Corporate M
2010-07-03, 07:02 PM
I call this the wonderboy system. Mostly cause I like that song and it's supposed to be intense but lighthearted like that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7_QFUi6eMY
How the wonderboy system works, is essentially damage deals damage to stats in the form of "damage tokens" instead of to your HP. HP is lost later. Here's an example...
Player A jacks up player B with a bastard sword. For 1d10 str token damage. After consulting damage modifiers and everything. He deals 15 str token damage. But player B only has 12 strength. So what happens is he discards twelve of those tokens, is drained of 1HP, and now has 3 damage tokens floating on his strength, waiting to be filled yet again so he can lose more HP.
Yes, HP drain. HP does not recover. Instead, you gain more HP later. (Making hit die more important, and feats like toughness a lifesaver) Some wording will have to be changed to distinguish actual HP from "temporary HP" that just exists to soakup damage and be a proxy. I'm not entirely certain how balanced such a system would be. I don't think it'd change the tiers too much. (Sept maybe warmage...)
Damage Reduction: It's a little more useful now. It can prevent token damage, thereby slowing down HP drain.
Fast Healing/Regeneration: More annoying now. But not much stronger. Getting rid of damage tokens every round can prevent HP drain. But since it's fairly easy to trigger it, it probably won't be that much different.
AC: AC Bonuses will become far more important to prevent even getting hit.
Vigor/Stoneskin: Will have to be forbidden. Even if they were just "temporary HP" and exist only to soakup token damage, no caster would go without them in this enviorment.
Healing: A cleric will be more inclined to actually play a cleric atleast a few times per day. Healing token damage will prevent HP drain, but HP itself cannot be recovered.
Poisons/Disease: All the more threatening as stat damage now makes them more suseptable to HP drain. I may be inclined to reduce stat damage down to minutes or hours tops. But even so, more then enough time to really **** someone up.
HP Gain: Since you cannot recover HP, merely gain HP down the line. There are different ways to gain HP...
Hit Die: The obvious. And a large step in encouraging lower tier classes despite their lower end abilities.
Feats: Toughness, greater toughness, some may not like wasting a feat on what'll essentially be gone soon. But when it's life or death, they'll be glad they took it.
Action Points: Action points could be used to boost you +1HP. A little something incase someone just has a reign of badluck and the DM feels sorry for them.
Con Increase: Though the con bonus may be temporary, the HP boost is not. This may very well put barbarian's atleast into tier-3. Now that they have the highest hit die possible, AND can a few times per day increase their HP. Where as before I think whirling frenzy was strictly better then rage as written. Now you'd actually have to think about it. A bonus attack+AC bonus, or boost to a stat to avoid token damage+fortitude+HP gain? Bear's Endurance spell will have to be watched carefully. As a caster could easily just flushdown his level 2 spells per day to continually grant him HP bonuses and otherwise have alot of versatility...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7_QFUi6eMY
How the wonderboy system works, is essentially damage deals damage to stats in the form of "damage tokens" instead of to your HP. HP is lost later. Here's an example...
Player A jacks up player B with a bastard sword. For 1d10 str token damage. After consulting damage modifiers and everything. He deals 15 str token damage. But player B only has 12 strength. So what happens is he discards twelve of those tokens, is drained of 1HP, and now has 3 damage tokens floating on his strength, waiting to be filled yet again so he can lose more HP.
Yes, HP drain. HP does not recover. Instead, you gain more HP later. (Making hit die more important, and feats like toughness a lifesaver) Some wording will have to be changed to distinguish actual HP from "temporary HP" that just exists to soakup damage and be a proxy. I'm not entirely certain how balanced such a system would be. I don't think it'd change the tiers too much. (Sept maybe warmage...)
Damage Reduction: It's a little more useful now. It can prevent token damage, thereby slowing down HP drain.
Fast Healing/Regeneration: More annoying now. But not much stronger. Getting rid of damage tokens every round can prevent HP drain. But since it's fairly easy to trigger it, it probably won't be that much different.
AC: AC Bonuses will become far more important to prevent even getting hit.
Vigor/Stoneskin: Will have to be forbidden. Even if they were just "temporary HP" and exist only to soakup token damage, no caster would go without them in this enviorment.
Healing: A cleric will be more inclined to actually play a cleric atleast a few times per day. Healing token damage will prevent HP drain, but HP itself cannot be recovered.
Poisons/Disease: All the more threatening as stat damage now makes them more suseptable to HP drain. I may be inclined to reduce stat damage down to minutes or hours tops. But even so, more then enough time to really **** someone up.
HP Gain: Since you cannot recover HP, merely gain HP down the line. There are different ways to gain HP...
Hit Die: The obvious. And a large step in encouraging lower tier classes despite their lower end abilities.
Feats: Toughness, greater toughness, some may not like wasting a feat on what'll essentially be gone soon. But when it's life or death, they'll be glad they took it.
Action Points: Action points could be used to boost you +1HP. A little something incase someone just has a reign of badluck and the DM feels sorry for them.
Con Increase: Though the con bonus may be temporary, the HP boost is not. This may very well put barbarian's atleast into tier-3. Now that they have the highest hit die possible, AND can a few times per day increase their HP. Where as before I think whirling frenzy was strictly better then rage as written. Now you'd actually have to think about it. A bonus attack+AC bonus, or boost to a stat to avoid token damage+fortitude+HP gain? Bear's Endurance spell will have to be watched carefully. As a caster could easily just flushdown his level 2 spells per day to continually grant him HP bonuses and otherwise have alot of versatility...