hit point flavor fix

[Coolkidtopolis]

It's always super bugged me that a high-level character can essentially just take a cannon ball to the face and walk away like nothing happened. There's a few fixes that I've seen for this, like the massive damage rule: If you take 50 or more damage, make a fort save or die, but high-level characters can almost always make the fort save. There's also the much less-structured chunky salsa rule: If something would logically reduce your head to the consistency of chunky salsa, you are dead, other rules be damned. This works, but is dissatisfying from a rules perspective. I decided to design a system that makes characters only marginally tougher as they level up, but significantly harder to hit as well. It's been successful so far, but it still needs work and I'd love suggestions or for people to try it out and tell me how it goes.

Here's how it works:

You begin at 1st level with a number of hit points equal to the maximum for your hit die plus your constitution modifier. At every additional level, you gain 1 additional hit point (alternatively: every other level, you gain a number of hit points equal to your constitution modifier. Still testing this).

Your base attack bonus becomes your base combat bonus. You add this bonus to all attack rolls, all combat maneuver checks, your combat maneuver defense, and your armor class.

You receive a bonus on saving throws to avoid taking damage equal to your character level-1. Successful saving throws to take half damage from an effect instead allow you to take no damage. Evasion functions as improved evasion. Improved evasion instead adds a +6 bonus to reflex saves.

If something would reference your Hit Dice, it instead uses your hit dice (which is 1 unless you have bonus hit dice from a template or because you're using a non-standard race) plus your character level-1. For most characters, this is simply their character level.

So far I've found that it increases the randomness of combat, which can make encounters more difficult, especially against monsters with high attack bonuses. It also makes doing lots of damage kind of unnecessary when fighting NPC's instead of monsters. Similarly, it turns monsters that deal huge amounts of damage into either pansies if they have low attack bonuses or absolute overkill KO cannons if they have high attack bonuses. Some spells that reference hit points need to be edited or removed, such as Power Word Kill. Other spells that bypass AC or saves also need to be fixed or removed, like magic missile.

The biggest problem so far though is fixing clerics and other healers. Higher level healing spells and healing abilities become kind of useless in this system. I'm thinking of allowing the healing of a spell to be spread out over subsequent turns. For example, a cure serious wounds, instead of healing 3d8+1/level to a single target, would allow its caster to spread out the healing to multiple different touches, whether on the same target or other targets, until all of the healing has been used up or until a number of rounds equal to the caster's caster level have passed, a lot like the way lay on hands works. This system is also a tad complex, which is less than optimal.

But yeah, if you can think of any additional problems, solutions to problems, or ways to reduce complexity please share them.

[kyrt-ryder]

May I inquire why it bugs you? The better we understand your reasoning behind your houserules the better we can help with them.

[Coolkidtopolis]

kyrt-ryder wrote:

May I inquire why it bugs you? The better we understand your reasoning behind your houserules the better we can help with them.

Yeah totes. As people become more experienced in combat they don't become able to physically take significantly larger amounts of damage very easily. It makes more sense to say that they learn to avoid damage better. That's the flavor that hit points try to express. They mention this in the wound and vigor system. However, hit points just feel like for some reason the meat of your body has become nearly indestructible instead of feeling like a representation of increased skill in combat.

[Aelryinth]

I suggest taking a hint from Exalted and straight up going with Health and Soak.

health being actual material harm you suffer.

Soak being 'warrior magic' or temporary hit points, or whatever you want, but clearly taking the hit instead of you.

Figure out how you want Health figured - base Con + Con/level is okay. or racial hit die. Most monsters will have Health. Objects, too. But Fey, for instance, might be mostly soak to reflect their magical natures.

Soak only comes from class levels, otherwise.

Classes recover Soak at the same speed as they do nonlethal hit point damage.

Let the character choose if he wants to take a hit against Soak or Health.

Healing magic only heals hits against health (physical damage). Only time heals hits against Soak.

So you draw a clear line in the sand of physical damage and damage obviated by 'magical toughness'. One heals on its own fairly quickly, the other you can mend between fights. fast healing and regen only work on Health.

==Aelryinth

[kyrt-ryder]

Ah, you prefer characters who level to 'just become more experienced in combat' rather than becoming Higher Level Characters who are innately more powerful.

Makes sense, thank you for the clarification. [I prefer the other way so I'm not going to be much help, best of luck.]

[Coolkidtopolis]

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Ah, you prefer characters who level to 'just become more experienced in combat' rather than becoming Higher Level Characters who are innately more powerful.

Makes sense, thank you for the clarification. [I prefer the other way so I'm not going to be much help, best of luck.]

Well,to be clear, i would still like characters to become more resistant to harm as they level up, just in a way that makes more flavorful sense to me by representing it differently. I don't blame you for liking the original system though. It's worked very well.

[My Self]

Aelryinth wrote:

Figure out how you want Health figured - base Con + Con/level is okay. or racial hit die. Most monsters will have Health. Objects, too. But Fey, for instance, might be mostly soak to reflect their magical natures.

What if you have a negative CON modifier? Say you start with an 7, and become level 4. What happens?

[Coolkidtopolis]

Aelryinth wrote:

I suggest taking a hint from Exalted and straight up going with Health and Soak.

health being actual material harm you suffer.

Soak being 'warrior magic' or temporary hit points, or whatever you want, but clearly taking the hit instead of you.

Figure out how you want Health figured - base Con + Con/level is okay. or racial hit die. Most monsters will have Health. Objects, too. But Fey, for instance, might be mostly soak to reflect their magical natures.

Soak only comes from class levels, otherwise.

Classes recover Soak at the same speed as they do nonlethal hit point damage.

Let the character choose if he wants to take a hit against Soak or Health.

Healing magic only heals hits against health (physical damage). Only time heals hits against Soak.

So you draw a clear line in the sand of physical damage and damage obviated by 'magical toughness'. One heals on its own fairly quickly, the other you can mend between fights. fast healing and regen only work on Health.

==Aelryinth

This sounds like a really cool system, and reminds me a lot of the wounds and vigor system that paizo designed and it sounds like it probably works pretty well, but i'm trying to move away from the 'magical toughness' with this system in a way that makes it really feel like your character has become more adept at avoiding damage in combat by linking it to armor class, the statistic that represents best that your character is difficult to hit.

[AwesomenessDog]

Have you tried Wounds and Vigor, because it sounds like that's what you want.

[Coolkidtopolis]

AwesomenessDog wrote:

Have you tried Wounds and Vigor, because it sounds like that's what you want.

Yeah ive tried it out and its more satisfying than hit points but i still want to see if i can improve this system. Thanks though.

[AwesomenessDog]

No problem.

Personally I make it so everyone takes full vigor every level, you still get CON mod to vigor (as well as normal wound points) in named NPCs and PCs, and NPCs and monsters roll (or take half) vigor and get half con to it. This makes it so combat is still combat and even FF can be going to vigor while coup de grace and attacking helpless opponents are the main way to bypass vigor (as well as crits). I also made sneak attacks against FF (not flank) have the option to target wounds but you only do half your sneak dice total (round down) to wounds. If that works for you, feel free to steal.

[Laurefindel]

Coolkidtopolis wrote:

It's always super bugged me that a high-level character can essentially just take a cannon ball to the face and walk away like nothing happened.

This used to bug me too, then I I began to see hit points as a resource for "not-dying", not as the amount of wounds a hero can take before dying.

The way I like to see it, nobody can take a cannon ball in the head and survive; that's impossible. One survives a cannon ball to the head by avoiding it in extremis, at the cost of great personal resources (call it skill or luck or cinematographic action or bad-ass-ness, whatever). Deadly goblins blade are easier to deflect than cannon balls to the head are to avoid, therefore one needs to be higher level to survive that last attack, and still, chances are that the hero cannot do it all day long.

I'm afraid that your houserule will result in a lot of "I attack you, I miss, you attack me, you miss" and a lot of one-shot death. D&D/Pathfinder was designed with more granularity on the live-death scale and much of the system rely on that (the way healing works for example)

I strongly recommend having a look at Evil Lincoln's Strain-Injury houserule. While the application is different, it addresses the same original concern about cannon balls to the head.

'findel

[Coolkidtopolis]

Laurefindel wrote:

Coolkidtopolis wrote:

It's always super bugged me that a high-level character can essentially just take a cannon ball to the face and walk away like nothing happened.

This used to bug me too, then I I began to see hit points as a resource for "not-dying", not as the amount of wounds a hero can take before dying.

The way I like to see it, nobody can take a cannon ball in the head and survive; that's impossible. One survives a cannon ball to the head by avoiding it in extremis, at the cost of great personal resources (call it skill or luck or cinematographic action or bad-ass-ness, whatever). Deadly goblins blade are easier to deflect than cannon balls to the head are to avoid, therefore one needs to be higher level to survive that last attack, and still, chances are that the hero cannot do it all day long.

I'm afraid that your houserule will result in a lot of "I attack you, I miss, you attack me, you miss" and a lot of one-shot death. D&D/Pathfinder was designed with more granularity on the live-death scale and much of the system rely on that (the way healing works for example)

I strongly recommend having a look at Evil Lincoln's Strain-Injury houserule. While the application is different, it addresses the same original concern about cannon balls to the head.

'findel

Yeah, i understand thats what hit points try to represent, i just dont believe that they represent that very well. I enjoy the flavor of the wound and vigor system and the strain and injury system because they add to the narrative of a character being tired from combat but both of those make the players keep track of and calculate a whole additional stat and make sense of a bunch of additional rules to understand when to take wound/injury or vigor/strain damage. I really want to try to get this system to work because it has the potential to be very concise and only uses numbers that players already have to keep track of.

True, this system results in a lot of one-hit ko's and a lot of misses. Thats a really good point. Im planning on trying out playtesting around level 10 to see if those have a significant negative effect on fun. I do love flavor, but fun is always more important. Its possible that the misses and ko's will be boring or feel dissatisfying but its also possible that the threat of a one hit ko will add a real sense of danger so that each roll of the die makes your heart pump and worry about your character, so i think it warrants a play test. If you can think of a way to negate this factor without increasing complexity too much though i'd love to hear it.

[Aelryinth]

My Self wrote:

Aelryinth wrote:

Figure out how you want Health figured - base Con + Con/level is okay. or racial hit die. Most monsters will have Health. Objects, too. But Fey, for instance, might be mostly soak to reflect their magical natures.

What if you have a negative CON modifier? Say you start with an 7, and become level 4. What happens?

Negative Con modifier only modifies hit dice from class levels.

So you'd have 7 Con of health. Since you don't have a positive con modifier, you'd have 4hd-4 HP of Soak (min 1 hp/level, as normal).

==

Coolkid, you're just mixing up what AC, HP, and stuff do.

It's just a formula. % chance to hit x dmg x other miss chances = dmg dealt.

What you're proposing is what high level mages like to do. They go invisibile (50% miss chance), Displaced (50% miss chance) + mirror image (1/6 chance of being hit).

So any attack has a 75% chance to miss, and THEN a 1/6 chance of hitting the real them, meaning the first swing at them is 95% likely to miss.

However, if it hits, it still does full damage. IT's just that first hit is like needing a 20 from the opponent to actually do damage, and even without mirror image, they will ALWAYS need a 16+ (50% miss + 50% miss) to hit the wizard.

But the damage in the end still follows the math. A miss chance is a miss chance, be it by AC, concealment or displacement.

You get the same results if you do the Warhammer system. Warhammer, you roll against weapon skill to hit, add Str + Wpn dmg, and subtract ARmor+Toughness of opponent. If Str=Toughness, and Armor =3, then you need to roll 4+ to do dmg to an opponent. So, 50% miss chance, only flavored as 'toughness' instead of 'dodge'.

End result, you figure average damage exactly the same way. Miss chance x dmg inflicted.

Hit points just waives the dodge/toughness/feint/concealment 'flavor text' into the metasphere to describe as you want to. IF this guys hit points are from agility, describe it that way. If this guy's are from parrying, describe it that way. If this guy just endures through it, describes it that way.

They just burn through the hit points in their own way, taking no 'real' damage. When the hit points are gone/almost gone, that's when they take 'real' damage and fall down.

Hit points are there to make your life 'easy'. There's no need to invent a whole new subsystem unless you reallytotallygoshgolly MUST describe 'magical/dodge' hit points DIFFERENTLY then 'tough/body' hit points.

You don't have to, you can handwave it. That's what hit points are meant to DO.

==Aelryinth

[Coolkidtopolis]

Aelryinth wrote:

My Self wrote:

Aelryinth wrote:

Figure out how you want Health figured - base Con + Con/level is okay. or racial hit die. Most monsters will have Health. Objects, too. But Fey, for instance, might be mostly soak to reflect their magical natures.

What if you have a negative CON modifier? Say you start with an 7, and become level 4. What happens?

Negative Con modifier only modifies hit dice from class levels.

So you'd have 7 Con of health. Since you don't have a positive con modifier, you'd have 4hd-4 HP of Soak (min 1 hp/level, as normal).

==

Coolkid, you're just mixing up what AC, HP, and stuff do.

It's just a formula. % chance to hit x dmg x other miss chances = dmg dealt.

What you're proposing is what high level mages like to do. They go invisibile (50% miss chance), Displaced (50% miss chance) + mirror image (1/6 chance of being hit).

So any attack has a 75% chance to miss, and THEN a 1/6 chance of hitting the real them, meaning the first swing at them is 95% likely to miss.

However, if it hits, it still does full damage. IT's just that first hit is like needing a 20 from the opponent to actually do damage, and even without mirror image, they will ALWAYS need a 16+ (50% miss + 50% miss) to hit the wizard.

But the damage in the end still follows the math. A miss chance is a miss chance, be it by AC, concealment or displacement.

You get the same results if you do the Warhammer system. Warhammer, you roll against weapon skill to hit, add Str + Wpn dmg, and subtract ARmor+Toughness of opponent. If Str=Toughness, and Armor =3, then you need to roll 4+ to do dmg to an opponent. So, 50% miss chance, only flavored as 'toughness' instead of 'dodge'.

End result, you figure average damage exactly the same way. Miss chance x dmg inflicted.

Hit points just waives the dodge/toughness/feint/concealment 'flavor text' into the metasphere to describe as you want to. IF this guys hit points are from agility, describe it that way. If this guy's are from parrying,...

This is unfortunately the only kind of feedback I've been getting. I do not misunderstand what hit points try to represent. To be very clear, I just don't think they represent it very well. I wanted to see if I could design a system that doesn't require this particular bit of hand-waving and creates something with mechanics that i find more flavorfully satisfying without being too complicated and in a way that still upholds the same average damage but in a way that makes it so, as characters level up, they become harder to hit and gain fewer hit points. I am asking for help in designing it, i.e.- problems with it, solutions to problems with it, ideas for it, not reasoning as to why its unnecessary. Of course its unnecessary; So are half the rules in this game. I understand how to calculate average damage. I understand I am simply shifting attacks-until-dead into an alternative format. I understand what hit points wound points, soak points, etc. represent. I still want to try to design this.

The main point is this: Hit points, the way they are described from early on in the game, feel to players like they are a representation of how much damage a character can take. Not how much they can dodge before they can get tired, not how long they have until their luck runs out, not how adept they are at rolling with the damage. All these things are what they intend to represent, but they still just feel like they are how tough you are, right down to using your con mod to calculate them.

AC, on the other hand, feels like how hard to hit you are. Your armor and shield deflect things, your magic might make a shield of its own, you may have some preternatural awareness of danger allowing you to add your wisdom, and your dexterity lets you dodge out of the way.

As someone experiences more combat and challenges and learns from themvc (the flavor of gaining xp and levels) they do become somewhat tougher (the flavor of gaining hit points). However, not by much; a sword to the neck should kill just about anybody. They gain much more in the way of expertise. They may learn how to dodge better, or anticipate an attack by telegraphed body movements and momentum or how to counter or parry or more efficient use of their limbs or a shield to block, etc.

All of these are represented best by armor class improvements instead of hit point improvements.I am trying to design a system that reflects this. If you are satisfied with hit points or wound/soak points that's great and this system is unnecessary for you but that does not mean that it shouldn't be designed. So, please, if you have anything constructive to say, I am all ears.

[Philo Pharynx]

You want to start looking at other games that were designed around different concepts, or begin to design a game from scratch. The hit point system is so ingrained in Pathfinder that changing it will be a huge amount of work. This change affects so much that it's rewriting a huge part of the game. All monster hp needs to be adjusted. So do high-damage spells. Then you need to think heavily on sneak attack and similar damage adds. You've already noted about healing. I'm sure that playing this will figure out lots of other stuff that's not balanced so well.

Adding things to AC is yet another set of changes to do. All monster AC's and to hit's need to be adjusted. If you don't do these changes, many monsters become unable to hit beyond rolling a nat 20, but will kill a character outright once they do hit. When you adjust monsters, then you'll need to adjust characters too.

Oh, and many types of spells just have saves. You'll need to adjust the save system as well.

You could either spend a lot of time and effort reworking Pathfinder, or find another game and add the stuff you like from Pathfinder to it.

[glosz]

Philo Pharynx said wrote:

You could either spend a lot of time and effort reworking Pathfinder, or find another game and add the stuff you like from Pathfinder to it.

+1

A great "realistic" system I have played is Cyberpunk 2020. All the characters have the same number of hit points and receive progressively greater penalties the more damage they take. A character with a high CON (called BODY in CP2020) reduces the damage they take from each hit (effectively DR).

It uses hit locations and receiving 8+ damage in one location in one hit disables it plus causes saves vs death unless it's a head shot which is insta-kill.

It works really well although it makes for a very violent game with characters that are short lived if they aren't careful.

It's not really in the spirit of high adventure though where warriors are slaying dragons in single combat. A big bucket of hit points works really well in that way.

[Coolkidtopolis]

Philo Pharynx wrote:

You want to start looking at other games that were designed around different concepts, or begin to design a game from scratch. The hit point system is so ingrained in Pathfinder that changing it will be a huge amount of work. This change affects so much that it's rewriting a huge part of the game. All monster hp needs to be adjusted. So do high-damage spells. Then you need to think heavily on sneak attack and similar damage adds. You've already noted about healing. I'm sure that playing this will figure out lots of other stuff that's not balanced so well.

Adding things to AC is yet another set of changes to do. All monster AC's and to hit's need to be adjusted. If you don't do these changes, many monsters become unable to hit beyond rolling a nat 20, but will kill a character outright once they do hit. When you adjust monsters, then you'll need to adjust characters too.

Oh, and many types of spells just have saves. You'll need to adjust the save system as well.

You could either spend a lot of time and effort reworking Pathfinder, or find another game and add the stuff you like from Pathfinder to it.

Yeah, it does change a whole big chunk of the game. Thats a good point.

In testing so far i havent really needed to change monster AC and HP by a lot yet because they mostly dont have character levels and have hit points from being big or being magically tough. You're right about to-hit bonuses and damage though. You dont end up with monsters needing to roll a 20 to hit until about level 13-15, but boy is that annoying. The damage adds and high level damage spells still work well for pcs when they fight monsters because the monsters still have a ton of hit points, but they're a lot more erratic in pc vs npc fights where the npcs have a bunch of character levels too.
Also, i did adjust the save system. I gave pc's a bonus to saves to avoid taking damage equal to their character level and changed how evasion and improved evasion worked. After some more testing though its been too big of a bonus sonim thinking of taking it down to 1/2 character level.
There's still a lot i want to keep from pathfinder but yeah i might not want to constrain myself to it. Thanks for the feedback.

[Coolkidtopolis]

glosz wrote:

Philo Pharynx said wrote:

You could either spend a lot of time and effort reworking Pathfinder, or find another game and add the stuff you like from Pathfinder to it.

+1

A great "realistic" system I have played is Cyberpunk 2020. All the characters have the same number of hit points and receive progressively greater penalties the more damage they take. A character with a high CON (called BODY in CP2020) reduces the damage they take from each hit (effectively DR).

It uses hit locations and receiving 8+ damage in one location in one hit disables it plus causes saves vs death unless it's a head shot which is insta-kill.

It works really well although it makes for a very violent game with characters that are short lived if they aren't careful.

It's not really in the spirit of high adventure though where warriors are slaying dragons in single combat. A big bucket of hit points works really well in that way.

This system sounds super cool! Ill have to check it out. The damage to each individual body part might be a little complicated but theres no reason i cant borrow the stuff i like. Thanks a bunch

[Coolkidtopolis]

Coolkidtopolis wrote:

Philo Pharynx wrote:

You want to start looking at other games that were designed around different concepts, or begin to design a game from scratch. The hit point system is so ingrained in Pathfinder that changing it will be a huge amount of work. This change affects so much that it's rewriting a huge part of the game. All monster hp needs to be adjusted. So do high-damage spells. Then you need to think heavily on sneak attack and similar damage adds. You've already noted about healing. I'm sure that playing this will figure out lots of other stuff that's not balanced so well.

Adding things to AC is yet another set of changes to do. All monster AC's and to hit's need to be adjusted. If you don't do these changes, many monsters become unable to hit beyond rolling a nat 20, but will kill a character outright once they do hit. When you adjust monsters, then you'll need to adjust characters too.

Oh, and many types of spells just have saves. You'll need to adjust the save system as well.

You could either spend a lot of time and effort reworking Pathfinder, or find another game and add the stuff you like from Pathfinder to it.

Although, it would still be nice to be able to find a simple fix instead of designing a new system and losing access to a whole bunch of pathfinder goodies, so i'll look into making my own hodge-podge system, but I'll also keep thinking about ways to fit this into pathfinder's framework without breaking too much.

[Jason Rice]

Your system sounds like the D20 compatible version of the Game of Thrones RPG (there are more than one GOT RPGs) that is now out of print. That might be what you are looking for.

This used to bother me as well. However, I started thinking of Hit Points as "stamina points", and it stopped bothering me as much. Essentially, I think of a loss of HP as the amount of effort the character had to expend to avoid the worst of the effects, resulting in bruises, minor burns, muscle strain, scrapes, etc. "Serious" injuries are in the form of ability damage, ability drain, bleed, and negative hit points.

Or at least, that's the "flavor" I'm using to justify a human having 6 times as many HP as a warhorse. Also, it helps rationalize why a 20 damage axe strike doesn't cause blood loss each round.

I have in the past also used a homebrew rule that may help with this rationalization. Instead of critical hits causing extra HP damage, I have them cause bleed. A x2 hit causes a 2 hp/round bleed. A x3 hit causes a 3 hp/round bleed. etc. It makes the heal skill more useful as well. Its a single change to the system, rather than trying to rewrite the combat rules, and may help.

[Zenogu]

Might I suggest the Wound Threshold optional rule from UC?

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/wound-thresholds-optional -rules

[DM_Blake]

Aelryinth wrote:

Hit points just waives the dodge/toughness/feint/concealment 'flavor text' into the metasphere to describe as you want to. IF this guys hit points are from agility, describe it that way. If this guy's are from parrying, describe it that way. If this guy just endures through it, describes it that way.

This is all fine and dandy until you look at the bigger picture. Especially if you look at it from a verisimilitude perspective rather than a gamist one. As a gamist, it's OK to say "The rules don't have to make sense as long as they work; my character is just a page of numbers and stats so it does't matter if anything pings on the verisimilitude radar."

But I don't get the sense that the OP sees this game that way.

The bigger verisimilitude picture cannot support the idea of HP as "dodge/toughness/feint/concealment flavor text". If that's the case, then how does healing work? Does a cleric cast "Cure light Dodge" or "Cure Moderate Concealment" spells? If my HP represent my ability to dodge or parry attacks, why do I run out of HP? Am I just tired? What if I rest for a few minutes, can I restore allof my ability to dodge/parry? Rest for an hour? Rest for a day? Surely, if my character has 100 points of Dodge, then gets in very bad fight and loses 90 points of Dodge, then I should be able to rest for a few hours (at the very most) and be ready to start dodging attacks again, right?

And if HP really equals "Dodge" then why doesn't the Dodge feat give me more HP? And why does the Toughness feat actually give me more of my "Dodge" HP?

If I beat a troll nearly to death, does its Regeneration ability grow more "Dodge"? And how does burning the troll make it worse at "dodging"?

Why does a greatsword remove more of my ability to "Dodge" than a shortsword?

Etc.

All of which is aside from the fact that, by RAW definitions, weapons do "Damage" not "Dodge", AC already exists to determine if we're hit or missed, and HP seems to exist to determine how much "Damage" we suffer when those attacks hit our AC.

Reflavoring those core concepts is fine for gamistry, but never works for verisimilitude.

[Aelryinth]

Healing works because hit points and stamina are as magical as anything else.

Trolls and dragons generally have tons more physical health and ability to take pure damage, and far less dodge/luck/parry. Their flesh may be magically reinforced, instead of having supernatural luck or grace that gets restored.

Healing magic is healing magic. Restoring vigor is part of the whole package, not just mending the flesh and bone.

But, honestly, that's why I say, if you don't like it, then BREAK IT APART.

Call part of the package Health, and call the other part Soak.
Soak is pure 'temporary hit points', there's NOTHING PHYSICAL about it.
Health is ALL PHYSICAL, and much more limited.

Most monsters and objects have little but Health.

Most class levels grant only Soak.

And you're done. There's the entirey of the line you want to draw.

IMC, Health and Soak have these interactions:

Health comes from racial hit die. Humans have up to 3 racial hit die (see3.5 rules) as do most PC races.
Monsters have mostly health. This means monsters of small size or frail builds with tons of hit points are like beating on something made of metal, despite what they look like.
I use the Healing Reserve from 3.5e. It only restores Health.
People have the choice to take damage against Health or Soak. If it's against Health, Healing Reserve can take care of it. If it's against Soak, time, Meditation, or true healing spells can address the loss.

Soak is 'warrior's magic'. It is completely immaterial, and restored rapidly by warrior classes after fighting, like non-lethal damage.
Soak is only gained by taking class levels.
Soak is why you can fall 200' face first, get up, and walk away without a scratch. Why a dragon can breathe fire that melts adamantine and you walk through it. WHy a crit for 100 dmg against you doesn't actually hurt you in the slightest.
Soak freaking aggravates the Hell out of most monsters. "How can this bastard still be alive?" is the normal reaction after the Giant's hammer slams into the armored human with enough force to take down a good-sized tree, and he GETS BACK UP, and his armor isn't even dinged!

WHAT DA HELL.

And there's your versilimillitude.

The normal system just combines both for ease of play. 'Handwaves' the differences.
Its all still magical.

==Aelryinth

[DM_Blake]

Many ages ago, when this ancient planet was not quite so ancient, I designed a game system based very roughly on AD&D, and intended to be compatible so I could use the published modules and monsters with my system with only a little revision.

Part of that system was that HP were based on race. Elves started with 4 HP, humans 6, dwarves 8, etc. Plus a one-time bonus due to CON score. Monster races got more, but not into the hundreds like the Pathfinder bestiaries. I think an ogre, for example, had something like 16, but it's been a while and I don't recall exactly. I had some kind of basic conversion formula to convert monster HD into my new HP system.

In that system I had attack rolls that went up with levels but I also had defenses that went up with levels. I had active defense rolls like parrying (when you get hit, make a parry roll to avoid the hit). I had defensive abilities that could turn bad hits into weaker hits (Like DR and Energy Resistance that reduce certain kinds of damage, but that a PC or monster would use actively like tumbling out of the way of an attack). I also had abilities (much like feats) that could improve any of these defenses and other abilities that could add small amounts to a character's HP.

Also, armor made people slightly easier to hit but provided DR.

The end result: a super high-level human fighter might not have much more than 20 HP, assuming he maximized his HP increase, but he also had many defense to make him hard to hit (AC), to avoid a successful hit after it hits (parry), and to reduce damage (armor DR, Toughness DR, ER, etc.). It was hard to hit a high level fighter and if you did, you might not do much damage, maybe none at all.

The side effect of this system was that combats took MUCH longer. A combat between a high level fighter and a Pit Fiend could go several rounds with nobody hurting each other, then a lucky hit or crit that gets passed the active defense and DR and does some damage, then more rounds of missing, then another good hit, then more rounds of missing...

Everybody I played with using this system loved the realistic feel of combat but we all, myself included, were annoyed by how slow combat became.

Now, it might be possible to blend it with Pathfinder, somewhat, keeping the speed of the abstract combat but gaining the feel the OP is going for. The downside is the interaction with everything else. Dropping the HP down to very low levels REQUIRES additional ways to mitigate all weapon, monster, trap, environment, and spell damage - not doing so creates hopeless imbalance. For example, simply using armor as DR with low HP turns Magic Missile into a spell that one-shots high level characters - they must have ways to reduce spell damage, or avoid it entirely, to prevent this problem.

Also, having level 20 fighters with 25 HP going up against dragons with hundreds of HP gets problematic - if that fighter can do 100 HP damage to the dragon, why can't he do it to a NPC 20th level fighter and one-shot him? Answer, he shouldn't do 100 HP to a fighter, which means he shouldn't do it to a dragon, which means the dragon shouldn't have hundreds of HP.

And then we need to edit spells. If a fighter can't do 100 HP to a dragon or a fighter, then a wizard shouldn't have spels that do that either. Likewise, if a 5th level fighter has 10 HP, then what is the point of a 5th level cleric having Cure Serious Wounds? He's capable healing 3d8+5 HP for an average about 20 HP which is 2x a full heal for that fighter - very overkill.

Going down this road means sweeping changes to all monsters, most spells, feats, weapons, environments, etc.

It's a big deal. I know. I did it once.

[Philo Pharynx]

DM_Blake wrote:

This is all fine and dandy until you look at the bigger picture. Especially if you look at it from a verisimilitude perspective rather than a gamist one. As a gamist, it's OK to say "The rules don't have to make sense as long as they work; my character is just a page of numbers and stats so it does't matter if anything pings on the verisimilitude radar."

Very true. This came up a lot when I introduced one player to 4e, which is even more gamist than pathfinder.

On the other hand, verisim... realism tends to make for a hard game. Reality definitely has a death spiral effect. Wounds slow you down and a single serious wound will put you out of the fight. Characters would be making lots of fortitude saves vs. infections. And so forth.

For people who are really into realism, I suggest checking Ebay for Sword's Path/Glory advanced.

[AwesomenessDog]

DM Blake, just going to point out that resting for an hour with W&V does actually regain all vigor points.

[DM_Blake]

Philo Pharynx wrote:

DM_Blake wrote:

This is all fine and dandy until you look at the bigger picture. Especially if you look at it from a verisimilitude perspective rather than a gamist one. As a gamist, it's OK to say "The rules don't have to make sense as long as they work; my character is just a page of numbers and stats so it does't matter if anything pings on the verisimilitude radar."

Very true. This came up a lot when I introduced one player to 4e, which is even more gamist than pathfinder.

On the other hand, verisim... realism tends to make for a hard game. Reality definitely has a death spiral effect. Wounds slow you down and a single serious wound will put you out of the fight. Characters would be making lots of fortitude saves vs. infections. And so forth.

For people who are really into realism, I suggest checking Ebay for Sword's Path/Glory advanced.

Back in 1985 I played a modern warfare RPG. Tanks, bombs, machine guns, rockets. All of it. And people were just people. Usually dead with one bullet unless it was a bad damage roll (flesh wound to an arm or leg) but even that was usually incapacitating. We played four sessions, about 4-5 hours each. I went though about 10 characters in that time, and based on the rulebook that was by design - the author advised that everyone should come to each session with several replacement characters pre-generated to save time. I just stopped naming them.

I'm not advocating going for this kind of realism. At all.

But there could be a level of realism that makes the fight between Inigo Montoya and the Man in Black possible - scores of attack rolls failing to penetrate defenses, great swordsmen capable of actively defending against almost all attacks. Throw in the possibility that dropping their guard and getting stabbed by even one good shot could be fatal and you get more realism. Add back the possibility of the end fight between Inigo Montoya and the Man with Six Fingers where one dagger in the belly was nearly fatal but Inigo still managed to partially parry a couple more fatal attacks causing low-damage flesh wounds, then rallied himself to get back into the fight (a heroic surge?).

But at no time do you have the sense that Inigo could be stabbed by dozens of daggers or pierced by dozens of rapier thrusts and still keep fighting, nor do you have the sense that his ability to parry or dodge was being worn down by repeated attacks from his foe (and that ability was definitely not worn down by repeated attacks in his earlier battle with the Man in Black).

That level of realism might be possible in a simple and somewhat abstract HP system without having the completely abstract system we currently have - for the right GM with the drive to make such global changes.

[Philo Pharynx]

DM_Blake wrote:

Back in 1985 I played a modern warfare RPG. Tanks, bombs, machine guns, rockets. All of it. And people were just people. Usually dead with one bullet unless it was a bad damage roll (flesh wound to an arm or leg) but even that was usually incapacitating. We played four sessions, about 4-5 hours each. I went though about 10 characters in that time, and based on the rulebook that was by design - the author advised that everyone should come to each session with several replacement characters pre-generated to save time. I just stopped naming them.

I'm not advocating going for this kind of realism. At all.

I've played things like this as well, and it's not my style.

DM_Blake wrote:

But there could be a level of realism that makes the fight between Inigo Montoya and the Man in Black possible - scores of attack rolls failing to penetrate defenses, great swordsmen capable of actively defending against almost all attacks. Throw in the possibility that dropping their guard and getting stabbed by even one good shot could be fatal and you get more realism. Add back the possibility of the end fight between Inigo Montoya and the Man with Six Fingers where one dagger in the belly was nearly fatal but Inigo still managed to partially parry a couple more fatal attacks causing low-damage flesh wounds, then rallied himself to get back into the fight (a heroic surge?).

I've played a couple of games where there were opposed rolls - an attack roll vs. a defense roll. where both players were skilled it would often go like this. Sometimes a combat would end up going for a long time without any actual hits.

[Greylurker]

I swtiched over to the Vigor and wounds system.

Vigor; keeps going up with level, reprisents your ability to avoid getting seriously hurt

Wounds; almost never changes from 1st to 20th. reprisents your ability to suffer serious injury.

Cannon ball to the face? Does he still have Vigor left after that hit? Yes = He ducked at the last second or, if you want to be cool about it, deflected the angle of the ball with his shield to avoid serious injury. Let the player decide which one his PC did.