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Variant Hit Point system


deleriad

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There's an idea I've been kicking around for a while and I am interested to see what people think. I must admit that I don't like the heroic Hit Point option in the book, it seems too D&Dish to me. So with a little terminology stealing from Savage Worlds for now, I've been trying to come up with a system that gives PCs more staying power without adding more hit points. So:

A character's Hit Points = (CON+SIZ)/5 - rounded up. A character dies when it takes more wounds than it has Hit Points.

Any injury that exceeds a character's Armour Points but not their Hit Points is a minor injury.

Any injury that exceeds the total of a character's AP+HP is a serious injury.

Any injury that exceeds the total of a characters AP+2*HPs is a major injury.

Minor injury: character is 'rattled'. A character remains rattled until the end of the next combat round. If a character is already rattled and takes a minor injury, then it takes 1 wound. Note that a minor injury can never cause a person to take enough wounds to start dying.

Serious injury. Character becomes rattled and takes a number of wounds equal to the amount by which its AP+HP was exceeded. Must make a Resilience/CON*5 roll to stay conscious.

Major injury: character incapacitated and must make a difficult CON*5/Resilience roll. On a fail, it dies within a few rounds, on a success it dies within a few minutes. A serious injury that does enough damage to cause a character more wounds than Hit Points becomes a major injury.

Rattled: I'm swithering over the precise effect of this but it would probably be a stun effect preventing attacking until the end of the next combat round. Could be shaken off with a Fate Point or CON*5/Resilience roll.

The idea is to avoid having to track hit point damage for minor injuries while still ensuring that a serious injury is, well, serious.

An example. Utah Smith is CON 16 SIZ 15. This gives him (31/5) = 7 Hit Points. He's clocked over the head with a chair leg for 5 damage. This is a minor injury which temporarily stuns him. Shortly afterwards the fight turns serious and someone unloads with a revolver. Utah cops 9 points of damage, that's 2 more than his Hit Points so he takes 2 wounds and must make a CON*5 roll to avoid falling unconscious. He now can take another 5 wounds before checking out to meet his maker.

Edited by deleriad
Added an example.
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Excellent idea. Something similar surfaced during the playtest of MRQ1 (the "threshold") but was rejected.

The big problem is finding a way to evaluate the "thresholds". CON/2 for Hit Points could be good, and SIZ/5 for the threshold at which you actually "feel" the wound .

That would get over the problem that you can see in the Utah Smith example which is that any damage exceeding the character's APs would have an effect. You could treat something like SIZ/5 as toughness or natural armour points. Alternately you could say that after any minor wound, the character must succeed at a CON*5 or become rattled. It is an extra roll which isn't too bad if you don't have hit locations.

Speaking off the top of my head you could use damage modifier as a variable number which is added to armour points to 'soak' damage. E.g. If a character has a 1D4 damage bonus and is wearing 3 APs of armour then if they get hit their "armour roll" would be 3+d4. This would have the effect that most 1H weapons would normally only cause minor wounds when hitting a person with a +d4 damage bonus.

And what about small, weak people with a negative damage modifier? They become even more fragile - you would have to say that a negative damage bonus does not reduce APs below zero...

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Well, no offence, but I'll stick to the mechanism I use:

Character HP = SIZ / 2 (round up). But characters don't die until their HP go below minus CON.

Any injury taking them to 0HP or below disables the location hit (if that's Head, they go unconscious).

Any injury taking them to -5HP or below is serious.

Any injury taking them to -10HP or below is major.

I think it's simpler, seems to give less HP (though in fact giving about 50% more) - and scares the heck out of players!

Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi.

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The point is that this system actually work better in conjunction to hit locations. You just don't keep track of accumulative location damage any more.

You hit and roll damage normally, then choose location and subtract armor. Then you compare the damage that goes through to the HP you have in the location (computed as per the rules).

- If you do damage between 1 and the HP in the location, you have a minor wound: no accumulative effect, roll CONx5 to avoid temporary location stun if the damage is equal to location HP or one less (two less for SIZ 21-30, three less for SIZ 31-40, etc.).

- If you do damage in excess of location HP, the location is disabled and the excess damage goes to general HP. Roll CONx1 to be Heroic.

- If you do damage in excess of double location HP, the location is maimed. No Heroic roll. You are bleeding to death.

At half your HP, you are unconscious.

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The point is that this system actually work better in conjunction to hit locations. You just don't keep track of accumulative location damage any more.

You hit and roll damage normally, then choose location and subtract armor. Then you compare the damage that goes through to the HP you have in the location (computed as per the rules).

- If you do damage between 1 and the HP in the location, you have a minor wound: no accumulative effect, roll CONx5 to avoid temporary location stun if the damage is equal to location HP or one less (two less for SIZ 21-30, three less for SIZ 31-40, etc.).

- If you do damage in excess of location HP, the location is disabled and the excess damage goes to general HP. Roll CONx1 to be Heroic.

- If you do damage in excess of double location HP, the location is maimed. No Heroic roll. You are bleeding to death.

At half your HP, you are unconscious.

I was passingly aware of that system. The problem I saw with it was the it added a 5th roll into the equation and meant that you were juggling multiple numbers in your head.

attack, defend, location, damage, CON*5.

Personally my tolerance limit is 4 rolls and either location HPs or General HPs but not both. What I would like to get to is a pulpish system where characters are about as robust as they are in MRQII without using locations and without throwing Hit Points at the problem which is what the BRP heroic option does and without adding more dice rolls into the mix routinely.

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What I would like to get to is a pulpish system where characters are about as robust as they are in MRQII without using locations and without throwing Hit Points at the problem which is what the BRP heroic option does and without adding more dice rolls into the mix routinely.

The point with my system given above...

Character HP = SIZ / 2 (round up). But characters don't die until their HP go below minus CON. <etc>
...is that Location rolls are only needed for significant hits - and it seems to meet your specification otherwise, too...

Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi.

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The point with my system given above... ...is that Location rolls are only needed for significant hits - and it seems to meet your specification otherwise, too...

Not sure it does.

a) average human has 7 positive hit points. 2 average punches is likely to KO someone (taking them to 0 HPs or below) or disable a location.

B) a character with a CON of less than 5 dies before receiving a serious wound which seems odd.

c) characters spend most of their time being disabled in some way or other.

I did try a similar system: positive HPs = SIZ, negative HPs = CON but it is functionally identical to the heroic option with different flavouring. Aesthetically speaking I don't like characters spending more time in negative HPs than positive ones. (I've played D&D twice in my life and in one of them my character spent most of the game on minus something HPs; not dead just useless.)

To refine it a bit further: I don't want to track HP loss from 'minor injuries' hence the reworking of the 'threshold' mechanic. On the other hand I don't want characters to be invulnerable which is why I'm thinking of adapting the shaken mechanic from Savage Worlds; that also has the advantage of ensuring that minor wounds do have immediate consequences in play. Where it doesn't work particularly well in BRP is that without armour, any successful hit would shake a character. For that reason you probably want some inherent toughness to allow them to completely ignore very trivial damage. But then there's a question of how that would stack with armour. E.g. say a character has 'natural toughness' based on their damage bonus (e.g. bonus 0 or less, toughness =0; bonus 1d2 to 1d4, toughness 1; 1d6 = toughness 2 and so on) then would this add to AP or be overridden by AP?

Anyhow, thanks for the suggestion but I don't think your system does what I want in this case.

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Aesthetically speaking I don't like characters spending more time in negative HPs than positive ones. (I've played D&D twice in my life and in one of them my character spent most of the game on minus something HPs; not dead just useless.)

You're welcome. The psychological effect of being on negative HPs is significant though. It's a serious danger signal, and makes it 'socially acceptable' for a character to duck out of combat - leading to greater chances of survival, without (too many) extra HPs. You might want to build that idea into your system too. (And for your D&D problem - try the 'Die Hard' feat...)

Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi.

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The real problem with locations is that... it is not possible to avoid the fourth roll! Assuming you use General HP only, the fixed AP values give a level of detail that is too low for most hardcore Fantasy players. Most people will use Stormbringer-style variable APs, which resurrects the fourth roll. Besides, the location die can be thrown together with the to-hit, so it is not a real problem.

What is annoying is keeping track of both general HP and location HP. I think that using locations in addition to the "threshold" mechanics allows for variable armour values and also gives you a very simple way to evaluate the threshold without introducing new mechanics: it is the HP per location as sxplained in the rules.

What might be bugging is the CONx5 roll, I agree. The solution would be to just ignore damage below the threshold: "It is just a flesh wound".

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About negative hit points:

Personnally, I prefer to record the total damage amount suffered by a character and compare it to thresholds.

For instance, I could use 3 thresholds :

-Fatigued (-10% to all checks) : CON/2;

-Inconscious : (CON+TAI)/2;

-Dead : CON+(TAI/2)

This way, I don't need to introduce negative hit points.

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T

What might be bugging is the CONx5 roll, I agree. The solution would be to just ignore damage below the threshold: "It is just a flesh wound".

Or apply some sort of penalty for "scratches". For instance -10% to your skills for the rest of the round as you go "ouch".

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Here is a general outline of what I've worked into my house rules system. Pretty straightforward actually, but haven't had a chance to playtest it yet.

Current Location HP values become a wound threshold.

Damage taken in a SINGLE BLOW, equal to or below the threshold are Minor Wounds.

Damage taken in a SINGLE BLOW, equal to or below double the threshold and above the Minor Wound threshold is a Major Wound.

Damage taken in a SINGLE BLOW, equal to or below triple the threshold and above the Major Wound threshold is a Critical Wound.

Rolled damage is tracked on the normal Hit Points Matrix.

Minor wounds are treatable as normal, with First Aid and healing spells. Major Wounds need the assistance of a Surgeon/Healer: Bones, organs, etc are damaged, the wound is bleeding 1 HP/melee, and need time and tech, or special ritual based healing to fix. Critical Wounds are severed, crushed, or otherwise mutilated limbs; strikes which have penetrated arteries or major organs, etc. A Critical Wound to the head is a pulped skull, severed head, ripped throat, etc., and bleed at 2 HP/melee. A successful First Aid or Healing Spell only stabilizes these wounds (stops bleeding) and must be applied within 1/2 CON melee rounds, or the time the victim bleeds out. If the aid is successful, triple the amount of time is needed to recover.

Churgeon/Surgeon or Ritual Healing is handled as per the Major Wound rules in Pendragon.

There are other effects too. With a Major Wound to the head, the victim must roll a CON x1 or fall unconscious; If successful they are still dazed. Any other part of the body must roll a CON x3, or be dazed for the next round. Critical Wounds to the head are auto unconscious, the rest of the body, CON x1 or fall unconscious, success is dazed for 1d3 melee rounds.

Now, the general HP could of course be dispensed with here, but I kept them for a couple of reasons. Natural Damage, such as falling or fire, or the stomp of a Giant, and because I like the idea of someone still being able to be taken out by a lot of small (individually) non-lethal wounds.

SDLeary

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Your thresholds are too high. A 13-HP character has 5 HP in the head and 4 HP in the arm. You need 12 HP to cut his arm, and 15 HP (higher than his overall HP) to cut his head.

I think the best thresholds are:

HP x1 : Major wound

HP x2 : Critical wound

That is, the current quantities (which have worked fine for the last 25 year). The only difference could be that you do not mark the damage up to the first threshold in general HP, and do not mark accumulative damage in location areas.

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That depends ultimately on how damage is figured. 15 points is well within the the range of even a shortsword if you figure criticals as per RQ3. (I actually use Pendragon -esque damage, so most have 2-3 d6, plus modifiers) Thresholds can always be manipulated to fit campaign and style though. Yours would fit well with damages presented in the BGB.

SDLeary

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I will say that when it comes to hit locations, I think the RQII system of hit locations but no general Hit Points works well to achieve the results I'm aiming for. What I'm trying to figure out though is a simpler system without hit locations: essentially I'm looking at a 'threshold' system without hit locations to see how well it works. One reason for this is that I expect to run some CoC for rpg newbies sometime soon. There's nothing wrong with the system as written, I'm just interested in adapting it to something that fits my preferences better.

The potential advantages I'm hoping for are:

1) no need to track HP loss for minor wounds.

2) Serious wounds can KO a PC without killing.

3) Major wounds are fatal unless treated and can be instantly lethal.

Technically it's an exercise in trying to adapt a "wound-based" system to BRP.

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