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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ainamacar" data-source="post: 5806440" data-attributes="member: 70709">I was just thinking that if one didn't like the maximum die roll bit, but did like its statistical predictability and the fact that it keeps wounds decoupled from the damage dice actually used, one could simply use the expectation value.  In other words, every successful attack (or every successful attack when bloodied as you prefer) gives 1 wound point per die rolled.  This is a natural dial one could use to keep total attrition the same while keeping it more evenly distributed among the party.  It's not necessarily any easier than dividing damage by 10, but I don't think it's any harder either.  OK, in the presence of resistances tracking damage might be easier.  On the other hand, I don't see a corresponding dial that achieves the punctuated characteristic of the maximum die method and also keeps expected total wound damage constant.  Anyway, just a random thought.It would be very similar.  Creatures would still fall unconscious after taking damage of any kind equal to their maximum hit points, so the non-lethal plus lethal damage components is always equal to or less than maximum hit points.  The change to healing does not affect balance at all (at least while everyone is conscious) if all damage comes from weapons, but does make healing against spells more difficult, increasing their effectiveness.  It also means weapon users kill much less frequently, as they are much more likely now to simply knock them out instead. (Changing the rule so that when non-lethal damage exceeds current hit points causes a creatures to start dying would change that back...but then the damage isn't nonlethal any more.*)In 3.5 I'd probably stay away from it, because the casters are the ones in least need of help.  If all attacks were 50/50 things would be more balanced, but the problem of constantly knocking out rather then killing remains.  My preference is also to make things a little more swingy than 50/50, but that's not really a primary consideration here.  I think we could achieve something like this, but we'd have to tweak things so it doesn't weight so heavily in favor of spellcasters.* This points out an ambiguity in my original post: it's not clear when  knocking unconscious means "starts dying" or just knocking out.  If it  is always just knocking a person out then actual killing is fairly  difficult, if it is always "starts dying" then a person with 0 hp and 0  wound damage could die without having actually been injured.  Both  extremes strike me as a bug, although I could argue for "starts dying" if exhaustion/exertion can kill and because "starts dying" doesn't break the symmetry with normal hit points.  Otherwise I'll need a way to decide.  Something like dying if wounds > half maximum hp, or dying if you've taken any wound, and otherwise one is merely knocked unconscious. Starts dying with any wound damage is probably my initial choice to avoid big balance changes, but this clearly  requires more thought and needs to be integrated tightly with whatever death and dying rules otherwise exist.  Thank you for posing an enlightening scenario!</blockquote>

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