NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grydan" data-source="post: 5697760" data-attributes="member: 79401">As old issues disappear, new issues arise.One is that any effect that can bypass the buffer of "fatigue" hit points and go  directly to the "physical" hit points is vastly more powerful and desirable  than ones that cannot. If, as you suggest, falling damage bypasses the buffer, then any effect  that can push an opponent off an edge, or even better lift them and drop  them, becomes signficantly better than one that just deals damage. If, as you suggest, fire damage bypasses the buffer, fire spells and flaming weapons become dramatically more powerful than even pushing or lifting/dropping, because you aren't limited by the local environment. A system where a torch is a better weapon than a sword has... issues.Systems such as what you are proposing have been used before, even by WotC. One of their Star Wars RPG systems used Vitality Points and Wound Points.For their final take on the game (Saga Edition), they abandoned the system, and replaced it with a HP + Condition Track (death spiral) system instead.Why? Well, one of the reasons they gave is that they felt the system was far too lethal. They felt that moving away from it allowed them to better capture the heroic and cinematic flavour of the Star Wars films, which like D&D are occupied by swashbuckling adventurers, clever scoundrels, and beautiful princesses. Do some people want D&D to be grittier and more lethal than that? Certainly. I'm not one of them, though.As soon as ways exist to bypass a large chunk of a character's health, then those methods become what the game is really about. Save or Die effects trump HP damage. "Physical" damage trumps "fatigue" damage.</blockquote>

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