The HP system definetly affects the entire game, which is why I never bought their 'abstraction description'. When DMs refuse to explain a 10-hp sword strike (to a 11-hp character) as a 'blade thrust through the gut' because losing hp is not actually taking wounds, all you have is a fantasy world of bad actors who tap each other with prop swords and make 'swish' and 'clang' sound effects. If those weapons aren't actually wounding when they "hit", then what are they doing? And if real wounds aren't caused by hp loss, than why is real death caused by full hp loss?
When playing something like WFRPG, each battle is a potential death ticket, so characters need to think their actions through and approach a fight like a real-world person. Very realistic, but not very satisfying for us blood-thirsty types. Alternately, playing 3e, you can be fairly sure to make it through any particular encounter, but you may suffer some severe consequences as a result. With 4e, a sword through the gut every battle is just par for the course, and nothing to be too concerned about.
I personally prefer something middle of the road. I want each battle to have meaning and danger, but I wouldn't want to roll-up a new character after each sitting (which is why I have stuck with 3E/Pathfinder for the last several years)
It would be nice if different iterations of hp were available to accomodate everyones' taste, but since hp are such a core aspect of the game, I think the developers will be hard-pressed to make a variable system. But if they choose that route, I wish them all the best.
In Fate you have stress boxes instead of hit points. The first box can take a 1 stress hit, the next 2 stress, and so on. So let's consider someone with 4 stress boxes. 1. [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] If they take a 1 stress hit, then they can mark off the first box. 2. [x] [ ] [ ] [ ] If they then take a 3 stress hit, they can mark off the 3rd box. 3. [x] [ ] [x] [ ] Let's suppose the first hit was for 3 stress, they cannot mark off the 1 and 2 stress boxes. You can only mark off one box per hit, so they'd still mark off the 3 stress box. 2b. [ ] [ ] [x] [ ] If all the boxes are filled, then they are taken out (whatever that means depends on the opponent).
In the Dresden Files version of the game, you have 3 types of injuries. Minor, Serious, and Severe (well, there's a 4th, but that's character altering so we won't consider that in this post). They are worth 2, 4, and 6 stress respectively. So you can lower a hit by that number of stress if you take an injury instead. This can be done whenever you take a hit. You reduce the stress of that hit by the amount of stress the injury "absorbs".
So in step 3 above, let's say they then take another 3 stress hit. Well, the player doesn't want their 4 stress box filled, so they decide to take a minor injury. This turns it into a 1 stress hit, which fills the 2 stress box (since box 1 is already filled). 4. [x] [x] [x] [ ] - Minor Injury
If they then take a massive 10 stress hit, they could turn it into a 4 or 6 stress hit with a Serious or Severe Injury. Neither would stop the 4 stress box from being filled. They can take both injury types and stay in the game, if they wish. 5. [x] [x] [x] [ ] - Minor, Serious, and Severe Injury
They are pretty much on their last legs at that point. A minor injury lasts one scene, a serious one lasts until the end of the next session. A severe one lasts until the next milestone (IIRC). It's a very narrativist game, btw. You might decide you have a "injured leg" then the GM would could invoke that when something leg-related came up to make you automatically fail (you get a fate point for your trouble, which is kind of like a force point, well, except the first time it is invoked you get nothing -- this gets into a whole other system in the game which I don't think we need to go into as it wouldn't translate to D&D that well).
It's a bit hard to translate this into D&D terms. With much higher numbers in damage, I don't think the "Soak X" damage works that well, AND you'd have to have it scale with level since HP goes up so much. Kind of a mess to deal with. So I went with Healing Surge numbers and to simplify the process I went with using them when you are reduced to 0 or less hit points.
That's an... interesting.. system. I get that suffering a lower stress hit can be taken by filling in a higher stress box, but are you out of the fight whenever you take any hit that's higher stress than your maximum, even if you have open low-stress boxes?
In any case, it certainly highlights the appeal of basic HP.
From a narrative standpoint, I'm not sure how well it holds up to trade an injury for a healing surge. You get beaten and battered, and you're on the ropes, but then you suffer an actual injury... and suddenly you can take quite a bit more beating and battering, but eventually you're almost down... and then you suffer an even worse actual injury... which allows you to keep getting the stuffing beaten out of you.... etc.
It would seem to make more sense as something that you can only decide at the time you take the wound, which really works a lot better if you're doing a damage soak roll anyway.
The HP system definetly affects the entire game, which is why I never bought their 'abstraction description'. When DMs refuse to explain a 10-hp sword strike (to a 11-hp character) as a 'blade thrust through the gut' because losing hp is not actually taking wounds, all you have is a fantasy world of bad actors who tap each other with prop swords and make 'swish' and 'clang' sound effects. If those weapons aren't actually wounding when they "hit", then what are they doing? And if real wounds aren't caused by hp loss, than why is real death caused by full hp loss?
When playing something like WFRPG, each battle is a potential death ticket, so characters need to think their actions through and approach a fight like a real-world person. Very realistic, but not very satisfying for us blood-thirsty types. Alternately, playing 3e, you can be fairly sure to make it through any particular encounter, but you may suffer some severe consequences as a result. With 4e, a sword through the gut every battle is just par for the course, and nothing to be too concerned about.
I personally prefer something middle of the road. I want each battle to have meaning and danger, but I wouldn't want to roll-up a new character after each sitting (which is why I have stuck with 3E/Pathfinder for the last several years)
It would be nice if different iterations of hp were available to accomodate everyones' taste, but since hp are such a core aspect of the game, I think the developers will be hard-pressed to make a variable system. But if they choose that route, I wish them all the best.
Edit: Every (Derp, misspelled ever) played Assassin's Creed? When you fail to block, you loose some HP, but don't actually get STABBED, you just block poorly or dodge at the last second. Only when you actually die do you get run through or slashed. In the current playtest, Wizards has chosen to use a similar thematic system for HP. It's less of a measure of how injured you are and more a measure of how tired you are and how much adrenaline you have left.
In Fate you have stress boxes instead of hit points. The first box can take a 1 stress hit, the next 2 stress, and so on. So let's consider someone with 4 stress boxes. 1. [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] If they take a 1 stress hit, then they can mark off the first box. 2. [x] [ ] [ ] [ ] If they then take a 3 stress hit, they can mark off the 3rd box. 3. [x] [ ] [x] [ ] Let's suppose the first hit was for 3 stress, they cannot mark off the 1 and 2 stress boxes. You can only mark off one box per hit, so they'd still mark off the 3 stress box. 2b. [ ] [ ] [x] [ ] If all the boxes are filled, then they are taken out (whatever that means depends on the opponent).
In the Dresden Files version of the game, you have 3 types of injuries. Minor, Serious, and Severe (well, there's a 4th, but that's character altering so we won't consider that in this post). They are worth 2, 4, and 6 stress respectively. So you can lower a hit by that number of stress if you take an injury instead. This can be done whenever you take a hit. You reduce the stress of that hit by the amount of stress the injury "absorbs".
So in step 3 above, let's say they then take another 3 stress hit. Well, the player doesn't want their 4 stress box filled, so they decide to take a minor injury. This turns it into a 1 stress hit, which fills the 2 stress box (since box 1 is already filled). 4. [x] [x] [x] [ ] - Minor Injury
If they then take a massive 10 stress hit, they could turn it into a 4 or 6 stress hit with a Serious or Severe Injury. Neither would stop the 4 stress box from being filled. They can take both injury types and stay in the game, if they wish. 5. [x] [x] [x] [ ] - Minor, Serious, and Severe Injury
They are pretty much on their last legs at that point. A minor injury lasts one scene, a serious one lasts until the end of the next session. A severe one lasts until the next milestone (IIRC). It's a very narrativist game, btw. You might decide you have a "injured leg" then the GM would could invoke that when something leg-related came up to make you automatically fail (you get a fate point for your trouble, which is kind of like a force point, well, except the first time it is invoked you get nothing -- this gets into a whole other system in the game which I don't think we need to go into as it wouldn't translate to D&D that well).
It's a bit hard to translate this into D&D terms. With much higher numbers in damage, I don't think the "Soak X" damage works that well, AND you'd have to have it scale with level since HP goes up so much. Kind of a mess to deal with. So I went with Healing Surge numbers and to simplify the process I went with using them when you are reduced to 0 or less hit points.
That's an... interesting.. system. I get that suffering a lower stress hit can be taken by filling in a higher stress box, but are you out of the fight whenever you take any hit that's higher stress than your maximum, even if you have open low-stress boxes?
In any case, it certainly highlights the appeal of basic HP.
Yes, it is a bit weird that way. One thing it does do is let attackers that inflict little stress still handle tougher enemies. But in FATE you can easily have a guy that inflicts 1 stress hits on a graze (fists) vs. someone that inflicts 5 stress hits (big weapon, extra strength). So equalizing the two a bit is an issue. This isn't really a problem that D&D has at all (minor note, you inflict more stress by the amount you exceed the defense roll of the enemy).
From a narrative standpoint, I'm not sure how well it holds up to trade an injury for a healing surge. You get beaten and battered, and you're on the ropes, but then you suffer an actual injury... and suddenly you can take quite a bit more beating and battering, but eventually you're almost down... and then you suffer an even worse actual injury... which allows you to keep getting the stuffing beaten out of you.... etc.
Well, injuries in the FATE system are essentially extra HP that you invoke. I think this is pretty similar. The player decides how much they want to put on the line, to an extent. They can try to get out of the fight with no injuries, or decide to tough it out and stay in, but then they suffer for it. It's best to think of it as they always had those hit points, but if they want to use them then they have to pay a cost.
Think of it like Worf in the DS9 episode "By Inferno's Light" (where Worf and Garak have been captured by the Jem'Hadar). Worf keeps fighting Jem'Hadar and winning, but suffering injuries. In the final fight, he keeps getting back up and well after he's beaten. Thematically it is certainly fitting.
In a way it is the character going "I'm not going to pass out from the pain, I'm going to keep fighting". Granted, we're not technically giving them the option of getting the injury AND passing out, but that is a necessary sacrifice I think. If injuries cause penalties, then there has to be something there to avoid the "downward spiral of death" that so often makes this sort of thing not work. So by dividing HP into "injury free HP" and "you got hurt" HP we do part of this. The other part is then making the use of the latter HP something players opt in to.
It would seem to make more sense as something that you can only decide at the time you take the wound, which really works a lot better if you're doing a damage soak roll anyway.
Well, I tend to think of it in purely gamist terms. By saying "yeah, I got injured back there, and I'm just coming to now" you've sacrificed all those actions from intervening rounds. That's a pretty big deal. Though, I suppose one might need to be concerned about how that might be min-maxed if staying down for a round or two got you in a better tactical position -- though that's a bit of a game. To an extent this definitely makes a distinction between what the player decides and what happens to the character.
The other perhaps nice thing is that it allows a guy who decided to sit out to come back if the party is doing very badly. That helps avoid TPKs, while not making it free to do so.
The HP system definetly affects the entire game, which is why I never bought their 'abstraction description'. When DMs refuse to explain a 10-hp sword strike (to a 11-hp character) as a 'blade thrust through the gut' because losing hp is not actually taking wounds, all you have is a fantasy world of bad actors who tap each other with prop swords and make 'swish' and 'clang' sound effects. If those weapons aren't actually wounding when they "hit", then what are they doing? And if real wounds aren't caused by hp loss, than why is real death caused by full hp loss?
When playing something like WFRPG, each battle is a potential death ticket, so characters need to think their actions through and approach a fight like a real-world person. Very realistic, but not very satisfying for us blood-thirsty types. Alternately, playing 3e, you can be fairly sure to make it through any particular encounter, but you may suffer some severe consequences as a result. With 4e, a sword through the gut every battle is just par for the course, and nothing to be too concerned about.
I personally prefer something middle of the road. I want each battle to have meaning and danger, but I wouldn't want to roll-up a new character after each sitting (which is why I have stuck with 3E/Pathfinder for the last several years)
It would be nice if different iterations of hp were available to accomodate everyones' taste, but since hp are such a core aspect of the game, I think the developers will be hard-pressed to make a variable system. But if they choose that route, I wish them all the best.
Every played Assassin's Creed? When you fail to block, you loose some HP, but don't actually get STABBED, you just block poorly or dodge at the last second. Only when you actually die do you get run through or slashed. In the current playtest, Wizards has chosen to use a similar thematic system for HP. It's less of a measure of how injured you are and more a measure of how tired you are and how much adrenaline you have left.
I have never played Assassin's Creed, but it makes sense that the hp system was based on a video game, because the gameplay feels like one moreso than tabletop RPG.
Every played Assassin's Creed? When you fail to block, you loose some HP, but don't actually get STABBED, you just block poorly or dodge at the last second. Only when you actually die do you get run through or slashed. In the current playtest, Wizards has chosen to use a similar thematic system for HP. It's less of a measure of how injured you are and more a measure of how tired you are and how much adrenaline you have left.
I have never played Assassin's Creed, but it makes sense that the hp system was based on a video game, because the gameplay feels like one moreso than tabletop RPG.
Am I the only one thinking this is being overthought? I mean I've seen a couple different versions of D&D alone say that hit points are an abstraction and not meant to accurately portray any real life ability to resist damage.
Now to take a moment to look at some of what has been said:
Traditional hit points: This system works for me, it gives uncertainty to every battle. You could in theory get mauled in fight 1 of the day, wind up skating through fights 2-4, then have close to a TPK in fight 5. Quite simply you don't know what's going to happen from one fight to the next, which does help you focus on each and every fight.
4e's approach: Meh. I never was much of a fan of this method. Of course it helps that I had a Warforged Cleric (healbot indeed) that could heal like crazy, if memory serves I could take the Dragonborn fighter from single digit hit points to nearly full. Sure I had to use some of my daily stuff to do that but still it was possible.
X number of encounters: Nah, don't see that working out well. You know some people will screw around during the early fights and/or be more over the top since they know it won't be that much of a problem. If you know you weren't going to be killed in a fight wouldn't you clown around a little, ham things up a bit? Of course the later fights would be treated very seriously since people in the group would know they could get killed there.
The WFRP approach: I am very familiar with this system and it can potentially dangerous to everyone. For those that don't know the high level equivalent of WFRP to a D&D character has about as many wounds as a 2-4 level D&D character (depending on the class). In fact I was running a game where someone did close to 30 points of damage with one crossbow bolt (ah the joys of open ended rolls), so I would not recommend this style of damage for D&D especially since the effects that can be done after you hit 0 wounds are pretty severe.
A solution to all of this: Have traditional hit points but have threshholds for causing wounds. Say if someone takes a hit that is 25% of their total hit points they get a bit of a scar, if it's 50% or more it's a really deep scar and possibly a small penalty (wouldn't go over -1) to a skill. If a critical hit is done that might be some long lasting trauma (the knee that didn't heal right for example). That's the way it's done right now in the Pathfinder game I'm in.
I'm sure I missed one or two versions that were discussed but oh well, it happens.
Every played Assassin's Creed? When you fail to block, you loose some HP, but don't actually get STABBED, you just block poorly or dodge at the last second. Only when you actually die do you get run through or slashed. In the current playtest, Wizards has chosen to use a similar thematic system for HP. It's less of a measure of how injured you are and more a measure of how tired you are and how much adrenaline you have left.
I have never played Assassin's Creed, but it makes sense that the hp system was based on a video game, because the gameplay feels like one moreso than tabletop RPG.
D&D HP has ALWAYS been like this.
Oh. I'd never really gotten this from any of the explanatory text in D&D before this playtest. I always thought all that injury avoidance stuff was supposed to be in defences, not HP.
And on the topic of similarity to videogames, just remember many of the responses to 4e. Next seems to follow a much less MMO-ish route, which I personally like.
Back on topic, maybe a combination of the penalties suggested by Drachasor and LoneStranger's threshold idea could be in order. For instance: using the minor, moderate, and major wounds ideas mentioned in that long explanation, more wounds accrue at lower HP levels: 75% health causes minor wounds, 50% causes moderate, and 25% causes major.
That would fit well with the stamina-based hitpoints because as you tire, you become less capable of avoiding damage, and if you get hit the lasting damage is worse.
The WFRP approach: I am very familiar with this system and it can potentially dangerous to everyone. For those that don't know the high level equivalent of WFRP to a D&D character has about as many wounds as a 2-4 level D&D character (depending on the class). In fact I was running a game where someone did close to 30 points of damage with one crossbow bolt (ah the joys of open ended rolls), so I would not recommend this style of damage for D&D especially since the effects that can be done after you hit 0 wounds are pretty severe.
That's why I'm not proposing changing the hit point system. I was only inspired by FATE's injury system, but I'm not copying that and its stress box system. Rather I was just adapting it to D&D. Characters would have the same amount of hit points as before. I only posted on the system I was adapting for those not familiar with it. That required explaining Fate's stress box system to give it proper context.
Basically, I was saying something like this. Character A has 20hp and a surge value of 5. Combat happens....damage is inflicted.... He's at 8 hit points. He then takes a hit for 10 damage, so he goes down to -2. He could then decide to take an injury and go to 5 hp (0+5, we ignore the negatives health just like Next healing). So he stays up but has some sort of penalty. He could then get healed by allies (otherwise he could not).
Much later, Character A has 100 hit points, with a surge value of 25. Combat happens....damage is inflicted.... He's at 14 hit points. He takes a hit for 20 damage. He goes down to -6. He could then decide to take an injury and go up to 25 hp. Again, at this point he could be healed, if he stayed down he could not be healed until after combat.
Though this brings to mind another way to modify it. Allow healing, but healing in combat, if accepted, causes an injury but puts you at Surge Value + Healing Amount HP (and you are prone).
So in a particular fight, this would generally make the party tougher. But it would mean that they could get injuries that would be around in future fights.
By default I proposed an injury just inflicts a -1 penalty on all d20 rolls and AC. That's simple and straightforward. D&D couldn't use the Aspect system of Fate since that wouldn't translate well. It could use specific injuries and potentially varying levels of injuries. That would require some care in balancing them and coming up with rules for them.
The main thing is that I'm not saying we keep HP low or modify the HP system at all. This would be something tacked onto that system.
A solution to all of this: Have traditional hit points but have threshholds for causing wounds. Say if someone takes a hit that is 25% of their total hit points they get a bit of a scar, if it's 50% or more it's a really deep scar and possibly a small penalty (wouldn't go over -1) to a skill. If a critical hit is done that might be some long lasting trauma (the knee that didn't heal right for example). That's the way it's done right now in the Pathfinder game I'm in.
I'm sure I missed one or two versions that were discussed but oh well, it happens.
I dislike "random injury" systems personally. I've had too much experience with random bad luck in games. Getting a big hit is pretty much its own punishment. There's no need to make it even worse, imho.
