I have a love-hate relationship with D&D style hit points. On the one hand, they are ridiculously easy to use and track. Also, the low hit point totals of low-level characters enforce a certain grittiness I like, and hit points are a good implementation of the idea of managing limited resources. On the minus side, high level characters' hit points make them seem invulnerable to normal threats, make it hard to mix on characters with large level differences, and often lack verisimilitude.
Dave Hargrave thought the same back in the 70s and early 80s. His solution was an alternate hit point system for PCs he elaborated on in the (second?) volume of his Arduin trilogy. His system set up a much higher starting total based on things like race, class, and (going on memory) Constitution. This total increased each level, but by small, fixed amounts. This seems on many levels to be the early forerunner of 4e's system.
While this brings down high level hit points and prolongs low-level characters' survival chances, it also removes the fear of sudden, brutal death. Apparently, Dave already had that covered with some brutal critical hit charts.
This tome demonstrates a major challenge of house rules-- that one change may beget another, adding complexity to solve a seemingly simple problem.
Every time I think of ways to address my hit point concerns, I keep reaching for rules changes rather than tweaks (Arduin style hit points, Star Wars d20 hit points and vitality rules, AD&D style negative hit points) and each leads to more changes.
Which all makes me think I may just be trying to fix something that isn't broken, and that maybe I need to embrace the rules for what they are.
It's an ongoing conundrum to me, as well. I really don't like hit points as implemented by D&D. I have a preference these days for wound systems (like Hârnmaster or CORPS), or at least for a system like RuneQuest or GURPS which prefigures that from within the hit points concept.
ReplyDeleteHit points are great for a high-level abstraction of combat, where what you're really trying to gauge is what are the chances my units will prevail in this combat? Even the huge disparity between raw recruits and elite veterans makes sense in that context. Where it breaks down is when you start to want more detail, and in particular blow-by-blow accounts of combat. It goes from making a lot of sense that the odds are negligible that the goblins will completely overrun our position in the next minute, but if they keep pressing us this hard we may be forced to retreat to making no sense that no matter what happens, there's no way that next sword thrust can actually kill that character, nor the one after that, nor the one after that...
ReplyDeleteDual-track systems like I gather Star Wars has work reasonably well, if there's a way for certain blows to bypass the part that represents stamina and go directly to injury, but it might make more sense to actually change the level of abstraction to fit the situation. E.g. if you're dueling, then use a blow-by-blow system where any good hit might end it, but if you're skirmishing with a bunch of allies against a bunch of enemies, use Hit Points, possibly even a single pool for the entire group. Running out of HP would mean the losers flee or surrender, not necessarily they're dead.
@faoladh: if hit points were bothering me enough, I'd go the route of changing to a new system like BRP, but that brings in new complications and concerns, such as putting more need for players to focus on designing their characters. Depending on your players, this may be good or bad, but certainly may slow the creation of characters down if abandoning something like pre-3e xDnD.
ReplyDelete@Joshua: I think that's a good way to approach thinking about hit points. As an abstraction for a skirmish-level miniatures game, hit points make a lot of sense. It's making sense of abstraction at the table that complicates things, as does figuring out what you want your mechanics to achieve.
It should be possible to import the wounding system from BRP into an otherwise D&D game with little effort. After all, BRP came about as a result of some house ruling of OD&D.
ReplyDelete@ faoladh: Yes, but.
ReplyDeleteThe BRP wounding system seems a cleaned-up variant of the Hargraves system that floated around Bay Area gaming groups and in the pages of Alarums and Excursions along with the Perrin Conventions (http://www.rpgblog2.com/2010/03/d-rules-variants-perrin-conventions.html) in the 70s.
It still has an issue that it makes mince meat quickly out of hand-to-hand fighters, it makes combats last longer when opponents are fresh (hard to get a one-shot kill), and that it makes mid-level or higher magic-users on D&D type systems weapons of mass destruction.
For Dave Hargrave's style, I get the sense that he didn't much see those things as issues. In RQ and Perrin's people, they added armor as damage reduction to address issues for hand-to-hand fighters, special and critical results to make skilled fighters more deadly and to create ways for one-shot kills, and they eliminated the original D&D magic system to allow more limited magical effects, some more flexibility with a limited resource (power), and changed initiative to make it less based on chance. In short, the change in a couple of rules led to them quickly ditching most of the abstractness of D&D.
Well, yeah. If you get rid of the abstract system and replace a part of it with a more concrete system, then you'll end up having to replace the other parts that were abstracted with something more concrete. Several of those changes I don't think are inevitable (magic system and initiative almost certainly can stay with minor adjustments - damage needs to be re-scaled for instance), but surely armor must be made to act as damage reduction if the abstraction of hit points is done away with. Many DMs/Referees choose to incorporate some form of critical hit/miss system regardless, even if it's only maximum or double damage for a natural 20.
ReplyDeleteThese things are to be expected. D&D is a more subtle (but yet straightforward) design than some people seem to think, and it takes some serious modification to change some of the core concepts. I've been developing an appreciation for that with one of my ongoing (slowly) projects, which is to write a game as though it were the first RPG ever, but based on a different set of wargames rules (I've chosen WRG's 6th edition of their Ancient/Medieval miniatures rules, War Games Rules 3000BC to 1485AD, which includes both a fantasy supplement and a system for generals and champions to engage in single combat). It's an interesting intellectual exercise, and it forces me to look closely at design decisions.
The most elegant way to move forward in a way that respects the D&D mechanics is to say that going below 1HP represents actual, serious, physical damage or death.
ReplyDeleteI thought you might appreciate the following links, as they point to various systems you can use to help address some of your concerns:
ReplyDeleteWounds & Vitality:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm
Massive Damage:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/massaveDamageThresholdsAndResults.htm
Injuries and Wounds:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/injury.htm
Some of you may have already seen or considered these, but just in case...
Hope This Helps,
Flynn
How about diminishing hit dice? To give characters some oomph at first level, bump starting hit points up one die, then use smaller dice... a fighter's dice would be d12, d10, d8, d6, d4, d3, d2, then single hit points. Other classes would follow a similar progression, (maybe continuing the d4 progression for a couple of iterations so they aren't as fragile as champagne flutes).
ReplyDeleteArthur Collins' psionicist in Dragon 78 followed a similar progression.