Blackbrrd
2007-07-26, 05:39 PM
I have been pondering changing the HP system a bit, the goals are:
I want it to be reasonably simple.
I want it to be less likely to die from a critical hit.
I don't want all the damage to be easily healed by cure/heal spells.
I am therefore introducing critical damage and a modification of the death and dying rules.
You can inflict critical damage in two ways:
If you make a critical the extra damage that results from the critical is counted as critical damage. Let us say you score a critical. Ordinarily you do 1d8+2 damage and 3d8+6 on a critical. 1d8+2 of the damage is ordinary damage, 2d8+4 is critical damage.
If you score a hit that puts an opponent at less than 0 hit points, the portion of the damage that takes the opponent to less that 0 hit points is treated as critical damage. Let us say you do 15 damage to a character who has 7 hit points left. The character would then take 7 hit point in damage and 8 critical damage.
Dying
You are dying if your hit point total is less than (normal damage + critical damage)
Death
You die if your (hit point total+10+con modifier+level) is less than (normal damage + critical damage)
Healing critical damage
Critical damage can't be healed by magic means, only by resting. Critical damage is healed after non lethal damage and normal damage.
What effect do I think these alterations will have?
The chance of going down from one critical hit is less than it ordinarily is because you have a larger buffer from when you go unconscious to when you actually die.
Players will still be afraid of criticals since these will make it harder to heal you, not because they randomly kill your character.
Players will be more inclined to heal a party member that has few hit points since going below 0 hit points gives you critical damage. At the same time, in a crucial fight you know that you can continue fighting even if you are low on hit points, it is unlikely that a single hit will kill you.
The role playing aspect of it is that your character might have some damage left over from any encounter (lucky criticals) so characters are less inclined to use force in every encounter.
A series of "lucky" criticals against a single character can get really annoying, since the damage is hard to heal.
Is there something I haven't thought of? Is there a way to change the rules above to make it simpler, but still retain the same feel? Please come with suggestions or comments! :)
I want it to be reasonably simple.
I want it to be less likely to die from a critical hit.
I don't want all the damage to be easily healed by cure/heal spells.
I am therefore introducing critical damage and a modification of the death and dying rules.
You can inflict critical damage in two ways:
If you make a critical the extra damage that results from the critical is counted as critical damage. Let us say you score a critical. Ordinarily you do 1d8+2 damage and 3d8+6 on a critical. 1d8+2 of the damage is ordinary damage, 2d8+4 is critical damage.
If you score a hit that puts an opponent at less than 0 hit points, the portion of the damage that takes the opponent to less that 0 hit points is treated as critical damage. Let us say you do 15 damage to a character who has 7 hit points left. The character would then take 7 hit point in damage and 8 critical damage.
Dying
You are dying if your hit point total is less than (normal damage + critical damage)
Death
You die if your (hit point total+10+con modifier+level) is less than (normal damage + critical damage)
Healing critical damage
Critical damage can't be healed by magic means, only by resting. Critical damage is healed after non lethal damage and normal damage.
What effect do I think these alterations will have?
The chance of going down from one critical hit is less than it ordinarily is because you have a larger buffer from when you go unconscious to when you actually die.
Players will still be afraid of criticals since these will make it harder to heal you, not because they randomly kill your character.
Players will be more inclined to heal a party member that has few hit points since going below 0 hit points gives you critical damage. At the same time, in a crucial fight you know that you can continue fighting even if you are low on hit points, it is unlikely that a single hit will kill you.
The role playing aspect of it is that your character might have some damage left over from any encounter (lucky criticals) so characters are less inclined to use force in every encounter.
A series of "lucky" criticals against a single character can get really annoying, since the damage is hard to heal.
Is there something I haven't thought of? Is there a way to change the rules above to make it simpler, but still retain the same feel? Please come with suggestions or comments! :)