My thoughts exactly, Seerow.
I'm okay if you want to say that your meatiness surpasses all sorts of realism, and a mace to the face that would tickle the brainmeats of a lower level person only leaves a small scratch on yours (despite the blow being as hard and accurate as it is to the lower level person).
But if that's the case, I'd want more mundane badassery in the system. Sufficiently high jump checks to get a fly speed (as in Legend) for example.
I don't know for sure that I'd want to grant a Fly Speed from jump checks, but I'm totally fine with upper-mid-level Athletic characters getting jumps comparable to Goku in Dragonball and High Level ones getting jumps comparable to the Hulk.
[Also including rules for being able to attack mid-jump. That's an aspect of the rules that's sorely lacking in my book. By pure RAW you can't even jump-charge a flying opponent for a single smack.]
In Legend, the upper tier jump (and climb, actually) checks allow you to effectively fly for 1-3 rounds. But it's a lot harder to boost your skill checks in that system, whereas in Pathfinder you can easily get high skill bonuses very early.
It might work better ala Unchained skill unlocks.
I mean, it's all kinds of badass to say:
"Got me in the heart that time. Not bad. Now do it six more times before I cut your head off."
Pathfinder isn't the system that evokes that for me, but I would not complain if it became that kind of system.
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@OP: I don't know what thread you came from, so I'm just going with what you said in the OP of this one.
Thank you, Jiggy, this post is everything I was asking for. :)
... oooooorrrrrrrrrrr... make the AC scaling as part of the natural progression of the character growth instead of a function of magic items and feats.
If I were to run PF, this is exactly what I'd do. It'd probably look a lot like the house rule that you linked.
I'm not saying your grasp is wrong, but rather the underlying premise that is "hit points is a skill, where's the related one" is flawed.
Not quite. My premise is "Characters ought to get better at martial defense just by surviving adventures, just as they get better at stabbing things just by surviving adventures. Thus, there ought to be a stat to represent that.”
I'll understand if you don't agree with this premise, as we've already established that we're coming from opposite directions on this issue.
Terribly unsatisfactory?...someone get me a box of tissues.@Tequila Sunrise, you just need more feats for defence that are something more than a +1.That's...terribly unsatisfactory IMO. If basic attack skill (BAB) is automatic, defensive skill should not require special opt-in choices. I'm glad it works for you, but for me it's terribly dissonant.
Smarmy much? As I recall, this whole discussion originally began in the other thread with you not being able to handle non-magical healing because it's 'dissociative.' Well, cry me a river. This is D&D/PF we're talking about; I've been gaming with dissociative rules for ~20 years. Hit points are the poster boy of dissociative rules, but there are plenty more!
How you can imagine that fantasy physics works fantastically for the purpose of wounds (meat points), while being incapable of (or unwilling to) imagining healing without overt finger-wiggling magic is beyond me. But by all means, reach for those tissues.
In my D&D 3.5e days I used something called a Class Defense Bonus. We abandoned it when we crossed over to Pathfinder as it was too much work for the GM. And it changed too many other things in the game...the dreaded butterfly effect.
Tequila if you are not impressed by this may the gods of Golarion show mercy
Class Defense Bonus...
You tell me that the CDB variant is too much work, and then you go ahead and post it? Good thing I'm perfectly capable of writing a better house rule myself!
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... oooooorrrrrrrrrrr... make the AC scaling as part of the natural progression of the character growth instead of a function of magic items and feats.
If I were to run PF, this is exactly what I'd do. It'd probably look a lot like the house rule that you linked.
Cool. :)
Hope that helps you come up with something you like!
I'm not saying your grasp is wrong, but rather the underlying premise that is "hit points is a skill, where's the related one" is flawed.
Not quite. My premise is "Characters ought to get better at martial defense just by surviving adventures, just as they get better at stabbing things just by surviving adventures. Thus, there ought to be a stat to represent that.”
I'll understand if you don't agree with this premise, as we've already established that we're coming from opposite directions on this issue.
That... that looks exactly like what I was saying, though, which is why I'm surprised; I thought you were talking about hit points?
I think I'm missing something that you're saying... but okay.
"Get better at stabbing things" just by surviving adventures is the attack bonus. That's why I pointed to either the "auto-increase" option, or the "really, it's skill" option as alternatives.
I really do giving Blue Rose and Star Wars d20 a look, though, if only to get an idea of what they're like.
(If you've ever played Knights of the Old Republic II, you'll have a bit of an idea about Star Wars, though it did take several liberties, including shedding the hit point/wound point variance... but that does work out better for "hitpoint=meat" idea.)
Terribly unsatisfactory?...someone get me a box of tissues.@Tequila Sunrise, you just need more feats for defence that are something more than a +1.That's...terribly unsatisfactory IMO. If basic attack skill (BAB) is automatic, defensive skill should not require special opt-in choices. I'm glad it works for you, but for me it's terribly dissonant.Smarmy much? As I recall, this whole discussion originally began in the other thread with you not being able to handle non-magical healing because it's 'dissociative.' Well, cry me a river. This is D&D/PF we're talking about; I've been gaming with dissociative rules for ~20 years. Hit points are the poster boy of dissociative rules, but there are plenty more!
How you can imagine that fantasy physics works fantastically for the purpose of wounds (meat points), while being incapable of (or unwilling to) imagining healing without overt finger-wiggling magic is beyond me. But by all means, reach for those tissues.
In my D&D 3.5e days I used something called a Class Defense Bonus. We abandoned it when we crossed over to Pathfinder as it was too much work for the GM. And it changed too many other things in the game...the dreaded butterfly effect.You tell me that the CDB variant is too much work, and then you go ahead and post it? Good thing I'm perfectly capable of writing a better house rule myself!Tequila if you are not impressed by this may the gods of Golarion show mercy
Class Defense Bonus...
Smarmy? Chill out where is your sense of humour? I was joking.
To make any kind of Class Defense System work the entire system needs to be rewritten, hence why we abandoned it. So like many people who create house rules I look at things that can be easily implemented.
Hit points is not a disassociative mechanic. Someone attacks you, you have less hit points, cure spells heal damage. Is it realistic? No, but its still a simulation, in the context of a heroic fantasy setting.
Terribly unsatisfactory?...someone get me a box of tissues.@Tequila Sunrise, you just need more feats for defence that are something more than a +1.That's...terribly unsatisfactory IMO. If basic attack skill (BAB) is automatic, defensive skill should not require special opt-in choices. I'm glad it works for you, but for me it's terribly dissonant.How you can imagine that fantasy physics works fantastically for the purpose of wounds (meat points), while being incapable of (or unwilling to) imagining healing without overt finger-wiggling magic is beyond me. But by all means, reach for those tissues.
In my D&D 3.5e days I used something called a Class Defense Bonus. We abandoned it when we crossed over to Pathfinder as it was too much work for the GM. And it changed too many other things in the game...the dreaded butterfly effect.My OP stated that there aren't any mechanics in the Pathfinder (3.75) system that implies hit points is anything other than meat points, which is in fact true.
Is it the perfect system? No. Do I have a problem with hit points? Not really, it has never created any kind of issues in the games that I played.
There is some deeply ingrained problems with the 3.75 system (the martial/caster disparity is one) and the issue surrounding hit points is insignificant compared to others.
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That... that looks exactly like what I was saying, though, which is why I'm surprised; I thought you were talking about hit points?
I'd rather that defensive skill be represented by some sort of by-level bonus[es], but yes, without house rules hit points are [sadly] the only candidate for representing get-better-just-for-surviving defensive skill.
I think I'm missing something that you're saying... but okay.
Yeah, there's something I've been missing from every one of your posts on this topic. It's like, I understand what each of your words mean individually, but we're on different wavelengths so I can't put them together in a completely coherent message.
I really do giving Blue Rose and Star Wars d20 a look, though, if only to get an idea of what they're like.
I've played the latter, but not the former. Not likely to unless I stumble upon a Blue Rose fan.
Smarmy? Chill out where is your sense of humour? I was joking.
Lol, I was joking too. Couldn't you tell?
Hit points is not a disassociative mechanic.
Which is why I called it a dissociative rule, which is a much older problem than some edition warrior's peculiarly selective term for rationalizing what he didn't like about 4e. Which is why gamers have been having issues with dissociative rules since day 1 of D&D.
Someone attacks you, you have less hit points, cure spells heal damage. Is it realistic? No, but its still a simulation, in the context of a heroic fantasy setting.
So is non-magical healing. But hey, feel free to tell yourself whatever you want.
My OP stated that there aren't any mechanics in the Pathfinder (3.75) system that implies hit points is anything other than meat points, which is in fact true.
So you're okay with meat points because the PF rulebook tells you that that's what hp are. Cool, that's all I was looking for.
Smarmy? Chill out where is your sense of humour? I was joking.Lol, I was joking too. Couldn't you tell?
Hit points is not a disassociative mechanic.Which is why I called it a dissociative rule, which is a much older problem than some edition warrior's peculiarly selective term for rationalizing what he didn't like about 4e. Which is why gamers have been having issues with dissociative rules since day 1 of D&D.
Someone attacks you, you have less hit points, cure spells heal damage. Is it realistic? No, but its still a simulation, in the context of a heroic fantasy setting.So is non-magical healing. But hey, feel free to tell yourself whatever you want.
My OP stated that there aren't any mechanics in the Pathfinder (3.75) system that implies hit points is anything other than meat points, which is in fact true.So you're okay with meat points because the PF rulebook tells you that that's what hp are. Cool, that's all I was looking for.
Let have a wild guess, you don't play Pathfinder at all, you play D&D 4e, and that's why hit points= meat points is such a hot topic for you.
Because in D&D (4e) hit points is vastly increased compared to other systems, and in that system, actions for parrying and defence are harder to come by. You can't raise your AC like you can in Pathfinder and don't have access to the type of defensive feats that define what is an adequate defence. Defence is covered by additional hit points.
And it would explain why you are looking at things from a class ability perspective. And are defending non-magical healing (healing surges) with such vigour. As Pathfinder doesn't have such things imbedded into its system so is less of an issue.
Knowing this in advance would have altered responses quite dramatically.
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That... that looks exactly like what I was saying, though, which is why I'm surprised; I thought you were talking about hit points?
I'd rather that defensive skill be represented by some sort of by-level bonus[es], but yes, without house rules hit points are [sadly] the only candidate for representing get-better-just-for-surviving defensive skill.
Okay, this actually helps me understand where you're coming from.
I see them as so very separate, though, because we already have a (semi-leveling {via feats and ability increases}) "defensive skill" (AC), a (whole set of) "defensive skill(s)" via class features (ex: evasion, uncanny dodge, etc.), and a (not-automatic-but-leveling) "defensive skill" (acrobatics {or "tumble"}).
I think I'm missing something that you're saying... but okay.
Yeah, there's something I've been missing from every one of your posts on this topic. It's like, I understand what each of your words mean individually, but we're on different wavelengths so I can't put them together in a completely coherent message.
That happens. It might be me, you, or both of us, or just something about the way we individually say and read things. :)
Fortunately I think we're both being pretty polite about it! :D
I really do giving Blue Rose and Star Wars d20 a look, though, if only to get an idea of what they're like.
I've played the latter, but not the former. Not likely to unless I stumble upon a Blue Rose fan.
Hi! I'm a fan!
... well, an armchair fan, because I've not really had a chance to play, but a fan nonetheless. :)
Effectively, HP in that system are turned into two different things: a "toughness" mechanic to negate a successful hit, and a "wound track" mechanic that determines how "bad" you're doing, by how far along you are.
"Damage" is static and is purely a function of "how tough do you have to be to shrug it off" kind of a thing.
So, for example, a dagger deals +1 damage (I'm not sure of that, but let's just presume), so you make your attack roll, and, if you hit, the target must make a "toughness" DC based on your total damage bonus, or move down the track (something like one step for every five points you fail, or something? I don't recall right now).
Translating characters from PF hp to Blue Rose toughness (or whatever it's called) is relatively simple: you get a linear progression to your toughness based on your class' hit dice value (maximum of, I think, 1.25/level for d12s, which otherwise don't exist in the game).
It uses a very Star Wars d20 or Green Ronin Psychic Rules style magic - take feats to access skills to do stuff. I'm not sure how much I like that, but the setting is phenomenal, and the variant toughness mechanic is different from your standard that I really wanted to give it a shot. There are also lots of interesting ideas within even the mechanics I'm not sure about to make me want to take a second look and dig deeper.
Sadly, we only got it fairly recently (within the last year), and we have had practically zero time to devote ourselves to learning a new system (hence even our super-exciting Firefly RPG languishing at present), being so busy as we are with one preemie and one three-year-old. Sorry I'm not as stellar on those rules as I'd like to be, but the basics seem very much so like something you might enjoy.
Sure, that was EGG's intention, but I'm guessing back in those days Lava submersion without some kind of magical protection was an instant-kill?It was 20d6 of fire damage per round.
Hm, that's odd. In the 2e DMG, I remember mention that some things are insta-kill, with a collapsing room trap mentioned as an example. But then TSR-era D&D was even more inconsistent than WotC D&D.
Because in D&D (4e) hit points is vastly increased compared to other systems, and in that system, actions for parrying and defence are harder to come by. You can't raise your AC like you can in Pathfinder and don't have access to the type of defensive feats that define what is an adequate defence. Defence is covered by additional hit points.
This is a common misconception, but not really true. 4e hp is actually lower by mid levels than 3.5/PF HP, because instead of adding con mod to every hit die, you only add con score to HP once.
Just for quick comparison, a level 20 PF Fighter with 22 con is running ~235hp. 255 with favored class bonus. A level 20 Barbarian will be raging with an extra +8 con and higher hit die, jumping their hp all the way up to 355. By comparison, a level 20 4e Fighter has 129+constitution score HP. The Barbarian has the same. Even if you assume Con is your secondary ability score (so start with a 16, boost at every opportunity), that's going to end with 24 con, for a total of 153hp. We're talking close to half that of a PF Fighter. Heck even a PF Wizard who starts with only 12 con and grabs a +6 item with no favored class bonus is going to have 152 hp, almost identical to the same level Fighter focused much more heavily on con in 4e. The level 20 4e Wizard using the same constraints is sitting at ~98 hp.
I get that 4e characters have more HP at low level, but the implication of your post is that 4e reduced the availability of AC boosts and made up for that with higher HP values. That's really not the case. The goal with the HP shift was to make low level characters less swingy, and make the overall hp curve much smoother and more predictable. It had nothing to do with reimagining how the defenses worked or shifting the defense from AC to HP the way you are saying.
You make a valid point,
But is it not true that in D&D 4e the damage was much lower, so in turn they had more hit points on a 1:1 ratio compared to other systems like 3.75. And correct me if I am mistaken the reason was to get rid of 1 round kills in the game, and to provide a more teamwork driven and tactical experience.
Back in 2E we had a DM who treated them as a Buffer that you had before suffering real injury. Once you ran out of Hit Points he brought out this book from another system full of Critical injuries. Huge book, with a different chart for every weapon type and every body type. There was a conversion in the back of it for how to use the book with D&D.
After you ran out of Hit Points every hit was potentially something nasty. Sometimes it was a Gash over your eye that gave you penalties to hit, sometimes your entire rib cage would get caved in and you spend 3 rounds gurggling blood on the ground before you died.
Was an interesting approach, just wish I remembered the book he used to use.
Back in 2E we had a DM who treated them as a Buffer that you had before suffering real injury. Once you ran out of Hit Points he brought out this book from another system full of Critical injuries. Huge book, with a different chart for every weapon type and every body type. There was a conversion in the back of it for how to use the book with D&D.
After you ran out of Hit Points every hit was potentially something nasty. Sometimes it was a Gash over your eye that gave you penalties to hit, sometimes your entire rib cage would get caved in and you spend 3 rounds gurggling blood on the ground before you died.
Was an interesting approach, just wish I remembered the book he used to use.
Good old Dark Heresy crit tables?