PDA

View Full Version : Would you trade HP for spells?



Talakeal
2013-07-11, 03:28 PM
In my house rules I use spell points rather than spell slots, and these points recover at the end of each adventure rather than each day.

If there was a system in place to spend HP as spell points, and said HP could only be recovered naturally over time (no magic or fast healing) would you ever do it?

One of my players is insisting that such a feature is absolutely worthless and shouldn't even be in the book as it is a waste of space and a newbie trap like onto toughness.



Edit: there is no cost to this option, any caster can do it. It doesnt cost a feat or a class feature, and the character can still cast spells normally and ges the full allotment of spell points.

Assume the sp costs are the same as in unearthed arcana or the eph, and hp are spent on a one for one basis.

Tvtyrant
2013-07-11, 03:30 PM
Uh, yes. Is it a one for one relation? Because if so I can use Cure Light Wounds on myself for a point and cure more than that, leading to an infinite spell point loop.

Even if you somehow got rid of the healing loops, it would still be worth it. A 9th level spell is worth far, far more than 17 HP. Especially if I use said spell on defensive buffs that are better than HP.

EDIT: I assumed you were using D&D. If that is not so than I have no comments to make. Sorry.

Barsoom
2013-07-11, 03:34 PM
Uhm, he said those hit points can be only recovered naturally, so trading HP for Cure Light Wounds is a lot less spectacular than one might think.

Having said that, casters always want more spells. Almost any mechanism or resource that gives you more spells per day is good. And trading HP for spells is something I can see a lot of people finding useful.

The Rose Dragon
2013-07-11, 03:40 PM
Powering magical effects is pretty much the only real use of health levels in Exalted, since there are far too few of them to be of any use against most attacks. At least that was true before the 2.5 errata, which might have changed how it works in practice.

Otherwise, it depends on the system and the setting. Specifically, I can see it working in a setting where magical healing does not exist at all, or exists only as "empathic healing". Or a setting where the cost of power is an important theme. Or a system where magical powers can be really powerful.

TheStranger
2013-07-11, 03:42 PM
Yes, absolutely, assuming that the HP/spell point ratio was reasonable. A spellcaster without spell points is useless; a spellcaster with the option of trading hit points to cast a few more spells at the end of a long battle might be the difference between winning and losing.

It's not something you would use regularly, because you wouldn't plan on running out of spell points, but it's valuable as a last resort option.

That said, what's the cost of having the option? Does it cost a feat? Is it a substitution level? A PrC? How often is running out of spell points a problem? If spell points are plentiful, it might be a relatively poor feat choice, simply because there are better options that you'll get more use out of.

Fibinachi
2013-07-11, 03:43 PM
Yes, that's a good idea. Include it either as a class feature after a certain level, or as a general feature every spell casting class has access to. Or something like that.

It's a little powerful in the right hands, so universal access helps fix that field. But that's my opinion.

Anyway, it's a great incentive to consider long-term effects of battle planning and to give some tactical impetus to spell slinging. Hey, you can stop those bandits now, but you'll really have a hangover in the morning... and you still need to find the bandit chief, sort of thing.

But I guess I'm just in favour because I use a fairly similar system myself.

1337 b4k4
2013-07-11, 04:06 PM
Microlite20 does it, and it has a decent following. The key is that magic users get the same amount of HP as every other class, they just have to spend it on magic.


Magic
Magi can cast any arcane spell, and Clerics any divine spell, with a spell level equal or below 1/2 their class level, rounded up. They have access to all arcane spells in the SRD spell list.

Casting a spell of any kind costs Hit Points. The cost is 1 + double the level of the spell being cast:

Spell Level 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
HP Cost 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19
This loss cannot be healed normally but is recovered after 8 hours rest. There is no need to memorize spells in advance.

Just because a character can cast any spell, doesn't mean that they should. Choose spells that suit the character. Select one "signature" spell per spell level from 1st upward that they prefer to use over any other. These spells are easier to cast due to familiarity, costing 1 less HP to use.

The Difficulty Class (DC) for all spells is
10 + Caster Level + Caster's MIND bonus

http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/microlite20/microlite20.html

Talakeal
2013-07-11, 04:27 PM
It's not something you would use regularly, because you wouldn't plan on running out of spell points, but it's valuable as a last resort option.


That is exactly my intent. The player in question tells it is conceptually worthless because a mage who is in such dire straights will be valueing HP much more than spells because they are already losing and thus close to death.

He said that it is only worthwhile if it is a tacticly superior option to use in combat, for example a cleric who casts a bunch of spells mid combat using hp and then heals all that damage with sp when in danger.

There is no cost for the option. It is a metamagic with no level adjustment, and in my system anyone can use any metamagic without a feat expenditure, spending a feat instead lowers the spell level increase of the metamagoc.

Fibinachi
2013-07-11, 04:33 PM
That conclusion indicates limited thinking...

Off the top of my head:


Heroic last stands where the mageling casts enough magic to end up at -1 HP, winning the day
Someone marshalling many low level casters and bleeding them dry for buffs and gruntwork.
Brinkmanship. Using all your spellpoints on counter-spelling, because you know your enemy is too smart and clever to be so utterly insane as to fuel offensive spells with their own life force. You don't have those compunctions.
Extra rapid erection of fortifications, buildings, machines. Anything. Being able to sacrifice health (and assuming you're not needed afterwards) can speed up a lot of proccesses and other people would be less able to predict it (What idiot would willing be bedridden for weeks just to prove a point?)
Capturing and using mages as expendable one-shot powderkegs to toss at the enemy
Legions of fanatic divine believers self flagellating through spellwork
On that same theme, legions of divine fanatics being willing to offer up their life for buffs and spells
Obvious ace in the hole last chance spells
Cool synergestic effects. Someone uses lifeforce to heal you, you use your new life to power a spell, that spell defeats the villain who thought you were all defeated...

Talakeal
2013-07-11, 04:35 PM
If nothing else i think it would be a handy escape option, teleporting away from a losing battle at the last second or the like.

Barsoom
2013-07-11, 04:39 PM
The player in question tells it is conceptually worthless because a mage who is in such dire straights will be valueing HP much more than spells because they are already losing and thus close to death. The player in question is clueless. I suggest you just smile, and tell him, "well, it's an option, use it or not", and don't debate it with him further. And don't ask him any rule or optimization advice in the future.

Ozfer
2013-07-11, 04:42 PM
In my house rules I use spell points rather than spell slots, and these points recover at the end of each adventure rather than each day.

If there was a system in place to spend HP as spell points, and said HP could only be recovered naturally over time (no magic or fast healing) would you ever do it?

One of my players is insisting that such a feature is absolutely worthless and shouldn't even be in the book as it is a waste of space and a newbie trap like onto toughness.



Edit: there is no cost to this option, any caster can do it. It doesnt cost a feat or a class feature, and the character can still cast spells normally and ges the full allotment of spell points.

Assume the sp costs are the same as in unearthed arcana or the eph, and hp are spent on a one for one basis.

If it's an option, it's an option (And it's an option that I personally like). Being bothered by its existence if it is fairly balanced is frankly just odd.

Talakeal
2013-07-11, 04:43 PM
The player in question is clueless. I suggest you just smile, and tell him, "well, it's an option, use it or not", and don't debate it with him further. And don't ask him any rule or optimization advice in the future.

The player in question is actually the best optimizer in my (ex) gaming group, and i kept him around for playtesting because he was so good at finding loopholes and exploits.

He is just very stubborn, and if he makes a mistake or feels he has been "nerfed" he will never admit defeat and jump through any logical loopholes to justify his behavior. If, for example, i tell him an exploittive way of using a spell doesnt work he will refuse to use it for its intended purpose from then on to prove to me how worthless it is without the exploit.

Kornaki
2013-07-11, 04:47 PM
You need that extra 17 hit points to tank the dragon's full attack obviously

Talakeal
2013-07-11, 04:53 PM
You need that extra 17 hit points to tank the dragon's full attack obviously

I used that same argument. His response was that the difference between dying and dead is less than seventeen hit points, and thus there is a good chance such a risk would kill his character rather than disabling it as monsters generally dont attack someone who is downed.

Ozfer
2013-07-11, 05:26 PM
The player in question is actually the best optimizer in my (ex) gaming group, and i kept him around for playtesting because he was so good at finding loopholes and exploits.

He is just very stubborn, and if he makes a mistake or feels he has been "nerfed" he will never admit defeat and jump through any logical loopholes to justify his behavior. If, for example, i tell him an exploittive way of using a spell doesnt work he will refuse to use it for its intended purpose from then on to prove to me how worthless it is without the exploit.

That's... Childish.

Barsoom
2013-07-11, 05:27 PM
I withdraw my previous statement. The player in question is not merely PC (Passively Clueless), he's an AS (Actively Stupid).

navar100
2013-07-11, 05:45 PM
Pre-SAGA Star Wars did this for using the Force. I played it. I hated it. It's what I call punishing the character for the audacity of doing what he's supposed to do. The character is literally killing himself. It doesn't matter how awesome the spell effect is if you're dead afterwards.

Kornaki
2013-07-11, 05:49 PM
Pre-SAGA Star Wars did this for using the Force. I played it. I hated it. It's what I call punishing the character for the audacity of doing what he's supposed to do. The character is literally killing himself. It doesn't matter how awesome the spell effect is if you're dead afterwards.

Suppose for 1 hit point you could cast wish. Are you being punished for casting wish or do you have a really freaking awesome ability?

Is a fighter punished for taking attacks every time he gets hit? Because that's what he's supposed to do - characters lose resources all the time in the course of their jobs, in fact many of them lose hit points to do it already!

Fibinachi
2013-07-11, 06:11 PM
Pre-SAGA Star Wars did this for using the Force. I played it. I hated it. It's what I call punishing the character for the audacity of doing what he's supposed to do. The character is literally killing himself. It doesn't matter how awesome the spell effect is if you're dead afterwards.

No, that is somewhat incorrect.

The OP mentioned spellpoints refreshed after the adventure. So magicians can still do what they're supposed to do.

This is merely giving them an extra option for those times where they need to do more than they're supposed to do - notice how the OP specifies "If there was a system in place" which indicates there isn't, at the moment, that system in place.

The ability to decide to do something with a benefit and a cost = / = punishing the player for doing what they're supposed to do.

Madeiner
2013-07-11, 08:29 PM
That PC is completely absolutely clueless.
Any amount of HP spent to save yourself is worth it if it's the only way out.
And i suppose most of the time it is worth it even as a tradeoff.
Would you rather spend 7hp to dimension door away, or would you rather face the ogre's full attack, which is likely to hit for three times that?

It is your duty to teach him.
Make him fight enough so that he has no spells left. Then give him an item that drains 99% of his hp but allows to cast teleport. Then summon 10 ogres.

Actually, depending on how you use it, casting from hp can be even overpowered.
At level 10+, my party ALWAYS keeps a teleport prepared just in case, and a raise dead, and protection from energy. And a few more. That's like 10 spell levels that are always prepared, but very rarely used, reducing the amount of spellcating available for combat. And if they ARE used to escape a dire situation, then the day is likely over.
Now, if you could never prepare those spell (or, even just use them and be able to continue adventuring) by spending HP in case of emergency, each spellcaster can do much more on any given day.

Dimers
2013-07-11, 09:24 PM
Not only would I use that option, I would make sure my character carried an item that casts healthful rest, has the feat Faster Healing, and has an extra-high Constitution score ... if ya know what I'm sayin'.

Slipperychicken
2013-07-11, 10:24 PM
>Take Troll-Blooded for regeneration
>Speedy natural healing
>Nigh-infinite spells/day

Talakeal
2013-07-11, 11:44 PM
>Take Troll-Blooded for regeneration
>Speedy natural healing
>Nigh-infinite spells/day

As I said, I don't want it to work with fast healing or magical healing because of this kind of potential abuse.


Pre-SAGA Star Wars did this for using the Force. I played it. I hated it. It's what I call punishing the character for the audacity of doing what he's supposed to do. The character is literally killing himself. It doesn't matter how awesome the spell effect is if you're dead afterwards.

It depends on what the game expects of a wizard.

If you are playing an old man who sits in the back row and never engages in combat you are just managing a resource like anyone else. As long as the game doesn't arbitrarily screw you (like, for example, a D&D mage receiving only d4 HP but still being expected to spend them) then it isn't a punishment.

If you are playing a front line wizard who can also fight and do non spell casting things then it is an option rather than a mandatory "doing what he's supposed to do" and one can balance the cost versus the gain, and if it isn't worth it at the time do something else.

Deophaun
2013-07-12, 12:40 AM
Depends on the system. If it's 3.5? Yes. My wizard doesn't have anything better to do with his hit points. They just sit there on his character sheet, only getting changed at level up. If he does get hit, well, that's what temporary hit points are for.

Kazemi
2013-07-12, 12:56 AM
I like it. It gives casters a buffer zone (size based on HP) to use in emergencies. It can also create very dramatic moments if the wizard is trying to bide for time or clear the way out for an escape. It can also be used to escape, mobilize you so you can distract an enemy, or finish off the last few hits on some mook. It is NOT used as the primary power source when fighting full HP ogres after your meat shields are down. Your player only seems to think of this last scenario, and if he refused to acknowledge the paragraph in front of it then it's his loss.

Kaerou
2013-07-12, 05:40 AM
Other than increasing spontanious casters spell points by 50% (since the base srd spell point system barely gives them 1 extra spell at max caster level at 20th..) I always rule that spellcasters can go 'beyond' their spell point and allow them to cast spells in return for taking subdual damage (which can't be healed by anything but natural resting)

thus far when I use this rule I find it works fine. They can't heal it with spells and its even nearly caused a characters death once.

GolemsVoice
2013-07-12, 06:58 AM
That is exactly my intent. The player in question tells it is conceptually worthless because a mage who is in such dire straights will be valueing HP much more than spells because they are already losing and thus close to death.

It's part of learning any roleplaying game to know when to use an option and when not to. Nobody has to, and the difference to real traps like toughness is that, if you feel that casting from HP puts you at to much a risk, you can simply not do so after you got burned once.

So yeah, why not?

prufock
2013-07-12, 06:58 AM
If you only dip into HP after your spell points are depleted, it does give you options if you run out of SP. Anyone who doesn't want to use it never has to.

jindra34
2013-07-12, 07:03 AM
Yeah its a very good reserve option. Something to give otherwise exhausted mages something to do in 'do or die' situations other than die. Which is never bad.

Autolykos
2013-07-12, 10:17 AM
That is exactly my intent. The player in question tells it is conceptually worthless because a mage who is in such dire straights will be valueing HP much more than spells because they are already losing and thus close to death. To put it bluntly, that player has no idea what he's talking about. A mage without spells is practically dead anyway (unless someone else in the party can save his sorry butt), and this option is guaranteed to pull the party out of trouble more than a few times (unless he wastes it on spells that won't do him much good in that situation).
He might never need it in theory if he sticks to the 5-Minute-Adventurer-Workday, but while theory and practice are the same in theory, they are quite different in practice. If he can currently get away with it, you need to improve your tactics and/or beef up the opposition.

Alejandro
2013-07-12, 10:54 AM
Sorry if someone already said it, but in 4E there's something wizards can go into called the Blood Mage, where they intentionally lose HP to power spells even further.

Arkhosia
2013-07-12, 11:00 AM
A good idea could be, to balance it out, make it so that every level you gain an extra 4 hp. The amount of extra hp you get is the amount of hp you can spend on spells instead. This helps to stop abuses of this power that have been previously listed.

TheStranger
2013-07-12, 11:22 AM
A good idea could be, to balance it out, make it so that every level you gain an extra 4 hp. The amount of extra hp you get is the amount of hp you can spend on spells instead. This helps to stop abuses of this power that have been previously listed.

My understanding of the OP is that the proposed abuses don't work anyway, because the damage cannot be magically healed.

Anyway, Talakeal, it sounds like a reasonable idea. Put it in the game and tell your player not to use it if he doesn't like it.

And because I'm getting a sense of the type of players you have, be prepared for one of them to come up with a way of healing that you forgot to specifically exclude, then whine when you rule that it doesn't work.

wumpus
2013-07-12, 11:24 AM
Dungeons and Dragons Online uses rules roughly based on D&D 3.5 (but with 6 years of power creep in the overpowered land of Eberron). Spell points can get almost to the point of 10 spell points per hit point (I've been out of the loop for awhile, I suspect hit points are catching up to maybe 1/8 sp).

If you gave them this power, all casters would suddenly become infinitely overpowered and unstoppable. Even if you couldn't power heal (or even cure) spells with it, they would still find tons of paths to healing, and could keep up near constant barrages of spells.

It all comes down to a few things:
- How easy is it to get spell points vs. hit points. In D&D inspired games, healing is meant to be ongoing while spells are replenished rarely. Changing this removes the 1 turn day, largely because it will be much easier to convince a player to recharge via healing.
- Are casters limited by spell points? If they aren't, why do you even have them? They must be a pain to keep track of (I'd recommend different types of poker chips for hp and sp), and there should be a reason for bogging the game down. Once you make spell points unlimited, prepare for tier 1 to become tier 0. I'm assuming that you simply can't keep blasting your most powerful spells, or worse something like an ongoing quickened/standard spell barrage. Due to DDO's use of changing the vulnerabilities based on "degrees of boss", I may be overestimating how long it takes a caster to win an encounter (although they might use some SP once the melee are hacking apart defeated opponents).
- Finally, what is the ratio between hp and sp (after you have recovered all of each). I've assumed this number doesn't mean much, because the spell point game I'm familiar with contains melee types that need their hp replenished multiple times during a fight and spell points totals that go through many fights before replenishment. I suspect that players will try to find out just how much they can heal their casters and rebalance the number of spells they blow through each encounter based on that (and it will be huge...).

Sebastrd
2013-07-12, 11:27 AM
The player in question is actually the best optimizer in my (ex) gaming group, and i kept him around for playtesting because he was so good at finding loopholes and exploits.

He is just very stubborn, and if he makes a mistake or feels he has been "nerfed" he will never admit defeat and jump through any logical loopholes to justify his behavior. If, for example, i tell him an exploittive way of using a spell doesnt work he will refuse to use it for its intended purpose from then on to prove to me how worthless it is without the exploit.

Your player isn't nearly the optimizer he thinks he is. Having the ability to trade HP 1-for-1 for SP with no drawbacks or additional resources required is amazing.

You're telling me that for no extra charge, I can:

Max CON as opposed to my casting stat if I avoid using spells that depend on save DC?
Use spells that grant temporary HP like false life as mini SP potions?
Turn a formerly useless feat like toughness (the fixed version) into bonus 9th level spell slots?
Use a ring of regeneration for infinite SP?

That's just off the top of my head. Post this on any CharOp board, and I bet you'll see it broken pretty quickly.

Doug Lampert
2013-07-12, 12:38 PM
At level 10+, my party ALWAYS keeps a teleport prepared just in case, and a raise dead, and protection from energy. And a few more. That's like 10 spell levels that are always prepared, but very rarely used, reducing the amount of spellcating available for combat. And if they ARE used to escape a dire situation, then the day is likely over.
Now, if you could never prepare those spell (or, even just use them and be able to continue adventuring) by spending HP in case of emergency, each spellcaster can do much more on any given day.

This is what scrolls are for.

That said, HP=>SP is STILL extremely powerful in 3.x or any similar system.

Teleport for 9HP? Yes please. In what D&D like world is this not worth it?

My wizard is already putting a 14+ into Con and buying or making a Con item ASAP. With this system I WILL put a 16 in, and at 9th level I've got something like 90 spell points; and I've also got about 60 HP, I don't expect to get hit too often and presumably can use magical healing and the like against actual damage, so I've increased my capacity by a large margin AND I can recover HP "in the field" while SP are stated to be an adventure resource.

1337 b4k4
2013-07-12, 12:45 PM
Your player isn't nearly the optimizer he thinks he is. Having the ability to trade HP 1-for-1 for SP with no drawbacks or additional resources required is amazing.

You're telling me that for no extra charge, I can:

Max CON as opposed to my casting stat if I avoid using spells that depend on save DC?
Use spells that grant temporary HP like false life as mini SP potions?
Turn a formerly useless feat like toughness (the fixed version) into bonus 9th level spell slots?
Use a ring of regeneration for infinite SP?

That's just off the top of my head. Post this on any CharOp board, and I bet you'll see it broken pretty quickly.

Not that I don't agree that the player is not as good as he thinks, but again, first post "No magical healing of the spent HP"

SethoMarkus
2013-07-12, 12:57 PM
-snip- ...so I've increased my capacity by a large margin AND I can recover HP "in the field" while SP are stated to be an adventure resource.

Why is everyone missing that the OP explicitly stated that HP lost in such a way can only be recovered through natural rest? Though this system can still be abused and adds significantly more spells-per-adventure to a caster's repertoire, I think that the risks are proportionate to the benefits in a longer adventure where the caster would have to manage the same number of spell points over the course of several days (or longer).

Having 90 sp + 60 hp (regenerating 9 hp per night of rest through normal means) over the course of 10 days is hardly broken. Especially when taken into consideration that every time the caster uses HP to fuel a spell, they are out that HP until they can gain it back through rest. Casting 2 5th level spells in this way would drain 10 HP, bringing the caster down to 50 maximum HP until they get 8 hours of rest, at which point they will still be down 1 HP from their "natural" maximum.

Arkhosia
2013-07-12, 01:26 PM
My understanding of the OP is that the proposed abuses don't work anyway, because the damage cannot be magically healed.

Anyway, Talakeal, it sounds like a reasonable idea. Put it in the game and tell your player not to use it if he doesn't like it.

And because I'm getting a sense of the type of players you have, be prepared for one of them to come up with a way of healing that you forgot to specifically exclude, then whine when you rule that it doesn't work.

I am aware of the fact that the used hp can't be healed via magic, but the idea behind the health limit for magic was to stop, say, a wizard spending half of his hp to stack a 20 ongoing acid damage (save ends) by blasting a enemy with 4 acid arrows in the first 4 rounds.

navar100
2013-07-12, 01:34 PM
Suppose for 1 hit point you could cast wish. Are you being punished for casting wish or do you have a really freaking awesome ability?

Is a fighter punished for taking attacks every time he gets hit? Because that's what he's supposed to do - characters lose resources all the time in the course of their jobs, in fact many of them lose hit points to do it already!

Any game system that would allow you to trade hit points for wish will have the exchange rate be very much greater than 1 hit point.

The fighter loses hit points because the enemy attacks and hits him. The bad guy is doing something to the PC. That's the game. The fighter does not lose hit points every time he attacks with his greatsword, the PC doing an action he's supposed to do. That's a big difference.

TheStranger
2013-07-12, 04:15 PM
I am aware of the fact that the used hp can't be healed via magic, but the idea behind the health limit for magic was to stop, say, a wizard spending half of his hp to stack a 20 ongoing acid damage (save ends) by blasting a enemy with 4 acid arrows in the first 4 rounds.

Yeah, but the wizard won't spend HP up front. If he wants to start off the combat with 4 acid arrows, he'll use his spell points to do it. Which is really no worse than a sorcerer spamming a spell. If he runs out of spell points because of it, then he'll think about how many HP to sacrifice to keep casting.

I think the only practical effect of this option is that it enlarges the pool of spell points by some amount (which is a powerful and useful effect, don't get me wrong). The exact amount depends on how many HP a player is willing to sacrifice, which is somewhat situational. Cautious players may rarely cast from HP, while others may routinely drop themselves to half-strength. There may also be an effect of encouraging players to go nova, because they don't worry as much about conserving spell points.

One potential problem, though, is the interaction with temporary HP. Being able to cast from temporary HP does seem to grant free spell points. I suppose you could just write in that the ability bypasses temporary HP to get to "real" HP, which would undoubtedly lead to much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I suspect that if you implemented this, you'd go through a period of making ad hoc rulings like that until your players exhausted all the possible sources of unlimited casting.

Adanedhel
2013-07-12, 04:30 PM
In D&D3.5/PF this would I believe be greatly overpowered.
A specific setting uses something close, though harsher though.

Fantasy Flights Midnight setting allows spellcasters that run out of spell energy (all spellcasting by PC's goes as a mix between Psionics and Sorcerers) can use their CON as additional spell energy, and can regain it after a nights rest.

Teleport and such still don't work though, since Aryth is separated by the Veil of Izrador, so no extraplanar effects (Summon Monster actually summons spirits of Aryth) (Also means: no PC clerics, since the only clerics are Izradors legates, and Izrador is more or less Morgoth, this is compensated by the Channeler being able to learn druid spells, and vastly improved racial benefits and heroic paths for spice)

Doug Lampert
2013-07-12, 04:53 PM
Why is everyone missing that the OP explicitly stated that HP lost in such a way can only be recovered through natural rest?

Where the frack did I miss that.

Name ONE THING in my post that in ANY WAY implies I'm not talking about natural recovery, which does in fact happen in the field.


Though this system can still be abused and adds significantly more spells-per-adventure to a caster's repertoire, I think that the risks are proportionate to the benefits in a longer adventure where the caster would have to manage the same number of spell points over the course of several days (or longer).

Having 90 sp + 60 hp (regenerating 9 hp per night of rest through normal means) over the course of 10 days is hardly broken. Especially when taken into consideration that every time the caster uses HP to fuel a spell, they are out that HP until they can gain it back through rest. Casting 2 5th level spells in this way would drain 10 HP, bringing the caster down to 50 maximum HP until they get 8 hours of rest, at which point they will still be down 1 HP from their "natural" maximum.

I didn't say it was broken. And I NEVER said recovery was by magic!

I did say it was powerful, WHICH IT IS. Zero recovery << than recover one highest level slot per day. And if YOU READ the original post you'll notice that SP don't recover AT ALL.

Kazemi
2013-07-13, 10:54 AM
It may be safest to state that the HP spent this way will only recover through typical rest (or at least add that "including but not limited to" clause). You should also be wary of any abilities that allow you to speed up your natural recovery (I think there are a few in 3.X).



One potential problem, though, is the interaction with temporary HP. Being able to cast from temporary HP does seem to grant free spell points. I suppose you could just write in that the ability bypasses temporary HP to get to "real" HP, which would undoubtedly lead to much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I suspect that if you implemented this, you'd go through a period of making ad hoc rulings like that until your players exhausted all the possible sources of unlimited casting.

I agree. I had forgotten about temporary HP. Tell them before they try to use it that it will drain from their normal HP instead. You also need to establish a ruling for what happens when they hit -2HP with 10 Temporary HP, or even -11HP with 20 Temporary HP. You should also rule that they cannot spend HP when under -9HP (or whatever your equivalent is if you're not in 3.Xe). Unless you want the option of 300: Wizardry Spartans.



Where the frack did I miss that.

Name ONE THING in my post that in ANY WAY implies I'm not talking about natural recovery, which does in fact happen in the field.

I think he misinterpreted "in the field" to be "on the battlefield" rather than "during the adventure". The 3.X spell point variant recover each time you rest for 8 hours, so that probably didn't help either.

wumpus
2013-07-13, 11:31 AM
I didn't say it was broken. And I NEVER said recovery was by magic!


I think the issue is that at least in D&D 3.x (and other forms of D&D that I am familiar with), non-magic healing is only used by the most broke first level characters. It is an entirely forgotten concept, unless you are house ruling greater than 1 hp/8 hour rest you can expect not just the 24 hour turn but the one month turn and parties consisting only of elves (half orcs would die from old age before completing a quest).

I suppose the other side of no-natural healing would be limiting all the ways that you can artificially boost hit points. I'd assume that false life wouldn't work, and bear's endurance would wear off (use an item). High constitution and [fixed] toughness would suddenly be used. Of course in my example game (DDO) this wouldn't work because max hit point are practically required anyway (and that is in a game where raise dead is cheap and reliable).

I am guessing that players would still abuse this (even if not elves and dragging out the campaign indefinitely), but the timing would be critical. If they assume that they won't be needing excess hp after a boss fight, they may easily budget 1/2 their hit points for that battle. Since your game implies spell points instead of slots, there isn't any issue of ordering the casting of spell slots*, you would simply keep firing spells until you are out of mana, full heal, and then start firing on your own blood (with plenty of healing of anything that can be healed). This assumption is that by the time a caster has emptied the clip, the big bad is less likely to one shot the wizard. The caster can then eat up his reserve and keep the overpowered firepower going.

On the other hand, it allows the melee something to do. The casters aren't going to go full power trying to clean up the trash, so at least the melee can go to town on that without the tier 0.5 (it isn't tier 0 if healing doesn't work) getting in the way.

Finally, assuming some other player thinks long and hard about this (presumably getting your "optimizer" to play some non-caster since they're "nerfed"), I'd be curious to know how an elf campaign works. I'd envision things working more like a gang war, with specific battles (like "hits") spread out to happen roughly every month or so, and counterstrikes attempted immediately if they can find/scry where the wizard and other casters are hiding and trying to regain their hit points.

* slot based magic would complicate this strategy. You might easily want to cast more spells of one level than others, and keep certain spells going. With spell slots you would probably simply gradually increase your "hp-based magic", but could easily have slots of utility spells left over. Batmen who would happily spend a month in the magnificent mansion healing/scrying between every encounter would be an exception to the "wasted slots", of course.

SethoMarkus
2013-07-13, 12:00 PM
Doug Lampert, I apologize if you feel that I was attempting to attack or single you out; what was not my intention.

I did indeed misinterpret "in the field" to mean "in the battlefield." Though, even if you had meant in the broader sense "away on an adventure", ie within the use of one set of adventure resources, natural hitpoint recovery without any tricks is fairly low. A 10th level character recovers 10 HP a night; 20 HP for a full-day's bed rest; to me, this is hardly game-breaking. Though more powerful than zero recovery of utility "in the field", in my opinion it is significantly less powerful than full SP/spell slot recovery "in the field" each night. And while I did understand that in this system SP would only recover at the end of the adventure, the length of time an adventure lasts is ambiguous to me. A week? A month? A year? 90 SP a week takes resource management; 90 SP a month takes very careful planning and a high degree of resource management; 90 SP a year is nigh unplayable (to me).

I do not mean to offend, it is just my opinion that this system is neither overpowered nor underpowered. It can be greatly abused, as any system can be, and it can fail, as any system can, but I would not be opposed to using such a system.

Alex12
2013-07-13, 01:19 PM
I don't use spell points, but this sounds fairly reasonable.
It would also make the Heal skill more useful.

Sebastrd
2013-07-13, 02:02 PM
Not that I don't agree that the player is not as good as he thinks, but again, first post "No magical healing of the spent HP"

I know. I caught that, but didn't edit it out for two reasons:


I'm too lazy
I think it's unreasonable


The bookkeeping required to keep track of which hp were lost where is bound to yield mistakes - especially at this guy's table. On top of that, it's just the beginning of a host of houserules he'd need to introduce in order to balance this thing.

No magic healing? Fine, I'll use temporary hit points. No temporary hit points? Fine. But now I have essentially three different hit point pools to monitor.

One of the first things I learned about breaking games is to search for the abilities with heavy drawbacks. If there are too many drawbacks, the ability becomes useless and there's no point in having it. If there aren't enough, it's totally broken and everyone uses it. Game designers are bound to make mistakes, either by not having enough drawbacks or not realizing there are ways to mitigate them. Optimizing in any game is simply a matter of finding the mistakes.

Personally, if I'm designing an ability and have to introduce drawbacks to balance it, I'm just going to save everyone a headache and scrap the ability.

Talakeal
2013-07-13, 02:39 PM
The bookkeeping required to keep track of which hp were lost where is bound to yield mistakes - especially at this guy's table. On top of that, it's just the beginning of a host of house rules he'd need to introduce in order to balance this thing.

No magic healing? Fine, I'll use temporary hit points. No temporary hit points? Fine. But now I have essentially three different hit point pools to monitor.


Damage which results from channeling HP into a spell works from the "bottom up" in regards to temporary HP.*

It's pretty simple to record. Just mark the damage in bold, italics, a different color, a different font, or in a separate column that lines up with the first one. Then it is just simple addition.

*: I actually do all damage this way, but I know this isn't how 3.5 operates.
Rather than damage "subtracting" HP I instead keep a running damage total and if the damage ever exceeds current HP the character is dying.




One of the first things I learned about breaking games is to search for the abilities with heavy drawbacks. If there are too many drawbacks, the ability becomes useless and there's no point in having it. If there aren't enough, it's totally broken and everyone uses it. Game designers are bound to make mistakes, either by not having enough drawbacks or not realizing there are ways to mitigate them. Optimizing in any game is simply a matter of finding the mistakes.

Personally, if I'm designing an ability and have to introduce drawbacks to balance it, I'm just going to save everyone a headache and scrap the ability.

This is almost word for word what my player said. You seem to be the only person in this thread who is really siding with him, which is a shame because it would be nice to see both sides of the issue aired a little more.

Gnoman
2013-07-13, 03:48 PM
Note: I'm assuming a D&D-style magic breakdown for this post.

Perhaps if you limited it to Arcane magic only (and designing a "In their hour of need" system for emergency divine magic), and ruled that the strain of doing this disabled all forms of Regeneration or Fast Healing for 24 hours, you wouldn't need the "non-magical healing only" clause. Not being able to power curative spells in this manner (barring strange class lists or barred-spell shenanigans) would go a long way toward preventing abuses, as you would be limited by the resources available to another PC, which is less powerful than having two casters instead of one, and is tactically quite dangerous. That would reduce the bookkeeping problem immensely.

wumpus
2013-07-14, 11:47 AM
Damage which results from channeling HP into a spell works from the "bottom up" in regards to temporary HP.*

It's pretty simple to record. Just mark the damage in bold, italics, a different color, a different font, or in a separate column that lines up with the first one. Then it is just simple addition.

*: I actually do all damage this way, but I know this isn't how 3.5 operates.
Rather than damage "subtracting" HP I instead keep a running damage total and if the damage ever exceeds current HP the character is dying.

This is almost word for word what my player said. You seem to be the only person in this thread who is really siding with him, which is a shame because it would be nice to see both sides of the issue aired a little more.

It sounds like he has is more worried about the consequences of breaking a game than the typical munchkin. Looking at the benefits and costs is all well and good, but a complete build includes many benefits and many costs and highly depends on their interaction.

The other case is that it is impossible to see "both sides of the story" since we only have a tiny snipped of your house rules. Abusing this rule only works if casters are strictly limited by the amount of spell points they can burn, while it is entirely possible that a more intelligent wizard will only care if he can debuff an enemy enough to hit it with a "save or die/lose" spell strong enough to end the encounter (in this case time is the limiting factor and the opponents race to incapacitate each other). In those cases the total amount of SP is irrelevant, he need only maximize his DCs. From the sound of it, this is how your campaign works and the player isn't terribly interested in having the option of ignoring his sp with the cost of a higher chance of death (consider that such a rule decreases the strength of a "let's rest, I need my spells back" argument).

If this is the case, I really have to wonder if you can get rid of SP all together. It seems like an extra weight of record keeping that allows you to have an even more complicated scheme of record keeping when it runs out. All to limit a resource that if was really a limiting factor your players would likely plot a means to abuse it.

TheStranger
2013-07-14, 12:29 PM
Another thought on the topic of breaking the game - why is that a problem, outside of CharOp boards or other purely theoretically exercises?

By which I mean, the vast majority of "broken" abilities are broken primarily when they aren't used as intended, or when it's trivially easy to mitigate the drawbacks in ways the designers didn't anticipate. But if you're doing that, you're usually aware of it. There are a handful of things that are broken out of the box, or that can easily be broken by accident; let's ignore those for the moment, if only because that's not the case here.

In the example of trading HP for spell points, it's pretty clear how the ability is supposed to work. If you're using temporary HP, fast healing, or whatever to get free spell points, you're obviously circumventing the intended use of the ability - even if it's RAW-legal. Assuming some baseline level of maturity, you're aware that this is what you're doing, and that the GM might reasonably object. This is why most of the optimized builds you see online aren't generally used in actual play.

So we're talking about an ability that, when used as intended, is useful, but not horribly broken. I think it's reasonable for the GM to present the ability and say, "you might be able to break this if you put your mind to it. Don't do that."

I just don't understand the viewpoint that says, "this ability can be broken. Therefore the ability has no place in the game." That's not to say it's not valid, but I don't get it. I'd much rather say, "this ability can be broken. But other than that, it's a nice ability, so let's agree not to break it and all have a fun game." Granted, you don't want to include too many broken abilities in a published game. But when you're talking about homebrew and houserules, all that matters is making it work at your table.

(Note that this only works if your group is composed of reasonable people (and therefore might be inappropriate for Talakeal's group). But there's something to be said for trying to play only with reasonable people. If a rule doesn't work because of an unreasonable player, the problem is the player, not the rule.)

Talakeal
2013-07-14, 02:13 PM
Another thought on the topic of breaking the game - why is that a problem, outside of CharOp boards or other purely theoretically exercises?

By which I mean, the vast majority of "broken" abilities are broken primarily when they aren't used as intended, or when it's trivially easy to mitigate the drawbacks in ways the designers didn't anticipate. But if you're doing that, you're usually aware of it. There are a handful of things that are broken out of the box, or that can easily be broken by accident; let's ignore those for the moment, if only because that's not the case here.

In the example of trading HP for spell points, it's pretty clear how the ability is supposed to work. If you're using temporary HP, fast healing, or whatever to get free spell points, you're obviously circumventing the intended use of the ability - even if it's RAW-legal. Assuming some baseline level of maturity, you're aware that this is what you're doing, and that the GM might reasonably object. This is why most of the optimized builds you see online aren't generally used in actual play.

So we're talking about an ability that, when used as intended, is useful, but not horribly broken. I think it's reasonable for the GM to present the ability and say, "you might be able to break this if you put your mind to it. Don't do that."

I just don't understand the viewpoint that says, "this ability can be broken. Therefore the ability has no place in the game." That's not to say it's not valid, but I don't get it. I'd much rather say, "this ability can be broken. But other than that, it's a nice ability, so let's agree not to break it and all have a fun game." Granted, you don't want to include too many broken abilities in a published game. But when you're talking about homebrew and houserules, all that matters is making it work at your table.

(Note that this only works if your group is composed of reasonable people (and therefore might be inappropriate for Talakeal's group). But there's something to be said for trying to play only with reasonable people. If a rule doesn't work because of an unreasonable player, the problem is the player, not the rule.)

I have been working on my rules system for a long time, and hope to publish it soon. My gaming group was rather dysfunctional, so finding things that work for them isn't really a priority.

While I agree it is the DMs job to balance things, it does help if there aren't obviously broken rules. That way DMs don't need to know to ban shape change, and don't have to fight with their players when they want to do so.

It also makes it a lot easier to have discussions about the game when there is a common (sane) frame of reference, so you can say "How do I make the best mage?" Without a chorus going "Play Pun-Pun" or "Help me make a fantasy kingdom," without people responding "Base the economy on infinitely resetting wish traps, chain gated solars, and infinite time demi planes!".

TheStranger
2013-07-14, 03:12 PM
Ok, didn't realize you were planning to publish. So yes, a somewhat higher threshold of balance is needed in that case. I'm just saying that infinite loops and the like aren't "broken rules" as much as they're "players pulling shenanigans." If a player turns up for a game and actually tries to play Pun-Pun, the problem is the player, not that the rules allow for Pun-Pun to exist.

Talakeal
2013-07-14, 03:33 PM
Ok, didn't realize you were planning to publish. So yes, a somewhat higher threshold of balance is needed in that case. I'm just saying that infinite loops and the like aren't "broken rules" as much as they're "players pulling shenanigans." If a player turns up for a game and actually tries to play Pun-Pun, the problem is the player, not that the rules allow for Pun-Pun to exist.

True. But it is much less stressful for everyone involved if the players dont have to police one another or artificially limit themselves.

Joe the Rat
2013-07-14, 09:56 PM
I think it's a good option - particularly if they cannot just magic their way back into health.

I'm thinking about different approaches for tracking HP-->SP "damage," looking for simple solutions.

Since we're pulling "bottom-up," you could record this from the bottom - sort of how subdual/nonlethal damage is counted. You have a Drain count. Record accumulated drain, when drain exceeds current HP, you fall down. You could also play with this as a tweak on Ability Damage. You aren't losing HP, you are lowering your Max HP (and taking your current level down as well). Healing can take you back to your lowered Max, but you still have to recover your higher HP total like it was Ability damage. I'm not sure how Fast Healing interacts with Ability damage, so you may still need a note.

If you wanted to make it extra pricey, don't spend HP, spend CON. 2 CON is effectively +/- 1hp per HD. Take 2 CON Damage, gain your level in SP. (It would be nicest to let them "keep the change" after this exchange). You just have to specify that restoration spells don't affect this one. CON drain is less likely than HP damage, so there's a bit less fiddly tracking involved. This does have the side effect of lowering the caster's resistance / Fortitude saves - which might be a selling point for some. It also makes "casting out" quite dangerous - unless you were at full health before you started, you can easily go from "casting" to "dead" (0 CON). If this is too steep, you could ease this back to 1 CON for your level in SP - a deeper pool, but still rather dire if you get in over your head.

Terumitsu
2013-07-15, 09:28 AM
My DnD group runs this where you can burn HP for the SP cost of a spell. And it is quite useful for the various reasons outlined although we implemented the HP Burn system so that spam couldn't happen.

Heck, before errata, the Dark Heresy system ran this way with a certain talent for psykers. Now you have to permanently drain Toughness or something much less appealing as Biomancy powers let you regain HP easily and with just a round or so of preparation any decent psyker could hit a minimum fear rating of 11 if I remember right.

As a note: Looking directly into the Warp (Basically 'Space Hell') which is supposedly one of the worst things you can do for your sanity only has a rating of 4. That plus the rule went where you suffered a cumulative 10% to your save rolls per each level of fear above one meant that you ended up with a 100% chance to fail and you only rolled to see just how bad it turned out in terms of the failure tables.

Nooblet
2013-07-15, 12:33 PM
Hey guys, long time lurker, newb DM here and I kinda like this concept. From what I gather this ability is only supposed to be used in emergency situations.

If that is correct would implementing this but making the cost permanent HP (as in your max HP) be a better solution, since you should only be using it as a last resort? Sorry if this suggestion is dumb, I am just curious at possible unintended consequences.

Again sorry if this seems noobish.

Sebastrd
2013-07-15, 12:59 PM
Hey guys, long time lurker, newb DM here and I kinda like this concept. From what I gather this ability is only supposed to be used in emergency situations.

If that is correct would implementing this but making the cost permanent HP (as in your max HP) be a better solution, since you should only be using it as a last resort? Sorry if this suggestion is dumb, I am just curious at possible unintended consequences.

Again sorry if this seems noobish.

Honestly, I think that's the best solution anyone has suggested. It doesn't require a ream of legalese and bookkeeping adjustments to balance an ability that, when all is said and done, will be rarely used.

It guarantees that casters will only ever use it in life or death situations, which seems to be what the OP was going for.

Amphetryon
2013-07-15, 01:16 PM
I may have missed a clarification on this aspect of this rule, but how does the proposed "trade HP for Spells" concept work with items that increase CON (or its equivalent)?

Talakeal
2013-07-15, 10:18 PM
Hey guys, long time lurker, newb DM here and I kinda like this concept. From what I gather this ability is only supposed to be used in emergency situations.

If that is correct would implementing this but making the cost permanent HP (as in your max HP) be a better solution, since you should only be using it as a last resort? Sorry if this suggestion is dumb, I am just curious at possible unintended consequences.

Again sorry if this seems noobish.

Do you mean literally permanent? I have tpyed around with permanent costs before, but i have found that many players would rather mjust die and reroll a fresh character than continue playing one tht is forever underpowered.

Talakeal
2013-07-15, 10:19 PM
I may have missed a clarification on this aspect of this rule, but how does the proposed "trade HP for Spells" concept work with items that increase CON (or its equivalent)?

Yes. But as i said the damage is bottom up, so recasting con buffs wont grant extra spells.

Barsoom
2013-07-15, 10:23 PM
You need to figure out how this ability interacts with "sacrifice a spell slot to do X", such as Arcane Strike (3.5 example, but I'm sure other game systems have equivalents)

Nooblet
2013-07-16, 08:04 AM
Do you mean literally permanent? I have tpyed around with permanent costs before, but i have found that many players would rather mjust die and reroll a fresh character than continue playing one tht is forever underpowered.

That to me seems a bit OOC then. I mean if someone is playing in character they wouldn't allow themselves to die because their character knows they will come back as something like they were.

Also if they wouldn't be willing to sacrifice permanent HP for a tough situation, it simply seems people want an easier way to access spells and it generally has nothing to do with any last resort functions.

The good news is, if the group agrees including DM so be it. Temp HP seems like a tiny sacrifice, since it isn't permanent.

Autolykos
2013-07-16, 08:38 AM
Maybe they wouldn't let the character die straight away, but they'll probably retire him after the adventure. I know I would. Might be a worthy sacrifice to prevent a TPK, but it would never be worth a feat. So that'd need to be an option for everyone (or a freebie with some classes) - and frankly, it would be used so rarely that the space in the rulebook should probably be put to better use. If recovering the HP was possible, but hard (like requiring miracle/wish), it may be an option.

Doug Lampert
2013-07-16, 12:01 PM
Maybe they wouldn't let the character die straight away, but they'll probably retire him after the adventure. I know I would. Might be a worthy sacrifice to prevent a TPK, but it would never be worth a feat. So that'd need to be an option for everyone (or a freebie with some classes) - and frankly, it would be used so rarely that the space in the rulebook should probably be put to better use. If recovering the HP was possible, but hard (like requiring miracle/wish), it may be an option.

I agree that this is not worth a feat, which brings up a significant problem for a game with PC/NPC symetry.

If EVERY wizard has the ability to make some sort of really powerful overload/final strike/whatever at the cost of permanent damage or death, then PCs will almost never use this. But NPCs who are outgunned 2:1 or 4:1 or worse, heck yes!

This sort of power should logically be used by NPC casters almost every battle unless they have some other reliable method of escape. All NPC casters have a reliable escape mechanism is frustrating, all NPC casters are twice as strong as an equivalent level other character tends to have lots of other problems.

Autolykos
2013-07-16, 02:57 PM
That's only a problem if you use NPCs as cannon fodder (which is, sadly, how they are used most of the time). I'm a strong proponent of having NPCs retreat before the PCs paint the dungeon walls with their intestines (or just doing tactical retreats to regroup or improvise an ambush). Makes for more believable characters and keeps the players on their toes.
And then there's also Sun Tzu's advice of never completely cornering an enemy (which is not the same as letting him escape, mind you). Could actually be an interesting mechanic.

Doug Lampert
2013-07-16, 03:17 PM
That's only a problem if you use NPCs as cannon fodder (which is, sadly, how they are used most of the time). I'm a strong proponent of having NPCs retreat before the PCs paint the dungeon walls with their intestines (or just doing tactical retreats to regroup or improvise an ambush). Makes for more believable characters and keeps the players on their toes.
And then there's also Sun Tzu's advice of never completely cornering an enemy (which is not the same as letting him escape, mind you). Could actually be an interesting mechanic.

I almost always play NPCs as wanting to live, they rarely fight to the death if they can avoid it; and NPCs will STILL use this sort of rule 20 times for every 1 time that a reasonably played PC will use it.

Ultimately NPCs are normally losing, and PCs are normally winning. Any trade which involves permanent harm to your side to take out the other is more attractive to the weaker side. Suicide bombing is a weapon of the weak.

It also makes threat evaluation harder as you can't tell if the NPC is overloading or just playing with his normal slots. Which tends to be bad.

"Final strike" mechanisms are fairly good in fiction, but are much more problemantical in games.

Then there's the real problem if Dominate type magic exists.... I can MAKE someone else sacrifice himself.

Or one member of a group sacrificing himself to preserve the rest, that's gonna come up a lot of times for the NPCs for every time it comes up from the PCs.

And the question of can I sacrifice other characters to use their HP to power my spells?

This is the sort of idea that looks good, I've heard people talking about such ideas for well over 30 years now, and I've NEVER seen an implementation that worked decently. Not to say it's impossible, just very, very hard.