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I, like at least a few others, dislike how little hit points matter in regards to fighting ability, at least until they hit zero. An enemy wizard can sling spells just as powerful whether he's perfectly fine or he's at 1 HP and bloody. A fighter can still swing his sword with the same strength whether he's fresh for a fight or he's had his arms so slashed up they're barely sticking on.
I've seen some Wounds/Vigor-type systems that try to fix this, and was never really sold on the idea. I like hit points as they are, I just wish they had more of an effect.
My solution is this: whenever a character takes a certain amount of damage, they gain a negative level. Thus, a character taking too much damage will result in bigger and bigger penalties to said character.
Also, to avoid some weird negative-level-loop, I'd remove the effect negative levels themselves have on hit points: they no longer drop max and current HP by 5.
And, it just so happens, that dropping max and current HP by 5 is a great way to substitute all the normal negative level effects already in the game: for each negative level an effect would normally give you, lower your max and current hit points by 5 for each negative level you'd normally lose. You'd gain them back whenever you'd normally get rid of that negative level.
- Total Maximum Hitpoints are calculated as normal, except you also add your entire Constitution score.
- For each multiple of (MaximumHP)/(NumberOfHitDie) that your damage exceeds, you gain a negative level (excluding the HP effects of negative levels).
- You die when your Hit Points equal 0 or below. Conveniently, the point at which you hit 0 hit points is also the point at which you have a number of negative levels equal to your number of hit die.
- To simplify, you have a number of Negative Levels = NumberOfHitDie*(1-CurrentHP/MaximumHP).
Does anybody see any MAJOR issues with this? Any suggestions? Anything I haven't thought of? How do YOU like it?!
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There are a few issues with this that I see immediately. First is that for the most part any kind of penalty system inherently favors enemies over the PC's. It's similar to what happens with critical fumbles and so forth. Random Orc #4 at -2 to hit (which by the by is way more book-keeping for you) isn't going to be as important as the party fighter is suffering from the same penalty. Plus monsters tend not to suffer as much from negative levels as PC's make far more skill checks which also suffer the penalty.
Second is the fact that this system your proposing looks like it will tend to snowball. If something goes wrong one side is going to have an easier time punishing the other more quickly.
Third as I mentioned before is book-keeping. Your adding a ton of extra work tracking these negative levels on all your monsters, not to mention the PC's, and then how it interacts with magical and natural healing.
Forth, Vampires just got huge.... >.>
That's not even worth the amount of time it takes to recalculate levels. This game is supposed to be fun not waste a bunch of time.
Total Maximum Hitpoints are calculated as normal, except you also add your entire Constitution score
For each multiple of (MaximumHP)/(NumberOfHitDie) that your damage exceeds, you gain a negative level (excluding the HP effects of negative levels).
So, a level 1 Wizard with 10 Constitution has 16 HP?
Lets say he gets to level 3 and rolls average hit points, so he's up to 23 Hit points overall.
Now, he gets a negative level whenever he takes 7 damage? Ouch.
Let's fast forward to level 11, when, on average, he'll have 51 HP. Unfortunately, he'll gain a negative level every 5 damage. What the hell, the amount of damage he can take before taking a negative level goes down even though the enemies he faces start to deal more damage?
How about a character on the other extreme: a Barbarian with 18 Constitution.
At level 1, he has 34 Hit Points. At level 3, he has 56 and can take 18 damage before he gets a negative level. When he rages, he gets 10 more HP for 66 total and can take 22 damage before he gets a negative level.
At level 11, the Barbarian has a magic item that raises his Con by 4, up to 22. He also has Greater Rage. At base, on average, he has 165 HP and can take 15 damage before taking a negative level. When he rages, he gets 28 more HP for 193 total, and he can take 17 damage before he gets a negative level.
Hey, wait a second, he also gets negative levels more easily as he levels up!
So, yeah, I think there's something wrong with the math of calculating it this way.
And I also think the very idea is probably a bad one. Wound penalties suck--they're in a lot of games and they are crappy to deal with. They make it so you literally cannot snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, because you get worse and worse as you get closer to the jaws to the point that you can't make a difference anymore.
Wound penalties like this end up heavily favoring High Initiative and ranged attacks. It makes players paranoid and unwilling to engage in fights. Maybe this works in, say, modern horror, but I think this is kind of the opposite of what I want to engender in my players during a game of heroic fantasy adventure.
Why not simply add a penalty at 1/2 health and then 1/4 health?
There are a bunch of threads on this in the archives.
The simplest one that I liked?
At less than 50% of hitpoints you are fatigued (the fatigue state now levels a -1 accross the board penalty on to hit/damage/saving throws AND spell dc's)
At less than 25%? you are exhausted (the exhausted state now levels a -3 accross the board penalty on to hit/damage/saving throws AND spell dc's).
You'll find the -1/-3 are in line with the current penalties but are now applied to every roll as opposed to dropped Strength etc. Other penalties on movement etc still apply as well.
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Ouch.How about just dropping a hit die,inherent stat bonuses,and maybe some ability score stats based on how many 'negative levels' you lose?
Using the negative level system is going to be much simpler than recalculating all that.
There are a few issues with this that I see immediately. First is that for the most part any kind of penalty system inherently favors enemies over the PC's. It's similar to what happens with critical fumbles and so forth. Random Orc #4 at -2 to hit (which by the by is way more book-keeping for you) isn't going to be as important as the party fighter is suffering from the same penalty. Plus monsters tend not to suffer as much from negative levels as PC's make far more skill checks which also suffer the penalty.
Second is the fact that this system your proposing looks like it will tend to snowball. If something goes wrong one side is going to have an easier time punishing the other more quickly.
Third as I mentioned before is book-keeping. Your adding a ton of extra work tracking these negative levels on all your monsters, not to mention the PC's, and then how it interacts with magical and natural healing.
Forth, Vampires just got huge.... >.>
Your first and second points I agree on wholeheartedly. I was kinda hoping by posting here that someone might have some suggestions as to how to deal with this. As for the first, as they can be fixed up by healing alone, I wouldn't worry too much. The second, however, is something I'm truly concerned about.
Third, I could easily make a table/chart of breakpoints for negative levels gained. In fact, I wrote up a tiny script to take care of all that before I even posted here. I think with a decent prep (having these already made) will nullify most extra bookkeeping.
Fourth, could you elaborate a bit? Their negative level-giving powers would be changed, per the rules in the OP, to simply lower max and current HP - which would actually be weaker than their normal negative levels.
That's not even worth the amount of time it takes to recalculate levels. This game is supposed to be fun not waste a bunch of time.
Could you also elaborate a bit? I'm not sure how much time you would need, but the -X penalty is pretty quick and simple to apply for me. There's no recalculation needed.
So, a level 1 Wizard with 10 Constitution has 16 HP?
Yes, as per the normal rules already, a level 1 Wizard with 10 Con could take 16 points of damage before he died. This works the same way, except he's conscious the whole time.
Lets say he gets to level 3 and rolls average hit points, so he's up to 23 Hit points overall.Now, he gets a negative level whenever he takes 7 damage? Ouch.
Let's fast forward to level 11, when, on average, he'll have 51 HP. Unfortunately, he'll gain a negative level every 5 damage. What the hell, the amount of damage he can take before taking a negative level goes down even though the enemies he faces start to deal more damage?
Ah, but with each level a negative level means less and less, proportionately. That level 3 Wizard only has to take 7 points of damage until he's effectively level 2. On the other hand, that level 11 Wizard has to take around 45 points of damage before he's effectively level 2.
And I also think the very idea is probably a bad one. Wound penalties suck--they're in a lot of games and they are crappy to deal with. They make it so you literally cannot snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, because you get worse and worse as you get closer to the jaws to the point that you can't make a difference anymore.
Agreed with your ending point. As I expressed above, I was hoping someone much smarter than I would have a solution for this.
Why not simply add a penalty at 1/2 health and then 1/4 health?
And...
There are a bunch of threads on this in the archives.
The simplest one that I liked?
At less than 50% of hitpoints you are fatigued (the fatigue state now levels a -1 accross the board penalty on to hit/damage/saving throws AND spell dc's)
At less than 25%? you are exhausted (the exhausted state now levels a -3 accross the board penalty on to hit/damage/saving throws AND spell dc's).
You'll find the -1/-3 are in line with the current penalties but are now applied to every roll as opposed to dropped Strength etc. Other penalties on movement etc still apply as well.
I was hoping for something a little more dynamic, I suppose. Really, if it's a static penalty (like -1/-3), then it will have less and less impact as you gain levels. Something I want to avoid. Any ideas on keeping it at 50%/25% but having a dynamic penalty?
You are adding one more common factor to every creature's action. Negative levels are weird things. They not only give you -1 to mostthings, they also remove spells which is a major hassle. Also understand that being effectively level 2 of your original 3 is one thing, being 6 of 10 is far, far worse. The way the CR system is laid out, you become almost entirely nullified.
So, dynamic penalties are a bloody nightmare for a DM. Don't do it. The way this is laid out, you will get serious balance issues and add very little. And asking if anyone has better ways to do it isn't going to net you anything, because the error is adding this complexity as it is. Fatigued and exhausted may be possible, but only just manageable.
why not just play a game with death spiral wound mechanics? There are a bunch of them on the market already.
Afterwards, come back and tell us all how much fun that was.
Having negative levels isn't just about penalizing certain stats it's also not allowing access to certain things. People won't be able to access certain spells, clerics healing will be less effective, a summoner's eidolon's level will lower,saving throws will change, bab will change, evolutions for the eidolon will change, access to feats will change, companion levels will change, certain people don't be able to access their familiars, access to spells will change, etc.
Besides it doesn't make sense that you gain negative levels because you're more hurt at it. Why would someone lose access to certain things that are more powerful because they're hurt? Perhaps they take penalties on things but they don't lose them. Besides adding this house rule would cause snowball fights and would give a tremendous advantage to whom ever started the battle.
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+1There are a bunch of threads on this in the archives.
The simplest one that I liked?
At less than 50% of hitpoints you are fatigued (the fatigue state now levels a -1 accross the board penalty on to hit/damage/saving throws AND spell dc's)
At less than 25%? you are exhausted (the exhausted state now levels a -3 accross the board penalty on to hit/damage/saving throws AND spell dc's).
You'll find the -1/-3 are in line with the current penalties but are now applied to every roll as opposed to dropped Strength etc. Other penalties on movement etc still apply as well.
Long live Kirthfinder!
I just do -2 penalty (attack, save, ability check, skill)at half HP, Fort DC (10+HD) to ignore. And again at 1/4 hp, Fort DC (15+hd), so fail both and -4 penalty, but hey, you failed two fortitude saves. The penalty is a pain penalty, any pain related effects apply. Endurance applies, die-hard makes you immune. Healing above the threshold eliminates the effect.
Works well enough, makes for a good "benchmark" of enemy health (its attacks falter a bit and become less accurate), and generally affects both PCs and monster equally, because while the PC may be feeling that save more often than not, the monster tend to flat out fail more due to a higher save DC relative to Fort mod. Which makes sense, big monsters likely are rarely hurt badly, so when it happens, they actually feel it, as opposed to brawny fighters for whom the negative HPs are a second home.
Others mileage may vary, of course.
One advantage of an injury penalty system is that it makes combat healing far more relevant.
The major disadvantage is that it's a "win more" mechanic -- te closer you are to losing, the harder it is to turn the situation around.
I like hit points, but I like to track real injuries using a separate system-- so getting whittled down to zero hit points might not represent any serious injuries at all, so you can fight at all full strength and recover almost instantaneously, while a serious injury might heal slowly and impose penalties but not necessarily mean that you're hovering on death's doorstep.
Rolemaster and systems derived from it-- including AD&D's Combat & Tactics-- assume this by default, while White Wolf's Street Fighter assumes that most fight damage is non-lethal and real injuries are very rare. I've found a good way to handle this in FATE, but I've never seen a good way to handle it in d20.
It's probably best to go back to your original concept and figure out what you want to accomplish. You want dynamic penalties for losing HP, so that you feel more "injured?" Where do you want these penalties to kick in, and how badly do you want them to hamper those who have them?
It's quite tempting to levy a numerical penalty to actions. This has a side effect of hitting characters using attack rolls and skill checks much harder than those pesky characters that use abilities that force others to react to them (monster summoning classes, save-or-die and battlefield control users).
One area to explore might be action loss on the round after your HP is lowered. It's bad, every character type is affected, and if you want it to feel dynamic, you could involve some sort of a check that determines the magnitude of the loss. I strongly recommend that if that is the route you go, that they only lose actions for one turn- any more and they will essentially be sitting out the fight.
A good DM I played under had a house rule he termed "Clobbered." Any entity that took more than half its remaining HP in damage that round was Staggered when its turn came up. I cannot remember right now if it specifically had to be dealt in one blow or not, I do not think it did. Everyone seemed to really like it, even though they did groan when it happened to them. We played a number of low-level games under him, and it didn't make early play impossible for us.
This can make a horrid situation worse, but chances are if they are taking that much damage as to trigger "clobbering" constantly- it was not going to work as a fight anyway.
A good DM I played under had a house rule he termed "Clobbered." Any entity that took more than half its remaining HP in damage that round was Staggered when its turn came up.Still a huge advantage for the casters ... casters run on standard actions, martials run on full attacks.
True enough, but it's an example of what could be done. You could perhaps make it a Standard action loss by default, with a Fortitude save to shrug off the pain and reduce it to Move action or swift action loss. You could make it the Stunned condition instead of Staggered. Any number of things- just illustrating that it has worked, even at the low levels where it would theoretically be triggered more easily.
That helps the OP's need for "dynamic" penalties while also making the triggering condition dynamic as a bonus. Anyone can trigger this on enemies as well, and the "bookkeeping" of knowing what penalties are on what entity only need to be periodically checked instead of constantly tracked.