Poll: VP & WP or HP ?

[Shadowlord]

I hope that in 4th ed the current HP system will get cured of its shortcomings. I was never in favour of changing the system drastically, but 4th ed should consider VP/WP. It’s not much more complicated (hardly!) and still fits the D20/D&D genre.Lets look what advantages a VP/WP system offers.

- Spells can only heal Vitality, so that you don’t have that ridiculous “now I’m almost dead, now I’m totally healthy” aspect. This is not a video game, and death & damage shouldn’t be taken that lightly!

- Wounds take much longer to restore, and can be restored through a Heal check DC 20. This requires the Surgeon feat else you suffer a -4 penalty. Succes means you restore 1d4 WP which takes one week. Failure by 5 or more makes you loose 1 WP instead. Some feat or class ability called “Improved Surgery” could restore 1d6 WP. See D20 Modern.
All this means you could be hurt that badly that you would suffer days or weeks from injury, as opposed to the silly instantaneous magic healing (yet you have enough VP & DR to keep adventuring, you're just in risky shape).

- Armor, granting a DR, wouldn’t get obsolete as is now often the case.

- Criticals simply ignore one layer of hardness/VP which make that system a bit easier.

 

[hong]

VP/WP as written falls between the cracks. On the one hand, it's trying to be "realistic", in that one good hit from a blaster (or sniper rifle, or greataxe, or whatever) can take out even the most experienced hero. On the other hand, it's also trying to be "cinematic", in that experienced heroes can take lots of hits without too much trouble. These are contradictory aims.

Which isn't to say that you can't tweak VP/WP to be realistic _or_ cinematic, just not both at the same time. I use VP/WP in my current D&D game, but with the important proviso that you can't ever do damage direct to WP. Instead, critical hits do multiplied damage to VP, which are basically the same as hit points in regular D&D. The end result is that damage regenerates at the accelerated rate for VP, which means less putzing around with healing spells and reduced need for a party medic. This puts the game squarely in the cinematic camp, which is exactly where I want it, occasional idiocy about "video games" from the peanut gallery notwithstanding.

 

[Shadowlord]

VP/WP as written falls between the cracks.

Which is why it is so good!
Too realistic & too cinematic are both bad; the former takes away the fun of a game, the latter takes away believability of an RPG and thus suspense.
This isn't a final version of a VP/WP system, ot's a basic idea which would need fine-tuning.

 

[hong]

Which is why it is so good!

For your next trick, I suppose you'll prove that black is white, and get yourself killed at the next zebra crossing?

Too realistic & too cinematic are both bad; the former takes away the fun of a game, the latter takes away believability of an RPG and thus suspense.

You need to broaden your horizons.

 

[maddman75]

Don't like them. At all. If I were to describe something like this to my players they'd look at me like I was nuts. If you want a more realistic feel, the Grim&Gritty hit points are a much better solution.

 

[KnowTheToe]

Hit points are simple and clean. It would be nice to have a VP & WP option in the DMG, but I still like the simple HP system. VP & WP = Rules overload and makes my head explode.

 

[Arnwyn]

*shrug* Meh. HPs are good enough for me.

 

[Red Baron]

I can live with hp, no problem, but IMG we've been using WP/VP for over a year now, I think. My group seems to like it, but I know none of them has incorporated it into their own games (with other groups) yet.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I use the VP/WP system, and though I try to keep it as close to "as written" as possible (for simplicity's sake) some things certainly have to be changed to make it work in D&D. But that isn't to say I don't find the VP/WP system infinitely superior to hit points. Anything that increases low-level characters' power, and decreases high-level power gets a big gold star in my book. Realistic yet cinematic is very groovy IMHO.

That being said, I do disagree with a great deal of philosophy on the subject. For example, I think cure spells should cure wound points first, and then carry over into vitality, the reason being that it solves the HP logic hole where cure light wounds will close a gaping wound and bring 1st-level commoner to full every time, and it will heal two bruises and a scaped knee for a 20th level fighter while the many life-threatening injuries remain untouched.

Plus, VP already recover on an hourly, rather than a daily basis, so magical healing for VP isn't all that important, and the cleric is no longer an "essential" class. Anything that lets the players roleplay the party they want to is also very groovy in my book. On a side note, I do have a Surgery feat available to characters in my campaign's technologist class, that aids in quick restoration of wound points. But it's still more inefficient than a cleric spell, as it should be -- not because magic is "like a video game," but because magic is magic.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I like hp. They work for me.

But if a DM wanted to go for VP/WP, fine. Whatever he wants to try. It doesn't seem like a bad system to me, but hp works just fine too.