D&D 5E Variant HP

[Tormyr]

I like this one. But I'd add a wound at half HP or at a certain threshold, like 1/4 your HP at once. What do you think about that?

The original Fable game gave you scars if you were taken too close to unconsciousness. Maybe going unconscious would give a wound as well as if you took more than half your HP in one hit? As it is, I probably would not formalize it. A wound might fit better if it fit within the story. If you take damage from a called shot you lose the use of the limb. Or if you survive a 20d6 fall you get all the bones in your body shattered.

 

[Paraxis]

I for one am fine with the by the book way of hit points and AC, for most campaign types.

For a darker grim and gritty type game I might want to use a wounds variant, AC and HP work as normal but any critical hit or any attack that drops you to 0 h.p causes a wound. Having a wound is just like taking a level of exhaustion, but a successful medicine roll say DC 10 is needed in addition to the long rest and food/water to remove a level of fatigue.

I like this one. But I'd add a wound at half HP or at a certain threshold, like 1/4 your HP at once. What do you think about that?

Sure, you could set the dial of what causes a wound to different places to get tone it up or down.
Ideas of things that might cause a wound.

• Going below half hit points
• Taking a damage in excess of your Con score
• Suffering a critical hit
• Droping to 0 hit points
• Droping to 1/4 hit points
• For every 6 that gets rolled from falling damage (any fall of 60' or higher is potentialy deadly no matter your hit points)
• Called shots (-5 penalty to your attack roll)

I wouldn't use every single one of these in the same campaign unless you wanted the players beat down and limping constantly, but it is nice to have options.
What I like about the idea is it uses something that already exists within the game, exhaustion, but it makes it much more frequent.

 

[GMMichael]

I don't understand how you are disagreeing with me... If you have to reduce someone to 0 HP before you can hit them, then improving HP improves your ability to avoid damage. Ergo, HP represents your ability to avoid damage.

Look at WotC's implied damage definition again:

Damage is points that reduce hit points.

That's it. HP does nothing to help you avoid damage. HP may help you -measure- damage (if you know what a character's max HP are). HP help you avoid -death-, but even that is in question if you've seen the negative-hit-points-flowchat elsewhere in the forum. If you want to define damage another way, the consequences are on you.

I really don't understand. I didn't say anything about bleeding. Are you saying reducing HP reduces a character's value? No it doesn't. It brings them closer to being incapacitated and dying. Character damage in D&D does not equal what damage is in a dictionary.

I was just illustrating the contrast in definitions.

That is an interesting idea, but it does not address what I outlined as the problem with HP. You'd still end up with either ambiguity between AC and HP or characters with thick hides that can take equal amounts of three types of damage that should, by all rights, kill them.

Example of less ambiguity:
Inigo Montoya's HP by damage type:
Piercing HP 6
Slashing HP 18
Bludgeoning HP 12

Notice how those crossbow bolts took him out fast?

I feel like you may be being facetious here, but if there was a variant that balanced this out I would consider it.

No, I actually like the Death Save the more I think about it. I suppose you could get a +1 bonus per level, and a couple Get out of Death Free cards. Whenever you get hit by something that could cause a normal person to die, you roll d20+character level versus 10. If you win, you live. Hit severity could add or subtract from the 10.

Why does it take more magic to heal Inigo than one of the guards on the floor? (Assuming he isn't ALL dead).

It doesn't. Inigo gets healed to 5 hp just as fast as a guard. Only if you're assuming damage=wounds does Inigo look injured when he has 5 hp, instead of his full 18.

 

[Authweight]

I think it is best to understand hp as progress towards an objective. As a character's hp are worn down, whoever is attacking them is making progress towards the goal of removing them from the battle. What this means in any particular context is up to the players and the GM to decide.

A roll to hit is simply determining whether or not you make progress towards your goal this round. A high AC means it is difficult to do anything useful against the target and many turns will be wasted with missed attacks. A low AC means it is easy to do something against the target, and most turns will see clear progress made. It's the difference between hacking away at a big tough bastard versus trying to find a small chink in the armor of a trained warrior

The mechanics are evocative of different situations, but don't really model them in a direct, literal way. Instead they model them in a way that creates lots of fun moments at the table as you roll a 20-sided die and wait breathlessly for the results. If you don't like that level of abstraction and can't take it in stride, d&d probably isn't gonna be your game. YMMV though.

 

[AverageCitizen]

It is funny to me that most of Enworld seems to be people contesting the premise of the topic post rather than engaging the topic. ( I am not the only one who this happens too, lol).