I hate hitpoints. How D&D does them, anyways. Don't get me wrong, I love the system - 3.5, at least, which is about the best damned thing out there for epic fantasy - but I have a problem with a fighter who can fall off a cliff and survive, or how an epic mage can get one-hit killed by a rogue half his level while a barbarian can get stabbed in the kidney ten times and laugh it off.
To reconcile this, I told myself that the HP system is an abstract thing, something that represents the character's importance in the story world, his metaphysical "epicness", and is not a direct representation of how many fireballs he can take to his face. But it's just not really working for me.
I stumbled upon this gem when I was perusing True20. I took the basic idea and expanded it. Want to know what you think:
Every character starts with 10 wound points. They're basically hitpoints, but called "wound points" to distance themselves from the stigma. Rather than doing direct HP damage, people who attack and hit pool their corresponding damage modifiers (STR+weapon damage for melee, CHA/INT/WIS + spell damage for casters), add the number to 10, and then the one being wounded rolls a toughness save - 1d20 + CON + toughness modifiers.
Instead of having weapons do XdX amount of damage, you take the base damage die and assign it a damage bonus: 1d4=1, 1d6=2, 1d8=3, etc., etc. The same goes for base class hit die, with the same number being awarded as a toughness bonus.
So, let's say that a ranger gets a face-full of the business end of a barbarian's axe. The barbarian has a STR modifier of +3, and his weapon has a damage modifier of +6. Therefore, the DC for the toughness roll is DC 19. The ranger then calculates his toughness roll, which is 1d20 + 3 (for class Hit Die) + 2 (his CON modifier). Then he tosses the die.
If he succeeds, he takes 1 point of damage. If he succeeds by 10 or more (or maybe 5), he takes no damage. For every 5 points he fails by, he takes an extra point of damamge. So, if he rolls a 2, his total toughness against DC 19 would be 7. He has failed by 12 points, and thus takes an extra 2 points of damage, bringing the total to 3. He is down 3 wound points.
For spells, the damage is often higher. If someone throws a fireball and the enemies fail their reflex saves, the toughness DC would look like this:
10 + Spellcasting attribute modifier (we'll say 3) + 10 (2 for every d6 of damage the spell does). Thus, the enemies would have to roll their toughness against DC 23 to determine how much damage they take.
If they roll poorly like the ranger, they get hit pretty hard, taking a total of 4 wound points of fire damage.
Now, there's more to this: how do you factor in DR? How do you factor in energy weaknesses? Since toughness modifiers are relatively static, how does this work at higher levels when people are rolling against CR 20 critters who would have toughness DCs of 55?
But this is my basic idea, inspired by the True20 system.
Any thoughts, critiques, and helpful advice would be appreciated!
