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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 5821174" data-attributes="member: 63">Steel Dragons, perhaps I should have said "HP represent your ability to avoid debilitating wounds." I'm just trying to model 'action movie' combat, and even a bit of 'classic Tolkien Fellowship of the Ring' combat, where people only usually suffer one 'wound' per fight, and that's the wound that drops them.I did propose a system in a different thread where getting hit was actually, y'know, getting hit. You always have about 10 hit points, from 1st level to 20th level, and the methods of increasing survivability at higher levels included improving your AC and saves, and getting things like damage reduction or magical shields that soak damage. In that system, a sword always does 1d8*, so it's very easy to say "He hits you and digs his sword into your thigh." Numbers easily match to actual effects. Bigger things have more HP, because they have more flesh to get through before you hit something vital. PCs only healed 1 HP every couple days without the aid of magic, because that's realistic . . . or at least it's realistic when HP = physical wound.*Maybe a high-level fighter does 1d8+5, but at the same level a PC's magic armor might soak up 5 points of damage per hit.I loved that system, but most gamers apparently want HP to increase as they level, and to get bigger damage numbers to show how cool they are. So if you're going to do that, there's simply no way for a "successful attack roll" to actually be a "solid hit" unless you really like the mental image of heroes with a dozen horrid wounds gushing blood all over the place at the end of each combat. Even John McClane in Die Hard only gets a little scraped up in any given encounter.My system above just changes the definition of HP. Hit Points represent your stamina, and physical wounds are their own thing. And yes, if you play football for a couple plays, get shoved around and tackled, but aren't really injured, then if you rest for five minutes you'll probably be good to get back into the game. If you spar in martial arts and get into joint locks or get bruised from kicks and punches, you'll hurt, but after a few minutes' rest you'd be able to have another bout.I admit, my system has flaws to its aesthetics. It's less 'hack and slash' than some would like. You wear down a foe before delivering a killing blow, instead of stabbing him a dozen times before he goes down.And perhaps you should have a limit to how often you can heal HP due to 'getting your breath back.'And stuff like giant monsters end up a little weird, because you actually do hack into their flesh a lot before they die. Which is why I preferred my other system, where HP never scaled.</blockquote>

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