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Cicciograna
2009-07-31, 09:04 AM
I was recently discussing with one of my friend about how unrealistic HP system is. The fact that, at high levels, characters can withstand a lot of physical punishment and still survive, the scarce credibility of critical hits (heck, I hit the head, an internal organ or sort: the damage should be massive and lethal...), the ever-increasing ineffectiveness of a nonmagical longsword led me to think, for the mere pleasure of doing it, about a new HP system, more adherent to reality than the current. This is what i thought: for now, the bigger part of the system suits only PCs and NPC core races, but I plan to extend it to monster races too.

I) On character creation, choose a class, take its Hit Dice, maximize it and add your Con bonus. These are character's HP. Forever. No increase at each level. The only ways to add some more HPs are by increasing Con or through Toughness feat.
In this way, a longsword hit becomes really worrying, not to mention a greataxe stroke, just as in real life: it could take one or two hits with a longsword to kill someone, but a greataxe slash should produce absolute mayhem... Even a dagger is dangerous now: maybe a single stab won't kill someone, but many stabs will surely take rid of him.
Arrows: remember Boromir's death in The Fellowship of the Ring? One arrow, two arrows, three arrows and the character is dead. Characters will never be pincushions again...
Critical hits are CRITICAL. They damage vital parts, so they should be lethal.

II) Characters struck by a weapon lose 1 HP every 5 minutes due to blood loss and internal trauma: subsequent wounds stack. Characters can make a Heal check (DC 10 + damage received) and spend 1 minute trying to stop the blood loss, using torniquets, applying very basilar first aid procedures such as bandaging the wound or sort: in this way they only slow the blood loss to 1 HP/hour. To permanently halt it they must receive long term care, which translates in a Heal check (same DC) in which the charatcer himself, or someone else, gives more accurate help: this action requires 30 minutes of careful examination of the wound and treatment.
Critical hits are worse: a charatcer subject to a critical hit loses 2 HP/minute, and he's unable to stop personally the blood loss, thus requiring external help.

III) Each time a character is wounded he must make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + modifiers, see below) or the wound becomes infected. Untreated infection spreads to the whole body: the character must make a Fortitude ST (DC 15 + 1/each day he's been infected) or lose 1d4 points of Constitution. This way, an untreated character could survive the blood loss, but still die of septicemia: the character must make two consecutive ST or suffer the damage. Alternatively he (or someone else) can make a Heal check representing one day of cures in which no strenuous activity can be performed by the patient.
Some modifiers can increase or decrease the DC of the first ST: being struck in a particularly filthy place, such as in the sewers, increases the DC by 2; a just cleaned weapon (or a magical one) has less chances to carry bacteria, thus lessening the DC by 2: on the contrary, a really dirty weapon, such as one lying among corpses would increase this chance, increasing the DC by 2 (cumulative with the filthy room increase). The DM could come up with more modifiers, according to each peculiar situation.

I would never play such a game. Maybe only after drastic changes were made to rules, spells, modifiers and the like I could accept to join a game where these rules were adopted, meaning that real life and D&D have nothing in common...

jmbrown
2009-07-31, 09:15 AM
Yeah... this would only work if you remove pretty much every fantasy aspect of DnD.

The d20 system is the only system off the top of my head that will still deals with the traditional scaling Hp. In pretty much every other game you have a condition tracker or wound points which basically equate to your body + strength or likewise attributes and getting hit once has a chance of stunning or knocking you out.

DnD was meant for cinematic gameplay so a game under these conditions is practically unplayable. Even if you nix all the monsters and spells you have other modifiers like power attack which will kill anyone in a single stroke.

Cicciograna
2009-07-31, 09:43 AM
I perfectly know it, this was just an exercise: indeed this system kills all the Epos of D&D and it's not meant to be fit for such a game. But this thread could be an answer to all those who invoke a major realism in the game and constantly criticize HP system: I don't think such people would agree to play with these rules in force, as they're surely more realistic but the game is no fun to play with them