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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3316831" data-attributes="member: 4937">There is no perfect fix.Hit point systems are great at modelling scalable 'heroic' systems where single individuals are more than a match for any 20 (or more) ordinary individuals.&nbsp; You get something wrong though...No, that's more a factor of armor class than hit points, precisely because hit points are ablative.&nbsp; If your design goal was to provide complete immunity for high level characters against the attacks of low level characters, you'd adopt something like a defensive save/resisted roll.&nbsp; Typically you see this design approach in 'super-heroic' games where you want any number of bullets to just bounce off the hero if they are being fired by henchmen, or any number of laser blasts to fly by the hero so long as they are being fired by storm troopers.&nbsp; However you change the system, there will be tradeoffs.&nbsp; More realistic systems tend to lead to every situation being a 'save or die' situation in some form.&nbsp;&nbsp; Because hit points are ablative, characters are rarely in a combat system situation where a single dice roll determines the outcome.&nbsp;&nbsp; In fact, D20 might could use some extra complexity and reduced elegance here because its combat mechanic - while great for handling combat - is not so great against things like 'Polymorph' or 'Disentigrate' which remain single throw save or die situations with linear probabilities of failure and binary save/failure issues at higher levels (fighters unable to make will saves, wizards unable to make fort saves, etc.).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 3316831, member: 4937"] There is no perfect fix. Hit point systems are great at modelling scalable 'heroic' systems where single individuals are more than a match for any 20 (or more) ordinary individuals. You get something wrong though... No, that's more a factor of armor class than hit points, precisely because hit points are ablative. If your design goal was to provide complete immunity for high level characters against the attacks of low level characters, you'd adopt something like a defensive save/resisted roll. Typically you see this design approach in 'super-heroic' games where you want any number of bullets to just bounce off the hero if they are being fired by henchmen, or any number of laser blasts to fly by the hero so long as they are being fired by storm troopers. However you change the system, there will be tradeoffs. More realistic systems tend to lead to every situation being a 'save or die' situation in some form. Because hit points are ablative, characters are rarely in a combat system situation where a single dice roll determines the outcome. In fact, D20 might could use some extra complexity and reduced elegance here because its combat mechanic - while great for handling combat - is not so great against things like 'Polymorph' or 'Disentigrate' which remain single throw save or die situations with linear probabilities of failure and binary save/failure issues at higher levels (fighters unable to make will saves, wizards unable to make fort saves, etc.). [/QUOTE]

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