My HP Fix

[I'm A Banana]

Blah blah blah HP wars blah blah blah Extended Rests blah blah blah Warlords blah blah blah today's Legend and Lore column blah blah blah.

Let KM make it all better.

1. Cut HP In Half. Your bottom half is still called HP. Your top half is now called Fate (this matches what the 5e playtest document already says, but is a slight twist in terminology).
2. You can loose Fate instead of HP. Whenever you take HP damage from anything, you can opt to loose Fate instead of HP. At zero Fate, nothing happens. At zero HP, you start that whole dying thing.
3. Can it kill you or knit flesh? Then it can deal or heal HP damage. Swords and falls and arrows and magic blasts of power and whatever else might be actually potentially deadly can deal HP damage. You can ablate this with Fate. Herbs and poultices and magic and rests (long rests) can heal HP. Perhaps crits always deal HP damage.
4. Is it luck/skill/heroism/juju/plot armor? Then it's Fate. Hey, Warlord Screamy Healing, or Bard Insulty Damage, you're not going to knit my flesh or blow up my enemies, but you can give/drain me Fate, which will prevent my flesh from being more rent asunder, and make my enemies more likely to die horribly later.
5. The "Rest" of the story. See what I did there? Anyway, there's three rests: a Brief Rest (after an encounter) gives you (some of) your Fate back. A Short Rest (after a day) gives you your Fate back, + some HP. An Extended Rest (say, a week) gives you everything back.

I hear what you're saying: "KM! This is awsome! I loved it even more when it was called VP/WP and everyone thought of it one million years ago."

And I say: Yes. This is mostly a mild conceptual shift. But it lets you do something, if you don't much like HP-as-plot-armor: You can ignore Fate. That is, you don't have to use it. Players don't get any, and they don't get to use any.

You know what that means?

That means Fate is an add-on module to HP.

Because it's easy to time-shift rests, you can also say that a night's rest does everything and a short rest heals both fate and HP or whatever. That's easy to deal with.

I know you hate it already, because everyone hates everything about HP threads, so remember, if you unload in this thread with your snarktopus, you're going to make this puppy cry:

Sad Puppy Bonus Round: HP should be linked to tier and not necessarily to level.

The End. Arf.

 

[kitsune9]

Interesting KM. I'm just more inclined to cut hp in half and dump Fate though.

Okay, let me include:

"KM! This is awsome! I loved it even more when it was called VP/WP and everyone thought of it one million years ago."

 

[GX.Sigma]

If HP is meat, characters should never increase their maximum HP total. 10th level fighters should have 1d10 HP and 9d10 fate.

 

[mlund]

If HP is meat, characters should never increase their maximum HP total. 10th level fighters should have 1d10 HP and 9d10 fate.

Actually, we should just go the full GURPS on it. Each character has "Health" equal to his Constitution. That's all. You don't grow more meat as you level.

But then what kind of points could we roll for each level that represent the character using his skill, luck, fate, and whatever to protect his squishy meat-sack from being maimed when an enemy hits his AC with an attack roll?

Oh, I've got a great idea! We'll call them "Hit Points" since they represent your ability to sustain hits in the combat system. It's not like anyone is going to read the abbreviation of "HP" and think "Health Points" or picture pixilated little red hearts that go away as your character gets limbs chopped off or anything ...

Seriously, though. Link Health to the Con Score and abstract HP completely. Damage passing HP hits your Con score. Con = 0 and you're dying. Con = -Maximum and you're dead. Con damage can only be healed by medical treatment or magical healing. By the by, Con penalties reduce your Hit Dice rolls - almost as if being horribly maimed made it much harder to avoid dying in general.

- Marty Lund

 

[GX.Sigma]

Actually, we should just go the full GURPS on it. Each character has "Health" equal to his Constitution. That's all. You don't grow more meat as you level.

But then what kind of points could we roll for each level that represent the character using his skill, luck, fate, and whatever to protect his squishy meat-sack from being maimed when an enemy hits his AC with an attack roll?

Oh, I've got a great idea! We'll call them "Hit Points" since they represent your ability to sustain hits in the combat system. It's not like anyone is going to read the abbreviation of "HP" and think "Health Points" or picture pixilated little red hearts that go away as your character gets limbs chopped off or anything ...

Seriously, though. Link Health to the Con Score and abstract HP completely. Damage passing HP hits your Con score. Con = 0 and you're dying. Con = -Maximum and you're dead. Con damage can only be healed by medical treatment or magical healing. By the by, Con penalties reduce your Hit Dice rolls - almost as if being horribly maimed made it much harder to avoid dying in general.

- Marty Lund

I've got an even better idea: A person can only withstand one good hit before getting seriously wounded and incapacitated, right? So why not have all your HP be these abstract HP? Then when something gets all the way through your HP (when you have 0 HP left), that counts as your first real "meat" hit, and it puts you into a "wounded" or "dying" state.

And maybe then it could be keyed to your Con, like if you had to roll a Con save every round to see if you got better or worse, or if you have a reservoir of "health" (negative HP, if you will) that equals your Con score, and you die when you hit that?

 

[Danzauker]

Actually, we should just go the full GURPS on it. Each character has "Health" equal to his Constitution. That's all. You don't grow more meat as you level.

But then what kind of points could we roll for each level that represent the character using his skill, luck, fate, and whatever to protect his squishy meat-sack from being maimed when an enemy hits his AC with an attack roll?

Oh, I've got a great idea! We'll call them "Hit Points" since they represent your ability to sustain hits in the combat system. It's not like anyone is going to read the abbreviation of "HP" and think "Health Points" or picture pixilated little red hearts that go away as your character gets limbs chopped off or anything ...
- Marty Lund

Nice idea!!

Well, I'd personally add something to the bare Con, following character's advancement. You know, just to represent the fantasy trope that an epic character can suffer wounds that would kill a lesser man.

I'd say Con + level could do.

Then, in order to differentiate Health Points and Hit points, why not make the former negative? Starting from 0 and going down until you die?

And I'd add the touch that when you first finish your Hit Points and get your flesh wounded, You fall unconscious. Just for style, you know.

Wait...

 

[GX.Sigma]

Nice idea!!

Well, I'd personally add something to the bare Con, following character's advancement. You know, just to represent the fantasy trope that an epic character can suffer wounds that would kill a lesser man.

I'd say Con + level could do.

Then, in order to differentiate Health Points and Hit points, why not make the former negative? Starting from 0 and going down until you die?

And I'd add the touch that when you first finish your Hit Points and get your flesh wounded, You fall unconscious. Just for style, you know.

Wait...

Beat you to it.

 

[Danzauker]

Beat you to it.

We could mix ad match the two proposals.

What about some "stabilizing" mechanic?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Its not terrible but it does make two pools of stuff to stack, keep separate, and remember what rejuvenates what.

My idea is a bit simpler. There is enough agreement around here that HP represents a bunch of elements which, when all is said and done, only seem to translate to wounds or incapacitation when a character runs out of them.

How about the hit point and healing rates stay just as they are with the exception of one circumstance:

Things change when anyone is reduced to 0 HP or less. Thus hit points are all just dings, bumps & bruises until the hit that takes you down. Whatever reduces a creature to 0 hp or less causes an appropriate actual wound.

If the hit that caused the wound was delivered as a non-lethal attack then the victim awakes in 2d6 hours with 1 HP as per the normal rules.

If the hit that caused the wound was a lethal attack then recovery time is needed. The wounded character will awaken in 2d6 hours but will still have 0 HP for a time determined by his/her CON score:

CON SCORE DAYS OF REST
1 8
2-3 7
4-5 6
6-7 6
8-9 5
10-11 5
12-13 5
14-15 4
16-17 4
18-19 3
20-21 2

While at 0 HP the wounded can walk short distances, but must otherwise rest. Strenuous activity will negate healing for that day. No normal means will restore the character to 1 HP including healing magic*. At the end of the rest period the character gains 1 HP and can be healed as normal.

* Magic to restore a character more quickly to 1 HP should be available in ritual form but rare and expensive. All normal healing magic works only as described so long as the recipient has 1HP.

Thus characters can end up with long term injuries but must actually be taken down by a lethal attack for that to happen. Nothing separate to track and you know when to describe something as a wound.

 

[YRUSirius]

Marty Lund, GX.Sigma and Danzauker, your ideas are brilliant!

I can't XP you anymore though.

-YRUSirius