systems without levels or hp's

[Patman21967]

That's funny Die_kluge...RQ was the same...I remember a Lord-Priest of Yelmalio getting critted in the head by a measly trollkin with a sling and dying. I had a really powerful character take one in the chest from a pud, and die. The problem is finding people, at least around here, to try other games. Espescially after most of us have shelled out a couple hundred bucks on DnD 3.x stuff. Then along comes a new game, and you see the dollar signs. I would love to run some of the games I read about on here, but i can't ask my players to go shell out another 40-50 bucks every time a whim takes me...I found all the midnight stuff on sale at my FLGS for about 50% off, and next paycheck am gonna buy it...but lot's of luck ever seeing it run...noone else around here has it.

Later,
Pat

 

[Timeboxer]

Nobilis has a rather interesting damage system that it uses -- you get Wound Levels of three flavors, Deadly, Serious, and Surface. The author, when she built the system, decided that an HP system didn't work conceptually for really powerful and talented beings, because eight thousand tiny little scratches is equivalent to a single huge blow.

Thus, Wound Levels. You do not take Serious or Surface Wound Level damage unless you are first damaged seriously enough to lose all of your Deadly Wound Levels. Similarly, you don't take Surface Wound Levels unless you are damaged seriously to lose all Serious Wound Levels.

The upshot of this is that if you're at full strength, diving through a glass window should give you minimal (negligible) damage, whereas if you've already had several bullets implanted into your body by way of physics, it might be just enough to finally finish you off.

 

[Thanee]

Sounds pretty exactly like the Kult damage system.

Bye
Thanee

 

[GlassJaw]

I don't mind hit points, but not I'm a big fan of d20's linear hit point curve. That is where you put a 20th level guy in the guillotine, but the blade only does 10 points of damage, and he has 200 hit points, so you have to slam it down on him at least a good 20 times before his head gets cut off!

Well this is just one example of the major limitation of the hit point system: abstractness.

No one system is going to be able to completely emulate reality but d20 takes a LOT more for granted than many other systems. When you roll your attack roll and score a "hit", only a small percentage of that "damage" would actually correlate into actual physical damage.

To this day, no matter how much I play d20, I still scratch my head over the fact that the combat system attempts to be so tactical and precise (spacing, AoO's, 5' steps, etc) yet one of the core mechanics of the system, the wound/damage system, is also the most abstract!

 

[Henry]

I don't mind hit points, but not I'm a big fan of d20's linear hit point curve. That is where you put a 20th level guy in the guillotine, but the blade only does 10 points of damage, and he has 200 hit points, so you have to slam it down on him at least a good 20 times before his head gets cut off!

Three words: Coup de Grace. That's a critical hit, Fort Save vs. DC 30.

I am, however, a fan of fewer hit points for a character, but it's mainly for the ease of math than anything else. Attacks don't need to do more damage if the characters have fewer hit points.

To this day, no matter how much I play d20, I still scratch my head over the fact that the combat system attempts to be so tactical and precise (spacing, AoO's, 5' steps, etc) yet one of the core mechanics of the system, the wound/damage system, is also the most abstract!

I could see it that way, but to be honest op-attacks and squares aren't that precise. I'm used to the old days of sand-tables and measuring tape, so counting off squares is abstract as heck to me, compared to the old ways of doing it - heck, we STILL bust out the measuring tape for a non-horizontal charge or circular radius-spells.

 

[Omro Gamer]

Harnmaster, no hit points static or otherwise, no levels

 

[Glyfair]

Another one that I like is HeroQuest, though I'm not that thrilled with the Glorantha setting. It's relatively easy to adapt to just about any other setting, luckily enough. A non-Glorantha version of the rules, QuestWorlds, is apparently coming some time this year.

Actually, I think Glorantha is absolutely my favorite RPG world, ever. Unfortunately, the magic has disappeared for me in recent years. The number of key things that have been "retconned" because of the need for "anthropological accuracy" has sapped my interest.

There are no classes, levels, and your HP are divided per body part, based on your Con and a few other mods...It is a d100 system, for the most part.

Come on Pat, you know that while each body part has HPs, there is a base HP stat to keep track of, too I'm sure you've played RQ since I have. Of course, it does lack levels.

Of the games I've played, Heroquest/Hero Wars comes the closest to a system with no levels or hit points (and nothing resembling them). I want to play the Dying Earth RPG some time, but I don't recall whether it has HPs or not.

 

[Psion]

To this day, no matter how much I play d20, I still scratch my head over the fact that the combat system attempts to be so tactical and precise (spacing, AoO's, 5' steps, etc) yet one of the core mechanics of the system, the wound/damage system, is also the most abstract!

And after all these years, it still remains so.

The thing to keep in mind is that there is an element of "script immunity" built in to the mechanics. There were a few goes at one-hit-kill criticals and similar mechanics, but many people found them unsatisfactory because they tended to, over the course of a campaign, kill hard-won experienced characters with a single random roll.

Yeah, you could (as some games do) give the characters some sort of "salvation" points that grant the script immunity while providing a little better detail. But really, that would be another complication to the game that some say has gotten too complex as it is, and the escalating hit point rule seems to do the job in a mostly* tidy fashion.

* - I say mostly, because there are some incongruities that bug me as well, but I'll accept those in lieu of adding a few more layers of complexity to acheive the same thing.

 

[Yair]

* - I say mostly, because there are some incongruities that bug me as well, but I'll accept those in lieu of adding a few more layers of complexity to acheive the same thing.

It isn't the hp's that bug me, it is that they are related to taking damage when they should, and by their description are (to some degree), related to avoiding damage. Hit points should be renamed to Karma Points and modify the attack roll rather than the damage roll, and then I'll be happy.
Of course, you can't do that without changing how armor works, and hence how weapons work, and then there are spells.... arrrgggg!

As for a system without hp or levels, I'm an avid fun of Ars Magica.

 

[Psion]

It isn't the hp's that bug me, it is that they are related to taking damage when they should, and by their description are (to some degree), related to avoiding damage. Hit points should be renamed to Karma Points and modify the attack roll rather than the damage roll, and then I'll be happy.

Would it surprise you to know that, of my personal list of four conceptual hangups I have with hp, that's #1?