Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Why do we really need HP to represent things other than physical injuries?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5834225" data-attributes="member: 54877"><p>A couple of points about surges that might give someone an idea.</p><p> </p><p>Surges consist of two parts, the surge value which is 1/4 of total hit points of the character, and number of surges per day, which is based on Con, class, and augmented by certain feats, abilities, etc. These work together in 4E, but there is no inherent reason why they cannot be used separately.</p><p> </p><p>For example, if you want proportional healing, but not the surges per day, then you can still use the surge value to handle this easily--compared to figuring percentages every time healing happens. In such a system, the prompt for healing would still be potions, spells, etc., but the effectiveness of each bit of healing would be proportional to the characters' hit point total. You might want to use a smaller fraction than 1/4 for such a "healing value", since healing per day would no longer be limited by the character.</p><p> </p><p>Surge value is a convenient way of handling proportional healing, and that is all it is.</p><p> </p><p>Independent of the above, you can make number of surges more consequential in some kind of wound model by tying powerful abilities to the surges. This would presumably be done in some variant of renaming the surges as "heroic surges" or the like. Unchanged, this does introduce a bit of death spiral into the game, in that healing now takes away chances to do those powerful abilities. However, consider something like this below, where the two are mostly independent:</p><p> </p><p>"Healing Value" - 1/5 of your hit points, represents the base healing that you get back from any heal or inspiration or anything else that effects hit points in the modules that you are currently using. There is no limit but access to these resources.</p><p> </p><p>"Heroic Surge" - limited resource that you can use to activate key special abilities. Included in this list is the "Second Wind," which is the only common way that a character can "self heal", and can only be used once per fight (and still requiring a standard action). </p><p> </p><p>Set the number of surges high enough that it consistently exceeds the expected number of fights per day, and having to "Second Wind" cuts down on other "heroic surge" use, but it not automatically crippling. Alternately, set "Heroic Surges" at an even greater number, but only allow them to recoup during full rest (i.e. not on an adventure, typically), and they become an operational resource. You can change them as much as you want, because most healing is independent.</p><p> </p><p>Likewise, a warlord inspiring hit points back is something that you can swap in or out at preference. If you have a party where a warlord replaces the cleric, but your group doesn't like "warlord healing", then simply increase the supply of healiing magic like people have always done in a party without a cleric. Perhaps you let the warlord's inspiration do something else to compensate that player. But either way, this does not substantially affect the "heroic surge" economy, if you are otherwise happy with it.</p><p> </p><p>BTW, this is an example of why "decoupling" in design provides flexibility in modules. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5834225, member: 54877"] A couple of points about surges that might give someone an idea. Surges consist of two parts, the surge value which is 1/4 of total hit points of the character, and number of surges per day, which is based on Con, class, and augmented by certain feats, abilities, etc. These work together in 4E, but there is no inherent reason why they cannot be used separately. For example, if you want proportional healing, but not the surges per day, then you can still use the surge value to handle this easily--compared to figuring percentages every time healing happens. In such a system, the prompt for healing would still be potions, spells, etc., but the effectiveness of each bit of healing would be proportional to the characters' hit point total. You might want to use a smaller fraction than 1/4 for such a "healing value", since healing per day would no longer be limited by the character. Surge value is a convenient way of handling proportional healing, and that is all it is. Independent of the above, you can make number of surges more consequential in some kind of wound model by tying powerful abilities to the surges. This would presumably be done in some variant of renaming the surges as "heroic surges" or the like. Unchanged, this does introduce a bit of death spiral into the game, in that healing now takes away chances to do those powerful abilities. However, consider something like this below, where the two are mostly independent: "Healing Value" - 1/5 of your hit points, represents the base healing that you get back from any heal or inspiration or anything else that effects hit points in the modules that you are currently using. There is no limit but access to these resources. "Heroic Surge" - limited resource that you can use to activate key special abilities. Included in this list is the "Second Wind," which is the only common way that a character can "self heal", and can only be used once per fight (and still requiring a standard action). Set the number of surges high enough that it consistently exceeds the expected number of fights per day, and having to "Second Wind" cuts down on other "heroic surge" use, but it not automatically crippling. Alternately, set "Heroic Surges" at an even greater number, but only allow them to recoup during full rest (i.e. not on an adventure, typically), and they become an operational resource. You can change them as much as you want, because most healing is independent. Likewise, a warlord inspiring hit points back is something that you can swap in or out at preference. If you have a party where a warlord replaces the cleric, but your group doesn't like "warlord healing", then simply increase the supply of healiing magic like people have always done in a party without a cleric. Perhaps you let the warlord's inspiration do something else to compensate that player. But either way, this does not substantially affect the "heroic surge" economy, if you are otherwise happy with it. BTW, this is an example of why "decoupling" in design provides flexibility in modules. :) [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Why do we really need HP to represent things other than physical injuries?
Top