I looked at more specific goals I wanted to accomplish.1. I want the system to be able to model the effect of wounds in dramatic scenes from books, movies, TV, etc. such as:Somebody too injured to join you in your questLong term injury that complicates activities (broken bone, injured eye, etc.)In Lost Mine of Phandelver and HotDQ there are NPCs that are too injured for them to help you. No problem, we've got a cleric right here. A Cure Wounds and you're all set. Oops.2. I want the system to use existing rules where possible, and look to earlier editions if needed before making up something brand new.3. Anything that is determined by a random roll will impact the PCs much more than the monsters or NPCs. For example, a critical hit. There's a 5% chance that you'll roll a 20 each time you roll a d20. Chances are very high that at least one PC will be the victim of a critical hit each session. So it needs to happen often enough to make the rule worthwhile, but not so often that at least one PC is always affected.4. You need a serious effect to make it worthwhile against a monster, because you'll only see them for about 15 minutes. But the same effect will impact the PC on a more regular basis through a campaign. For example - let's say you want to sever body parts. So your critical hit rule means that you have a 50% chance to sever a body part. If you're successful, that orc is missing a hand, and in the next round you kill it. It has little effect. But it's extremely likely that after 3 or less months of playing that every PC will be missing a body part.Hit points are far too simplistic to meet these goals. So a separate system is needed. Options include vitality points, Constitution points, but they require more tracking and instituting a new system. But conditions are a good starting point. They already exist, and some of the conditions are probably good choices already.So to start, here's how I handle critical hits:Critical Hit (Natural 20)   Automatic hit; roll damage twice   CON save (DC 8 + attack bonus)   Failed save = Staggered;    Failed save by 5+, Staggered plus:     Bludgeoning: Unconscious     Slashing: Incapacitated and bleeding     Piercing: Stunned   Condition Recovery: CON saveCritical Miss (Natural 1)Automatic miss; suffer opportunity attackIf firing into melee, roll attack to possibly hit an ally in the meleeAll of the mechanics already exist in the game. In the 3rd edition there was a second die roll to determine if the critical was in fact critical, so it's similar to that as well. Higher level characters, and those with better Constitutions are better able to avoid the effects. It required the addition of a new condition:StaggeredCannot react; can only move, or use action/bonus action for single attackSpell roll d20; 11+ completes next roundRecovery (one attempt w/healing kit) DC 15 Con save or worsens to injury Advantage if Proficient in MedicineSo at this point, anybody struck by a critical hit has a chance of suffering an additional effect that will reduce their effectiveness for this combat, and also has a chance of removing them from the combat altogether without intervention. That's going to help the monsters a bit, but it also allows for some cool opportunities for the players. It also means that they will have to chance strategies on the fly if something serious happens to one of them.There's also a possibility that the condition can worsen after the combat. We've found the DC 15 to work pretty well, but you can lessen it if it's occurring too often. Having one character proficient in Medicine greatly reduces your chance of a long term injury. But if they fail, then they suffer another new condition:Injured (1 death save daily)   +1 level of exhaustion   Reduced to dying = permanent effectLesser Restoration = extra save (1x day)Greater Restoration = 1 success (1x day)As you can see, this is the long term story condition. It lasts days, at the very least. This is irrelevant to monsters, although can be used to simulate the 'NPC to injured to help' situations. I use the basic condition for disease as well, which explains why people (NPCs) actually die from disease instead of finding a 3rd level spellcaster with Lesser Restoration.I didn't want specific injuries, the abstract nature of the exhaustion track is good enough. If they do very poorly and end up nearly dying, then the player and I work out a permanent effect of the injury.Although my initial approach was to apply an injury instead of the intermediate step of staggered. This had two problems. First was that imposing disadvantage on ability checks on a monster in a combat was virtually useless. The injury had to reach level 3 to be meaningful, and that just didn't happen. It was also happening too often to PCs, which was also problematic since it was a long-term effect. I needed something with more teeth, but that would usually only last during the current combat.Overall this has been working very well in the two campaigns I'm running. We even had one situation where the entire party was injured and had to safely negotiate their way back to town (a bad experience with a black dragon that they had no business in antagonizing). But a PC being staggered seems to happen about once every 2-3 sessions, and injured once every 6 sessions or more. The effects are significant enough to impact combat when a monster or NPC suffers one of the effects, but not so debilitating that the players don't like the rule. Instead they look at it as an opportunity if/when they are staggered or injured.But, the simple existence of the rules has affected how they players look at combat. There are opportunities for suffering 'real damage' even though most don't. And in the end, hit points and the rate of healing is no longer an issue because it's clear that it's not a measure of health or the impact of injuries on the PCs.Ilbranteloth</blockquote>

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