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Hitpoint-less combat


Questbird

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15 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

it wasn't clear-at least to me. Maybe becuase in some RPGs they do something similar after a battle to see how banged up a character is after the battle. Often an injury that doesn't present much of a problem during a fight can become serious or even life threatening after the fight. Stuff like cracked ribs or minor cuts getting infected and going septic. 

Alos, how does first aid or magic work with this variant? Both in terms of during the fight and for healing up afterwards? Since we don't get or track damage points we don't know how many points of Heal to cast. 

I would say Heal or first aid would be applied after the fight, before the injured person makes their recovery roll .

Successful first aid roll improves the recovery roll success level by one, up to a maximum of 'success' (Walking Wounded). Therefore a successful First Aid means that a character can avoid immediate death.

A special success first aid roll improves the success level by one; a critical success by two (in each case to a maximum of 'Healthy').

A Heal spell automatically improves the injury level; it costs 3 power points for each wound level, up to 'Healthy'.

  • 12 points for a 'Dead' character (only possible with immediate attention after the fight)
  • 9 points for a 'Dying' character
  • 6 points for a 'Badly Wounded'
  • 3 points for a 'Walking Wounded' 

Of course you could partially apply the Heal spell if you didn't have enough MPs to get someone to 'Healthy'.

* based on Heal spell, BGB p. 98, also similar MP cost to Heal Wound in RQ3, p.118

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If you are going to use a fixed amount of healing per injury level, I suggest that you tie the amount required based on the hit points of the character (maybe 25% of their total HPs). That way characters with a lot of hit points don't wind up with bargain healing. This would become a problem for characters than can control a large creature. Someone with a warhorse, pet bear or some such could easily afford to pump 3 points into healing whenever the creature got hurt to bring it back into the fight. 

Edited by Atgxtg

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

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11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

If you are going to use a fixed amount of healing per injury level, I suggest that you tie the amount required based on the hit points of the character (maybe 25% of their total HPs). That way characters with a lot of hit points don't wind up with bargain healing. This would become a problem for characters than can control a large creature. Someone with a warhorse, pet bear or some such could easily afford to pump 3 points into healing whenever the creature got hurt to bring it back into the fight. 

Hard to base it on hit points in a hitpoint-less system!

The heal spell as written heals 1d6 HP per 3 MP expended. So it is roughly equivalent for an average human (Resilience 10). The average roll of 1d6 is 3.5. Let's call it 3 to get a rough equivalence to the hit point system.

3/10 hp -- minor wound (walking wounded)

6/10 hp -- major wound (badly wounded)

9/10 hp -- unconscious (dying)

12/10 hp -- dead (dead)

If you found it was a problem healing larger creatures, you could certainly scale up the magic point cost, relative to the hit points or resilience of the creature. I don't think this would come up in my games. I would simply say that healing is applied after the battle only; therefore the problem of bringing large creatures back into the fight wouldn't occur.

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8 hours ago, Questbird said:

 I would simply say that healing is applied after the battle only; therefore the problem of bringing large creatures back into the fight wouldn't occur.

Well that's a big change from the normal rules. Not being able to heal other during combat greatly reduces the usefulness of healing magic. 

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

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8 hours ago, Questbird said:

Hard to base it on hit points in a hitpoint-less system!

Yeah, something like a resistance table roll would probably match up better with the rest of your system- and make Healing 1, 2, 4, 5, etc. useful. 

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

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8 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Well that's a big change from the normal rules. Not being able to heal other during combat greatly reduces the usefulness of healing magic. 

My justification for it is that I based this system on Ray Turney's Fire and Sword, and he has given some thought to it already. From his (gold) design notes for the game:

Quote

The next big change was the elimination of in-combat magical healing. Once a character is incapacitated,
he or she is out of it for the rest of the episode. The reason for this is that very few fantasy novels have the
kind of quick healing common in role playing games. The reason in-combat healing is uncommon in
fantasy novels is that the human body does not work that way in reality, This change toward realism is
reinforced by a system of die rolls to get better or worse. In reality, once someone is wounded they will
likely get better or worse, not stay the same. The downside of this change is that it makes fights less
predictable. In-combat magical healing has the effect of adding stamina to a group. It reduces the
likelihood of one lucky, or unlucky {depending on your viewpoint} blow deciding a fight.

-- Designer's Notes for Fire and Sword, p.6

I'm using this system in a science-fantasy setting, so the magical healing in combat doesn't apply. I haven't yet adopted it for my fantasy game, but even there it is a low-magic setting where healing spells are uncommon.

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I have followed this thread a little, not minutely, but of what I have seen or read this idea of levels of health as opposed HP to is intriguing. It perhaps takes away the "game mechanical feel" of keeping track of HP and the problem of HP not really illustrating characters general feel and function when wounded.

I just wanted to add that I have been house ruling the basic amount of HP a character can have, almost from the beginning of my BRP usage. In my BRP games a player character always can take as much minus HP as he or she has plus HP. So if a PC has 15 HP, he or she can go down to -15 HP and at 0 HP the PC is unconscious instead of dead, but beyond 15 the PC in this instance would be killed. Maybe something similar could be used in the HP-less model? Just an idea. //Erik.

"I intend to live forever, or die trying" - Groucho Marx

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10 hours ago, dracopticon said:

I have followed this thread a little, not minutely, but of what I have seen or read this idea of levels of health as opposed HP to is intriguing. It perhaps takes away the "game mechanical feel" of keeping track of HP and the problem of HP not really illustrating characters general feel and function when wounded.

I just wanted to add that I have been house ruling the basic amount of HP a character can have, almost from the beginning of my BRP usage. In my BRP games a player character always can take as much minus HP as he or she has plus HP. So if a PC has 15 HP, he or she can go down to -15 HP and at 0 HP the PC is unconscious instead of dead, but beyond 15 the PC in this instance would be killed. Maybe something similar could be used in the HP-less model? Just an idea. //Erik.

Could be, but I'm not sure if it is necessary. Since the game mechanic uses a resistance roll, you kinda get that effect built in.

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

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As Atgxtg said, the HP of a character are already factored in as the Resilience roll. The higher your HP/Resilience, the more likely you are to stay in the fight after a blow. So on average a person with high Resilience will be able to take more blows before being knocked out (mirroring the normal system with hit points as much as possible). Being knocked out is a little bit like being reduced to 0 hit points in your system, except that the hitpointless system separates ability to keep fighting from degree of injury.

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Thanks for your replies. But even with the existing rules, I'm not certain the gist of what I proposed is used in them. For instance, the possibility of slowly bleeding out, instead of instant death is IMHO more possible - and in my experience more preferable - with having "minus HP".

"I intend to live forever, or die trying" - Groucho Marx

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21 hours ago, dracopticon said:

Thanks for your replies. But even with the existing rules, I'm not certain the gist of what I proposed is used in them. For instance, the possibility of slowly bleeding out, instead of instant death is IMHO more possible - and in my experience more preferable - with having "minus HP".

The system doesn't do instant death. It does 'knocked out of the fight'. If you are bleeding out, you might not be very active at the time. I also incorporated bleeding into the system by using the BGB specials:

a special attack (1/5)

has the normal effect for the weapon, ie. Bleeding, Crushing, Entangling, Impaling or Knockback as per BGB pp.194-7, with the following changes:

Bleeding

Instead of inflicting extra hit points, it requires a Resilience check each subsequent round at the same level as the original, until staunched (see BGB p.195)

Crushing

Base damage increased to the maximum for the next damage bonus level, as per BGB p.195.

Impaling

Doubles max weapon damage, as per BGB p.196. Armour still counts.

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On ‎2017‎-‎11‎-‎05 at 8:49 AM, Questbird said:

The system doesn't do instant death. It does 'knocked out of the fight'. If you are bleeding out, you might not be very active at the time. I also incorporated bleeding into the system by using the BGB specials:

a special attack (1/5)

has the normal effect for the weapon, ie. Bleeding, Crushing, Entangling, Impaling or Knockback as per BGB pp.194-7, with the following changes:

Bleeding

Instead of inflicting extra hit points, it requires a Resilience check each subsequent round at the same level as the original, until staunched (see BGB p.195)

Crushing

Base damage increased to the maximum for the next damage bonus level, as per BGB p.195.

Impaling

Doubles max weapon damage, as per BGB p.196. Armour still counts.

That sounds good. "Knocked out of the fight" seems like a general term that covers more I understand, but the question is if it's only seen as results of that kind of "special attack" you mention? Sorry if I sound like a noob here, but I have not read that part of the Gold Book.

"I intend to live forever, or die trying" - Groucho Marx

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11 hours ago, dracopticon said:

That sounds good. "Knocked out of the fight" seems like a general term that covers more I understand, but the question is if it's only seen as results of that kind of "special attack" you mention? Sorry if I sound like a noob here, but I have not read that part of the Gold Book.

In normal BRP, if you roll ⅕ of your attack roll you get a Special success. This causes extra effects, depending on your weapon. The Big Gold Book list these on pp.194-7. The only one I've changed for the hitpointless system is the Bleeding one (for edged weapons). Instead of causing extra hit points of damage -- not measurable in a hitpointless system -- it requires an extra Resilience roll each round to stay conscious, until the bleeding is staunched.

Example

Two street brawlers face each other in Knifer's Alley in the city of Beelzebahn. Let's say they each have Resilience 11, and otherwise normal abilities. They are wearing heavy clothes (armour factor 1).

The first rolls a special success against the other, who fails to parry. The Special effect will depend on the weapon the first thug is using

  • a bleeding effect for a slashing weapon. Resilience roll for the second thug is normal: 50% + ((Resilience – (damage - armour)) x 5%). If it was a scimitar (base damage 8), this formula would be: 50 + ((11-(8-1)) x5 ) = 70% chance of the second thug staying up. However the 2nd thug must repeat this 70% roll at the end of subsequent rounds (even if he doesn't get hit that round) to see if he can resist collapsing from blood-loss.
  • +4 damage for a club (base damage 6). That is, the damage bonus is increased to the next level. In this case, damage bonus is raised from 0 to 4. Resilience roll would be 50 + ((11-((6+4)-1))x5 = 60% chance of staying conscious after this blow. The effect of this special is to make it harder for the target to make the Resilience roll; there is more chance of being knocked unconscious by a crushing blow.
  • An impaling weapon doubles the damage, but doesn't ignore armour (need a critical for that). Say the first thug wasn't a thug at all but a militiaman with a spear (damage 8). The Resilience roll would be: 50 + ((11-(16-1) x5) =  30%. There's obviously quite a difference between weapon types. In this case a spear is very effective in expert hands vs. a lightly armoured foe. By contrast a normal hit with the spear would result in the same Resilience check as the Scimitar above -- 70% for the target to stay fighting, but without the bleeding effect.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2017-11-09 at 12:59 AM, Questbird said:

In normal BRP, if you roll ⅕ of your attack roll you get a Special success. This causes extra effects, depending on your weapon. The Big Gold Book list these on pp.194-7. The only one I've changed for the hitpointless system is the Bleeding one (for edged weapons). Instead of causing extra hit points of damage -- not measurable in a hitpointless system -- it requires an extra Resilience roll each round to stay conscious, until the bleeding is staunched.

Example

Two street brawlers face each other in Knifer's Alley in the city of Beelzebahn. Let's say they each have Resilience 11, and otherwise normal abilities. They are wearing heavy clothes (armour factor 1).

The first rolls a special success against the other, who fails to parry. The Special effect will depend on the weapon the first thug is using

  • a bleeding effect for a slashing weapon. Resilience roll for the second thug is normal: 50% + ((Resilience – (damage - armour)) x 5%). If it was a scimitar (base damage 8), this formula would be: 50 + ((11-(8-1)) x5 ) = 70% chance of the second thug staying up. However the 2nd thug must repeat this 70% roll at the end of subsequent rounds (even if he doesn't get hit that round) to see if he can resist collapsing from blood-loss.
  • +4 damage for a club (base damage 6). That is, the damage bonus is increased to the next level. In this case, damage bonus is raised from 0 to 4. Resilience roll would be 50 + ((11-((6+4)-1))x5 = 60% chance of staying conscious after this blow. The effect of this special is to make it harder for the target to make the Resilience roll; there is more chance of being knocked unconscious by a crushing blow.
  • An impaling weapon doubles the damage, but doesn't ignore armour (need a critical for that). Say the first thug wasn't a thug at all but a militiaman with a spear (damage 8). The Resilience roll would be: 50 + ((11-(16-1) x5) =  30%. There's obviously quite a difference between weapon types. In this case a spear is very effective in expert hands vs. a lightly armoured foe. By contrast a normal hit with the spear would result in the same Resilience check as the Scimitar above -- 70% for the target to stay fighting, but without the bleeding effect.

 

 

Thank you for your extensive and very explanatory reply. But for me, this is all too much rules for just a few different damage types and what could IMHO be streamlined into something much simpler and yet more playable. This is also symptomatic for the new BRP version (BGB) and such that has made this old system into a brick stone, too heavy to even lift and much less to use in everyday RPGing. It's number crunching invasion into the world of BRP that atleast for me, stood for simplicity and fast playability. Sad, really.

"I intend to live forever, or die trying" - Groucho Marx

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