Has anyone tried this HP houserule?

[TopCheese]

So while reading some comments about raise dead and hp and how ppl like a gritty game I came up with a thought.

Due to the game being so popular I'm guessing someone must have done this before.

Questions: What I would like to know about the following houserule are the pros and cons of such a system. Also if someone has tried this then how did it turn out?

Houserule: The DM calculates all HP for the players. Now the DM may roll or take average (d4 is 2,3,2,3 etc). The DM take into account the PC's con mod as normal. However the PC never knows how much HP they have (well except at first level...) and the DM never has to tell actual damage just explain how big the hit is. You could even add in certain keywords (like bloodied) to help describe how serious the blow is.

I like to think that thid would make the game more gritty without changing the mechanics to much.

Thanks in advance!

[Alienist]

The Thieve's World/Shadowspawn supplements have some suggestions for making the world feel more gritty.

E.g. having to make a death save when you take (I think) Con damage in one go instead of 50 damage in one go.
Also spells take (roughly) N rounds to cast where N is a function of the level of the spell. (You're trying to fill a mana pool with a certain amount of mana (10 x spell level (??)) and you get a random amount each round added or subtracted from the pool, and if you get 0 or negatives in there you crit fumble the spell).

Essentially, being backstabbed becomes a lot scarier. (Well, look at the name (!!))

As for your suggestion, I think it works best in a horror setting, because it adds to the feeling of uncertainty. I've had several DMs that like to describe every hack and slash of combat in great detail, so they'd get off on that sort of thing.

However, the obvious drawback is that it increases the workload on the DM, and it may lead to some players continually asking for how their character feels at each moment in time (particularly in combat). Do you really want the third degree every time you say there was a glancing blow? "So was there any blood drawn? What about bruising? Was there any bruising?"

[prufock]

Houserule: The DM calculates all HP for the players. Now the DM may roll or take average (d4 is 2,3,2,3 etc). The DM take into account the PC's con mod as normal. However the PC never knows how much HP they have (well except at first level...) and the DM never has to tell actual damage just explain how big the hit is. You could even add in certain keywords (like bloodied) to help describe how serious the blow is.

If the players know what level their character is at, they will calculate an average, minimum, and maximum HP if they're smart. They won't know exactly how much HP they can burn, but they'll still have some idea. IE Fighter 5 with 14 con can expect to have minimum 24 HP, average 42, maximum 60. I wouldn't expect play to change much until they approach their minimum, in which case they'll become more cautious.

I don't particularly like this idea in general, for the same reason I wouldn't like secret save bonuses. I think players should know about their own characters.

HOWEVER, I can see this working pretty well for horror campaigns. I'm thinking about a zombie apocalypse session for Halloween, and it would actually be an interesting idea to try. Seems like it should make them more paranoid, which is what you want in a zombie game.

[Zaq]

My biggest problem with this is that it places a lot of extra work on the GM, who has enough to worry about already. If the GM is fully aware of this and is both willing and able to take on this work without noticeably slowing things down, I could conceivably get behind it. That "without noticeably slowing things down" bit is pretty important, though.

[navar100]

A PC is the only thing the player gets to control. The DM controls NPCs, plots, magic item availability, treasure availability, books allowed, house rules used, and often location and time of play. Now you want to take away the control of the PC.

Just write your great novel already!

[Loki_42]

A PC is the only thing the player gets to control. The DM controls NPCs, plots, magic item availability, treasure availability, books allowed, house rules used, and often location and time of play. Now you want to take away the control of the PC.

Just write your great novel already!

I hardly think he's taking control away from the PC, he's just keeping part of the character secret. Now, whether you disagree with the houserule or not is another question, but don't accuse him of something he's not doing.

As for my opinion, I agree that it would be too much of a workload for regular campaign, but it sounds interesting and I just might steal it for a horror campaign.

[Mechanize]

Interesting house rule but shouldn't a PC know if hes feeling bloodied or is at his end? I think players definitely should see their HP because in game a combatant would know how much more he can take and retreat. Unless of course you are really adamant about letting the players know how they are feeling but it feels like too much DM work.

[ericgrau]

However, the obvious drawback is that it increases the workload on the DM, and it may lead to some players continually asking for how their character feels at each moment in time (particularly in combat). Do you really want the third degree every time you say there was a glancing blow? "So was there any blood drawn? What about bruising? Was there any bruising?"

It does need something clearly defined to keep the PCs from asking a million questions. I'd prefer "about full", "3/4", "half", "one quarter" and "almost unconscious". You can rename them such as using 4e's "bloodied" for "half" but the PC should immediately know what you mean without a game of 20 questions.

Here you go: "scratched", "cut", "bloodied", "wounded", and "near death". With minor but obvious variations depending on the attack type. "Near death" also has a thousand synonyms the DM can and should use without it being confusing. Err on the side of hyperbole.

[navar100]

Speaking from experience when this was tried long ago in a 2E game, it sucked. Players were paranoid into not taking any risks because they did not know how close to death's door their characters were. Clerics wasted healing because no one knew how far from full health they were they really didn't need as much healing. The DM, playing the bad guys, knew their health so was able to play them as normal. The bad guys had the unfair advantage of knowing their health. They knew precisely when to retreat, when to heal, and how much to heal. The idea was abandoned after that one session.

[gr8artist]

I like the idea, but you'd have to tweak it a little to make it actually work.
If players don't know their total health, they will be nervous and panicky. Let them know their max health. Let them roll their health, so they know if Toughness would be a good investment. If they all assume their health is average, which your plan almost forces them to do, then those who actually have below average health are at a disadvantage. They need to know if they need to buy belts of +con or such items.
Now, if you want to keep the damage done secret, and describe it in vague terms, I think that would work fine. You just need some scale for damage dealt...
1-10 is a minor wound
11-20 is a moderate wound
21-30 is a serious wound
31-40 is a critical wound
(change names so as not to get confused with cure spells)
Tell players they got hit with a serious attack, and they'll have a general idea how bad off they are.
Another plan is to have the scale be based on their con score, instead of units of 10
1-Con is a minor wound
Con-2xCon is a moderate wound
2xCon-3xCon is a serious wound, etc.
That way the seriousness of the wound is directly related to the character's stamina. The barbarian would receive mostly minor wounds, while the wizard would eat a lot of serious ones. This makes tanks feel awesome.

[Arutema]

Questions: What I would like to know about the following houserule are the pros and cons of such a system. Also if someone has tried this then how did it turn out?

I played a Kingmaker campaign in PF under a Gm who did this. I found it slowed down play considerably with players having to constantly ask the GM "How do I feel?"

[Fitz10019]

I had a GM who did this, mostly.

He would however pass you a note with your HP if you were at less than 20%, and continue to update you in the same way. His biggest concern was other people knowing your XP. He was into immersion and against OOC decision making, and felt that announced HPs hurt the former and contributed to the latter. Players were never allowed to discuss their HPs during a battle.

Any houserule should be based on a goal. If your goal is a grittier game, there are various ways to do that.

[Coidzor]

So while reading some comments about raise dead and hp and how ppl like a gritty game I came up with a thought.

Due to the game being so popular I'm guessing someone must have done this before.

Questions: What I would like to know about the following houserule are the pros and cons of such a system. Also if someone has tried this then how did it turn out?

Houserule: The DM calculates all HP for the players. Now the DM may roll or take average (d4 is 2,3,2,3 etc). The DM take into account the PC's con mod as normal. However the PC never knows how much HP they have (well except at first level...) and the DM never has to tell actual damage just explain how big the hit is. You could even add in certain keywords (like bloodied) to help describe how serious the blow is.

I like to think that thid would make the game more gritty without changing the mechanics to much.

Thanks in advance!

Sounds annoying to keep track of and unnecessarily opaque.

[Syrinth]

Not a fan of this concept myself. Playing a game to have fun, not to be *even more* crazy paranoid. Not knowing my total pool of hp or especially how much damage I just took... I can't say it's something I'm fond of.

That being said, if the players all agree to try it out, who knows, it could be fun! I'd definitely agree to the earlier statement that it'd probably be best in a horror game.

[mistformsquirrl]

I think, like most things, this kind of rule just depends on the context.

In a normal campaign, as others have said, yeah it's probably too much work for the DM. In low-powered campaigns where the goal is a gritty heroic-fantasy vibe though? I think it'd be fantastic honestly.

The key though would be finding the right players - you need people who are comfortable with trusting their DM pretty far; because if they don't trust you it could easily feel like they're being screwed when you say "Okay, you're unconscious/bleeding/dead"; and of course you don't want that.

[Essence_of_War]

My IRL group did this for a 1-shot gritty, low-level adventure.

It was less fun than I originally anticipated. It was hard for the DM to track EVERYONE's HP and this slowed combat down quite noticeably. On the plus side, combat did feel a bit scarier.

I shudder to think of how it would play out in a higher level game with iterative attacks, spells, DR, magical healing, possibly regeneration/fast-healing, etc all running around at the same time. Sounds like a bookkeeping debacle for the poor DM :smallsmile: