Hit Points and D&D

[Laman Stahros]

But a blaster in Star Wars can do this damage and that used Wound Points. One hit can easily down a character in that system and that is one of the problems that is usually pointed out in discussions about it.

But nothing in D&D (core rules) does more than 2d8 damage (and I don't think there is anything that does that much) without a critical multiplier.

 

[AbeTheGnome]

But nothing in D&D (core rules) does more than 2d8 damage (and I don't think there is anything that does that much) without a critical multiplier.

There is when it's being wielded two-handed by a hill giant.

 

[Victim]

But nothing in D&D (core rules) does more than 2d8 damage (and I don't think there is anything that does that much) without a critical multiplier.

Yeah, and nothing in DnD has damage bonuses.

 

[Celebrim]

But nothing in D&D (core rules) does more than 2d8 damage (and I don't think there is anything that does that much) without a critical multiplier.

As I said, it works fine for infrequent non-heroic challenges. If your assumption is that you'll be fighting second level warriors with longswords infrequently and that encounter is supposed to be tense, WP/VP probably works better than hitpoints. But it doesn't work so great against the huge stone golem (4d8+13 damage, avg. 31), cloud giants (4d6+18, avg. 32), nightcrawlers (4d6+21, avg. 35), and well so forth. And it does get much worse from there. We aren't even talking about a power attacking collosal dragon.

 

[Ondo]

Um... you forgot max hp at first level for the commoner in your standard system analysis.

Commoners don't get max hp at first level. That's only for heroic characters.

 

[MerricB]

If you want a grim & gritty system, where lethality is high... go with VP/WP. Heroism is irrelevant, luck rules all.

It is utterly the wrong fit for D&D. If you want a high-level character to be threatened by a low-level character, you lose the opportunity for heroism. It's a system that wprks against the main strength of D&D: that combat is fun. Combat where you die every four encounters is not fun.

The threat of death does have to be there, and it is in D&D, but it's death because you pushed too far, not because some commoner rolled a 20.

Cheers!

 

[FireLance]

If you want a grim & gritty system, where lethality is high... go with VP/WP. Heroism is irrelevant, luck rules all.

It is utterly the wrong fit for D&D. If you want a high-level character to be threatened by a low-level character, you lose the opportunity for heroism. It's a system that wprks against the main strength of D&D: that combat is fun. Combat where you die every four encounters is not fun.

The threat of death does have to be there, and it is in D&D, but it's death because you pushed too far, not because some commoner rolled a 20.

Problem is, different people have different definitions of "heroism". To some people, getting into a fight that you are almost certain to win (or which is expected to "only" consume 25% of your resources ) is not "heroism" because the PCs are never in any significant danger.

But you are right that if the PCs are run a significant risk of dying in every fight, the players are going to play them more cautiously, and rules that try to make combat more "heroic" in one sense, may end up making the PCs less "heroic" in another sense.

 

[MerricB]

High lethality works for games where combat is rare - and you've made a mistake to enter it. In a game like D&D (and Star Wars), it's not really a good idea.

Cheers!

 

[Stalker0]

High lethality doesn't necessary make general combat more deadly for the heroes, it just forces a party to adopt a much more tactical mindset to advance.

Special obs forces like navy seals take few casualties due to high levels of training, tactics, and equipment. They never go into an area without a concrete plan, and always carry gear for the situation. If that's the kind of game you want to run, then a gritty system can work fine.

However, I agree for general combat in the dnd world, the VP/WP system is too deadly. And you get to the point where your hitpoints don't matter. Its a matter of how many rolls you make before you get critted, similar to save/die effects, you could have the most godly fort save, but take enough saves and you'll roll a 1 eventually.

There is a compromise though, the addition of action points. Basically, heroes face the same deadly encounters as everyone else, but because they are heroes they get to "cheat" every so often.

 

[Roman]

Note that I seek neither to replace hit points with another system nor to eliminate hit point scaling with level. I would merely like to compress it, so that combat is actually less deadly at lower levels and so that the hit point ratios between low level characters and high level characters remain high but are not as high as they are.