Hit points- The final frontier

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Once we accept that hit points aren't physical toughness, a lot of opportunities become obvious. For instance, why not allow hit points to be used against to-hit rolls, not just against damage rolls? You needed a 12 to hit me, and you rolled a 16? I'll spend 4 hit points to avoid your poison dart.

I thought we called that "rolling damage"?

"You need a 12 to him me, and you rolled a 16? See if you deal enough damage, I still have some hit points to spend!"

 

[ExploderWizard]

How would you deal with things like poison and level drain - things that need to hit the body in order to deal damage?

I used a system like this in 3e, and I was never sure how to deal with that.

Poisons and drugs do various types of ability damage and impairments in my system. Not every poison does CON damage. Certain types of venom attack STR or DEX so that the critter can drag a live but helpless victim back to the nest.

Level Drain:

I won't be using classic level drain in my system. Levels are a metagame concept of great concern to the player and have no real meaning to the actual character. Draining an experience level and having the character react to that is kind of immersion breaking. Level drain will instead become essence drain. This attack will do a range of damage (likely 1d6) to ALL ability scores at once. Undead that drain 2 levels per hit will have a more potent drain (2d6). This will make then fearsome enough to the player and provide a fear that the character can relate to as well.

 

[mmadsen]

I thought we called that "rolling damage"?

"You need a 12 to him me, and you rolled a 16? See if you deal enough damage, I still have some hit points to spend!"

Yes, that's exactly how it works now, which has the odd effect of making it harder to dodge high-damage attacks -- which is not realistic, but, worse, is the opposite of adventure fiction.

Our hero never gets hit by a high-caliber rifle round, a light saber, etc., but he's not nearly so good at dodging punches, kicks, and blunt instruments.

By allowing hit points to work against to-hit rolls, and not just against damage rolls, we restore the balance: heroes dodge tree trunks swung by giants, but they take a punch and spit out some blood.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Yes, that's exactly how it works now, which has the odd effect of making it harder to dodge high-damage attacks -- which is not realistic, but, worse, is the opposite of adventure fiction.

Our hero never gets hit by a high-caliber rifle round, a light saber, etc., but he's not nearly so good at dodging punches, kicks, and blunt instruments.

By allowing hit points to work against to-hit rolls, and not just against damage rolls, we restore the balance: heroes dodge tree trunks swung by giants, but they take a punch and spit out some blood.

Being an armchair designer myself, this is a system I have been and still are working on (not really aimed at D&D):

You make an attack roll - light, fast weapons (including unarmed attacks) grant a bonus against the enemies defense. If you beat the defense, you deal "shock" damage, depending on how well you hit. (The way I am consider doing it is decreasing the damage with the result of the natural die roll. So, if you're so good that even a natural 2 hits your enemies, you deal more damage if you're just lucky with a natural 19.) Then you make a damage roll against the enemies armor. This deals shock damage and actual wounds.

So, a light, agile fighter might never break through your armor, but he will whittle you down since you're working hard to avoid his hits. A brute attack might rarely hit, but if it hits, the damage is more serious.

I am still not sure if the entire approach can be balanced, though. For example - if you can deal more damage per round and hit more often if you're agile, won't you take out enemies faster then if you only rarely deal damage (but then lots of it)? Perhaps I'll figure it out...

 

[ExploderWizard]

Being an armchair designer myself, this is a system I have been and still are working on (not really aimed at D&D):

You make an attack roll - light, fast weapons (including unarmed attacks) grant a bonus against the enemies defense. If you beat the defense, you deal "shock" damage, depending on how well you hit. (The way I am consider doing it is decreasing the damage with the result of the natural die roll. So, if you're so good that even a natural 2 hits your enemies, you deal more damage if you're just lucky with a natural 19.) Then you make a damage roll against the enemies armor. This deals shock damage and actual wounds.

So, a light, agile fighter might never break through your armor, but he will whittle you down since you're working hard to avoid his hits. A brute attack might rarely hit, but if it hits, the damage is more serious.

I am still not sure if the entire approach can be balanced, though. For example - if you can deal more damage per round and hit more often if you're agile, won't you take out enemies faster then if you only rarely deal damage (but then lots of it)? Perhaps I'll figure it out...

A system like this would be cool if there was a way to resolve combats quickly. That seems to be the first stumbling block of any system that has that kind of detail. GURPS works like that but combats take too long to resolve for simple dungeon delving, at least for me.

If you can get one to work at pre 3E D&D speed, I would buy it.

 

[JDJblatherings]

The problem with scaling the body points is that they then just become another abstract pool of hit points thats called something else. A hero can last in a fight because he is a hero. A hero cannot sustain a greatsword through the chest because he is a hero.

In an abstract HP system like D&D the hero doesn't suffer from a greatsword through the chest until a blow reduces them to 0 or less HP. Before that ist's all knicks, scratches, shock and fatigue unitl 0 hp or less; it just isn't a graphically lethal wound before that.

 

[ExploderWizard]

In an abstract HP system like D&D the hero doesn't suffer from a greatsword through the chest until a blow reduces them to 0 or less HP. Before that ist's all knicks, scratches, shock and fatigue unitl 0 hp or less; it just isn't a graphically lethal wound before that.

I agree. Using scaling body points defeats this though. If we say 0 hp means you are down to being vulnerable to a real wound then having 40+ body points because you are X level doesn't make sense. Why not just add those to HP? The point for me is that heroes have lots of HP and regular people don't. Once those HP have been worn away then the hero is pretty much down to a regular person's body.

That body can be significantly tougher than a regular person : 18 CON vs a 10 CON, but this has nothing to do with HP or levels.