[Playtest 2] HP thresholds

[Ellington]

I don't really think there has been enough discussion on the hp thresholds a lot of spells and abilities have in the playtest so far. I'm not a big fan of them as they're currently implemented, but in the interest of fairness let's look on some of the positives they provide.

They're simple and speed up gameplay

The hp thresholds are incredibly simple. Whether or not a creature is effected can be resolved with a simple yes/no question: "Is the creature's maximum HP X or lower?" There's no rolling, no adding or subtracting. It's either got a set amount of maximum HP or it doesn't.

It makes players feel in control

It can be incredibly infuriating for players to have their abilities foiled by a lucky saving throw of a creature much weaker than they are. Being able to reliably use spells such as Bane and Suggestion against weaker creatures without having them make saving throws makes you feel empowered and more ready to prepare those spells in the future.

So yeah, there are definitely some upsides to the HP thresholds as they currently are. But what about some of the downsides.

It encourages metagaming

"Hey, why don't you use suggestion against that minotaur?"
"Nah, man. Minotaurs have 52 HP. It won't work."

This is probably my biggest beef with the thresholds. It encourages players to memorize the HP of creatures to know exactly what works on what and what doesn't. And can you blame them? Wasting a valuable spell slot on a creature you have no way of determining the HP of without checking the book feels bad. Casting a mind affecting spell against a creature that has a high will save isn't a "bad" decision, it's just risky. After all, the creature might fail its saving throw. Casting a spell against a creature that has a higher maximum HP than the threshold of your spell is risky, but in another way. You're not tempting the luck of the die, you're tempting your knowledge of the creature's stats. Wasting a spell on a creature that exceeds your threshold isn't a risky decision: it's a wrong decision.

It gives HP a role it shouldn't necessarily have

Should your maximum hit points be a better defense against spells such as suggestion and charm person instead of your mental stats? Should a creature with low INT/WIS/CHA saves be immune to abilities that a creature of the same challenge rating with higher mental stats, but with a lower CON score, isn't? I don't know, but it doesn't feel right to me. HP isn't always an accurate assessment of a creature's power. Trolls (level 6 elite monsters) have less HP than gelatinous cubes (level 2 solo monsters) for instance. I don't think it should be a habit players should adopt when figuring out how powerful a creature is.

Moreover, your own HP can be the deciding factor in how effective your abilities are. The playtest warlock can gain an advantage on social skills against a creature with a lower max HP than the warlock. How does that make sense? Why is the effectiveness of this ability determined by your CON score instead of, say, your CHA score or even your primary attribute, your INT?

I can accept that HP thresholds aren't all bad, but as they're currently implemented I feel as if their negatives outweigh their positives. If they want a quick system such as this, they need to create a system that:

1) Measures a creature's overall power by its level or experience value instead of its HP value.
2) allows players to assess a monster's power without prior knowledge of the its stats. Perhaps the various lore skills could be used for this?

What say you?

 

[Bow_Seat]

I say yay and nay

I think it is a good mechanic because:

it gives small built in bonus to higher hp classes

it makes sense for making big boss creatures automatically immune to certain spells that would insta-gib them. It sucks when your boss rolls a nat. 1 against charm monster.

it's fast


I think it is a bad mechanic because:

it encourages meta-gaming, which is tricky because if your pc's have used it before then they could have just figured out which monsters it works/doesn't work on.

 

[tlantl]

I don't much care for the way spells are handled in these tests. HP thresholds are merely one aspect of the design that bother's me. Badly described effects, incredibly high damage output and bizarre spell durations just make me groan when I look at them.

It seems like the devs are trying to turn most of these spells into encounter powers by limiting their durations to a minute, effects lasting until the end of your next turn are nigh on useless. they certainly do nothing to alleviate the 5mwd issue, not to mention that they detract from my suspension of disbelief.

I guess it's going to be a long hard road we'll be travelling before these issues are ironed out. As it stands now I'm not well pleased.

 

[slobo777]

From the DM's seat I dislike the meta-gaming I will have to avoid (or use to throw the spellcaster some feel-good).

When I prepare a session, I will already know which creatures the PC spellcaster can affect with which spells. This will mean I have a lot of control over the effectiveness of the spellcaster, and have to tread a line between making creatures immune to or vulnerable to PC effects. Now I don't mind doing that from time to time, but I really don't want it to be a consideration in every encounter I plan. I also prefer some middle ground - resistances and good defences against specific things leave room for more options IMO.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I like the hp tresholds for some spells. But mind affecting spells are a bit strange, as the will of the creature is not taken into account.

But this would be easily remedied, by adding HP treshold is X hp - creatures wisdom.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I like hp threshold for physical effects hold person, destruction, disintegrate all great.

I hate hp threshold for mental effects. Suggestion and dominate suck.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I like the current HP thresholds, but not the maximum HP thresholds. The former are cool, because it allows you to beat down a powerful enemy and then finish them off with the spell. I can buy that a powerful creature is less able to resist magic when they're tired and injured. But Maximum HP thresholds feel false to me and introduce the metagame problems mentioned above.

 

[DogBackward]

I think it should go from HP to Hit Dice. It's not a measure of pure toughness and stamina so much as it is one of overall experience and resilience, which is better measured by HD. Especially since the current method means that the mentally resistant, high Int/Wis/Cha caster type monsters are more susceptible to charm, domination and other such abilities than melee type monsters.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I like the current HP thresholds, but not the maximum HP thresholds. The former are cool, because it allows you to beat down a powerful enemy and then finish them off with the spell. I can buy that a powerful creature is less able to resist magic when they're tired and injured. But Maximum HP thresholds feel false to me and introduce the metagame problems mentioned above.

I also like this because while theoretically it doesn't address the "mental", low hit point characters being harder to charm or confuse, in actual practice it often will. Those "physical" guys are out there getting beat up, which is knocking their hit points down to a lower level. Characters with higher "mental" characteristics are generally avoiding this, when possible.

Sure, you'll have particular cases where this isn't true--the start of a fight with several NPCs sitting right on the cusp of the threshold, where the size of the hit die matters. But I think the thresholds can be set such that this will not happen often.

That doesn't mean that I think even the current hit point method couldn't be improved and/or replaced with something better, but it is certainly more palatable than the maximum hit point threshold.

 

[Yora]

Since the threshold is a different number for every spell, I don't see any time saving in them. I can't remember all of them, so I'll be looking them up all the time.

That suggestion seems to work only on creatures with 50 hp or less is bad, and for all other spells, I don't see any benefit from having the threshold in the first place.

Rather than saying "creatures with X hp or less get no save", I'd rather have "creatures with Intelligence 12 or lower get no save". That makes a lot more sense.