Author Topic: Hit Points Suck  (Read 8229 times)

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veekie

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #20 on: February 07, 2009, 04:07:16 PM »
Having cure spells replace things like remove blindness is one thing. Having them replace Freedom of Movement is just what the fuck.

Having healing be temp HP is just asking everyone to wank off with a wand until they have over 9,000 HP, then go kick in the door. Especially if they get more bonuses besides 'can't die from HP damage'.
Not if the temp hp overlaps with itself.

One of the other problems with AC is that it's just a PA damper though, Attack bonuses and damage need to go down(either through better AC/DR on the PCs side(easy) or through rewriting all the monsters(hell)), for that. And % based defenses killed off, or turned into AC improvers.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

EjoThims

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #21 on: February 07, 2009, 08:37:12 PM »
Cross-posting from the Healing thread:

Anything that effectively ends combat without relying on damage done makes DD worthless, and thusly makes any measure of being able to soak DD (HP) worthless.

The only way to make HP worthwhile in 3.5 is to eliminate or retool all such spells and effects.

Then, you need to need allow beatsticks access to more effective hp (through things like miss chance, attack negation, DR, SR, FR, and taking %x less damage mechanics) instead of relying solely on actual hp.

Eliminating all effective hp abilities entirely would also work, but it would be boring as hell.

PinkysBrain

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #22 on: February 08, 2009, 02:30:22 PM »
The only way to make HP worthwhile in 3.5 is to eliminate or retool all such spells and effects.
No, my suggestion from the beginning of the thread works too. Just make spells ineffective at higher hitpoints.

DD attacks are essentially save or dies for which hitpoints provide a (secondary) semi-save, if this semi-save could rescue you from a glitterdust as well then it would become universally valuable.

woodenbandman

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #23 on: February 08, 2009, 03:15:38 PM »
Would something like the Crusader's Delayed Damage pool work out?

veekie

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #24 on: February 08, 2009, 04:07:17 PM »
Nope, problem's more fundamental than that. You have scalar effects(e.g. the 3 stages of Fear(semi scalar), ability score damage), staggered binary effects(nothing happens until a certain point, then effect, e.g. hp, nothing happens until 0, then you KO and die) and a binary effect(Save or Die, Save or Lose). All these have around the same odds of success.

When such a choice is available, the most effective is invariably the binary option, followed by the scalar. Binary effects usually upsets the game most, so putting them all into scalars seems to be the best bet.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

PinkysBrain

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #25 on: February 08, 2009, 04:13:08 PM »
Also requires the largest amount of rewrites ... from a practical standpoint something which doesn't touch the individual spells is to be preferred.

Straw_Man

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #26 on: February 08, 2009, 09:33:33 PM »

  Hmm, instead of retooling all spells, how about a blanket class feature: Implacable- you may ignore any non-damage effect of spells by sacrificing 10 hp x spell level that effects your character. Damage cannot be reduced, prevented, or healed magically. This requires an immediate or swift action.

  As a meleer, your paying your best resource HP, to negate a casters best resource, their spells.

  You know, I like it :smirk. I think I'm going to use it in my games and see how it works.
"No, no, don't think, Maya." Ritsuko chided. "We will not gattai the Evas or their pilots.

Such thoughts lead inevitably to transformation sequences."

EjoThims

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #27 on: February 08, 2009, 11:01:44 PM »
if this semi-save could rescue you from a glitterdust as well then it would become universally valuable.

And that would be retooling the effect that SoD/SoS had on you, and thusly fall into the category of things that I said are a requirement of fixing HP.  ;)

Personally, I think that for an HP/healing involved system to work, anything that ends combat with one action without simply doing more DD than the opponent has health needs to be made to not do so. Making SoD into % of current health based damage (or X DD + %) instead of death, and turning stuns and similar affects into slows and penalties instead (or into DD damage boosts for the enemy) is a good start to this.

I do like that idea though, of making it so that status effect spells can't affect targets with a certain HP relative to their CL. Perhaps x10 HP, so a status effect spell with CL 1 would auto fail on anyone with 10 or more HP?

veekie

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #28 on: February 09, 2009, 12:23:00 AM »
Seems like a nice patch to me, nobody's feeling up to rewriting the hundreds of SoD spells in existence. Note that the stun->slow conversion is meant to have 2 slows stack into a stun though, for an example. Burning hp to shrug off SoD/SoLs is cool.

Think the rate of 10->CL is about right though?
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

Ashtagon

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #29 on: February 09, 2009, 02:28:59 AM »
Seems like a nice patch to me, nobody's feeling up to rewriting the hundreds of SoD spells in existence. Note that the stun->slow conversion is meant to have 2 slows stack into a stun though, for an example. Burning hp to shrug off SoD/SoLs is cool.

Think the rate of 10->CL is about right though?

I like it. Could probably have a 2-feat chain to reduce it to 8x and 5x spell level.

Also, would you roll saves before or after burning the hp?

I think it would need to be an immediate action, since enemy spells are not traditionally cast during your own turn.


« Last Edit: February 09, 2009, 02:31:51 AM by Ashtagon »

veekie

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #30 on: February 09, 2009, 02:46:43 AM »
Saves go before I believe. Have it be a nonaction.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

Ashtagon

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #31 on: February 09, 2009, 03:01:43 AM »
Immediate action works well, I think. Using an immediate action restricts it to once per round, which may be a drawback, but also burns your swift action next round, which is a "who cares" issues for sword-swingers.

I suppose having it as an immediate action means you lose out if targeted by multiple status-causing spells in a single round, but what are the chances of that happening?

veekie

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #32 on: February 09, 2009, 03:46:56 AM »
Quicken, Twin, far easier than you think.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

Ashtagon

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #33 on: February 09, 2009, 03:55:36 AM »
A quickened spell requires a spell slot 4 levels higher than normal. That is Not Cheap(tm), so it won't be an everyday tactic. The same issue applies to twinned spells. Frankly, if you are using a 5th level slot to cast a 1st level spell, bypassing the hit point defence doesn't seem too unreasonable.





Ashtagon

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #34 on: February 09, 2009, 04:19:35 AM »
On reflection, may as well make this a free action. A DM who can't have two enemy wizards coordinate attacks isn't doing his job properly.

bihlbo

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #35 on: February 09, 2009, 06:39:28 PM »
On reflection, may as well make this a free action. A DM who can't have two enemy wizards coordinate attacks isn't doing his job properly.

I agree. Adding more things that require an immediate/swift action is usually a bad idea, since most of the time your intent is not "prevent the character from doing anything else that might require this action," but is instead, "prevent the character from doing this twice a round." There have been a crap-ton of things added to D&D in the last 4 years that require an immediate/swift action, which means that for most characters using non-core rules at all, using yours up is a pretty big deal.
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Straw_Man

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #36 on: February 09, 2009, 07:47:16 PM »

  Not sure, your weakening the two wizards in the example by a lot. Lets reverse this, 2 or 3 spellcasters are targeting a BBEG. They've wasted all their actions, he shrugs them off for X hp and still has all his actions. Not cool.

  Action economy is the most important part of combat, 1 standard action to 1 immediate action is fair. You don't want to force spellcasters to need to optimise.
"No, no, don't think, Maya." Ritsuko chided. "We will not gattai the Evas or their pilots.

Such thoughts lead inevitably to transformation sequences."

bkdubs123

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #37 on: February 09, 2009, 08:36:43 PM »
I totally agree with Straw Man here. Taking the teeth out of a spell for 10-90 hitpoints at no action cost seems pretty cheap. SoD's may be bad, but I've never been a fan of turning them into direct damage. Hell, hit someone with a Twinned Maximized Scorching Ray at 17th level. 144 damage with a 7th level spell slot. Suddenly an evocation is now stronger than Finger of Death.

Straw_Man

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #38 on: February 09, 2009, 08:47:48 PM »

  And I for one like BC still being the forte of a spellcaster; maintaining that element of D&D philosophy.   
"No, no, don't think, Maya." Ritsuko chided. "We will not gattai the Evas or their pilots.

Such thoughts lead inevitably to transformation sequences."

veekie

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Re: Hit Points Suck
« Reply #39 on: February 09, 2009, 10:57:07 PM »
I totally agree with Straw Man here. Taking the teeth out of a spell for 10-90 hitpoints at no action cost seems pretty cheap. SoD's may be bad, but I've never been a fan of turning them into direct damage. Hell, hit someone with a Twinned Maximized Scorching Ray at 17th level. 144 damage with a 7th level spell slot. Suddenly an evocation is now stronger than Finger of Death.
Hence the issue with the hp costs, the '10' was, as they say, 'pulled from backside'.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."