What if? (HP thread)

[Andor]

So with a new edition around the bend the HP wars have boiled up again, like an army of the undead bursting forth to ravage the lands ... again...

So. It seem to me that most of the issues with HP as damage revolve around the fact that D&D does not feature impairment, instead you fight in at full strength and then you die. Depending in the edition you might have some rounds of unconciousness before death or a narrow window at 0 hp where you are down but not out.

So as a partial solution, what if in 5e a critical hit, rather than (or in addition to?) doing extra damage, allowed you to inflict a status effect. So when you roll that 20 you can make it a leg hit (-1 or 5' speed) or an arm hit (-2 to hit), or a head shot (-2 perception, lose a spell), etc.

This then interacts with the healing system, calling for lengthy natural healing, or specialized healing spells. Maybe.

It could also model a called-shot mechanic where a successful called shot can inflict a status effect but only do minimal damage. You would probably want to put limits on stacking however or it would degenerate into a series of called shots to immobilize big monsters and then finish them off from range.

Some creatures (oozes, undead) would be immune to some or all crit effects.

Thoughts?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I always found the main issue to be how 4E handled healing and HP. People claim its unrealistic or breaks immersion, but in reality its just as unrealistic as what came before and people just "feel" its unrealistic because it doesn't have 30 years of tradition and getting used to it behind it.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not really a big fan of death spirals in most RPGs. Getting close to death is bad enough, without having to make it more difficult to avoid death as you get there.

Inflicting conditions? That's okay. You have to be careful with how easy it is to inflict them, though - you want it to be a hard choice whether to inflict a condition or just damage.

 

[Tovec]

I've never liked the called shot issue raised by attacking a leg or striking the head. Especially when it is done after you hit, doubly so when it is imposing a negative on the body part struck.

I am all for making people easier to kill however, but I am against impairments. If you simply reduce HP and make a hit (or perhaps critical hit) have a greater chance of killing the character then you are already halfway home.

The problem is with HP itself. Too many and you are a tank, capable of jumping off cliffs and walking away more or less unharmed. Too few and anything can take you down. This is amplified at lower levels when very few HP can lead to a single, lucky strike killing you outright (or at least into negatives).

That being said, I would rather have lower HP than higher ones. Just make sure the HP aren't TOO low.

Now, back to your idea. I think what your doing is kind of the opposite of what I would like to see happen. Think of it this way. If I attacked you with a sword and happen to hit you in the head with the pommel of my sword, that isn't going to do the regular damage minus a small penalty. It WILL do a certain effect plus minor damage. Basically I feel the opposite because striking at these weaker or vital areas should be the intention not a byproduct. If you build from the idea of aiming for a certain spot then you will have a greater idea of me signing on, but if you go from the idea of having a regular strike happen to strike at a leg or head then you are backwards in my opinion.

 

[Andor]

Now, back to your idea. I think what your doing is kind of the opposite of what I would like to see happen. Think of it this way. If I attacked you with a sword and happen to hit you in the head with the pommel of my sword, that isn't going to do the regular damage minus a small penalty. It WILL do a certain effect plus minor damage. Basically I feel the opposite because striking at these weaker or vital areas should be the intention not a byproduct. If you build from the idea of aiming for a certain spot then you will have a greater idea of me signing on, but if you go from the idea of having a regular strike happen to strike at a leg or head then you are backwards in my opinion.

I meant to say you could also use these status effects to build a called-shot system, but I communicated it poorly.

So my idea is that on a crit, you can inflict a status effect as well as do normal (or more) damage. This is luck, your reward for rolling well.

However once you have these status effects, explicitly designed to simulate an impairing wound, including both death sprial effects and more difficult healing, then you can also expand their mechanic outside of crit effects.

So called shots might inflict "wounds" but not do much damage, or a curse spell might twist your leg, effectively giving you a leg wound, but it's not going to heal until the curse is broken.

Another alternative, and one to lessen the "death spiral" penalty might be to have 'wounds' inflicted at 1/2 hp( or crits or the like) but for the receiving player to decide what wound they get. So a fighter might take the head shot to preserve his mobility, whereas a wizard would rather take the hit on the arm or leg. This models the character prioritizing his own defensive actions.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I think damage is tagged with an effect that is only taken into account if it is the damage that reduces the victim to zero hit points. So if you swing a decapitating strike for 1d8 damage the victim takes the damage ...and loses the head if zero hit points are reached.

 

[Dour-n-Taciturn]

I had suggested on another thread that with a wound threshold system module (a fixed number based on size), each multiple of damage would inflict 1 wound, and as wounds increase, status effects get worse, eg. dazed > disabled > stunned > unconscious > dead.

These would be save ends while conscious (shake it off style) mitigating the "death spiral", or perhaps reduced by a "second wind"; healing magic could also remove wounds, and some wounds may be permanent until healed depending on the type of damage done.

 

[BryonD]

I always found the main issue to be how 4E handled healing and HP. People claim its unrealistic or breaks immersion, but in reality its just as unrealistic as what came before and people just "feel" its unrealistic because it doesn't have 30 years of tradition and getting used to it behind it.

HP in 4E are no more or no less realistic than prior editions.

It is surges that are a whole new issues that produce a much less satisfying result.

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

I think it's safe to say we'll see a lot of modular optional rules for wounds if the game is open to third party publishers to support. I know I'm the minority, but I would love to have an optional system with hit location charts.

 

[Croesus]

I'm not a fan of crits in general, as long-term, they are a negative for players. After all, the PC's will be in far more fights than any particular NPC, with far more opportunities to be on the receiving end of a crit.

Also, the whole purpose of the HP mechanic is to mimic the slow wearing down of luck, endurance, skill, whatever until something major occurs - which is generally represented as zero HP. So that head shot, leg wound, broken rib that would occur on a crit is what should be happening when one's HP are whittled away, not any random time in combat.

The real weakness of the HP mechanic is that there are pretty much just two conditions - you're fine or you're dead/dying. I would prefer a system with a couple more gradations, or something similar to Savage worlds, where "down" doesn't always equal "dead". Then HP could still be used as intended, but the final result would depend on the type of attack being performed.