Monte Cook's HP House Rule: Health & Grace

[Flynn]

This is exactly the Stamina/Lifeblood solution that Traveller T20 has used since it came out in late 2002. If you want some good rules for using this approach, check out Traveller T20 by Quiklink, Inc.

Enjoy,
Flynn

 

[Nifft]

I always like my idea... if HP represent luck and fortune and so on, let's make it based on Cha!

This explains why people trash-talk at the beginning of fights.

They're testing each other's Charisma modifiers.

Woah, -- N

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

2. You have a point here. I might have to say that poison only takes effect if the attack caused health damage.

Hm, suddenly poison and a bunch of other special abilities/weapon qualities suck [more than they already did].

 

[Li Shenron]

2. You have a point here. I might have to say that poison only takes effect if the attack caused health damage.

It doesn't need to. You can just say that the poison strikes you on a scratch, and you certainly can say that you get scratched even while in "grace area".

 

[Quartz]

Hell, we could go the whole hog and have BODY, STUN, and END. Oh wait...

 

[drewnchick]

It doesn't need to. You can just say that the poison strikes you on a scratch, and you certainly can say that you get scratched even while in "grace area".

I was about to make the same comment. Taking Monte's mention of the way movies generally play out, we see that both hero and villain are fairly beat up, bruised, scratched, and even wounded outright "while their grace is being used up." But then comes the last 2-3 blows that really does 'em in -- "they're taking actual damage."

So, I would think that poisoned weapons, energy weapons, and even weapons that deal damage with but a touch (and there are a few of these) still deal that "extra" damage even while "grace" is being used up. It's a sensical rule, IMO.

Drew

 

[Meeki]

Generally I see hit points as a measure on how well you react to being physically damaged, how much pain someone can take. The more hitpoints you have the less effect 1 loss of a hitpoint will have on you. If someone has 10 hitpoints and takes 8 damage from a longsword the description would be something like "You cut deeply into the bandit's side, not quite knocking him down (i.e. into negs) but he is barely standing". Now if that same bandit had 50 hp and you did 8 damage it should sound like "Your blow connects to the bandit's chest, penetrating his armor, but he rolls with the attack and the force is only enough to cause a small cut, causing him considerable pain but nothing life threatening." People with more constitution can withstand more pain.

Against magic it works a bit different. 10 points of fire damage may be significant at level 2 but at level 12 its not. Now the character may be burnt the exact same way but the extra hp's means the character can withstand that pain and the body doesn't react the same way anymore. It may be a bit supernatural but it works.

Really I don't see a reason to tweak the system if you are just going to use large amounts of numbers someone has to burn through to kill/disable a character, essentially the same thing as hp.