Variant: New HP System

[purplearcanist]

Since I grew tired of the traditional hit point system, I created this variant:

Variant: (What could I call this?):

In this variant, a creature's amount of health is segmented into three numbers. A creature has 3/4ths of their normal health from their hit dice and their constitution bonus in the first number (round up), 1/4th of their normal health in the second number, and their level in the third number.

Whenever a creature takes damage, it is applied to the first number; after the first number is reduced to zero, it is applied to the second number; after the second number is reduced to zero, it is applied to the third number.

After the first number is reduced to zero, the creature is staggered, meaning they can only take a move action or a standard action. After the second number is reduced to zero, the creature is unconscious. After the third number is reduced to zero, the creature is dying and will die in three rounds without aid.

This is good, for a start, but I'll need to add more rules.:smallsmile:

[Krellen]

Sounds very much like the Vitality/Health variant developed for d20 Star Wars and found in Unearthed Arcana

[Indon]

Why not just say, "If you are at 1/4 of your health, you are staggered. When dropping below zero health, you go unconscious but are not dying. You can reach negative health equal to your level, after which you are dying and will die in three rounds without aid."

[icke]

Maybe something You want to add, or at least consider:
Each hit point pool of the three should heal with a different ratio. Say, the first pool(3/4) is bruises, muscle ache or scratches, one can pretty much ignore them after some hour or so. Hitting the second pool(1/4) means serious injury, it will take days, or even weeks to heal. If the third pool is touched something really bad happens, it doesn't heal from itsself and uses the rules for regular -1 to -10 hp.
When given time to heal, all pools heal separately, so someone reduced to 1/10 of her hit points can have back 3/4 of them after a few hours, but will sustain some serious injury - and still be staggered.
I can't provide numbers right now, so use the ones You're most comfortable with...

[Holocron Coder]

It does sound a lot like VP/WP system from the SWRPG, but if you introduce something similar to Icke's post, it could be interesting. I always wondered how a minor cut (1hp) took a full day to be healed, if most normal ppl can shrug it off in a few hours.

[jlousivy]

No the real question is why someone who gets sliced with a great axe (1d12+5 dmg = 12) can walk away perfectly fine after a full day of bedrest (lvl 6)
I'm imagining a great wound down your arm.

[Foxer]

It does sound a lot like VP/WP system from the SWRPG, but if you introduce something similar to Icke's post, it could be interesting. I always wondered how a minor cut (1hp) took a full day to be healed, if most normal ppl can shrug it off in a few hours.

A one hitpoint injury is hardly a minor cut when you're a level one wizard with four hitpoints!

But, yeah, sounds interesting. If you're looking for a more dangerous/realistic damage system, without making combat too dangerous, then you're on the right lines.

[icke]

Actually, this system doesn't make combat more dangerous, it just makes heavy injury harder to heal. On the up side, if a character can keep damage away from his last quarter of hit points, she'll be up in a few hours again.

Ah, and concerning the "minor cut of four hit points" discussion, it cannot work like that on a level-dependent hit point basis. That means, one hit point is something different for a level one and a level ten character.

[Magi_Ring_O]

It does sound a lot like VP/WP system from the SWRPG, but if you introduce something similar to Icke's post, it could be interesting. I always wondered how a minor cut (1hp) took a full day to be healed, if most normal ppl can shrug it off in a few hours.

I think a minor cut would be considered non-lethal damage. Imagine a first level wizard who got a paper cut, or a scrape on their knee. Somone gets over those injurys in about 2 seconds.

Maybe the system should have somthing where you need to make a forditude save if a hit takes out 1/4 of your first pool of hp and if you fail it gets taken out of yuor second pool of hp. That way you could attribute the staggering as shock or somthing.

[icke]

I think a minor cut would be considered non-lethal damage. Imagine a first level wizard who got a paper cut, or a scrape on their knee. Somone gets over those injurys in about 2 seconds.

Maybe the system should have somthing where you need to make a forditude save if a hit takes out 1/4 of your first pool of hp and if you fail it gets taken out of yuor second pool of hp. That way you could attribute the staggering as shock or somthing.

Nah, don't make the combat system too complicated, having it simple is one of the great advances of D20. If You start out like that, You'll be assigning hit zones to body parts in no time and a single combat round will last for an hour. One should keep it as simple as possible.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Purple Arcanist...mind if I steal the vague idea here for something I'm working on? It'll end up here, but I'll be sure to credit you. Cause this works great as a basis for the new HP system I've been trying to build.

-The Djinn

[Jayabalard]

No the real question is why someone who gets sliced with a great axe (1d12+5 dmg = 12) can walk away perfectly fine after a full day of bedrest (lvl 6)
I'm imagining a great wound down your arm.
HP != wounds; most of the hp of a lvl 5+ character has nothing to do with actually being injured.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Here...I'll just add my varient on your idea below. Credit for concept goes to Purple Arcanist! But here's my take on it:

Under my system, each character will have two separate pools of HP, representing their ability to resist damage and their life, respectively. The first die is added to their “resistance pool,” and the second is added to their “life pool.” Hit Dice is converted to two die, each representing on of these pools (first is resistance, second is life)

d4: d2+d2 (average 1.5 + 1.5, meaning 3 as opposed to 2.5 under the current hp system)
d6: d4+d2 (average 2.5 + 1.5, meaning 4 as opposed to 3.5)
d8: d4+d4 (average 2.5 + 2.5, meaning 5 as opposed to 4.5)
d10: d6+d4 (average 3.5 + 2.5, meaning 6 as opposed to 5.5)
d12: d8+d4 (average 4.5 + 2.5, meaning 7 as opposed to 6.5)

Resistance Pool: Add your Con bonus to each roll
Life Pool: Add you Con score to this number, but only at first level

Average level 1 hp (assuming 10 con):
d4: 2+12
d6: 4+12
d8: 4+14
d10: 6+14
d12: 8+14

Resistance Pool: Heals at the rate of 1 hp/level/hour. Magical healing applies normally.
Life Pool: Heals at the rate of 1 hp/level/day. When the character is targeted by magical healing, the normal effect takes place (restoring Resistance Pool hp), and the character regains 2 Life Points per spell level.

Injury: When the character begins to take damage in Life Pool, he must make a fortitude save (DC 5+total damage taken in Life Pool) or become fatigue. Every time he is damaged in his Life Pool, he must make another save. If a character fails an additional Fortitude save, he becomes exhausted.

Normal rules for removing fatigue and exhaustion apply, but if the damage is not healed it still counts against the character for subsequent saves.

EX: Joe, our level 1 commoner (Con 10), has 2+12 Hp. He gets into a fight with Fred, who stabs him with a pitchfork, dealing 4 damage. Joe takes 2 damage in his Resistance Pool, but has no additional hp in that pool to lose. Therefore, he takes 2 damage in his Life Pool and must make a DC 7 (5 + 2) or become fatigued. Let’s assume he makes his save.

One hour later, Joe trips down the stairs, taking 7 damage. His Resistance Pool has regenerated 1 point of damage by now, so it absorbs one point of the attack, which now deals 6 damage to Joe’s Life Pool. Now Joe is hurting…he’s gone from 10 down to 2, and must make a Fortitude save DC 13 (5 + total amount lost) or become fatigued.


Death and Dying: When your life pool is dropped to 0, you are staggered. If it drops to -1, you are dying. Dying rules apply normally, except that you die when you reach –hp equal to your Constitution score.


Advantages: Low HD classes gain added survivability at lower levels, but HP averages out in mid game.

Fighters and barbarians have much more resistance to damage, and can fight longer and recover faster. Basically, the system gives melee classes more durability, somewhat balancing them against casters, who suffer somewhat under this method.

Slightly more realistic than the traditional HP system.

Disadvantages: Combat takes longer, since characters have slightly more HP.

More numbers to keep track of.

Low HD classes will spend more time fatigued and exhausted, especially at low levels, although they will live longer overall.

Could go either way: This system weakens casters, but improves melee classes.

Characters can no longer easily take on encounter after encounter without rest if those encounters are challenging (due to the slow recovery time of their Life Pool)

Characters can easily recover from easy battles (due to the faster recovery time of their Resistance Pool)


So...what do you all think? Purplearcanist...is this similiar to what you were thinking of?

[icke]

Djinn-In-Tonic: looks pretty fine to me, especially the extra life points from constitution and the death at -constitution rules. But make it a 10+damage fortitude save, or even 15+damage, since getting life damage is something threatening. Also, maybe one could uses these resistance/life distributions:

d4: d3+1 (average 2 + 1., meaning 3 as opposed to 2.5 under the current hp system)
d6: d4+d2 (average 2.5 + 1.5, meaning 4 as opposed to 3.5)
d8: d6+d2 (average 3.5 + 1.5, meaning 5 as opposed to 4.5)
d10: d8+d2 (average 4.5 + 1.5, meaning 6 as opposed to 5.5)
d12: d8+d4 (average 4.5 + 2.5, meaning 7 as opposed to 6.5)

This one makes life damage even less probable, but also more fearsome when it finally happens.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Well, originally it was at 10+damage, until I realized just how bad casters would be at low levels. I'm thinking of using a 2d10 system for my D&D re-write (which is a pain, let me tell you...), and I realized that they'd fail almost every save (since high rolls become less common)

Consider the level 10 fighter (Con 16) vs the level 10 wizard (Con 10). The fighter has (on average) 40 life points, while the mage has 26.

By your version, the fighter has 26, and the mage has 20.

I feel that the fighter should simply be able to take more damage. Notice mine are seperated by 14 points, yours by 5. Plus, another reason to increase the Life Pool is that I don't want the classes healing completely every time, since I did up the healing rate for the Resistance Pool.

And the reason for the 5+total damage is that that way the High-fort save classes last much longer. Let's take the two examples above...the fighter, and the mage.

Assuming no magic items, the fighter has a +10, and the mage has a +3 to Fort saves. The fighter can (using the 2d10...d20 is somewhat harder to demonstrate here) usually takes about 13-18 points of life damage before being fatigued. The next time he takes damage, he's probably exhausted (I would have liked to seperate the two more, but can't think how...any ideas?)

Our wizard, on the other hand, can only take about 7-12 damage before he fails his save. If it's 10+damage, the fighter can only take about 3-8 damage, and the wizard's screwed when he takes 2.

And let's also look at level 1.

The mage has a +0, the fighter has a +3. The mage has over a 50% chance of being fatigued after taking a single point of damage to his Life Pool...and the fighter can only take 4 before failing (again, on average).

5+damage dealt seemed to be a good middle ground throughout all levels. You can (as the above fighter) take 9 of your 16 points at level 1 without failing, and at level 20 you can take (again, no magic items) 24-28 of your 65. It keeps fairly consistent over 20 levels, and the values aren't to bad.

Only I did just realize that exhaustion needs a new mechanic. Maybe you have to fail a certain number of saves, or maybe it only kicks in when your Life Pool is at 50% or lower, or when it's below your character level. Ideas?

[icke]

Well, originally it was at 10+damage, until I realized just how bad casters would be at low levels. I'm thinking of using a 2d10 system for my D&D re-write (which is a pain, let me tell you...), and I realized that they'd fail almost every save (since high rolls become less common)

Consider the level 10 fighter (Con 16) vs the level 10 wizard (Con 10). The fighter has (on average) 40 life points, while the mage has 26.

By your version, the fighter has 26, and the mage has 20.

I feel that the fighter should simply be able to take more damage. Notice mine are seperated by 14 points, yours by 5. Plus, another reason to increase the Life Pool is that I don't want the classes healing completely every time, since I did up the healing rate for the Resistance Pool.

And the reason for the 5+total damage is that that way the High-fort save classes last much longer. Let's take the two examples above...the fighter, and the mage.

Assuming no magic items, the fighter has a +10, and the mage has a +3 to Fort saves. The fighter can (using the 2d10...d20 is somewhat harder to demonstrate here) usually takes about 13-18 points of life damage before being fatigued. The next time he takes damage, he's probably exhausted (I would have liked to seperate the two more, but can't think how...any ideas?)

Our wizard, on the other hand, can only take about 7-12 damage before he fails his save. If it's 10+damage, the fighter can only take about 3-8 damage, and the wizard's screwed when he takes 2.

And let's also look at level 1.

The mage has a +0, the fighter has a +3. The mage has over a 50% chance of being fatigued after taking a single point of damage to his Life Pool...and the fighter can only take 4 before failing (again, on average).

5+damage dealt seemed to be a good middle ground throughout all levels. You can (as the above fighter) take 9 of your 16 points at level 1 without failing, and at level 20 you can take (again, no magic items) 24-28 of your 65. It keeps fairly consistent over 20 levels, and the values aren't to bad.

Only I did just realize that exhaustion needs a new mechanic. Maybe you have to fail a certain number of saves, or maybe it only kicks in when your Life Pool is at 50% or lower, or when it's below your character level. Ideas?

First, by redistributing the resistance/life points everything I do is making life points(and exhaustion) less probable, since they only kick in half the time compared to Your system. Yes life points are closer to each other for different classes, but since a knife in the eye is a knife in the eye for both wizards and fighters, that's fine with me. What the fighter can do better is shrug off damage in combat, and that's represented by resistance points rather that life points. Also, he's better at ignoring the effects of actual deep wounds(aka life points), hence the high fortitude save DC to make a real difference.

The major difference between 2d10 and d20 is the probaility distribution of the results. d20 has equal distribution over all numbers, so even with a 10+damage fortitude save DC the wizard will make it rather often. On Your 2d10 basis this could be lessened to 5+damage, since the more gaussian distribution of die rolls makes above-average rolls less probable. oh, a warning on that issue: By lowering out the odds for fumbles(=low results) and lucky hits(=high results) You're making the outcome of die rolls more predictable. if You want that, fine. If not, stick to the d20. We had a similar choice to make for our homebrew ruleset and decided against 2d6 in favor for a d12 in the end...

Concerning the exhaustion or serious damage rules, I'd say an exhaustion effect sets in as soon as a character looses life points, negatable by an appropriate fortitude save. One could add advanced exhaustion effects after the first half of the life point pool is out(rounded down), but that's not strictly necessary.
Also something else: if a charcter is asleep, helpless or otherwise unable to defend himself, all damage goes directly to life points. This way, a hangman can behead a high-level fighter without needing some two dozen swings with his axe...

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Hmm...your logic is compelling. I'll add in your variant to the playtests, and see how it works out.

On the exhaustion note...fatigue does indeed kick in as soon as you take damage. I'm simply trying to figure out how to strengthen that to exhaustion. Cause if its only one save difference, you'll usually fail the next on (cause the DC will increase past even the one you already failed).

Should it be when your Life Pool is at 50%, or when it drops below your level +some number (so it'll still affect level 1 chars)?

Ideas? Anyone else have some comments/critique?

[icke]

Hmm...your logic is compelling. I'll add in your variant to the playtests, and see how it works out.

On the exhaustion note...fatigue does indeed kick in as soon as you take damage. I'm simply trying to figure out how to strengthen that to exhaustion. Cause if its only one save difference, you'll usually fail the next on (cause the DC will increase past even the one you already failed).

Should it be when your Life Pool is at 50%, or when it drops below your level +some number (so it'll still affect level 1 chars)?

Ideas? Anyone else have some comments/critique?

Concerning the kick-in of exhaustion, one should leave the level out of this. All classes have a different life pool, d2, d4, d6(or 1, d2, d4 in my version), so exhaustion will kick in at very different (current life)/(total life) ratios. Since a character's ability to take damage should be determined by his hit points and not by his actual level, 50% total life is a fine limit.

Also, yes, fatigue kicking in as soon as a character takes life damage and being strengthened to exhaustion later makes sense.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Cool. There's one additional change (from comments on the WoTC boards), which is that life points now recover at half the original rate. It's now 1/2 levels/day, minimum 1. This makes Life Points much more valuable, and much harder to heal. Even if you have a day or two to rest, with this method you'll still be hurting a little.

[icke]

The things one should consider now are:

1) what do special attacks, like the Sneak Attack ability of the rogue, do? Do they deal the normal damage and have to eat through the resistance points first? Or can one reduce the damage and apply it directly to the life points instead.

2) How does healing magic work on the different hit point reservoirs?

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Resistance Pool: Heals at the rate of 1 hp/level/hour. Magical healing applies normally.
Life Pool: Heals at the rate of 1 hp/level/day. When the character is targeted by magical healing, the normal effect takes place (restoring Resistance Pool hp), and the character regains 2 Life Points per spell level.

That was covered in the first post of mine.

Sneak attack though...I'm not sure. My instinct is to have it simply function like normal damage, but if you've got any ideas on what else could work, that would be great.

One thing to be careful of though. We don't want Rogues flanking their foes and simply killing them by bypassing all their Resistance. That would be a bit much.

[Closet_Skeleton]

In this variant, a creature's amount of health is segmented into three numbers.

Does each one have a colour (1st green, second yellow, third red)?

I think this a over complicated approach to what might be a good idea if you can simplify it.

A three layer health bar is better for Computer Games than DnD.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Which is why my method simplified it into two seperate blocks of hp. No division needed, and few calculations. Just two hp blocks instead of 1.

[icke]

Resistance Pool: Heals at the rate of 1 hp/level/hour. Magical healing applies normally.
Life Pool: Heals at the rate of 1 hp/level/day. When the character is targeted by magical healing, the normal effect takes place (restoring Resistance Pool hp), and the character regains 2 Life Points per spell level.

That was covered in the first post of mine.

Sneak attack though...I'm not sure. My instinct is to have it simply function like normal damage, but if you've got any ideas on what else could work, that would be great.

One thing to be careful of though. We don't want Rogues flanking their foes and simply killing them by bypassing all their Resistance. That would be a bit much.

I couldn't find the magic healing part when I reread Your first post, so I asked again.

For Sneak Attack I have two approaches:

1) Let it work normally, extra d6 of damage under certain conditions reducing the resistance pool first and then getting to the life pool, as would every other attack.

2) No extra damage dice are assigned to the sneak attack ability. Instead, whenever a character is denied his dexterity bonus to AC, a rogue may ignore the resistance pool and strike directly at the life pool. However when flanking a character the rogue has to fight like everyone else, no extra dice, no directly hitting the life pool.

It would make sense to do it this way, since the resistance pool emulates the ability of a character to defend himself. Therefore, whe a charater isn't prepared for defense(= when he is denied his dexterity bonus to AC) damage goes directly to the life pool.
One backdraw with this ruling is, when a rogue can do this, why can't a fighter do this as well? Or a Ranger, monk, or basically everyone else? Answer: This rule should apply to every character, but since the rogue is the most sneaky class it is the one who makes maximum use of it.
On a related note, if we can do this with Sneak Attack, we should do it with other things as well: Critical hits, or maybe ranged weapons in general(which are far too weak in D&D). But this will only be a matter of discussion if 2) passes You.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I like the passing directly to Life Pool variant. Our only problems are 1) as you said, why can't other classes do this, and 2) now that the rogue is severly weakened in combat, how do we compensate it?

[icke]

I like the passing directly to Life Pool variant. Our only problems are 1) as you said, why can't other classes do this, and 2) now that the rogue is severly weakened in combat, how do we compensate it?

Well, the answer is simple, but game-breaking:smallfrown: :

1) Every class can do this, it's just difficult for a barbarian or a heavily armored fighter to sneak up on somebody so he gets no dexterity bonus to AC. The only other classes except the rogue profiting from this variant are the other probably-stealthy classes: rangers and monks. To tell the truth, I'm fine with that.

2) I don't see why rogues need improved combat abilities, they're no combat class after all. However, one could employ a hybrid mechanism: regular extra d6 for flanking and direct life damage when no dexterity bonus on AC is granted(albeit without the extra d6). Yes, I'm not happy with it either, but I can't come up with anything better right now.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Hmm...I suppose the rogue re-write will have to go on the back burner for now. If I come up with anything, I'll be sure to share it.

Other than that though, looks like this could be ready to run :smallsmile:

[icke]

Talking about sharing:

Where are you, other homebrewers? We need input, advice guidance? And critics, did I forget to mention critics?

Also, where's the Purple Arcanist that started the thread, any comments from You?

[purplearcanist]

Here...I'll just add my varient on your idea below. Credit for concept goes to Purple Arcanist! But here's my take on it:

Under my system, each character will have two separate pools of HP, representing their ability to resist damage and their life, respectively. The first die is added to their “resistance pool,” and the second is added to their “life pool.” Hit Dice is converted to two die, each representing on of these pools (first is resistance, second is life)

d4: d2+d2 (average 1.5 + 1.5, meaning 3 as opposed to 2.5 under the current hp system)
d6: d4+d2 (average 2.5 + 1.5, meaning 4 as opposed to 3.5)
d8: d4+d4 (average 2.5 + 2.5, meaning 5 as opposed to 4.5)
d10: d6+d4 (average 3.5 + 2.5, meaning 6 as opposed to 5.5)
d12: d8+d4 (average 4.5 + 2.5, meaning 7 as opposed to 6.5)

Resistance Pool: Add your Con bonus to each roll
Life Pool: Add you Con score to this number, but only at first level

Average level 1 hp (assuming 10 con):
d4: 2+12
d6: 4+12
d8: 4+14
d10: 6+14
d12: 8+14

Resistance Pool: Heals at the rate of 1 hp/level/hour. Magical healing applies normally.
Life Pool: Heals at the rate of 1 hp/level/day. When the character is targeted by magical healing, the normal effect takes place (restoring Resistance Pool hp), and the character regains 2 Life Points per spell level.

Injury: When the character begins to take damage in Life Pool, he must make a fortitude save (DC 5+total damage taken in Life Pool) or become fatigue. Every time he is damaged in his Life Pool, he must make another save. If a character fails an additional Fortitude save, he becomes exhausted.

Normal rules for removing fatigue and exhaustion apply, but if the damage is not healed it still counts against the character for subsequent saves.

EX: Joe, our level 1 commoner (Con 10), has 2+12 Hp. He gets into a fight with Fred, who stabs him with a pitchfork, dealing 4 damage. Joe takes 2 damage in his Resistance Pool, but has no additional hp in that pool to lose. Therefore, he takes 2 damage in his Life Pool and must make a DC 7 (5 + 2) or become fatigued. Let’s assume he makes his save.

One hour later, Joe trips down the stairs, taking 7 damage. His Resistance Pool has regenerated 1 point of damage by now, so it absorbs one point of the attack, which now deals 6 damage to Joe’s Life Pool. Now Joe is hurting…he’s gone from 10 down to 2, and must make a Fortitude save DC 13 (5 + total amount lost) or become fatigued.


Death and Dying: When your life pool is dropped to 0, you are staggered. If it drops to -1, you are dying. Dying rules apply normally, except that you die when you reach –hp equal to your Constitution score.


Advantages: Low HD classes gain added survivability at lower levels, but HP averages out in mid game.

Fighters and barbarians have much more resistance to damage, and can fight longer and recover faster. Basically, the system gives melee classes more durability, somewhat balancing them against casters, who suffer somewhat under this method.

Slightly more realistic than the traditional HP system.

Disadvantages: Combat takes longer, since characters have slightly more HP.

More numbers to keep track of.

Low HD classes will spend more time fatigued and exhausted, especially at low levels, although they will live longer overall.

Could go either way: This system weakens casters, but improves melee classes.

Characters can no longer easily take on encounter after encounter without rest if those encounters are challenging (due to the slow recovery time of their Life Pool)

Characters can easily recover from easy battles (due to the faster recovery time of their Resistance Pool)


So...what do you all think? Purplearcanist...is this similiar to what you were thinking of?

Sorry about not responding... but this looks like a good system:smallsmile:.