Author Topic: Heroes and injuries, musing to tweak a variant hit point system.  (Read 7843 times)

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RobbyPants

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Re: Heroes and injuries, musing to tweak a variant hit point system.
« Reply #40 on: October 11, 2008, 12:20:50 PM »
Elennsar, have you ever played 2nd edition?  If so, have you ever seen Combat & Tactics?  That book has a location-specific critical hit system in it.  I'm not saying the system is something you'd want to port in, but it did have mechanics for body parts and locations on hits.  It also had a definition of various statuses (minor and major bleeding, broken, crushed, severed, etc.).  Some of those statuses could be removed by healing magic capable of healing a certain amount of HP.

Anyway, if you have access to that book, you might find half of your work already done for you.
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Elennsar

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Re: Heroes and injuries, musing to tweak a variant hit point system.
« Reply #41 on: October 11, 2008, 12:23:17 PM »
Unfortunately not on both counts.

If I get a copy, I'll look through it. It'd be nice to have something already worked out that could be messed with as opposed to scratchbuilding.

Thanks for the recommendation.
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ZeroSum

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Re: Heroes and injuries, musing to tweak a variant hit point system.
« Reply #42 on: October 11, 2008, 01:46:33 PM »
Zero: I'm not sure exactly what to make of your idea, but I like the look. I may use this to help with simplifying mine.
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One thing that's the goal here...being high level does not give you more hit points.
Well, I guess that hinges on the meaning of a hit point.  In my system HP is not health per se.  HD more closely corresponds to health, though you could just replace HD with Con score or Con mod in my system and you've got a perfect correlation for base health.  (You have to bonus up max HP to compensate.)

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You get better at avoiding losing them, but your actual ability to sustain having people poke around in your belly doesn't get better.
Exactly what HP represents -- the ability to avoid having people's attacks hurt you in a meaningful way.  My system adds gradation to that meaningful way.

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However, since Fortitude increases, your ability to deal with that does.
I didn't actually read your hit-tracking system, but I'm going to guess here that you're making tons of Fort saves.  So every hit now rolls three or more times instead of twice.  (Once to hit, once for damage, once for hit location?, once for the effect save.)  You've (possibly) doubled the number of dice rolls.  My system just adds a bit of overhead cost to keeping track of important HP points.  (Instead of dead, dying, disabled, healthy, full my system has dead, dying, disabled, injured, health, full, so you're scanning over six conditions instead of five and scanning is inexpensive for humans.)

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Any attempts at making hit points increase by level, whether valid or not, are not desired as far as I'm concerned (though they're not necessarily bad systems, but they're not what I'm looking for anymore than a really good socket wrench helps when I want a screwdriver).
Except that my HP and HP in D&D don't correspond with what your HP mean.  They've abstracted away (and I've kept abstracted away, though less so) the tedium of keeping track of individual body location damage.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2008, 02:29:01 PM by ZeroSum »

Elennsar

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Re: Heroes and injuries, musing to tweak a variant hit point system.
« Reply #43 on: October 11, 2008, 02:17:32 PM »
1) Simpler is not necessarily better, however.

2) Mmhm. Point is/was, my goal is hit points are related to how much damage you can take, not how good you are at not being damaged.

3) A bad method, since there's no way to represent wounded characters and how well some people deal with it (Conan, I'm looking at you) and how badly others do (Raistlin?)

4) Not all that many. Once to hit, once for damage. Fort saves are to deal with being hurt (when you fall too low, you have to resist falling unconscious).

5) I'm not against simplifying here, but abstracting winds up with "avoiding representing at all". I prefer your system to D&D, but I prefer D&D only to something attempting "make a roll, you got a papercut" kind of crap. (No, that isn't damning with faint praise thusly. If ideal is a 10, you're 6+.)
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ZeroSum

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Re: Heroes and injuries, musing to tweak a variant hit point system.
« Reply #44 on: October 11, 2008, 02:37:24 PM »
Simpler isn't necessarily better but if two systems represent the same thing equally well the simpler one is better.  So if you can simplify a system without losing its representation it is better.

So then let's redefine my system with HP from dead to disabled as "Wound Points" and HP from health to full as "Prevention Points".

So take my updated system.  Your WP=2*Con Score.  Your PP=Traditional HP.  At -(Con Score) you're dead.  WP < 0 you're dying.  WP < Con Score is Disabled, Entangled (Seriously Injured).  WP < 2*Con Score is Disabled (Injured).  PP < Full is combat capability diminished.  PP = Full is fully healthy.  Now, Conan deals better with preventing injury because he's a warrior type and has more PP (Traditional PP.)  He deals with Injury better because his higher Con bonus prevents him from moving to Injured.  He deals with Serious Injury better because his higher Con score prevents him from moving to Seriously Injured.  He deals with death better, again, his Con score prevents him from moving to Dead as quickly.  No need for rolls or charts.  It's abstract but not removed.  It's simple but not arbitrary.  There's a reason we don't roll for attack and defense.  There's a reason we don't roll for damage and DR.  So why roll for injury when it's already built in to the damage system?

I'll look into simplifying your system without destroying it and maybe we can figure out something that would be efficient as well as effective.

Elennsar

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Re: Heroes and injuries, musing to tweak a variant hit point system.
« Reply #45 on: October 11, 2008, 02:47:22 PM »
Agreed. Complexity may be necessary to represent something, but it should be avoided beyond that.

As for simplifying without destroying..

I think its possible. We may have different ideas on what's too complex by taste, but I think we can work out something that avoids the complications that don't add to it, at least.

Keep in mind, its a month old, so my ideas have wandered over this, but not with any firm ideas.

Any constructive contribution is welcome. Any attempts to make it work for something it isn't intended to work for (a mix of realistic fortitude...in the sense of how much can be endured more than how little..and heroic but not superhuman fantasy) are going to be useless.

Mechanics for "hero points" (while intended) and their effects, and healing rates have not been worked out, but those can wait. They're not necessary at this stage.

Appreciate your assistance and general comments, hopefully needless to say.
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Orion

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Re: Heroes and injuries, musing to tweak a variant hit point system.
« Reply #46 on: October 12, 2008, 07:31:53 PM »
A though to throw in the mix: I've always had a soft spot for Shadowrun's condition monitor. Very gritty. Might be what you're looking for. It's based on a set number of boxes, but you could theoretically import that to a HP-based system. Every two boxes of damage you take, you get a -2 to basically everything. So not only are you dying, but you're not performing up to par. It eliminates circumstances when you can run, jump, and fight just as well with 1HP as 100HPs. I think that in a high-fantasy game, the HP system works great, but if you're looking for something more gritty (please don't say "realistic," none of this is "realistic"), then the condition monitor might work for you.

Elennsar

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Re: Heroes and injuries, musing to tweak a variant hit point system.
« Reply #47 on: October 12, 2008, 07:36:11 PM »
I prefer "plausible". Something that can be taken as "Well, it could be true.". Whether or not it is isn't relevant.

I'd want to slow down the rate of penalties a tad, and of course, work in ways to resist some of them.

Conan being on his last legs is still in sorry shape, but he's able to resist the worst of it.

And a flagon of wine would be really appreciated right now. (I have to applaud the Conan rpg for representing that quote. I dislike that it still uses D&D's hit points, if not as many, but good bit of flavor!)

Naturally, action points/fate points/hero points/whatever help, too.

Still, no one should be able to function at "just short of death" as well as "full health". Not unless you're a robot or something. (Even berserkers aren't immune to broken bones, just pain.)


Note: Naturally, one thing to be noted. How often do high fantasy heroes get hit? I know that in Star Wars, Han for instance is never hit in a fight he's any chance at.
« Last Edit: October 12, 2008, 07:39:28 PM by Elennsar »
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veekie

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Re: Heroes and injuries, musing to tweak a variant hit point system.
« Reply #48 on: October 13, 2008, 04:04:51 AM »
Quote
Note: Naturally, one thing to be noted. How often do high fantasy heroes get hit? I know that in Star Wars, Han for instance is never hit in a fight he's any chance at.

Mostly never, unless it's to show that they are really in trouble and going to go down within the next 2 hits or so. Only the 'tank' sort takes damage and keeps going, and even then, it's often clear they are already dying from the injury.

Hence my preference for VP/WP, the plot armor is simply best represented with VP of all the health systems I know.
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Re: Heroes and injuries, musing to tweak a variant hit point system.
« Reply #49 on: October 13, 2008, 02:17:28 PM »
A though to throw in the mix: I've always had a soft spot for Shadowrun's condition monitor. Very gritty. Might be what you're looking for. It's based on a set number of boxes, but you could theoretically import that to a HP-based system. Every two boxes of damage you take, you get a -2 to basically everything. So not only are you dying, but you're not performing up to par. It eliminates circumstances when you can run, jump, and fight just as well with 1HP as 100HPs. I think that in a high-fantasy game, the HP system works great, but if you're looking for something more gritty (please don't say "realistic," none of this is "realistic"), then the condition monitor might work for you.

I've found wound tracks mostly incompatible with HP because wounds are a total of the injury count itself rather than adding up (or subtracting) the outcome of those injuries.
An equivalent in D&D would be scrapping the damage roll and keeping the attack roll; a successful attack adds 1 wound.

Since D&D has HP ingrained to the core (literally) it would be a complex process to untangle, but I'm not stating it would be a bad thing; I'd love to see the results... but it's more than I can imagine sanely accomplishing.