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Message: <blockquote data-quote="knightofround" data-source="post: 5232358" data-attributes="member: 27884">HP has always been something I've wrestled with. After I played the Star Wars RPG I took vitality & wound points to heart, and loved them so much I expanded the idea with various bonuses and penalties depending upon where you at.In the long run though, I had to give it up. I needed to reduce the book-keeping. Afterwards I portrayed HP as a combination of two factors: 1. Luck/divine favor/pure heroicness. This represents the why higher level characters can take more damage than lower level characters. In this interpretation, when an Orc "Hit" PC A for 8 damage, Player A was not truly hit by the weapon. Instead, out of sheer luck Player A dodged away, or the Orc stumbled, or something of that nature. Instead, the PC's HP (aka "luck score") dropped by 8. When that luck reached zero the PC's "luck runs out" and a hit becomes *truly* a KO.2. Damage mitigation. This would be an example of turning in an attack that would normally decapitate a person into a simple bruise or fracture. This explains why some characters (ie defenders) have more HP than others at the same level.When 4E brought the "bloodied" condition into play, it made the system I was using even more interesting. Now, whenever someone hits "bloodied" they actually take a substantial wound that seriously affects the player's capacity to fight. (decrease or increase, depending upon the monster/PC feats and attributes). When they hit 0 HP, that is the second blow which results in a mortal wound (which will often kill the character if it isn't treated soon) and also makes the character helpless. True death is reached when the character hits negative healing surge value, which allows some leeway for heroic characters who take 3-10 stab wounds to truly kill them.Another thing I like about this system is that it makes healers more than simple medics that repair physical damage. It also show hows morale, encouragement, and leadership can increase the survival of individuals.If you want a statistical representation of becoming wounded, its much simpler to add a cummulative -X penalty to all rolls at each section the character reaches. You could do simple "bloodied condition" means you get -2 to everything. Or you could break it up into healing surge values, so 3/4 = -1 to everything, 1/2 = -2 to everything, 1/4 = -3 or -4 to everything. Those kinds of "across the board" modifiers are easier to track than multiple HP pools.</blockquote>

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