Heroes and injuries, musing to tweak a variant hit point system.

[Elennsar]

Yeah, but 4 from an average roll by someone who is at -4 (forgot that I'm not proficient) to hit is a sign that the typical hit is a bit too damaging if the assumption is that it isn't a well placed hit (or merely a nick on the other extreme).

[RobbyPants]

I presume that BP = 0 = death? Or am I missing something?

Sure.  Why not?  That was roughly what I was thinking.  Maybe there's some unconsious period in there, where you bleed out, like when you're disabled.  Really, I'm just quickly throwing ideas out at this point.  I figure you can take what you like and make something coherent out of it.

And the thresholds seem good enough to explore.

It seemed like a quick way to get what you were asking for.  Again, it's a bit of bookkeeping, but it's not difficult bookkeeping.

[SiggyDevil]

Well, if you want to track serious injuries on a hit-by-hit basis, perhaps we need to come up with thresholds for people.  For example, lets set a "serious injury" threshold to be half someone's max HP, and a "solid injury" threshold to be a quarter their max HP.  So Joe the fighter with 20 HP would have a solid injury if he takes 5-9 damage, and a serious injury if he takes 10 or more.

The idea would be that solid and serious injuries each do something to you when you sustain them.  What exactly, I don't know.  Perhaps some cumulative penalty of some sort.  Perhaps a point of damage to Str or Dex.  I'm sure we could think of some things.  It's a bit more bookkeeping, as each PC now needs two additional stats, but at least it's easy to calculate.

It's best to use pre-existing values within D&D. One could use HP alone but I prefer others.

For instance Vitality would be equal to ones CON score, and the third type adds CON bonus to a base value of 1.
Perhaps a Fortitude save vs. some scaling value (or against damage = DC) every time a character would take damage to pass from one wound level to the next below.
Success means the character remains at 0 HP for the current wound level.
That's pretty much a 'soak' right?

[Elennsar]

That's always a good thing. Its almost always possible to justify bookkeeping as long as it doesn't require headache to keep track of. Once it does, you run into issues on whether or not the benefits are worth the frustration (and ideally, frustrastion existing does not mean "No, they're not.")

Thanks for the thoughts.

[veekie]

Yeah, but 4 from an average roll by someone who is at -4 (forgot that I'm not proficient) to hit is a sign that the typical hit is a bit too damaging if the assumption is that it isn't a well placed hit (or merely a nick on the other extreme).

Factor in missing(and failing to crit, remember you must confirm a crit with a second attack roll) from the poor accuracy and you got it.

EDIT: Hit locations aren't too complicated to track either, with a condition track for each major body part involving Healthy, Damaged, Badly damaged, Disabled, Destroyed.

[SiggyDevil]

EDIT: Hit locations aren't too complicated to track either, with a condition track for each major body part involving Healthy, Damaged, Badly damaged, Disabled, Destroyed.

Uggggh no thanks.

[veekie]

Well, in a live game it's not so bad, simply tick off as you take hits, I know some who like that level of detail.

[Elennsar]

Yeah. And you only make a mark in the areas that were hit. So if your arms are never hit, the condition track for them is never invoked.

It does mean you need to keep track of each individual hit a bit more.

[RobbyPants]

I've often tried to come up with a coherent body-part HP system.  In the end, I never fully go through with it due to a combination of my own reservations and the strong opposition from my players.

Still, one nice feature about a location-specific system is you can track different types of armor per body part.  It really changes the game for things like bullet proof vests or breat plate armors.  Suddenly, instead of gaining a moderate amount of protection, your torso gets a huge boost, and everything else is left with little or nothing.  So, of course, this leads to targeted attacks.

If you do decide to go location-specific, realize that you have a lot of work ahead of you.  If you're doing this for D&D, you have spells like True Strike that often ruin the system.

[Elennsar]

Yeah. The goal of any location-specific system should be to minimize the amount of complication faced by "I have a wound here, and a wound there, and another wound over here....um, how does this all add up?" as much as to represent the impact of wounds locally (as opposed to some overall penalty).

Tricky. Worth it, I think, but tricky.

[veekie]

Well, attach a penalty to the body part, and also keep a total of the damage to each...yeah, could get tricky. Getting the torso or the head busted is pretty much the end though, while multilimbed creatures present their own problems.

[Elennsar]

Quite.

My thoughts at the moment:

Injuries are dealt to individual areas. Actual keeping track of "how much damage you took" is only relevant for overall condition. Not perfect, but calculating how many light injuries add up to a crippled arm is more of a headache than I want to do, and that's in rules generation, nevermind play.

[RobbyPants]

Quite.

My thoughts at the moment:

Injuries are dealt to individual areas. Actual keeping track of "how much damage you took" is only relevant for overall condition. Not perfect, but calculating how many light injuries add up to a crippled arm is more of a headache than I want to do, and that's in rules generation, nevermind play.

So what's the idea?

Each body part has HP total?  You only die if your head or torso takes enough damage, other than that, body part-specific HP are used to track condition?

That's not too far off of a system I tried to implement before.  I always got about 90% of the way there, but the players were never interested for me to actually try it out.  If you have a group to try it out with, you'll have to tell us how it works.

[JaronK]

Okay, how about you steal something from the Shadowrun injury system?

Keep hitpoints, but divide them up by percentages.  Once you've lost 10% of your hitpoints, you're minorly wounded... -2 penalty to all attack rolls, skill checks, and saves.  Once you've lost 30% of your hitpoints, you're moderately wounded, so now it's -4, and you're at medium encumberment.  60% of your hitpoints down, and now you're at -6 and heavily encumbered.

Of course, in the end this ends up being a penalty to the melee classes, so balance wise it's probably not a good idea, but then again it does make blast damage more useful, so there's that.

JaronK

[ZeroSum]

Okay, so I'm an average commoner walking down the street and some other average commoner tries to mug me.

So we get into a scuffle and he's got a dagger.

So what's happening here?  Well, I have about 2 HP.  He's attacking at +0 and I've got an AC of 10.  So every six seconds or so of this scuffle there's a 50-50 shot he gets a decent attack in on me.  If I'm lucky he'll give me a nice cut on the arm or a glancing slash across my torso, painful but not a fight ender. If I'm less lucky he'll put it into my gut.  Not a vital, but enough to hurt and make it hard for me to stay standing.  If he gets a really good shot in I'll go into shock and start bleeding out.  If I'm damn unlucky that day he'll stick it somewhere that leaves me with 24 seconds to live.

So what happened?  Well, first he's going to, on average, hurt me significantly every 12 seconds.  This seems about right for unskilled combatants brawling.  Furthermore, if he rolls low on his damage roll it's enough to hurt and probably make me less likely to stay standing after his next hit but not necessarily take me down -- that's an attack that leaves me with 1 HP, I'm standing but not if I take a decent hit, which is more likely since I'm injured now.  There's also a fair chance that he'll stick me somewhere where I'll be partially incapacitated -- that's an attack that leaves me at 0 HP, I'm standing but so much as an overexertion and I'm going to pass out bleeding.  Then he could just put it somewhere that leaves me on the ground bleeding, clutching my gut praying to pass out so I don't have to deal with the pain -- now I'm at -1 or -2, dying, bleeding out, unable to affect battle.  If he strikes somewhere vital, like my chest or neck I could be all the way down to -6 from one shot.  Unlikely, but possible.  In the next 24 seconds I have a 34% chance to stabilize before I'm dead.

Is this system an abstraction?  Yes.  Is this system perfect?  No.  Does it work?  Yes.

How can we make it better?  Well, the core idea isn't bad -- as you take more hits subsequent hits are more likely to knock you out of the fight.  This is what happens in real life.  What's the problem with the system as is?  There's a single hit point threshold where it changes from up and fighting to almost dead.

So how's this for an idea:  Instead of being disabled at 0 HP, you're disabled at HP < HD.  (Possibly HD - Con Mod).  Death at -10 (Possibly plus Con Mod).  Also, rather than unconscious, dying at HP < 0, you're just dying.  You can't do anything including defend yourself, but you're not necessarily unconscious.

How does this change things?  First, it makes damage more painful.  You're more likely to be disabled, but the disabled condition lasts much longer.  This represents the state where you're fighting through pain even though to continue the battle without reprieve will surely knock you out eventually.

How does this make sense?  Well, as you become more skilled you find you're better able to defend yourself and shrug off blows.  You're also able to stay standing longer once you're mortally wounded.  (Since that's what being disabled is -- mortally wounded -- to continue to act is to slip into dying.)  This sounds pretty good from an action adventure RPG perspective.

How is this problematic?  It's easier to become mortally wounded.  If you want that then this is good.  If you don't then that's problematic.  Perhaps you should increase the number of HP someone gets to 1 + dX (min 1) + Con mod per level.  Then you get the same bank of HP as before plus a number of disabled-level HP equal to your HD instead of 1.  Then again, everyone gets more HP this way so damage-based fights should last longer now.

What's missing?  Well, there's still only three stages of life rather than a continuous range.  So maybe extend the system:
2 + dX + Con mod HP per level.
HP < -(10+Con Mod) = Dead
HP < 0 = Dying
HP < HD = Disabled, Entangled
HP < 2*HD = Disabled
HP >= 2 * HD = Healthy
Now we've got even more HP and a state where your fighting prowess is severely diminished.

So, as a Commoner 1, the best another Commoner 1 can do with a dagger in one non-critical shot is bring me from Healthy (I have 4 HP) to Disabled, Entangled.  I'm struggling to stay standing there.  On average I'd stay Healthy (4->2=2*HD) but I would be unable to effectively fend off another reasonably well-placed strike.  (Another "hit".)

[Elennsar]

Robby: I suck at being clear, grrr.

Okay. You have 70 hit points total. (if using my condition chart)

You take 5 damage in an attack to the arm. You're now at 65. Since it wasn't a critical injury, your arm is still working fine, but you suffer from being at 65 hit points (level 2, or 1 depending on how you view unscathed, on the overall condition chart).

As for Shadowrun: "All d20 rolls", I'd say. Anything that is "I attempt to do X" suffers. You're going to fail more Reflex saves when you're staggering from blood loss, have a harder time concentrating to beat SR, etc. Making it so that spellcasting is no problem but hitting people with axes is would be a bad thing. Both should be impaired.

Zero: I'm not sure exactly what to make of your idea, but I like the look. I may use this to help with simplifying mine.

One thing that's the goal here...being high level does not give you more hit points. You get better at avoiding losing them, but your actual ability to sustain having people poke around in your belly doesn't get better.

However, since Fortitude increases, your ability to deal with that does.

Any attempts at making hit points increase by level, whether valid or not, are not desired as far as I'm concerned (though they're not necessarily bad systems, but they're not what I'm looking for anymore than a really good socket wrench helps when I want a screwdriver).

[SiggyDevil]

I have 2 qualms with a location-injury-track system.

1. Too many parts is a mess. Keep it down to no more than 4 parts, such as a Head, Torso, Forelimbs (arms on humanoid), and Hindlimbs (legs on humanoid).
• On a crit confirm, roll 1d4. The character gets a cumulative -4 Spot or Listen checks, -1 Dodge AC (to minimum of 0), -1 attack rolls, or -5 speed (respectively) until the end of an encounter when it all resets (5 minute rest, no combat actions taken or threatened)
• Taking 2 of the same Crit Injury in the same battle makes the respective penalty(s) last all day.
• Taking 3 or more to the same spot in one battle makes it permanent, and changes the condition to the following: Blindness or Deafness, -4 Dodge AC, -4 attack rolls, or speed halved.
• A character would also have an amount of HP damage associated with a lasting injury even though the character's total might heal normally, with a total for that body part equal to the Precision damage that 'put it out of commission'; curing this Crit Injury damage specific to a wound restores part function fully.
That's right, only healing HP would be necessary to fix it. None of this high level Regeneration mumbojumbo.


2. Once someone starts with dividing targets in to parts, someone else always always chimes in with a "Do we get called shots?" and I start the rage.

Here's why there should never be a thing such as Called Shots:
• Accuracy is represented by the to-hit roll, the attack roll. Rolling high means you've hit what you aimed for, rolling low means you didn't.
• Since rolling a "crit" is the epitomy of a good roll and absolutely the BEST accuracy one can manage, you essentially hit the thing you were aiming for. In living organisms with vitals, this tends to be the face, the abdomen, the neck, the groin... the good bits that put a foe out of the fight.
• Since crit = best roll, the Part Aimed For, there's no reason whatsoever to then go and bypass that whole "high roll means good hit" standard!

When you do something fickle like let a character take an attack roll penalty to 'hit the thing they are aiming for', you're essentially fucking the combat mechanics over.
At that point you might as well say "Every hit is a critical" once the Called Shots are in place.

I mean, sure, it's fine like that by the higher levels to dish out competent and badass volumes of bloodshedding crits, but as far as a system-wide change, do you really want to face 20 goblins of L1 Rogue that all have Called Shots aimed for your face?

Or would you rather let the Attack Roll vs. AC concept do its job kthx?

[Elennsar]

Well, I would do this:

Head
Arms (upper or lower)
Legs (ditto)
Hands
Feet
Torso
Vitals

A semi-major injury impairs your ability to use the limb. A major injury removes your ability. Beyond that, whether you hit the thigh or the cheek...10 damage is 10 damage from your overall pool.

As for called shots: I disagree. Critical hits as they work -now- are only workable with a vague idea of hit points, where "x2" means "you did two hits worth of crap!" and "x3" is "three hits!" etc.

Accuracy is doesn't get represented well. Unless you roll one of the magic numbers, a total of 50 (vs. a goblin) is useless. That makes no sense.

As for twenty goblins: I'd rather have AC be high enough that the goblins aim for the torso in hopes they'll hit, and then discover that I'm wearing armor under my clothes. : )

[SiggyDevil]

Similarly, there was mention of a concept wherein any character exchanges their own HP to remove status effects. Judging_Eagle, to be exact. He had the basic idea that the cost equals the level of the effect x5 HP.

I proposed that differently; the cost should be a set amount, varied by the effect's user's level or perhaps defined by the effect itself (hardcoded, for instance)
As example: Daze is 5 HP to remove. Stun would cost 10 HP to remove. Paralysis is 15 HP to remove.

Low HP characters can't afford to remove everything; they come to a limit, and so become affected.

With crits, a critical confirm wouldn't guarantee damage.
It would slap on a penalty of the attacker's choice and a set amount of HP the victim must pay to remove the condition.
So, one could 'take it' and lose HP, or get stuck with an injured eye, or arm, or leg...
Pay the cost later (such as when healing is provided) and condition removed.

Like Y/N?

[Elennsar]

Its an interesting idea and I'd like to see it in practice, but from reading it, no.

Got to say it would be a good way to use vitality points to represent ability to deal with crap happening. If you have lots of vitality points, you're harder to effect seriously. By the time you only have a few, you're pretty worn down and vulnerable.

Note: I say vitality points because I see this working with vitality/wounds really nicely. Wounds would be your "I really did get hurt', vitality allows you to push yourself in the face of things that should slow you down, but didn't.

Its also not a bad set of points to spend to power abilities for something like the Force, but I'm not posistive on this.