Two excellent (I think) house rules that really changes D&D

[Arkhandus]

I like hit points and likely wouldn't enjoy a game involving just damage saves or whatnot (like Mutants & Masterminds, or True20), but I haven't had the chance to try the latter yet.

I rather prefer systems like Shadowrun's condition monitor, though. A mix of absolute damage tracking, and penalties/consequences for suffering different amounts of damage.

In SR, you have a condition monitor with two damage tracks, and a Physical Damage Overflow box for writing in how much excessive damage you've suffered (in case there's some small chance an ally or DocWagon might be able to save your sorry butt from dying, like if you're a really tough troll, or a physical adept - SR's equivalent of D&D's monks but much more martial/physical in focus).

You have 10 Physical Damage boxes, and 10 Stun Damage boxes. Each attack has a Power, and a Damage value, like 9M. The Power determines how tough it is to avoid or resist the attack, and the Damage value is how bad a wound you suffer from it. If you partially avoid it (IIRC), you take a lesser wound, and even if you don't, you might resist some of the damage through sheer toughness and armor (like if you're a troll, muahaha).

Damage is either a Light, Moderate, Serious, or Deadly wound, and you attempt to resist the damage if you're hit; if you evade or resist fairly well, you might suffer only a Light or Moderate wound (or none at all if the attack was only going to deliver an L or M wound in the first place). If the attacker rolls well on his attack though, he might cause you a greater wound than normal for his weapon, representing something close or equivalent to a critical hit. A Deadly wound deals 10 damage, a Serious wound deals 7 IIRC, a Moderate deals something like 3 or 4 damage, and a Light wound deals 1 damage. When your total wounds from the Stun track or the Physical track reach certain points, you suffer increasing penalties on rolls (including offensive, defensive, and other rolls, IIRC), which stack.

Some attacks deal Stun damage, others deal Physical. Once your Stun gauge is full you go unconscious, and further damage goes to the Physical gauge. When you Physical gauge is full, you either die or go unconscious and start bleeding to death (if I recall, you get a roll to see if you manage to avoid dying of shock right away from the Deadly wound). Then your Physical Overflow starts to fill and it gets harder and harder for folks to save you from death, with either medical attention or healing magic. Until you finally die of the excessive damage, or someone manages to narrowly save your hoop.

 

[Azlan]

In a campaign where the focus tends to be on dungeon crawling (or the equivalent thereof), I think a combat system with hit points is the better fit. In a campaign where the focus tends to be on storytelling and dramatic scenes, I think a combat system with damage saves, without hit points, is the better fit.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

THe second HR, Fatigue spell casting, looks interesting and echo's a thread here in this forum.. altho his DC formula is a bit lower

As to the Damage save vs Hit points, I would love to run a game using Ken Hood's Grim n Gritty..the best damage save/death spiral system I have seen for D20.. but it doesn't match the feel of my current campaign

 

[poltah]

I actually playtested the fatigue spell casting system yesterday, and it doesn't work. Well, actually it works okay at the lower levels, but high level play becomes pretty difficult. The wizard won't be able to cast nearly as many spells as he's used to in combat, and it's pretty confusing keeping track of a dc pr. level of spell you can cast.

 

[Bayonet_Chris]

Fatigue

I actually playtested the fatigue spell casting system yesterday, and it doesn't work. Well, actually it works okay at the lower levels, but high level play becomes pretty difficult. The wizard won't be able to cast nearly as many spells as he's used to in combat, and it's pretty confusing keeping track of a dc pr. level of spell you can cast.

I think I made that comment on the blog, although perhaps not as clearly as I would have liked: "So a 10th level sorcerer/wizard has a higher fatigue DC casting a 1st level spell than a 1st level one? The 10th level wizard's DC is 12 and the 1st level wizard's DC is 7.

That doesn't make sense to me. I would increase the base and make it more a factor of spell level - that way powerful wizards can cast lower level spells with far more ease than an apprentice. "

Saving throws don't scale as quickly as the fatigue formula, so you run into the exact problem you were experiencing.

 

[Presto2112]

Something I've been thinking about doing (haven't done it yet):

When a character is brought down to less than half of its hit points, the character is considered fatigued. If the character is already fatigued, it is considered exhausted.

When a character is brought down to less than 1/4 of its hit points it is considered exhausted.

Unlike normal conditions that induce fatigue and exhaustion, hit point fatigue and exhaustion can be alleviated by healing, either natural or magical.

I haven't figured out yet how (or if) I should work non-lethal damage into that system (ie. for regenerating creatures, or characters or monsters going for a KO instead of a kill).

 

[papastebu]

What I dislike about HP is that there's only a danger at the end of the combat. I mean, at higher levels you take fifteen hits and are still okay. You have to take A LOT of hits before there's any danger in the fight.
Also, I hate how an arrow pointed at you isn't really dangerous. You know you can just take that shot, and then kill whoever pointed that shot at you.
Somebody threatens you with a sword? Who cares, he'll hit you, you take the 12-20 points of damage, and then you kill him.

Earthdawn used a wound threshold system. Bigger, tougher--more hit points, higher constitution, etc.--characters would take wounds less often. I don't have these books here at the library, but the idea was that when a wound was incurred, the character took a penalty on all--I think--of his actions until the wound was mitigated in some way. Cure light wounds could do just that, if you wanted, and some sort of incremental healing spell could take care of actual hit points.
I believe this site has access as PDF files of some or all of the Earthdawn sourcebooks. Check them out, if you're interested. It seems like a good middle of the road solution.

I apologize if I've repeated someone else's info.