Please read and comment on my draft proposals for changing these aspects of the system.
Alternative HP & Damage Rules
‘HP’ - Now split into Severe Wound Points (SWP), Wound Points (WP) and Vigour Points (VP). Under normal circumstances damage is applied to VPs first, WP second and SWP last. Damage which bypasses VP and applies directly to the WP/SWP total is called 'Wounding Damage'.
Level Or Racial HD Derived HP - The following is gained per level/HD (note that at 1st level the maximum dice roll is applied for VP).
D6 = 1 SWP, 2 WP & 1d3 VP + Con Bonus
D8 = 1 SWP, 3 WP & 1d4 VP + Con Bonus
D10 = 2 SWP, 3 WP & 1d6 VP + Con Bonus
D12 = 2 SWP, 3 WP & 1d8 VP + Con Bonus
Note that every Size Category above Medium gains a bonus +2 SWP and +2 WP per racial HD.
Toughness Feat - Note that the +3 HPs from this Feat are applied to SWP and WP (+3 each), and the +1 per level to VP.
Temporary HPs - Now added to VP exclusively.
Heal Skill (Treat Deadly Wounds) – Now applied to SWP then WP in that order.
Magical Healing – Now applied to SWP then WP at the rate of 1 SWP/WP per 3 total points; thereafter applied point-for-point to VP.
Natural Healing - Occurs at the following rates;
VP = 1/lvl/hour of rest. 1/lvl/4 hours of activity
WP = 1/lvl/day of rest. 1/lvl/week of activity
SWP = 1/lvl/week of rest. Not recoverable if active
Alternative Damage Output & Armour Rules
Damage Types and Effects
Lethal Damage applied to....
VP – no penalties
WP – victim is sickened
SWP – victim is sickened and staggered
Non-Lethal Damage applied to....
VP – no penalties
WP – victim is fatigued
SWP – victim is fatigued and stunned
The above conditions applied as a consequence of damage can only be removed by healing that damage.
Armour Class - Every 3rd point of Armour derived AC is deducted and changes to +1 DR/-.
Class Defences - All Classes get a Dodge Bonus equal to their basic BAB-derived number of attacks per round.
Strength Damage Bonus - For weapons it is now 100% for Light, 150% for 1 handed and 200% for 2 handed
Attack Bonus - Dexterity bonus (unmodified by armour penalties) derives Attack Bonus for all weapons.
New Feat – Brute Force Fighter allows a variable amount of Strength bonus to be transferred from damage bonus to attack bonus as desired.
Large+ Creatures - Gain Brute Force Fighter as a bonus Feat if they have higher Strength than Dex.
Weapon Finesse Feat - Now changed to allow DR/- to be bypassed to an extent equal to Dex Bonus (for light weapons only).
Falling Damage – Falling does 1 Wounding Damage per 10ft fallen in addition to the standard 1d6 damage to VP.
Con Damage – Now does Wounding Damage. Permanent Con reduction transfers to the Stat after the relevant event/period and also reduces permanently VP by the relevant Con Bonus reductions amount.
HP Threshold Reliant Spells/Effects - Now work off VP + Con Score as the target number.
Sneak Attack Damage – Now does bonus Wounding Damage bonus equal to total SA dice on a critical hit (applied even if target still has VP!).
Poisoned Attacks - Normal damaging attacks which also deliver Poison apply +2 DC modifier for the poison save if they damage WP and +4 DC if they damage SWP (the poison being delivered deeper into the body of the target). Note that this stacks with save penalties from already being wounded!
I don't like your sa damage. To me, the point of a system like this is to have rules which help you describe if a character gets hit or not. If sa damage ignores vitality, a little, does that mean the target is hit or not?
I also have a problem with armor as DR. It muddles the question of you being hit or not and gives a big advantage to people that take penalties to hit with big weapons for Mac damage.
Finally, it is the weakest classes, fighter and rogue, that will spend the most time staggered.
On your first point - to be fair the thread is about damage also and the SA modification makes Rogues more effective, not less. I think it's pretty clear that the person has to be hit to take any of these sorts of damages.... I am not sure how you got confused about that particular point.
The Wounding damage bonus to critical SA's is in ADDITION to the normal rolled damage. SA is therefore significantly improved - a major bone of contention with the system as it currently is.
Armour as DR is something already tried (and failed imo) in Ultimate Combat. This just adds an element of it in here to make armour more effective - there is hardly any 'muddling' - the recalculations are really quite simple.
The Fighter is nearly at the top of the alternative HP progression shown here AND gets the most benefit from armour damage reduction. This hardly makes them 'the most vulnerable' as written above.
On the issue of Rogues - with Dex being the standard attack bonus stat - their chance to be hit comes down a little against martial characters who keep high damage output with Str, or stays about the same while the damage output reduces. Both of these things are of some benefit to the Rogue. That said I wouldn't ditch these changes just because class is underpowered - it's the class that needs a change, not my proposals -at least for this reason.
If you aren't confused, then enjoy.
Curious about your opinion. A fighter with 100 hp gets hit by a sword for 12 damage. What happened?
A commoner with 6 hp gets hit for 12 damage. What happened?
In my opinion, the fighter was missed, even if it was sa, while the commoner was run through. If you demand that the fighter was also run through, then you end up with really crazy descriptions of the type and size of wounds characters take.
Ah well - I am suggesting changes to a system that never pretended to support realism to make it a little more reasonable.
Sounds like you should play GURPS like I do whenever I can get people weaned off d20....
Evil Lincoln has posited an alternative treatment of HP not too long ago that looked quite good for adding "reasonableness" to descriptions while affecting mechanics quite lightly. Perhaps you've seen it, I didn't fully finish the thread.
A number of the changes here seriously affect combat dynamics, particularly changing all attack bonuses to work off of Dex by default (though the armor as DR and AC does as well). Unless you've been testing these incrementally, I think you will really notice a lot of changes you didn't anticipate.
One of the things I notice is that healing rates are tied only to level, but hit dice and points are tied to combat readiness and are still affected by Constitution. This leads to things like the sickly, frail, low-con Wizard being completely healed and battle-ready much sooner than a massively hearty, burly Barbarian when they were both beaten to an inch of their life.
I'm not sure what prompted you to alter the attack and damage rules so much. Martial characters who rely on their weaponry to do their jobs now effectively get half the mileage out of their Strength score at all times. If they have Brute Force Fighter (another feat to be good in combat? Doesn't the fighter have more of these because he needs them a great deal as it is?), they still only get half the effectiveness, it's just shifted to both hit and damage. If you ever thought the last few attacks of a full attack sequence had a problem hitting, this should really catch your attention.
(I do admit that I am biased against Dexterity quite a bit, as I think people attribute a lot of real-world mystique to it that is really a result of skill and practice and not some innate level of coordination.)
Hello hello, what's all this then?
I'll be back in a little while.
@Caliburn, my first impression is that you're trying to do too much, and it carries a price of complexity. Have you playtested this system at all? It seems like it would triple the paperwork on several game processes. If you can simplify this, or divide it into several independent rules, I would like to see that.
I'd also appreciate some annotation that explains your design rationale for each step. That would let me evaluate whether each part was truly necessary or just a "nice thing" you added.
Your list of situations involving HP is quite good, I think I'm going to steal if for reviewing my own houserule. Excellent contribution!
A fighter with 100 hp gets hit by a sword for 12 damage. What happened?
A commoner with 6 hp gets hit for 12 damage. What happened?
In my opinion, the fighter was missed, even if it was sa, while the commoner was run through. If you demand that the fighter was also run through, then you end up with really crazy descriptions of the type and size of wounds characters take.
I'm stealing your questions for my Injuries thread. If you feel like poking holes there, go nuts.
Seems a bit complicated... I'd rather not have to write legislation to go through combat. What my group likes is
1) Above 50% hp you're not getting stabbed, you're just becoming tired or overpowered, spraining an ankle or getting minor cuts to the arm.
2) Below 50% hp you're getting nasty wounds, stabs, broken bones
3) If you're above 50% when you go to rest you'll recover extra hit points with some Heal checks; basically you're bandaging wounds, applying salves, wrapping sprains and so forth. I feel it's the same as the obligatory piles of CLW wands, why make them pay out the wazoo?
4) If you're below 50% when you go to rest you don't regain any extra hit points but instead need magical healing until you're back up to half. The wounds you've suffered need time to heal and tending to or some type of magic.
I guess you could add in conditions like Fatigued below 50%, but I like this because it makes someone good at Heal more than just the guy who stops bleeding or remove caltrops.
Been running this two weeks now (with a simplification on the lethal/non-lethal) damage tracking and applied conditions.
Works well - IF the HP loss tracking is inbuilt on the character sheet.
This has made the rogue in my campaign very happy, the evocation mage more of a fight-decider and the fighter (cleave-meister) was neutral about it until he got the Toughness feat and started putting his favoured class bonuses into HP. He is happy now....
Still working out the odd kink, but have to say, this is not complicated really - not once you are used to HP tracking on the sheet and everyone has a copy of the relevant conditions close at hand.
Changes made to the above post so far;
Non-lethal bit taken out - non-lethal taken as VP, but once wound levels reached - damage becomes Fort saves v's fatigued and stunned (DC 10+ damage taken per strike).
Falling Wounding Damage - doubled to 2 per 10ft.
Toughness Feat - changed to +2 bonus for each wound category, not +3.
Bleed Attacks - after much debate, critical bleed attacks now do 1 wound per dice (or multiple of 3 total damage) per round.
Hero Points - these can now be used to ignore Wound penalties for the duration of one encounter. This works very well - and whilst being rather cinematic (aka John Wayne-style 'it's just a flesh wound - I'll collapse after the bad guys are dead'....), really makes the PC's FEEL like heroes....
On Heal checks - if a natural 20 is rolled or the healer takes a 20 then even if the healing does not bring the target out of a wounded status they temporarily lose the relevant conditions. If a Fortitude save is required, they run or are involved in combat (or some other physically stressful activity) they regain the status after the first round (the wound 're-opens', or they relapse).
Improved Initiative - no changes here - just thought I should say this has become the most taken feat in my game - the race to get Wound penalties on the enemy is a much more of a focus - as is gaining ambush surprise rounds - fights are really feeling more tactical and the players are really thinking about such things far more than they used to!
I know this isn't to everyone's taste, but my group are loving it, especially when I throw in Will saves in for low-moral opponents who are wounded to see if they flee or throw in the towel.
I would recommend the above - it really isn't as difficult to integrate into your game as it may appear.