D&D General Hit Points are a great mechanic

[Umbran]

how the HELL did THIS get through the censor?????????

Could you please NOT directly quote inappropriate language? Because now I have to edit it out twice, which is annoying.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

ah, my bad, sorry about that

 

[Stalker0]

my personal favorite is the VP/W system (vitality and wounds).

Its a version of hitpoints where you have two pools, vitality and wounds. Vitality is taken first, representing your stamina, ability to dodge, etc. Its tracked like normal hitpoints. Once vitality is depleted, new damage is applied to your wounds. Vitality comes back "fairly quickly" with rest, whereas wounds can linger and require specialized healing.

This system has all the advantages of HP but does offer the ability to have "lingering damage" and "some penalities to capability once you are damaged enough". And you can adjust the balance of vitality and wounds to whatever threshold you want to change the lethatlity of a game. A game with 25% VP/75% WP....more lethal. 75% VP/25% WP....more high fantasy.

Starwars used this system, BUT....where that system messed up was in allowing things like critical hits and sneak attacks to bypass vitality. Its the dnd equivalent of letting a crit do exhaustion.... it violates that main reason you have hitpoints in the first place, and so high level Starwars games could turn into "who gets in the crits first".

So I think its paramount in such a system, that vitality can only be violated in the most extreme of circumstances, maybe falling damage, perhaps like a long term disease, or a coup de grace. But straight up combat and PC abilities should never be able to do it.

 

[Rainbow Scissors]

Personally while encumbrance's degradation of importance is a step in the right direction, it still exists and is even more baffling in function due to it's half-step.

Skills are still bound to a more grounded understanding of reality when i'd prefer if they're treated as more Superhero-esque capabilities--we can't even make protective circles with religion for god's sake.

Fighters and Rogue(the two baseline 'normal'/'mundane' classes) maybe fine balance-wise but I detest their simplicity--mostly for Fighter since Rogue at least has cunning action--and caster's complicatedness due to vancian casting.

Basically my issue is that while 5e is filled with magic, it's non-magics are left by the wayside due to being mundane while I'd prefer if even non-magical abilities are more exaggerated and less grounded

Thank you for the reply. That helps me to understand your point of view.

I do not necessarily disagree with your viewpoint. On my end, I think the terminology of what I call things would just be different.

For example, I do not feel that being able to use the religion skill to create a protection circle pushes toward being a superhero. Magical? yes. Not "real"? yes. But I do not feel that would break my expectation of what is possible given the assumption that magic works in the game world.

Oddly, I feel that a game that would allow things like what you suggest would be more grounded than what we currently have because it makes more sense to me that the priest of a deity would be able to use their faith for protection than it makes sense to me that hiding turns me invisible.

D&D does go in the direction of mythic fantasy, I feel that 4E did that far better than 5E does.

I agree that there could be more complexity added to the game.

 

[Loconius]

I agree with you there. I like HP as a simple health bar mechanics, but arguments in favour of versimilitude are feeble IMO.

In the animal kingdom as in human conflicts (or any dangerous ventures really), the risks of lasting damage and injuries are constantly weighted against the benefits of success. It’s often no good to win a fight if you emerge injured, even if still alive. It’s no good to win a race if your car needs extensive repair, even if it’s not totalled. Oftentimes, surrendering (or cutting your losses and let the opponent win) is the optimal option. This is often lost in RPG, in part because hp are very lenient until you’re just dead ( but also because we tend to put PCs in life-or-death situations exclusively)

I think tha fact that morale isn’t a core rule (it’s an option) has a lot to do with this. In fact my main gripe with HP systems like dnd’s is that not enough is done with the various thresholds before zero HP. Morale at Bloodied is a good add. I also wouldn’t mind conditions like prone coming up more when taking certain amounts of damage.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

There can be middle ground, however! FASA's Earthdawn gives you a pool of "hit points", but taking damage above a certain threshold could inflict a wound. Removing a wound took one of your Recovery Tests (think Healing Surges, back in the 90's!). Alternately, you could struggle with a wound, but each wound gave you a stacking penalty on attempts to heal damage, until you were simply forced to take the time to remove them. It's a system I've often toyed with applying to 5e, but I have to figure out how to con...vince my players into buying into it, lol.

Earthdawn and Torg seem to be 'old' games that used a lot of mechanical ideas that feel like they come from 'modern' game design inventions...