If D&D did not have HPs, how would you keep track of damage?

[ExploderWizard]

I would use a hole puncher to punch holes in the character sheet (different classes get different sizes of paper to represent how much damage they can withstand). Anything you cannot read anymore you cannot use, because you are so wounded.

Not sure how to do healing, though...

Bye
Thanee

Thats funny. You could use the concept but change it up a little. Have character sheets inside of page protectors and use sticky circles to cover up bits of the sheet. The size of the circle determines the severity of the wound. Remove the stickers when healed.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I would use a hole puncher to punch holes in the character sheet (different classes get different sizes of paper to represent how much damage they can withstand). Anything you cannot read anymore you cannot use, because you are so wounded.

Not sure how to do healing, though...

Tape and a magnifying glass?

Anything you tape wrong causes permanent damage?

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I was gonna say that too. But in a way it is also HP, just a more complex one. You still got essentially health points, just lots fewer and their dots that degrade differently depending on how damage is dealt. Plus the additional costs of lower health.

I don't really see it as the same. Typically everyone has the same number of "Squares" (in oWoD everyone had 7). In oWoD you didn't gain more as you "Level up". In nWoD you can gain more by purchasing a higher stat but you can't directly raise it except perhaps through the purchase of a merit.

With the nWoD system a character who has been played over the course of a year isn't really any more survivable (damage-wise) than a brand new PC. Damage from an attack is just as likely to kill an experienced character as a new one.

In a Hit Point system like D&D you know that a character that you've played for a year is going to be much more survivable.

 

[Switchblade]

The shadowrun (3rd ed) condition box system works well, with a gain of experience not giving you more boxes, just more Karma rerolls to avoid the damage in the first place.
The Ars magica (4th)/old world of darkness damage level would come in a close second. (They are both somewhat similar.)

 

[jdsivyer]

Hit points and D&D are kind of one and the same. Without hit points the game starts to become something other than D&D. The concept of being able to take more abuse as you increase your skills is central to the D&D class and level system. My answer is,that if I were to change the system away from hit points, then it would no longer be D&D.

I understand what you mean, but I would tend to disagree a little. I mean, D&D has changed many things over the years and it's still D&D - look at what 4e did to spellcasters, for instance. They essentially took away the Vancian system of spellcasting but it's still D&D - and that kind of "slot system" was considered a sacred cow by many. Now I know powers are a kind of slot system, but in my book the difference between spellcasters in 3e and earlier editions AND 4e is quite significant.

So I don't think changing HPs in D&D would change the game to something different.

A lot of games allow you to take more abuse as your skills increase (many in the way of increasing your CON or BODY score (as in Shadowrun)); it's just that D&D does it in the form of HPs. But if you didn't like the concept of a simple larger number of HPs (like how a dragon can have 1000 + and combat turns into a simple game of attrition), how could you change it?

I'm just asking, are there people out there who play D&D but use a different way of tracking damage?

The True20 and M&M mechanics are an idea to start with...anyone else got any ideas?

 

[Ydars]

I would design the damage/healing system so that it can work for two different paradigms at once; the cinematic, arse-kicking fast healing one and a realistic, nasty and gritty one where healing is rare.

I would keep HP but redfine them to mean actual physical harm, not some mixture of morale, physical and spiritual damage. You might then see a game in which HP never increase with level, leading to a game where characters CAN die realistic deaths.

Then I would give PCs things like per encounter "fate points" that they can spend to reduce a wound that would ordinarily deal physical damage to dealing a sort of temp damage to a "fatigue score" that equates to the character's morale and ability to fight and avoid harm. This fatigue is what would increase with level, as would the fate points.

I would make fatigue the focus of warlord powers and inspiring words and all "in battle healing" etc (as I like these mechanics, but hate the mix-up now where HP loss/gain equates with no actual mesaurable property).

Real healing (of HP loss) should be painfully slow without magical aid and even then it would please me to see some mechanics for permanent harm from HP loss.

I think it is time for D&D to 'fess up to its pulp roots; and it is rare in this type of story for a hero to be physically wounded, though they get the crap kicked out of them and roughed up regularly.

To cater for those who want the gritty realistic game I would have two types of monsters; those that can deal real HP physical damage straight up and those that have to chew through the fate points and fatigue first. The latter monsters can be used in cinematic combats whilst the former are very deadly at all levels and can be used to ground the game in a bit of reality.

That way D&D could return to being a system for all gamers and not just those who like cinematic combat and gamist subsystems.

Just a few thoughts.

 

[justanobody]

I wouldn't remove hit points, so will wait for this thread to fork in that direction to explain "fixing" hit points and the attack/damage system.

 

[Ydars]

I think that this thread would be better prefaced by saying that "many people don't like what HP represent" rather than lets get rid of them, though the thread has stimulated some interesting thoughts already.

I have never liked HP because it was never clear exactly what they represented at any given point of time (this was largely true in any edition of the game). They clearly were not physical damage, because that would mean that major wounds have no effect on fighting ability.

So for me the problem is not "how do we get rid of them" but more "how do we redefine them to be useful " both from a "playing the game" point of view and a "describing the action" POV.

 

[pawsplay]

If it didn't have a bun, you would get meat and cheese on your hands!

But basically, if D&D didn't have hit points, I would just go play True20 or Hero or GURPS or something.

 

[The Little Raven]

If it didn't have a bun, you would get meat and cheese on your hands!

"Word."

"Alright, we'll look into it."

If I didn't use hit points, I'd punch my players in the face every time they take damage. This would quickly lead away from combat-based games, I suspect.