Using hit points to fuel abilities?

[Sacrosanct]

@Sacrosanct, see the Cypher System.

Not familiar with that system, but perhaps I should lol.

Since making the OP, I've made some significant changes. Including some that folks mentioned above (like getting rid of spell points and making pretty much everything powered by vigor. I also think I'm happy with my solution to avoid death spirals. By using desperation points that can only be used when you're wounded, you actually have more options to use, which helps offset the action point penalty you get from getting wounded in the first place. One of the big goals I wanted to do was to give players a lot of choices in how they use their resources.

 

[MacDhomnuill]

Yeah burning hit dice to power stuff would be my way forward

They are an under used resource pool. It also creates important player decisions at every short/long rest.

 

[DeviousQuail]

Not familiar with that system, but perhaps I should lol.

The gist is that you have 3 pools of ability points that you expend when you use abilities or want to apply effort to a roll (effectively reducing the difficult of the roll). These pools are also your health. If they all hit 0 you die. The way this is balanced is by using 'Edge'. Edge reduces the cost of using points from a pool, to a minimum of 0. It doesn't reduce incoming damage though, that's what Armor is for. Internalizing the concept can take a few sessions, but it handles the idea well.

 

[Umbran]

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?

My thought is that scaling matters. This will entail entirely rethinking how much damage opponents and weapons deal out.

In your base example, the refresh of BR isn't sufficient to take another hit. That character does not have BR to spare on powers, unless those powers are mighty enough to wipe the floor with the enemy.

 

[dbm]

This is also similar to how wounds and vitality worked in d20 Star Wars.

Each character has wounds equal to the Con score, and this remains at that level. Then they have vitality which increases with level. Damage comes off vitality first, but damage from crit hits bypass vitality and go straight to wounds.

Force powers cost vitality points to activate.

 

[TheSword]

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?

The Dark Souls 5e game uses the similar principle of usable Hp in what it calls Position - a confluence of Hp and bonus points gained at the start of any combat.

I don’t feel strongly about it either way, but I think people will be reluctant to use Hp when losing all of them results in death.

 

[Dreamscape]

I'm fond of using hit points to power spells or other mental powers.

 

[James Gasik]

Adventures in Rokugan and Kobold Press have ways to use Hit Dice for things other than healing, which I think is a great idea. For example, Monks and Sorcerers have access to Feats that let them cash in a Hit Die to regain some Ki/Sorcery points.