Hit Points - A Discussion of a "Solution"

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I'll throw in my solution to simulate wounds in 4E:

Hit Points

Hit points largely remain as they stand. This avoids having to rewrite major portions of the game. The one change is that your character does not die when his hit points reach negative bloodied value. The advantage is no longer having to track hit points below zero.

Wounds

There are three ways to gain a Wound:
1) A critical hit.
2) An attack that drops you to zero hit points or hits you when you are already at zero hit points.
3) Failing a death save.

When you accumulate a number of Wounds equal to your Bloodied value, you die.

Recovering from wounds:

1) Each full day of bed rest removes one wound.
2) Magical healing. Specifically powers that mention curing wounds. So powers like Healing Word would still only recover hit points, not wounds. (Mass) Cure Light Wounds = 1 wound (per target) removed. Cure Serious Wounds = 3 wounds removed. Luckily, the cure wound spells are dailies, so magical healing of wounds is limited.

This would make Wounds something important and difficult to recover from, without hindering the ability of the characters to push onward despite their wounds. But it also makes the characters more durable and less likely to die, which for some would be a feature, others a bug. Another side effect is that groups may again feel that they need a Cleric.

Narration

Each cumulative wound would be described in slightly increasing severity. The character's Bloodied value compared to wounds should help the DM and Player narrate an appropriate wound.

 

[Set]

I'm partial to either;

a variation on the system Monte Cook uses in his Book of Experimental Might (Wound points and 'Grace' points, with the former being actual physical health and the latter being the much-faster-healing 'winded' type damage). Con score in health, add class HD in 'grace.' Grace heals faster and comes back faster. Once you are out of 'grace,' you start taking actual wounds, which heal slower and result in a 'bloodied' condition where you are penalized because of the physical injuries you are suffering.

or;

a wound level system like that of Mutants & Masterminds or True20.

While I like the wound level system better overall, I think that a hit point / grace point (Wound point / Vitality point, whatever) system better captures the feel of D&D for me.

 

[Sir Brennen]

I'll throw in my solution to simulate wounds in 4E:

Hit Points

Hit points largely remain as they stand. This avoids having to rewrite major portions of the game. The one change is that your character does not die when his hit points reach negative bloodied value. The advantage is no longer having to track hit points below zero.

Wounds

There are three ways to gain a Wound:
1) A critical hit.
2) An attack that drops you to zero hit points or hits you when you are already at zero hit points.
3) Failing a death save.

When you accumulate a number of Wounds equal to your Bloodied value, you die.

Recovering from wounds:

1) Each full day of bed rest removes one wound.
2) Magical healing. Specifically powers that mention curing wounds. So powers like Healing Word would still only recover hit points, not wounds. (Mass) Cure Light Wounds = 1 wound (per target) removed. Cure Serious Wounds = 3 wounds removed. Luckily, the cure wound spells are dailies, so magical healing of wounds is limited.

This would make Wounds something important and difficult to recover from, without hindering the ability of the characters to push onward despite their wounds. But it also makes the characters more durable and less likely to die, which for some would be a feature, others a bug. Another side effect is that groups may again feel that they need a Cleric.

I think this system would make it almost impossible for characters to die. Who would ever go out adventuring when their wounds are within a few points of their Bloodied score? Considering a 10th level fighter will have a Bloodied score of around 38, they would never, ever go down in a fight where they're above 10 Wound points unless the party leaves his unconscious body in a raging bonfire. I would say it'd take a string of incredibly bad luck for anyone to lose even those final 10 in a single fight. And the downtime/inefficient magic healing would mostly likely result in adventurers almost always going around with some type of wound and rarely ever fully healed, like Head Wound Harry.

Also, while most monsters would simply not have any wound points, how would you handle any important NPCs? Even a fraction of the WP given to PCs would make Coup De Grace the standard method of dispatching them, which not only is unheroic, but can cause problems if there are party members opposed to slaughtering unconscious characters.

I'd make the wound points much lower, say the class HP per Level value + Con Mod, then either (+ 1/2 level) or (+2 at Paragon Level, +3 at Epic). I'd also have any normal hit which exceeds the character's bloodied value cause a wound, and allow for Crits or > Bloodied hits on characters below zero stack (i.e, they'd cause 2 wound points)

If this would make natural healing seem to quick, the days of rest per point could be increase to 2 or 3. Your rules for magical healing would still remain costly, especially if multiple party members have wounds which need to be healed.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Ah, HP... The problem with HP is that any solution/alternative to HP is worse than the HP themselves.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

1) I think this system would make it almost impossible for characters to die. Who would ever go out adventuring when their wounds are within a few points of their Bloodied score? Considering a 10th level fighter will have a Bloodied score of around 38, they would never, ever go down in a fight where they're above 10 Wound points unless the party leaves his unconscious body in a raging bonfire. I would say it'd take a string of incredibly bad luck for anyone to lose even those final 10 in a single fight. And the downtime/inefficient magic healing would mostly likely result in adventurers almost always going around with some type of wound and rarely ever fully healed, like Head Wound Harry.

2) Also, while most monsters would simply not have any wound points, how would you handle any important NPCs? Even a fraction of the WP given to PCs would make Coup De Grace the standard method of dispatching them, which not only is unheroic, but can cause problems if there are party members opposed to slaughtering unconscious characters.

3) I'd make the wound points much lower, say the class HP per Level value + Con Mod, then either (+ 1/2 level) or (+2 at Paragon Level, +3 at Epic). I'd also have any normal hit which exceeds the character's bloodied value cause a wound, and allow for Crits or > Bloodied hits on characters below zero stack (i.e, they'd cause 2 wound points)

4) If this would make natural healing seem to quick, the days of rest per point could be increase to 2 or 3. Your rules for magical healing would still remain costly, especially if multiple party members have wounds which need to be healed.

1) IME with 4E it is nearly impossible to die unless the whole party goes down or runs, thus leaving someone behind. I agree this variant would make characters alot more durable. Who would go out adventuring when heavily wounded? Heroes who see that innocents are in danger, heroes who have discovered that the gate to the Feywild where the big magic doo-dad is located will close for another thousand years when the moon turns full again in 4 days, etc. Heroes that don't rest for long periods would constantly be beat up and bruised. That's why alot of downtime passes in my campaigns. Otherwise you get the effect that there is constant trouble brewing in the village/town/world where the characters live. There are campaigns where constant trouble makes sense, like war campaigns. Otherwise I insert the idea of long downtime where the adventurers get to relax, train and catch up with friends and family.

2) The same way important NPCs are decided now. At zero hit points they go down. Some PCs will coup de grace under the current rules anyway. Others will walk away. As DM, you decide whether the NPC comes back to haunt the PCs. I don't need to use the rules that apply to PCs to adjudicate what happens to NPCs. I do whatever is good for the campaign.

3) The grittier the game you desire, the more you lower the Wound Threshold. Simple enough. I would agree with the stacking idea, a crit that drops you to zero deals two wounds. Damage > bloodied causing a wound is a fine idea, I just don't think you'll see that happen very often in 4E.

4) Another good way to increase the grittiness.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Ah, HP... The problem with HP is that any solution/alternative to HP is worse than the HP themselves.

I agree. That's why my "solution" took a simpler route. Even so, I am happy with the 4E hit point rules as they are. I've tried implementing Wound rules many times throughout all editions and although it seemed fun, it really became a punishment to PCs because they were the only ones on the scene for an extended period. My players still cringe when I have fond memories of the Rolemaster crit charts.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Combat Points remind me of Torg Possibilities. Of course there, the design probably started from a slightly different direction.

You can use a Possibility in a Torg scene in two major ways:
- Improve a check. You normally roll 1d20 ("exploding" on a 10 or 20). If you spend a Possibility, you roll an additional 1d20 (again exploding on a 10 or 20, and you get a minimum result of 11 guaranteed). Note: The final result generates an actual "bonus value" which is then added to your skill value and compared to DCs - it's not a 1:1 relationship, so the "explosion" is a little more contained.
- Reduce damage. If you're hit, you can take away wounds, shock points and K or O results. Damaging attacks deal shock points (low results, if you get enough, you drop unconscious), Ks and Os (you can get only one K and one O, and if you get both, or two of them, you drop unconscious - O disappear after one round, Ks stay) and Wounds (Four wounds kill you, and wounds last a while)

A character starts play with 10 possibilities, and you will spend a lot of them over the course of an adventure.

One concern I have, and my limited Torg experience doesn't tell me how problematic that is: What are the risks of using "moxie" (err, combat points) for both damage and for attacks/skills? How do you balance this? Torg had very specific mechanics for these things, and I suppose it might work well, making both relatively equivalently working. But I am not sure things are this "safe" in D&D. There are many consequences unexplored.

For example - 0 combat points expended mean an attack at 2d6 damage against one target. What should 1 combat point grant you? +1 damage? What if 2 combat points grant a +1 bonus to attack - if you're using it with Fireball (3d6 damage in a 20 ft area) it's more effective then with a sword (2d6 damage against one target). Or can you guarantee the swordman has a fireball equivalent (maybe 6d6 damage against one foe?) and it's only stupidity leading to him using this on his 2d6 single-target-attack? Or don't you just give out bonuses to attacks, only to damage? Would there be a point to just adding damage, when do I decide to spend the points - before or after the attack roll? Wouldn't extra damage not be differently effective depending on your foes?

Thanks for the detailed discussion. I don't know anything about Torg so the above is enlightening, I'll have to have a closer look.

From what you're saying though, I've envisaged the expenditure of combat points a little differently than the above. Essentially, you spend combat points to let you do specific abilities/feats/powers rather than add a bonus here or there.
For example:

Power Attack [1cp; 4cp]
Special: -2 to hit +4 damage
General: -4 to hit +4 damage

For the specialist (someone who has the feat/ability/power), it costs less to do (1cp vs 4cps) and it's more effective. However, having a slog is something any character can do albeit not as well as the specialist.

A few other possible uses include:

- Tumble: Automatic success on a tumble/acrobatics check plus either a bonus +2 to AC, or a bonus +2 to hit an adjacent target.
- Defensive Stance: Attackers do not get flanking bonuses, (combat advantage is not granted), AC (Defenses) receives a +2 bonus until start/end of your next turn.
- The Luck of the Gods: Attacker must re-roll to confirm a critical strike. [This assumes 3E's critical threat, then confirm mechanic - just no multiplication of damage]
- Shield Block: Reactively add 1d4 to your AC versus an attack - handy in avoiding an attack or making the confirmation of a critical more difficult.
- Deadly Shot: If within 30ft. and firing or throwing a ranged weapon, increase the threat range by 2. (For example, a crossbow with a threat range of 18-20, would expand to 16-20 for that shot).

So as you can see, the aim is to spend combat points to let your character do something special or heroic. As for costs, there are a few things that are relative and need to be considered.

- How much damage does a variety of attacks do? What is the risk/reward balance in terms of spending combat points to avoid the damage or receiving the damage? Where's the balance point for this?
- Look at the two extremes in terms of combat point expenditure. The character who never spends combat points (and just uses them defensively) and the over-active combat point spender. Can a balance between these be achieved while allowing for the tactical cp spender (spends points when they are most effective) to be better/more effective than the two extremes?
- Perhaps the base assumption is that half of one's cps are devoted to defense while the other half are devoted to action. However, this presumes that you also have in mind a number of rounds that you expect a combat to last.
- The "when" of the spending is dependent upon the ability. Some are reactive, some must be spent beforehand and some require other circumstances to be met (for example, being bloodied, having just been criticalled, in a flanking position etc.), or perhaps these other circumstances reduce the cost. There are a plethora of options that could be explored here, all in giving more "character" to an ability and the narrative heroics that go along with it.

Anyway, thanks for taking an interest in my ideas, your reply's appreciated.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Cringer_luvr]

Just make it simple, hit points are dodge, parry, fatiuge until you reach bloodied (1/2 hit points) at that point you begin to take physical wounds nicks, cuts and such, and when you are reduced to Zero you have taken a serious or mortal wound.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Honestly, and I'm not being sarcastic/nasty here, if people want more realistic combat representation then they should be looking towards Rolemaster, either using the system as a whole or ripping the critical hit system from Arms Law (or what ever they're calling it these days).

The only problem with Rolemaster for me is the level of time taken to resolve actions in combat. There is realism-dominant (Rolemaster), gamism-dominant (D&D 4E) and I suppose what I'm trying to do - something in between. As Firelance points out, there are other issues where too much realism gets in the way of fun. Everyone's balance point is different, I'm just trying to take the middle ground on this one.

The system worked well in that respect, as in real life a single well placed dagger thrust could end the mightiest of heroes as quickly as the weakest peasant.

This is a dynamic I agree with. It might be harder to do this to the mightiest of heroes but it should always be a threat, regardless even if the probability is low.

In addition the more a character was wounded the less well they performed in combat with a cumulative combat penalty dependant on hit point loss and critical hit infliction.

Doing this creates a death spiral effect which while realistic is not cool. I think when a hero is down on their knees is when they should be able to perform acts of pure heroism and the mechanics need to be there to support this - something which I think my design has accomplished.

Personally I don't feel that realisticifying D&D's HP system is really necessary; no edition of D&D has really gone for realism and that's not a bad thing at all.

For me, the D&D HP system has been a bugbear for me in every edition - simply because it is trying to embody two separate things. The splitting of these nullifies pretty much every hp anomaly (be it falling from height, curing light wounds not really curing light wounds, natural healing anomalies, bizarre damage situations that the DM has to explain etc.)
Some like hps and 95% of the time, they do the job more than admirably. I'd just like this to be 100% of the time without too much extra effort.

Off the top of my head, simply adding in a penalty to everything per step of HP loss would go a good way towards "correcting" the realism of the system.

This should do the trick and not be too crippling for 4E. In 3E at higher levels it may need some work.
All actions are have a
0 - (TotalHP - CurrentHP) / (TotalHP / 10)
modifier to the dice roll in addition to any other modifiers.

I can see where you're coming from here but again, you're talking about a death spiral effect. Realistic, but for me, not as much fun. YMMV

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Herremann the Wise]

...Criticals:

I see criticals going directly to hit points to be a bit too deadly for D&D style combat. If combat points are your luck and battle skill then it seems that they should be of even greater use for dealing with these hits.

True, which is why I envisage spending combat points to either nullify a critical, or reduce the chance of it becoming a critical (see my above response to the good Mustrum Ridcully).

At lower levels, for most weapons (crossbows being a very specific and deadly counterpoint), an NPC/Monster can only get a critical threat on a 20 which still needs to be confirmed. At higher levels, the chance of getting a critical is increased (in terms of the threat range) but at the same time character's have access to more abilities that counteract or nullify criticals. The aim here is to provide a balance where if character's do things willy nilly, their chance of getting hurt increases, where if they are played sensibly (but still selectively heroically), then their chances of survival increases. A tricky balance.

Armor as DR:

This is another idea that makes perfect sense but bumps heads with the AC system. For it to have a proper effect then active defenses are called for which is kind of not D&D any longer. I find myself resisting the urge to do this kind of stuff too, but then I remember that I have GURPS for that.

Fair point. I started a thread a while ago looking at how difficult a character should be to hit given a variety of circumstances. What was confirmed was three states of defense:
• Base Defense: Unaware of any threat
• Mobile Defense: Aware of threat and actively avoiding
• Melee Defense: Aware of threat, actively avoiding and actively threatening in return.
Sort of like 3E's flat-footed, touch and regular ACs - with slightly different things taken into account. With reactive combat-point-spending abilities on top for extra protection, I'm hoping for added flexibility without undue complication (just excitement).

Points for Actions:

This is concept that has a ton of possiblities . Talk about risk and resource management , it doesn't get much more exciting than this.
Do I spend some vitality trying to finish this guy off? Even if I succeed, what if more enemies show up? I like this a lot.

The more I've played and tested this, the more I've come to think that it's a solid, fun and tactical mechanic. When to spend and when to conserve a character's effort seems a system where the flavour and mechanic are in a very neat sybiosis. Well, I'm excited by it anyway.

Some great ideas here, thanks for sharing.

Thank you very much for responding, very much appreciated.

My own body points system wasn't really envisioned to be plugged in to existing D&D and yours looks like a similar situation. Some things from my own system that might affect the body point subsystem:

1) Stat bonuses: There are no stat bonuses or penalties that affect hit, damage, AC , or saves in the 3-18 range. A stat of 8 or better is all thats required for a prime requisite stat. Bonus bloat arms race goes away, along with prospect of sucking without an X or better in a particular stat.
Roll your stats, assign them, relax and play. This also allows ability damage as an option without forcing all kinds of recalculations

This is something I whole-heartedly agree with. The necessity to max out a stat should never be overt or extreme. For me, I can divorce strength from the "to hit" modifier replacing it with a skill/proficiency modifier instead (but still have a minimum strength requirement for a weapon), but I can't divorce it from damage. If you hit with greater strength, you deal more damage. If you hit with greater accuracy (dexterity), you deal more damage.

2) Weapon damage: All weapons do 1d6 at the basic skill level. All weapons are deadly and capable of doing great harm but only in trained hands. Weapons with lesser damage potential will provide users with other benefits as skill increases.

I like the idea of this too - damn we think alike. For me, extra skill equates to extra damage. If you are not familiar with a weapon or do not have the strength (or dexterity) to wield it properly, then it just gets treated as an improvised weapon. You may as well be attacking with a big chair as much as a two-handed war axe if you are not proficient with it (or have the strength to wield it correctly). In turn, you can't threaten an opponent with it as effectively so your Melee Defense effectively becomes your Mobile Defense.

3) Critical Hits: A natural 20 scores normal damage and allows a follow up attack. Repeat until a 20 is not rolled.

For me, if criticals target hit points (or for you wound points), then it needs to be tightly controlled otherwise you're right, the game becomes too deadly. The rolling 20 thing seems a solid mechanic.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise