Sacrosanct
Legend
With the OGL mess over the past two months, I started going away from D&D mechanics and started thinking again of alternate systems.
What's a chief complaint of hit points in D&D? Creatures are simply bags of hit points and the attrition is boring.
What's another complaint? Too many classes are boring and don't have enough choices in combat other than to take away from that giant bag of hit points.
So I've been thinking. Keep in mind this is very rudimentary and just rough ideas, but I'm leaning more and more towards something like this:
Battle Resilience
This value represents your fighting staying power. Think of it as what most HP are in other games. BR can be determined by using a die type per level. I.e., a 5th level character might have 5d6 BR.
Health
This is your actual life. It's represented by a much smaller number than hit points have traditionally been viewed. This is determined by level and endurance. so that 5th level character with a +2 endurance modifier will have 7 health.
When your BR is reduced to zero or less, you remove one health, take one level of fatigue, and roll your BR die type add that + your endurance modifier to your BR.
Example of how they work together
5th level PC with 17 BR and 7 health. They get hit by an ogre and take 12 damage, so they reduce their BR by 12. Just like hit points in this regard. Let's say they get hit again for another 11 damage. That's more than the 5 remaining, so BR drops to 0, health is reduced by 1, they take one level of fatigue, and roll 1d6+2, adding that as their new current BR value.
So the longer combat takes and the more damage you take, the more fatigued you become, which enforces cumulative penalty.
But wait, there's more
As is, that's a bit different than bags of hit points, but not by much. So here's the key part: you can use BR to fuel maneuvers. Want to get a bonus to hit or damage? Spend BR to increase it. Want to increase movement or improve your chance to avoid something really bad (like a spell)? spend BR to increase your odds. As you get higher up, you can spend BR on more epic moves. Because it's the same metric (BR), there is a cost you have to weigh. You could never be actually hit in combat, but if you keep over-exerting yourself, you will still become fatigued to the point of collapse.
Thoughts?
What's a chief complaint of hit points in D&D? Creatures are simply bags of hit points and the attrition is boring.
What's another complaint? Too many classes are boring and don't have enough choices in combat other than to take away from that giant bag of hit points.
So I've been thinking. Keep in mind this is very rudimentary and just rough ideas, but I'm leaning more and more towards something like this:
Battle Resilience
This value represents your fighting staying power. Think of it as what most HP are in other games. BR can be determined by using a die type per level. I.e., a 5th level character might have 5d6 BR.
Health
This is your actual life. It's represented by a much smaller number than hit points have traditionally been viewed. This is determined by level and endurance. so that 5th level character with a +2 endurance modifier will have 7 health.
When your BR is reduced to zero or less, you remove one health, take one level of fatigue, and roll your BR die type add that + your endurance modifier to your BR.
Example of how they work together
5th level PC with 17 BR and 7 health. They get hit by an ogre and take 12 damage, so they reduce their BR by 12. Just like hit points in this regard. Let's say they get hit again for another 11 damage. That's more than the 5 remaining, so BR drops to 0, health is reduced by 1, they take one level of fatigue, and roll 1d6+2, adding that as their new current BR value.
So the longer combat takes and the more damage you take, the more fatigued you become, which enforces cumulative penalty.
But wait, there's more
As is, that's a bit different than bags of hit points, but not by much. So here's the key part: you can use BR to fuel maneuvers. Want to get a bonus to hit or damage? Spend BR to increase it. Want to increase movement or improve your chance to avoid something really bad (like a spell)? spend BR to increase your odds. As you get higher up, you can spend BR on more epic moves. Because it's the same metric (BR), there is a cost you have to weigh. You could never be actually hit in combat, but if you keep over-exerting yourself, you will still become fatigued to the point of collapse.
Thoughts?