What the best alternative to hit points?

[tedcahill2]

I'm looking at the variant hit point systems from Unearthed Arcana but I'm not sure which one I want to use.

I want to run a campaign based on the technology (+ magic) and political landscape of Europe in the 1600's.

The two options I'm considering most are:

Damage conversion: a character's armor reduces lethal damage, converting it to non-lethal damage, this effectively makes it so characters/monsters are actually knocked out instead of outright killed.

Thoughts: this would work well in this setting because it's easier to subdue an armored opponent without killing them

Injury: each time damage is taken make a fort save, succeed, no effect, fail by less than 10, you take a hit (each hit increases subsequent fort saves by +1), fail by 10 and you're effectively dropped to 0 HP.

Thoughts: in this system fort saves are more important than HP (there is no HP). The more damage you take, the harder the fort save is, but no matter what the hit is it's possible for it to drop you to a dying status. This works to keep things like guns potentially killing you in one hit and it far less abstract than hit points.

Does anyone have experience with these options? Alternatives? Or opinions on which fits the setting the best?

[Gildedragon]

no experience with either. though damage conversion looks good; probably useful to pair with Armor as DR...

[Cisturn]

I've done injuries using a few savage worlds games. I think it might be an issue in 3.5 considering that a nat one on a fort save could completely drop a player. It sounds interesting and very realistic, but it could get weird after level 4.

[weckar]

If you went with the second, I would suggest rolling on a 3d6 curve rather than a 1d20. Just to mitigate swing a bit.

[tedcahill2]

I've done injuries using a few savage worlds games. I think it might be an issue in 3.5 considering that a nat one on a fort save could completely drop a player. It sounds interesting and very realistic, but it could get weird after level 4.

I mean that's sort of the point. A HP alternative that constantly carries the risk of rolling a 1 and dropping to "0" means that no one will walk into a fight with a "I'm unkillable" mentality because they just woke up and have full HP.

Why could is get "weird" after level 4?

[Zanos]

Damage conversion: a character's armor reduces lethal damage, converting it to non-lethal damage, this effectively makes it so characters/monsters are actually knocked out instead of outright killed.
Not sure exactly how this works. Do you convert an amount of damage equal to your armor bonus or something? Anyway this happens most of the time with the -10 HP death buffer unless you're hitting stuff very hard consistently. You can also always choose to do nonlethal and -4 to hit, or with no penalty with a feat or certain weapons.


Injury: each time damage is taken make a fort save, succeed, no effect, fail by less than 10, you take a hit (each hit increases subsequent fort saves by +1), fail by 10 and you're effectively dropped to 0 HP.
Anything that favors randomization is inherently disadvantageous to PCs, because they only need to lose once to lose. An NPC getting a nat 1 on a fort save removes them from a single combat, a nat 1 on a fort save from a PC removes them from the game.

Damage also outpaces saving throw bonuses pretty hilariously. At level 10 a wizard could throw an empowered fireball that hits the entire party for an average of 52.5 damage, forcing them to make impossible fort saves vs death (42 or higher to not die.) Meanwhile at level 1 an 18 strength fighter with a longsword forces between a 5 and 12 fort save vs being wounded, where a greatsword forces a fort save between 9 and 18 vs wounding. Each point of damage becomes insanely more valuable with this system, and it collapses amazingly quickly. Crits are basically death sentences if the attack was anywhere within the range of your fort save to begin with. It also has the "benefit" of making HD irrelevant and only making fort progression and constitution matter for durability, which makes clerics and barbarians equally durable. I consider that bad.

It also makes lots of small hits actually useless instead of borderline useless unless you're fishing for 20s and 1s autofail or autodrop you. If they autodrop you you can have a bunch of dudes throwing rocks at a guy to kill the grand guys, but if they don't pretty much any build that revolves around hitting many times to do damage instead of one big hit is functionally useless. A 50 hit attack forces a DC 40+ save to not die, while 10 5 damage attacks do absolutely nothing.


I mean that's sort of the point. A HP alternative that constantly carries the risk of rolling a 1 and dropping to "0" means that no one will walk into a fight with a "I'm unkillable" mentality because they just woke up and have full HP.
If you have enough defenses to reasonably walk into a fight with that mentality, then sure, but in my experience a raging barbarian can put serious hurt on even the most durable of characters. Critical hits also support this a little bit, as a nat 20 with a x4 crit weapon is going to ruin your day pretty badly. I guess your concern is keeping stuff like firearms fired by low level characters relevant at high levels, but D&D isn't built that way. It's even baked into the CR system. Things under CR 12 don't even give XP to level 20 characters because they aren't even threats at that point.

If you want a system that makes low level tactics viable against high level PCs, you should play something like E6 or mess with a different system.

[tedcahill2]

Not sure exactly how this works. Do you convert an amount of damage equal to your armor bonus or something? Anyway this happens most of the time with the -10 HP death buffer unless you're hitting stuff very hard consistently. You can also always choose to do nonlethal and -4 to hit, or with no penalty with a feat or certain weapons. Yes, if you have 8 armor, from full plate, then you convert the first 8 points of lethal damage to non-lethal damage. One of the major effects this has on the game is it effectively doubles the effect of healing spells, since they heal equal amount of lethal and non-lethal per cast.


At level 10 a wizard could throw an empowered fireball that hits the entire party for an average of 52.5 damage, forcing them to make impossible fort saves vs death (42 or higher to not die.) Meanwhile at level 1 an 18 strength fighter with a longsword forces between a 5 and 12 fort save vs being wounded, where a greatsword forces a fort save between 9 and 18 vs wounding.
Sort of. The fortitude DC is not equal to the damage dealt. It's 15 + 1/5th damage dealt. So a fireball dealing 42 damage would carry a DC of 23 (15+42/5). Furthermore, making the saving throw simply means you withstood the damage with no ill-effect. If you fail it's not instant death. Failure means you have taken a "hit". For each hit you have the DC to save against injury increases by +1. The more hits you accumulate, the higher the DC becomes. To actually be reduced to a dying status you need to fail a fortitude save by 10.


It also has the "benefit" of making HD irrelevant and only making fort progression and constitution matter for durability, which makes clerics and barbarians equally durable.
This is accurate, and I was considering giving certain classes, like the barbarian, a bonus to save v injury to represent that they would have otherwise had a higher HD.