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Lalliman
2017-09-15, 01:57 PM
I'm in the process of making a homebrew system, and I'd like some input on the following: How does everyone feel about the concept of gaining HP as you level up?

This mechanic is ubiquitous in D&D, of course. When you go level up, you gain an amount of HP based on your class and your Con score. This serves as a reliable way to escalate the power level of the characters as they advance. For this purpose, it works admirably.

But the weird thing about it is that it doesn't represent anything tangible. I guess it's implied to represent some sort of general fighting proficiency; the ability to turn hits into glancing blows and to bite through minor injuries without weakening. But that doesn't always add up, because characters gain this level-based HP regardless of whether it makes sense for their class to become more durable / better at fighting as they advance.

Let's look at the wizard. They get little to no improvement to their martial abilities as they level. They never get any new weapon or armour proficiencies beyond the rudimentary ones they start with. The 5e version never gets Extra Attack, or proficiency in any physical saves. The 3.5 version gets some increases to BAB, Fortitude and Reflex, but that increase is far less significant than the HP increases they get. So if it doesn't correlate to any of those things, what is HP?

Some ad hoc explanations can be given, of course. Maybe the wizard is using a subtle and passive form of magic to protect himself. Or maybe HP represents the character's fate, being quite literally plot armour.

But explanations aren't really what I'm after. What I want to know: How do you feel about this mechanic existing, inside or outside D&D? Do you see it as a logical part of becoming more powerful, as a necessary weasel, as a stupid contrivance? I frankly can't make up my mind about it.

JNAProductions
2017-09-15, 02:08 PM
Fighting Spirit (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?531771-Fighting-Spirit-(An-Unoriginal-Idea-For-HP)&p=22243345#post22243345) is my attempt at making HP more sensible.

Esprit15
2017-09-15, 02:11 PM
I like 3.5's method of getting a little bit better at everything an adventurer would be doing (fighting, not dying, shrugging off dangerous effect), though in different amounts based on what their role they are working on. A wizard who multiclasses to fighter has forgone his mental training to learn how to handle being in the thick of things and properly wield that sword he found.

That said, that works for high fantasy, where there are very few limits on what people can do if they push themselves. What kind of tone do you want for your system? Do you want combat to be deadly and rare, or common and more drawn out?

Potatomade
2017-09-15, 02:17 PM
I like it. It's also necessary, at least in D&D, because without it, at 20th level a wizard going around with 4 HP would kill himself immediately if caught in the blast of his own spells. I do like to think of it as plot armor: if a character lives long enough to level up, he's lived long enough to become more significant to the story, and thus shouldn't be able to die as readily. Not to mention, if you've played with a character for a long time, you should have a buffer to keep you from dying to a normal string of bad luck, and HP suits that purpose pretty well.

I guess if it was supposed to be more realistic, HP increase should be entirely dependent on class. And I'm not talking about "bigger die for martial classes," I mean "only martial classes roll for HP, period." Call it "conditioning improved through experience," or whatever. That would go pretty far toward balancing the martial v. caster disparity, and give sane casters a reason to dip into martial stuff now and again, even if it's just for durability. But that's not really a fix, and strict realism isn't as important as a lot of people think when it comes to tabletop RPGs. Just don't call attention to it, I say.

Knaight
2017-09-15, 02:27 PM
It's a design decision that works for certain games and would actively detract from others. In general though I'd argue that actual implementations of this mechanic tend to be sloppy and cause weird inconsistencies at a level much higher than is typical for a wound system, at least in tabletop games (videogames can usually get away with it, although a lot of that is that they're held to much lower standards in terms of world simulation).


I like it. It's also necessary, at least in D&D, because without it, at 20th level a wizard going around with 4 HP would kill himself immediately if caught in the blast of his own spells.
This assumes that the spell scaling would work the same way if the HP scaling didn't, which isn't a safe assumption. On top of that the absence of increasing HP doesn't imply the absence of increasing defenses.

exelsisxax
2017-09-15, 02:33 PM
I think that increasing HP and similar statistics fundamental to the game (i.e. BAB, saves, uses/day) are good. You'd fully expect veteran adventurers to have real advantages in those areas through skill and training.

I do NOT think that any of the rates of gain are as they should be. You can't be 20x (before con increases) as resistant to dying from stab wounds or make 5x as many attacks in the same interval at the end of your adventures compared to the start. That's not how real life works, so that's not how games should work.

Potatomade
2017-09-15, 02:40 PM
This assumes that the spell scaling would work the same way if the HP scaling didn't, which isn't a safe assumption. On top of that the absence of increasing HP doesn't imply the absence of increasing defenses.

Yeah, but I was referring specifically to D&D. And increasing defenses doesn't really mean much if you're still turned to goo instantly once they're breached, y'know? If the system allowed for crits or other guaranteed hits, I'd be pretty salty if my character were that much of a glass cannon.

If we're talking about some unspecified game system, if you're doing away with hp-by-level, you might as well go ahead and do away with non-skill levels entirely, and make HP an attribute that can be raised in some other manner. Cardio, anyone?

JeenLeen
2017-09-15, 02:42 PM
I agree with others that it can work for some systems, but I personally prefer the health levels used in games like World of Darkness, Exalted, etc.

I'm not really a fan of wound penalties, since it's annoying to track and receive, though I admit they make sense. In a nice homebrew system our usual DM made, there are 4 stats (ranked 1-5 for mortals), one of them is Stamina, and you have 3xStamina health levels. I think the wound penalties were -2 when you have 1 health level left, -1 when two left--so a lot less penalty and less likely to happen than the multiple levels in Exalted, for example.

But of course how attacks work and the degree to which (if at all) damage scales should be based on the mechanic. I think new World of Darkness does it well in a mechanically-simple design.

Riddle of Steel has a wound system -- as in, no HP, but you accumulate wounds which give penalties and eventually lead to death. A solid blow can debilitate or kill in one hit. But that's the given for the system. You might enjoy reading it for a different feeling of health, but I don't recommend using something so mechanically clunky. (I like the system, but I'd hate to do the rolling and chart reference during a game. If I ever played it in real life (not play-by-post), I'd write a computer program to do the calculations for me.)

BWR
2017-09-15, 02:45 PM
I think that increasing HP and similar statistics fundamental to the game (i.e. BAB, saves, uses/day) are good. You'd fully expect veteran adventurers to have real advantages in those areas through skill and training.

I do NOT think that any of the rates of gain are as they should be. You can't be 20x (before con increases) as resistant to dying from stab wounds or make 5x as many attacks in the same interval at the end of your adventures compared to the start. That's not how real life works, so that's not how games should work.

There are no dragons, superheroes, magic, FTL drives, lightsabers etc. in real life either, so games shouldn't have them.

More seriously, you are grossly missing the point. HP, AC, attacks/ round etc. are an abstraction. In the case of HP, they are not meant to literally mean you can stick a knife in your eye a dozen or so times and be fine until you suddenly fall over. Attacks per round do not mean you are physically incapable of making more than x swings in y seconds (even more fun in pre 3.x editions of D&D where that sort of thinking meant you would make one attack a minute most of your career).

Tinkerer
2017-09-15, 02:58 PM
How do I feel about it? I feel conflicted. So there are three basic schools of thought that I'm well acquainted with. Standard HP such as D&D where you get the ability to endure more. Increasing toughness such as WoD where you have a reduced chance of sustaining damage. And creative control which is more like a meta-currency in the game in a number of indie RPGs. And I... don't like any of them. Taking damage is one of the hardest things to accept about RPGs because it generally makes no sense.

For HP I know that wounds are intended to be grazing hits for the most part but you can easily run into situations where you know that the sword went clear through the guys kidneys. I remember recently someone was mentioning that they wanted the king(?) stabbed to death with a dagger at an important ceremony and they were lamenting just how long it takes to kill a non-helpless person with a dagger. Or other times (in some editions) you wind up with fighters swimming in lava. So I don't really like HP and indeed I think it might be the worst of the three, but I do use it from time to time.

For the toughness mechanic it all depends on how well it's executed. You normally want something like exploding dice so that everyone can feel as though they can contribute but that can lead to some weird results as well. Like a 12 year old kid throwing a spoon through a hell hounds head from 20 paces... that was one hell of a roll (a 14 on 1d4-3). The frustrating part is when your attacks do absolutely nothing even when they should be doing something at the very least, like shooting a normal human point blank with the gun literally against their skin and the shot hits but they aren't hurt. So I don't really like toughness mechanics.

With the meta-currency approach the question often comes down to "do you want to do something cool or do you want to live?". Obviously I want to do both! That's really the biggest complaint I have about them, it turns everyone essentially into "Cast from HP" type characters and that's fine but it shouldn't be on everyone's minds all the time. So I don't really like basing health off of meta-currency.

So which is the best? It all depends on the feel that you are going for. When I make some form of home-brew system I often use all 3 with toughness as the primary mechanic with a rarely increasing HP/Wound system (similar to a standard wound system but you will occasionally get another wound box on top which doesn't give penalties). Then I add some form of wound soaking in the meta-currency.

Aneurin
2017-09-15, 03:26 PM
Personally, I prefer not gaining HP with level because it feels weird. On the other hand, I haven't played levelled systems in a long time.

But more than preference, how you handle your HP/Wounds/Stress/Whatever in your system is going to vary depending on how your system actually works.


Having low Wounds, at least compared to damage values, works best if very few hits will actually connect. This can due to low hit chances, or active defences such as parrying or dodging (which are probably an extremely good idea to include) or both. It emphasizes tactical play, and staying the hell in cover, as well as stacking the odds in your favour, because with a bit of bad luck the PCs will go down hard. Does not work well with random or 'filler' encounters, since every fight is potentially lethal.

Having high Wounds, at least compared to damage values, works best if you want your fairly heroic the-PCs-succeed-lots set up. It makes the individual hits a lot less significant, but the PCs get to pass lots of rolls and - hopefully - the players will feel awesome. It also abstracts a lot of things, and doesn't really work for gritty games since everyone can take multiple swords to the gut without blinking. Plus it's pretty much impossible to cut a sentry's throat or something going strictly RAW.

You could also go the FATE route with something more narrative, and make it so that while getting hurt is easy, getting killed is hard - and getting hurt offers an advantage to the PCs' opponents, rather than being the end of the world - or really hampering the PC's ability to contribute. The players ultimately have the ability to 'concede' rather than fight to the bitter end, thereby taking fewer consequences.


There are undoubtedly more approaches, mind, but these are the ones I'm most familiar with.

Lalliman
2017-09-15, 03:41 PM
Thanks for the responses so far! Every bit of insight helps. I guess I'll give a bit of explanation now.

My system isn't really level-based, it's more of a point-buy system of stats and perks. HP is based on a base number plus a bonus from your Strength score. The power curve is pretty grounded: a high-Strength character will have considerably more HP than a low-Strength one, but you'll never have a ton of HP just for being a high-level character. I like it that way because it feels... verisimilistic.

What I don't like is that I'm left with a system in which, if the rules are applied consistently, all NPCs have HP values equivalent to those of PCs. And PCs are made to be able to take at least one hit even with low Strength. Ergo, even the weak fodder enemies end up taking two hits to kill, in a system with generally only one attack per round. This doesn't feel right in a heroic adventure game. My current fix for this is arbitrarily lowering the base HP of weak enemies, but I'm considering other solutions.

I recently implemented a pseudo-levelling system, which really just serves as an easy way of tiering the power level of characters with various point values. So my thought was that adding some minor HP bonuses based on level might solve my problem, making it so that mid-level characters have a decent amount of durability even with low Strength, while low-level characters (fodder enemies) are more likely to be defeated in one hit.


Fighting Spirit (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?531771-Fighting-Spirit-(An-Unoriginal-Idea-For-HP)&p=22243345#post22243345) is my attempt at making HP more sensible.
I've seen that one before and it seems great, but it doesn't port well to my system, since either way the numbers aren't as inflated as they are in D&D. You do have me wondering if maybe the simple act of renaming HP to Fighting Spirit will dampen some of my qualms with the scaling HP system. Something to consider.

Anonymouswizard
2017-09-15, 03:46 PM
I'm in the 'prefers hp not to increase per level', but I also like games that use it not to include 'first aid restores hp'. In my mind you get one or the other.

Or to explain, if hp only increases with Attributes I'll except hp is wounds. If it increases with levels I'll assume it's plot armour.

JNAProductions
2017-09-15, 03:54 PM
I've seen that one before and it seems great, but it doesn't port well to my system, since either way the numbers aren't as inflated as they are in D&D. You do have me wondering if maybe the simple act of renaming HP to Fighting Spirit will dampen some of my qualms with the scaling HP system. Something to consider.

Thanks for the compliment! I obviously didn't expect the system to work, lock stock and barrel, in your system, but I figured it might give some useful insights.

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-15, 04:01 PM
I'm in the process of making a homebrew system, and I'd like some input on the following: How does everyone feel about the concept of gaining HP as you level up?

This mechanic is ubiquitous in D&D, of course. When you go level up, you gain an amount of HP based on your class and your Con score. This serves as a reliable way to escalate the power level of the characters as they advance. For this purpose, it works admirably.

But the weird thing about it is that it doesn't represent anything tangible. I guess it's implied to represent some sort of general fighting proficiency; the ability to turn hits into glancing blows and to bite through minor injuries without weakening. But that doesn't always add up, because characters gain this level-based HP regardless of whether it makes sense for their class to become more durable / better at fighting as they advance.

Let's look at the wizard. They get little to no improvement to their martial abilities as they level. They never get any new weapon or armour proficiencies beyond the rudimentary ones they start with. The 5e version never gets Extra Attack, or proficiency in any physical saves. The 3.5 version gets some increases to BAB, Fortitude and Reflex, but that increase is far less significant than the HP increases they get. So if it doesn't correlate to any of those things, what is HP?

Some ad hoc explanations can be given, of course. Maybe the wizard is using a subtle and passive form of magic to protect himself. Or maybe HP represents the character's fate, being quite literally plot armour.

But explanations aren't really what I'm after. What I want to know: How do you feel about this mechanic existing, inside or outside D&D? Do you see it as a logical part of becoming more powerful, as a necessary weasel, as a stupid contrivance? I frankly can't make up my mind about it.


I don't like levels as a game mechanic in general.

Level-scaling hit points are a terrible mechanic with zero redeeming aspects. They're a kludgey contrivance. As you point out, they conflate multiple aspects of combat, that are usually represented elsewhere in the system at the same time, making for a muddled, opaque mess.

Frozen_Feet
2017-09-15, 04:07 PM
Depends on the rest of the system.

If HP increases while damage stays roughly the same, fights at higher levels take longer, or the characters can partake in more fights, or obstacles and failure are less of a trouble.

If HP and damage both increase, you get a weird effect where effectiveness towards equal level opponents does not improve, but lower level obstacles and enemies become less and less of a threat.

If damage increases faster, combat against equal level opponents becomes increasingly fast-paced and offense-orientated, strongly favoring first strikes and being higher level than your opponent.

I personally use mostly OSR rules, where Hit Point gain is quick early on and slows down around 10th level. Weapon damage stays pretty much the same throughout. Spells are iffy, I've mostly avoided using spells in my games which radically outpace weapon damage.

I'm currently devising a system where Hit Points mostly measure exhaustion, and real trouble is wounds/critical hits which get through your active defenses. One planned feature of the system is that armor is very powerful - a fully armored character is more likely to be downed by exhaustion than direct injury.

Gnoman
2017-09-15, 04:20 PM
I'm currently devising a system where Hit Points mostly measure exhaustion, and real trouble is wounds/critical hits which get through your active defenses. One planned feature of the system is that armor is very powerful - a fully armored character is more likely to be downed by exhaustion than direct injury.

Isn't that basically just the Vitality/Wound system?

Frozen_Feet
2017-09-15, 04:26 PM
Nope.

For one, I don't plan for the wounds/critical hits to be measured by points.

Morty
2017-09-15, 05:11 PM
I think it's one of the main contributing factors to D&D's completely unbalanced power curve. Plus all the various problems you brought up. It's impossible to make someone in D&D get better at something without also increasing their passive ability not to die, precisely because of how HP work.

FreddyNoNose
2017-09-16, 04:43 PM
Love it. Gain HP is part of dnd. Other games have other systems, but for dnd HP gain is fantastic.

Slipperychicken
2017-09-16, 05:08 PM
I prefer the locational wound-box systems characteristic of One Roll Engine games like Wild Talents and Monsters and Other Childish Things. In those games the damage feels more 'real' to me, as if something meaningful happened in the lore instead of some intangible slider being moved up or down. Also, knowing what sort of damage you took, and where and how a character's body took it, is very helpful for a variety of reasons.

Floopay
2017-09-16, 06:02 PM
The concept is simple actually.

A low level character gets stabbed in the arm, takes 10 points of damage, and is knocked unconscious and bleeding; because they fall below 0 hit points. A high level character gets stabbed in the arm, takes 10 points of damage, and is still up and functioning.

The mechanics of this can be explained by 1 person having more experience functions while hurt, whereas the other is new to the experience. You start the game off as a nameless henchman in a movie, or comic book. Anyone hits you hard enough in the face, and you get knocked out. As you move on, you start becoming more like Frank Castle. Someone breaks your arm, nose, leg, or whatever; you're still getting hurt, but experience and training has allowed you to take the hit and keep going.

And this isn't exactly untrue in real life. I've seen people faint over a cut finger, and others drive themselves to the hospital after cutting a finger off. So I think the concept of the "Hit point" isn't that you are more immortal, it's just that you can handle more hits, and are far better at mitigating the hit, or just dealing with the damage.

Thanks for reading,
Floopay

wumpus
2017-09-16, 06:40 PM
The concept is simple actually.

A low level character gets stabbed in the arm, takes 10 points of damage, and is knocked unconscious and bleeding; because they fall below 0 hit points. A high level character gets stabbed in the arm, takes 10 points of damage, and is still up and functioning.


This is repeated any number of places, and in AD&D 1e (where Gygax justifies it) he claims that all but the last hp for mighty warriors aren't real injuries, just their defenses being slowly worn down.

The biggest issue is falling damage, and anything similar that doesn't care how good you are, it will hurt you mostly equally (Judo skill might help).
The other issue is healing. A 10hp heal spell heals everyone 10hp. Presumably that means 10hp of cut/smashed/burnt flesh.

It is simply required to match the source material. How else could Beowulf manage to slay the dragon (even if he had the diehard feat that let him fight to -30hp or whatever). It should be telling this idea seeps into people's psyche and warps their perception of real life: they claim that a guy with one level of Marine isn't enough to kill a umpty-ump level aristocrat like Kennedy, even with a rifle. No, real people only have 1d4 hit points and even top athletes can't take a rifle bullet to the head.

Thrudd
2017-09-16, 06:51 PM
I think it's a tool that works for a certain type of game. I prefer D&D-style HP progression for a D&D style game, and I prefer other things for other kinds of games.

It depends on how you intend the game to work. Becoming increasingly more resilient with something like HP is a feature of a game where you intend for there to be a distinct progression of challenges. Where you intend for players to learn how to play the game at low levels with small numbers and easy mechanics, then build the complexity and difficulty as the players get better at the game (that's what D&D is). It is a popular mechanic because it is so simple and straightforward, very abstract rather than being especially accurate-to-life. It implies a game with distinct jumps in power that brings characters from nobody up to epic hero fairly easily.

Games without HP increases tend to remain at a set power level for a longer time, or at least are designed to do so, unlike D&D. You start as heroes, or as average folk, and though gaining XP may let you increase your abilities over time, usually it is in small increments and you don't see a huge change from beginning to end. These sorts of games also don't usually have levels, but progress piecemeal by spending points on skills and abilities.

One is not better than the other, necessarily. One (D&D) very much emphasizes the "game" of RPG. This is the root of all video game RPGs. Others made an effort to do a better job of verisimilitude for their respective settings and to fit whatever type of narrative it is designed for.

Nifft
2017-09-16, 07:16 PM
I like when level gives you an increase, but a smaller increase than what 3.5e / 5e tend to give out.

As a concrete example, I liked what 4e did regarding HP: you start out as a badass at level 1 with 20 to 30 HP or so, and then you advance in small chunks (+2 to +4 or so). You don't multiply your Con bonus by your HD.

It reminded me of 1e after "name level", which was often around level 10, where you are DONE getting HD and you just get a +1 (magic-user) to +4 (barbarian) per additional level.

FreddyNoNose
2017-09-16, 08:47 PM
I like when level gives you an increase, but a smaller increase than what 3.5e / 5e tend to give out.

As a concrete example, I liked what 4e did regarding HP: you start out as a badass at level 1 with 20 to 30 HP or so, and then you advance in small chunks (+2 to +4 or so). You don't multiply your Con bonus by your HD.

It reminded me of 1e after "name level", which was often around level 10, where you are DONE getting HD and you just get a +1 (magic-user) to +4 (barbarian) per additional level.
Or you could do like Dave Hargrave did in Arduin Alternative HP system, you start out with HP and gain very slowly.
Fighters/Rogues gain 1 HP per level increase. Cleric/Druids gain 1 HP per 2 levels. Mage types and courtesans gain 1 HP per 3 levels.

Base Racial HP
Human Female: 15
Human Male: 14
Dwarf Female: 18
Dwarf Male: 19
Elf Female: 20
Elf Male: 21

Constitution: 1 HP per point of constitution. For every point of constitution over 12, gain another hp. 12 con = 12 hp, 18 con = 24 HP

Fighter types get +5 bonus to starting hp. Cleric types get + 3. Mage types get 0. Elves and split types get 3.

So a 1st level male dwarf fight with 18 constitution would get:
Dwarf Male 19 HP
Constitution 24 HP
Fighter 5 HP
Total starting HP = 48
Suppose he levels to level 11, his HP would be 58.
At level 21, his HP would be 68.

Nifft
2017-09-16, 09:27 PM
Or you could do like Dave Hargrave did in Arduin Alternative HP system, you start out with HP and gain very slowly.
Fighters/Rogues gain 1 HP per level increase. Cleric/Druids gain 1 HP per 2 levels. Mage types and courtesans gain 1 HP per 3 levels.

Base Racial HP
Human Female: 15
Human Male: 14
Dwarf Female: 18
Dwarf Male: 19
Elf Female: 20
Elf Male: 21

Constitution: 1 HP per point of constitution. For every point of constitution over 12, gain another hp. 12 con = 12 hp, 18 con = 24 HP

Fighter types get +5 bonus to starting hp. Cleric types get + 3. Mage types get 0. Elves and split types get 3.

So a 1st level male dwarf fight with 18 constitution would get:
Dwarf Male 19 HP
Constitution 24 HP
Fighter 5 HP
Total starting HP = 48
Suppose he levels to level 11, his HP would be 58.
At level 21, his HP would be 68.

Nice.

I've been a proponent of racial HP since back in 2003: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?59903-Plus-Race-and-Size-for-Hit-Points&p=1059183&viewfull=1#post1059183

It's great to see someone else using a similar system.


I still like a lot of what 4e did better, though.

For example, Con score to HP. Not modifier, not multiplied, just flat-out Con score. If you have 8 Con, you have 10 fewer HP than a character with 18 Con.

Con modifier is used for HP recovery -- in 5e terms, it would determine how much you heal during a short rest, instead of having HD which you spend.


If I were re-doing my system, which I might do for 5e, it would steal some of those clever parts from 4e.

FreddyNoNose
2017-09-16, 09:51 PM
Nice.

I've been a proponent of racial HP since back in 2003: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?59903-Plus-Race-and-Size-for-Hit-Points&p=1059183&viewfull=1#post1059183

It's great to see someone else using a similar system.


I still like a lot of what 4e did better, though.

For example, Con score to HP. Not modifier, not multiplied, just flat-out Con score. If you have 8 Con, you have 10 fewer HP than a character with 18 Con.

Con modifier is used for HP recovery -- in 5e terms, it would determine how much you heal during a short rest, instead of having HD which you spend.


If I were re-doing my system, which I might do for 5e, it would steal some of those clever parts from 4e.

Great.

Dave Hargrave was ahead of his time. Considering his alternative HP system was from 1978, you can see it. Some other things that were notable. Damage from a fireball, is divided up by the number of mobs in the AOE. So 36 HP fireball hitting 10 orcs, would do 3.6 damage to each before savings throws are considered.

Nifft
2017-09-16, 09:55 PM
Great.

Dave Hargrave was ahead of his time. Considering his alternative HP system was from 1978, you can see it. Some other things that were notable. Damage from a fireball, is divided up by the number of mobs in the AOE. So 36 HP fireball hitting 10 orcs, would do 3.6 damage to each before savings throws are considered.

Huh, cool.

Wonder why I've never heard of it before.

Gotta say I don't like that AoE rule on initial reading -- it seems to invert the value of tactical positioning.

JNAProductions
2017-09-16, 09:56 PM
Yeah, I can understand a correlation between Size and AoE damage (a Small target has less space to roast than a Huge one) but not number of targets.

ZamielVanWeber
2017-09-16, 10:40 PM
Yeah, I can understand a correlation between Size and AoE damage (a Small target has less space to roast than a Huge one) but not number of targets.

Makes for a weird visual too: dropping equivalent of a nuke on an extremely populated city would result in mildly irritating millions of people.

More on topic: I am split a bit here. I like part of my character growing stronger being able to survive hits more easily, but I also understand that the scaling needs to be reasonable. DND 3.5 scales insanely, even with caster types, but Black Crusade's lack of scaling makes surviving a sustained attack as anything but a servant of Nurgle difficult. No one likes losing their character to one unlucky roll.

I feel the best answer is scaling but slowly or with limits. I like M+M because it is cheap and there are a ton of different ways to acquire it but you can only go so high. WW is okayish with growing your soak pool and doing things to acquire more wound boxes, but it gets insanely expensive after a while.

FreddyNoNose
2017-09-16, 10:43 PM
Huh, cool.

Wonder why I've never heard of it before.

Gotta say I don't like that AoE rule on initial reading -- it seems to invert the value of tactical positioning.

You have to think about it a little bit. You can have characters with over 100 levels in the game. If you used AD&D1st edition fireballs, what would that 30th level magic user spell do to someone who gains HP slowly. Think about it, a magic user gains 1 HP every 3 levels but if you were to get 1d6 damage per level for a fireball spell, how over powered is that. You have to look deeper. It really is a major plus of the system if you really look at it.

FYI, in case you didn't know, it is a mana based spell system. So potential for round after round of fireballs. So if players have 50 hp and take two 36 damage fireballs per ad&d, they better make their savings throws or they are dead.

The stated goal of the HP system is to allow a 1st level character to play with a higher level character without there being a hundred hit points difference. On the HP basis, it works.

ZamielVanWeber
2017-09-16, 10:48 PM
The stated goal of the HP system is to allow a 1st level character to play with a higher level character without there being a hundred hit points difference. On the HP basis, it works.

Which is 1: unintuitive and 2: (more importantly) trying to fix a serious design flaw that existed all the way until 3.0 by introducing a different design flaw (which is funny since 3.0 is the 5th edition of DnD. Good job there WotC. I see what you did...)

FreddyNoNose
2017-09-16, 11:08 PM
Which is 1: unintuitive and 2: (more importantly) trying to fix a serious design flaw that existed all the way until 3.0 by introducing a different design flaw (which is funny since 3.0 is the 5th edition of DnD. Good job there WotC. I see what you did...)

OMG, I knew someone would bring up their little pet issue about the "serious design flaw" that is all in their mind.

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-16, 11:18 PM
The concept is simple actually.

A low level character gets stabbed in the arm, takes 10 points of damage, and is knocked unconscious and bleeding; because they fall below 0 hit points. A high level character gets stabbed in the arm, takes 10 points of damage, and is still up and functioning.


So what does 10 points of damage represent, then?

What does an attack that succeeds represent?

oxybe
2017-09-16, 11:43 PM
HP is plot armour.

Higher level PCs have access to more plot armour then low level PCs.

This allows them to casually brush off an attack that would fell a lesser PC.

D&D is a game that's generally about heroic adventurers going out and doing heroic things, while also getting stronger in the process, which allows them to take on more and more dangerous things.

Within that context, HP in D&D is fine as it abstracts exactly what it needs to.

How any given attack affects the PC will depend on the PC. HP is a mix of luck, skill, divine intervention, magical boons, gear, and everything in between.

A thief & a fighter who take 30 points of damage will narrate it differently. The thief barely dodges it while the fighter soaks the hit with his shield. 30 points of damage is done to their plot armour. When HP reaches 0, they're out cold: exhausted, fainted, knocked unconcious, left bleeding for dead and incapacitated... whatever. They're out of the fight.

D&D HP is not a complex thing.

It's plot armour.

Is it realistic? No but if D&D were big on realism, we wouldn't have Bhaube the Elven Warmage: we would have Bob, the crazy hobo who glued leaves to his ears and runs around in only bathrobe throwing duracells at people and screaming LIGHTNING BOLT!

ZamielVanWeber
2017-09-17, 12:01 AM
OMG, I knew someone would bring up their little pet issue about the "serious design flaw" that is all in their mind.

Forcing someone to start at 1 regardless of everyone else's EXP is a serious design flaw. You may love that mistake to death but that does not suddenly make it good. This is a common and annoying thing people do: "If I like it it is good and if I do not like it it is bad." This is simply untrue. AD&D (and it's predecessors) and a ton of stupid design decisions, including gender segregation. 3Rd Ed also had a ton of stupid design decisions. I cannot speak on 5th ed as I have not played it but every edition of DnD has decisions that make me bang my head against a wall. That is the nature of design: mistakes will be made and you are free to enjoy a system in spite of or even for them, but that does not suddenly make them not mistakes.

As a secondary note: if you legitimately think starting a character over at 1st level regardless of party power level is not a flaw, please explain this position instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks.

Nifft
2017-09-17, 12:10 AM
OMG, I knew someone would bring up their little pet issue about the "serious design flaw" that is all in their mind.

"You see, the fireball spell has a pre-set damage limit, so I simply stood in the middle of a group of my own men in order to reduce the damage to myself. Show them my medal, Kif."



But explanations aren't really what I'm after. What I want to know: How do you feel about this mechanic existing, inside or outside D&D? Do you see it as a logical part of becoming more powerful, as a necessary weasel, as a stupid contrivance? I frankly can't make up my mind about it.

Let's get back to the topic.

Most editions of D&D allow damage to scale pretty high. As pointed out above, a "30th level fireball" presents a problem for fixed-HP characters. If your HP can't scale to match greater & greater damage, you'll just die.

D&D 5e has a good answer to this: fireball has fixed damage (8d6), unless you expend a higher-level slot to cast it. So a 5th level Wizard or a 30th level Wizard casting fireball will on average hit for ~28 damage (~14 on a save).

I think that 5e could be wrangled into a system that handles much slower HP advancement, yet remains fun throughout all levels. Keep the overall structure of 5e intact, just tweak some specifics.

I'd probably use elements like:
- More class features to reduce damage, including passive DR and reactions.
- Armor as DR (not just that one heavy armor feat).
- Limited number of healing surges per day.

If the DR applies to monsters, and it should, then probably:
- At least two different options for melee attacks: lots of smaller attacks, or one big attack. The big attack's damage scales faster. Some classes will favor one or the other.


Oh, there is one other thing I'd change, but I'm not sure it's on topic except that it does deal with HP. Healing in 5e seems to be "solved": don't do it until someone drops, then spend an action to recover the dropped PC. That's ugly in how trivial it makes the decision process, and it's ugly in how it feels counter-intuitive and "gamey". Maybe a solution would be something like:
- If you're above 0 HP, then you spend one healing surge to heal _______ damage.
- If you're at or below 0 HP, then you must spend TWO healing surges to heal the same damage.

That makes timing the heals a game of balancing risk & tension rather than a solved problem.

ZamielVanWeber
2017-09-17, 12:27 AM
I think my biggest problem with DND style HP is that weird corner cases appear (such as drowning in lava before dying to damage...okayish that is the biggest one).

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-17, 12:32 AM
HP is plot armour.

Higher level PCs have access to more plot armour then low level PCs.

This allows them to casually brush off an attack that would fell a lesser PC.

D&D is a game that's generally about heroic adventurers going out and doing heroic things, while also getting stronger in the process, which allows them to take on more and more dangerous things.

Within that context, HP in D&D is fine as it abstracts exactly what it needs to.

How any given attack affects the PC will depend on the PC. HP is a mix of luck, skill, divine intervention, magical boons, gear, and everything in between.

A thief & a fighter who take 30 points of damage will narrate it differently. The thief barely dodges it while the fighter soaks the hit with his shield. 30 points of damage is done to their plot armour. When HP reaches 0, they're out cold: exhausted, fainted, knocked unconcious, left bleeding for dead and incapacitated... whatever. They're out of the fight.

D&D HP is not a complex thing.

It's plot armour.


IMO, that's exactly what makes it horrible. Plot armor is a bad fictional trope, not a design goal.




Is it realistic? No but if D&D were big on realism, we wouldn't have Bhaube the Elven Warmage: we would have Bob, the crazy hobo who glued leaves to his ears and runs around in only bathrobe throwing duracells at people and screaming LIGHTNING BOLT!


That's just drifting off into something like The "But Dragons!" Fallacy.

ahyangyi
2017-09-17, 01:14 AM
Many of the problem with the Hit Dice approach can be mitigated by having more hit points at level 1 (the D&D 4th edition approach), or just start playing at level 3 (and every commoner you meet that's not completely inexperienced are level 3 too).

oxybe
2017-09-17, 01:21 AM
IMO, that's exactly what makes it horrible. Plot armor is a bad fictional trope, not a design goal.

Tropes are tools (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesAreTools).

To dismiss a trope as bad without considering why it's used within the framework of the movie (or game in this case) and why the designers used it over something else doesn't make the trope bad, it just makes it seem like the point went over your head.

D&D doesn't work on realism. It never tried to, since day one. D&D, especially modern D&D, is trying to emulate the feats of heroic characters but understands that no two characters would necessarily react to the same threat in the same way. HP, as plot armour, allows the player, rather then the system, to describe how a threat affects his heroic character.

It allows the player to take narrative control and describe or imagine how awesome his character is.

IE: Brick the Buff tanks hits while Dirk the Dextrous dodges them. Both chip away at their HP/plot armour.

It's not bad, it's just not realistic. And that's fine for D&D which never claimed to be.


That's just drifting off into something like The "But Dragons!" Fallacy.

Dragons in D&D work only because of player buy-in of the tropes, genre and themes of D&D, same as the Plot Armour we call HP.

Toss a living, breathing red dragon in a game of GURPS where the setup is a gritty WW1 trench warfare game and you'll have a ton of jank and pushback because it doesn't fit.

But "But Dragons" is very much a viable counter to the "unrealisticness" of HP because both dragons, elves, magic and HP are all 100% fictional things that only make sense in the narrative of the game if the players buys into the concept the designers and/or GM presents... and the default setting of D&D, where the PCs are a group of heroes of various skillsets and walks of life, HP as Plot Armour does work with the default buy-in.

These things are all acceptable breaks from reality that allow us to enjoy the sometimes janky ride that is the rollercoaster called D&D.

It's fine not to like the trope, just don't dismiss it as bad "just because".

Mastikator
2017-09-17, 05:52 AM
I find levels and HP immersion breaking. At best it is a fun distraction.

ahyangyi
2017-09-17, 07:24 AM
I find levels and HP immersion breaking. At best it is a fun distraction.

Levels also immersion breaking for you? How? You prefer a story where there's no character growth?

ZamielVanWeber
2017-09-17, 08:05 AM
Levels also immersion breaking for you? How? You prefer a story where there's no character growth?

Or, mayhaps, they prefer a story where character growth is gradual instead of resembling a go/no-go gauge, such as you would find in GURPS, WW, or M&M to name some big names. Levelling up is weird conceptually: you spend time, possibly months or years, and gain literally nothing and then, suddenly, it all catches up with you. While it can be justified in world it is certainly a bit more unusual than taking a Biology Course online and justifying it by getting a rank in some sort of Biology skill.

Nifft
2017-09-17, 08:06 AM
Or, mayhaps, they prefer a story where character growth is gradual instead of resembling a go/no-go gauge, such as you would find in GURPS, WW, or M&M to name some big names. Levelling up is weird conceptually: you spend time, possibly months or years, and gain literally nothing and then, suddenly, it all catches up with you. While it can be justified in world it is certainly a bit more unusual than taking a Biology Course online and justifying it by getting a rank in some sort of Biology skill.

In ye olde editions, you got XP after every encounter, but you didn't actually get the benefit of a level-up until you spent weeks of downtime training.

GloatingSwine
2017-09-17, 08:12 AM
Levels also immersion breaking for you? How? You prefer a story where there's no character growth?

You can have mechanical character growth without levels. Lots of systems distribute skill or ability points that get directly spent on improving character skills without doing so at discrete "levels".


If HP and damage both increase, you get a weird effect where effectiveness towards equal level opponents does not improve, but lower level obstacles and enemies become less and less of a threat.

I mean that's not a particularly weird effect, and can in fact be exactly the effect the system is trying to produce, because it means combat can still be a challenge whilst letting people feel the growth at long as they still encounter "easy" enemies from a couple of levels ago from time to time.

Especially if they face something that used to be a big worry but now isn't because they have the good saves and more beef. Feels like revenge.

ZamielVanWeber
2017-09-17, 08:17 AM
In ye olde editions, you got XP after every encounter, but you didn't actually get the benefit of a level-up until you spent weeks of downtime training.

That feels like a band-aid on a gushing wound to me, but it is dramatically better than Rifts' solution of making levels an actual in world thing that exists and some people are aware of (in a non-4th wall breaking sense). That was just silly.

Mastikator
2017-09-17, 08:20 AM
Levels also immersion breaking for you? How? You prefer a story where there's no character growth?

I prefer stories where my character can grow in more than one dimension.

Let me give you an example- the last game I was in, set in a dystopian sci-fi future using the shadowrun game mechanics. My character was a low ranking military member of Regime, the military dictatorship that controlled all of Earth. Each session we played the PCs gained some exp, not enough to grow substantially in skill but we could grow gradually. I choose to bank all of my exp.

Each session I advanced my character's role in the story and became more and more important to the plot, I made contacts with criminal elements that lead to having the ear of the local crime lord, I helped the crime lord destroy his rivals while taking credit for it, which gained me increased ranking in the local military.

Before the game was over my character was the local ruler of the town we were, had managed to put the other players in positions of power and created a mutually beneficial cooperation with the crime lord.

Now THAT is the kind of development I wanted. He started out as a slightly paranoid scheming character who acquired as many levers as he could, used the leverage of one side to improve his position on the other, back and forth until he was the most powerful man in town.

All without spending a single experience point. He didn't advance in any of his skills or abilities.

You don't need levels or hit points to advance your character and this was much more satisfying to play than merely increasing some stat on a paper to become a better killer or whatever.

Edit-

Getting ninja'd by people arguing that gradual increase in ability makes more sense than levels. Yes, I agree. But I'd take it a step further and say even that is a distraction- a fun distraction- from an even more satisfying roleplaying experience. Having character stats is a means to an end, the roleplaying is the end and leveling, hit points and I daresay even gradual exp gain is an active distraction from that. It has taken me years to realize this.

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-17, 08:56 AM
Tropes are tools (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesAreTools).

To dismiss a trope as bad without considering why it's used within the framework of the movie (or game in this case) and why the designers used it over something else doesn't make the trope bad, it just makes it seem like the point went over your head.

D&D doesn't work on realism. It never tried to, since day one. D&D, especially modern D&D, is trying to emulate the feats of heroic characters but understands that no two characters would necessarily react to the same threat in the same way. HP, as plot armour, allows the player, rather then the system, to describe how a threat affects his heroic character.

It allows the player to take narrative control and describe or imagine how awesome his character is.

IE: Brick the Buff tanks hits while Dirk the Dextrous dodges them. Both chip away at their HP/plot armour.

It's not bad, it's just not realistic. And that's fine for D&D which never claimed to be.


I'm aware of all that, the same excuses for D&D Hit Points have been posted dozens of times before, here and elsewhere -- and it makes no difference to my thoughts on the matter.

Plot Armor is a bad idea, a narrative contrivance. If D&D Hit Points are trying to emulate that bad idea, that doesn't make D&D Hit Points better, it just makes it a bad mechanic emulating a bad idea.

But then, most tropes are less tools to be used... and more landmines to be avoided. (And then there are the tropes so generalized and broad as to be pointless. "OMG I've seen three characters who use magic and have white hair, the white haired magic user is totally a trope!")




Dragons in D&D work only because of player buy-in of the tropes, genre and themes of D&D, same as the Plot Armour we call HP.

Toss a living, breathing red dragon in a game of GURPS where the setup is a gritty WW1 trench warfare game and you'll have a ton of jank and pushback because it doesn't fit.

But "But Dragons" is very much a viable counter to the "unrealisticness" of HP because both dragons, elves, magic and HP are all 100% fictional things that only make sense in the narrative of the game if the players buys into the concept the designers and/or GM presents... and the default setting of D&D, where the PCs are a group of heroes of various skillsets and walks of life, HP as Plot Armour does work with the default buy-in.

These things are all acceptable breaks from reality that allow us to enjoy the sometimes janky ride that is the rollercoaster called D&D.

It's fine not to like the trope, just don't dismiss it as bad "just because".


"But Dragons!" -- the fallacy that any break from reality justifies all breaks from reality in a fictional setting. When you say "Is it realistic? No but if D&D were big on realism, we wouldn't have Bhaube the Elven Warmage:", that's pretty much "But Dragons!" stated as "But Elven Warmages!". Not all breaks from reality are created equal, and not all breaks from reality are fitting or consistent for any particular setting.

D&D Hit Points, like the contrivance of plot armor they attempt to emulate in a fuzzy and badly abstract way, aren't even a "break from reality" of the same sort that a dragon or an elf would be. They're a game mechanic, not a setting element. Using one sort as a justification for the other sort doesn't fly. A game can have dragons and elves and warmages and magic lightning without trying to emulate bad narrative contrivances like plot armor. Plot armor, and D&D Hit Points, aren't bad because they're not realistic, they're bad because they don't feel like they could be real (see sig below).

ahyangyi
2017-09-17, 09:08 AM
Or, mayhaps, they prefer a story where character growth is gradual instead of resembling a go/no-go gauge, such as you would find in GURPS, WW, or M&M to name some big names. Levelling up is weird conceptually: you spend time, possibly months or years, and gain literally nothing and then, suddenly, it all catches up with you. While it can be justified in world it is certainly a bit more unusual than taking a Biology Course online and justifying it by getting a rank in some sort of Biology skill.

That makes sense, though every level-based system can do that with little modifications too. You just spread out the leveling bonus, like the Staggered Advancement system in Pathfinder Unchained does.

Ultimately, any system where you can learn new, distinct abilities (as opposed of just adding numbers), are discrete. That means there must be a moment where you move from "can't use ability X" to "can use ability X". So every system are, in some sense, a leveling system, but with different granularity of levels.

ahyangyi
2017-09-17, 09:12 AM
I prefer stories where my character can grow in more than one dimension.

Let me give you an example- the last game I was in, set in a dystopian sci-fi future using the shadowrun game mechanics. My character was a low ranking military member of Regime, the military dictatorship that controlled all of Earth. Each session we played the PCs gained some exp, not enough to grow substantially in skill but we could grow gradually. I choose to bank all of my exp.

Each session I advanced my character's role in the story and became more and more important to the plot, I made contacts with criminal elements that lead to having the ear of the local crime lord, I helped the crime lord destroy his rivals while taking credit for it, which gained me increased ranking in the local military.

Before the game was over my character was the local ruler of the town we were, had managed to put the other players in positions of power and created a mutually beneficial cooperation with the crime lord.

Now THAT is the kind of development I wanted. He started out as a slightly paranoid scheming character who acquired as many levers as he could, used the leverage of one side to improve his position on the other, back and forth until he was the most powerful man in town.

All without spending a single experience point. He didn't advance in any of his skills or abilities.

You don't need levels or hit points to advance your character and this was much more satisfying to play than merely increasing some stat on a paper to become a better killer or whatever.

Edit-

Getting ninja'd by people arguing that gradual increase in ability makes more sense than levels. Yes, I agree. But I'd take it a step further and say even that is a distraction- a fun distraction- from an even more satisfying roleplaying experience. Having character stats is a means to an end, the roleplaying is the end and leveling, hit points and I daresay even gradual exp gain is an active distraction from that. It has taken me years to realize this.

That'll work if all the character development is about social position, or wealth.

That won't work if you actually hone your skills. Like the classical wizard who can only cast magic missile in the beginning of a game but he can cast time stop in the end. You can't just talk to people and be a good wizard like that. You need a mechanism to explain why your wizard can't cast time stop in the beginning and now he can. And experience probably makes the most sense.

Mastikator
2017-09-17, 09:26 AM
That'll work if all the character development is about social position.

That won't work if you actually hone your skills. Like the classical wizard who can only cast magic missile in the beginning of a game but he can cast time stop in the end. You can't just talk to people and be a good wizard like that. You need a mechanism to explain why your wizard can't cast time stop in the beginning and now he can.

You don't need levels or hit points to add capabilities to your character. If your character is a sorcerer then or psychic then their powers can awaken through story elements and merely measured as stats (ie you can do away with exp), for wizards it's a matter of learning. In that case levels don't make sense since there's no in game reason your character shouldn't be able to cast time stop if he had it inscribed in his book at the start of the game. It's actually not well explained in the player handbook and the players are expected to accept a game balance argument as a roleplaying one.

This is what I don't like about D&D, it's DragonballZ masquerading as Lord of the Rings. The mechanics do not sync with the setting. I'd argue that Rift is better in this way since it finds a way to marry the game mechanics and the setting.

ahyangyi
2017-09-17, 09:37 AM
You don't need levels or hit points to add capabilities to your character. If your character is a sorcerer then or psychic then their powers can awaken through story elements and merely measured as stats (ie you can do away with exp), for wizards it's a matter of learning. In that case levels don't make sense since there's no in game reason your character shouldn't be able to cast time stop if he had it inscribed in his book at the start of the game. It's actually not well explained in the player handbook and the players are expected to accept a game balance argument as a roleplaying one.

This is what I don't like about D&D, it's DragonballZ masquerading as Lord of the Rings. The mechanics do not sync with the setting. I'd argue that Rift is better in this way since it finds a way to marry the game mechanics and the setting.

OK. If your point is that one can do with experience points without leveling, then I agree. I just see "experience points with levels" and "experience points without levels" mathematically near-equivalent, though... So that's kind of word-play for me.

And I never liked the D&D hit dice to begin with. I'm not trying to argue about that. The hit dice actually works better for the monsters, since the larger monsters (like dragons) are indeed supposed to be tough and hit dice represent that pretty well. It never worked as well for adventurers though.

Mastikator
2017-09-17, 10:50 AM
OK. If your point is that one can do with experience points without leveling, then I agree. I just see "experience points with levels" and "experience points without levels" mathematically near-equivalent, though... So that's kind of word-play for me.

And I never liked the D&D hit dice to begin with. I'm not trying to argue about that. The hit dice actually works better for the monsters, since the larger monsters (like dragons) are indeed supposed to be tough and hit dice represent that pretty well. It never worked as well for adventurers though.

I'm sympathetic to the camp that thinks experience and gradual increase is better than leveling but that's not the camp I am in because I think they both suffer from the same problem.

Here's the problem, the way your character grows mechanically is in direct conflict to how they grow as a character. Let me flesh this out with an example so you can see where I am coming from.

If I were to travel the world, meet exotic people and see new things I would widen my horizons and grow as a person. It would not make me better at fencing with swords or shooting with guns.
How do I get better at fencing with swords? Practice, I have to practice sword fencing.

But if my character just spends all day practicing with swords in a game like D&D then that won't do diddly squat, instead I'd have to go on an adventure and then take a level as a fighter. Which is literally the opposite of how it should work.
And changing from a level system to a experience system would make it easier to excuse it still wouldn't actually resolve the conflict.

I think this is a dangerous distraction, because you should want to go on adventure with your character, that's the point. But if your goal is to be a better fencer then the way you do that is by practicing, the only reason you might travel is to find sparring partners. That is boring.

You should want to advance the plot and grow your character within the setting, not grow it mechanically. The game mechanics based growth is a red herring.

JNAProductions
2017-09-17, 10:52 AM
Well, the thing is, adventures (at least in D&D) tend to involve a lot of fighting. So it makes sense that you're going to get better at it-you're not JUST practicing it, you're practicing it in live situations, where you can learn very much more than against a training dummy or in a controlled environment against a sparring partner.

ahyangyi
2017-09-17, 11:06 AM
Well, the thing is, adventures (at least in D&D) tend to involve a lot of fighting. So it makes sense that you're going to get better at it-you're not JUST practicing it, you're practicing it in live situations, where you can learn very much more than against a training dummy or in a controlled environment against a sparring partner.

That's a good point. You just can't practice how to deal with a dirty trick user or how to deal with a dragon. You need to face a new one. There's something that you can't replace with mere dummy practice.

We need some arguments for wizards and the like though. Why adventuring seems a better alternative than researching in his lab?

A real world analogy though, the good real-world researchers actually go to lots of conferences, talk to many different people, and stuff like that. They don't actually stay in their labs every day. Not sure if this is convincing enough, but maybe it's a good start.

I was thinking about this issue Mastikator raised for some time, but then concluded that just different people have different ideas about what an RPG really is.

Mastikator is more simulationist than me, for example. And I am definitely a different kind of player. I am interested in actual game mechanics, as well as discovering awesome stuff or unexpected things on the run. I would have been bored to death if all I get to do is to talk to this people and talk to that people. Hell, I hate meetings in everyday work, and why do I have to do more meetings when I am not at work?

And for D&D 3R (and Pathfinder). No, it doesn't have the problem where the mechanic disconnects with the setting. In D&D 3R, the mechanic is the setting. If you think the setting is something else (like DragonballZ or LotR), it's your problem. In a world where detect alignment and smite evil are a thing, and color spray works differently on creatures with different HD, you can't really talk in phrases like "suspension of disbelief". You have to believe as if the HD and the alignment are real things in the setting. And suddenly lots of problems disappears...

Pleh
2017-09-17, 11:33 AM
On that note, I really like how Bethesda did leveling in Skyrim. You grow as a character for any interaction you live through, failures and successes. As you achieve milestones in your career, you grow in actual, measurable strength (whether strength of health, stamina, or magical aptitude), and you learn a new trick like a class feature, but which tricks you learn are limited by your skill and practice in that particular field.

Morty
2017-09-17, 12:07 PM
If you want your characters to improbably survive dangers that ought to kill them, like fictional heroes do... there's a great many better ways to do it than ever-escalating hit points. Likewise for heroes being straight-up superhuman and surviving lethal situations through skill and/or magic.

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-17, 12:09 PM
I lean toward "sim", but IMO, experience / character growth is one of those areas where simulation can get easily become burdensome at the cost of the enjoyment of the game.

Tracking training time, or restricting experience expenditure or other mechanical growth to things that the character has been doing "on screen", is an added overhead and restriction that to me doesn't have an offsetting benefit in terms of actually making the game more enjoyable or immersive.

Just let the character grow the way the player wants them to grow, IMO (within the limits of the game, obviously, this is specifically about training and skill-use tracking and downtime/uptime concerns).

Ravens_cry
2017-09-17, 12:22 PM
Well, it really depends on the tone of the game.
By default, D&D 3.P works quite well with HP scaling, as it and games like it are basically Hero's Journey: Tabletop Edition. You start out the suck and face stronger and more powerful foes as you yourself get stronger, until you are a far cry from, say, the farmer girl who could do certain 'tricks' or the squire who could barely hit the broad side of a barn. With a sword. Having foes that once were a challenge become obstacles of time, not danger, if that, that fits D&D quite well, and HP increases help with that tone.
Now, let's think about a different kind of tone, one where it isn't about a power fantasy of getting more mighty, but of survival in a hostile or, at best, apathetic universe.
In that case, foes being a danger at any level makes more sense and minimal HP (or equivalent) make more sense.. You might learn more tricks to deal with them, new strategies to defeat them, but death and worse will come swiftly to the careless. It is using the tools at hand well, not brute application of force that will win the day.

GloatingSwine
2017-09-17, 12:35 PM
On that note, I really like how Bethesda did leveling in Skyrim. You grow as a character for any interaction you live through, failures and successes. As you achieve milestones in your career, you grow in actual, measurable strength (whether strength of health, stamina, or magical aptitude), and you learn a new trick like a class feature, but which tricks you learn are limited by your skill and practice in that particular field.

On the other hand, it also means that in order to do interesting things with skills like lockpick you need to spend hours picking every lock you find whether you want what's behind it or not.

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-17, 12:57 PM
On the other hand, it also means that in order to do interesting things with skills like lockpick you need to spend hours picking every lock you find whether you want what's behind it or not.

And that's an example of where the "sim" aspect becomes burdensome, IMO.

Lalliman
2017-09-17, 01:06 PM
You should want to advance the plot and grow your character within the setting, not grow it mechanically. The game mechanics based growth is a red herring.
While a fair amount of people might agree with you, it would be foolish to assume that this realisation of yours is some sort of universal fact and that everyone's playing experience would be better if they accepted it.

I for one enjoy working with the mechanics of the game, and growing my character mechanically is part of that. If I didn't truly enjoy the mechanical parts, I would've stuck to mechanic-less play-by-post role plays, which I've been doing for longer, and never started playing tabletop RPGs in the first place. There can be real thematic value in mechanical character growth, assuming the mechanics in place accommodate the growth you want to purvey. To discount that is to discount the greatest merits of tabletop RPGs, compared to free-form role plays.

GloatingSwine
2017-09-17, 02:17 PM
And that's an example of where the "sim" aspect becomes burdensome, IMO.

It certainly is if you don't have a reasonable replacement for it.

In TT games you can just restrict skill development to downtime where the explicit assumption at the table is "you spend some time learning to do/get better at this". SWD6, for example, works like that.

Frozen_Feet
2017-09-17, 02:17 PM
So what does 10 points of damage represent, then?

What does an attack that succeeds represent?

Whatever the GM feels is plausible for them to represent.

When talking about abstract Hit Points, we're at the root of why wargames and roleplaying games opted for a GM to begin with. Even if you restrict yourself to one kind of weapon versus one kind of opponent, there is a huge number of possible strikes and their effects. Simulating this with piety would rapidly get very complex and slow down play.

Hence it is faster to use an abstract resource and then have a living human interprete the results.

(Of course, even without a living human, Hit Points are useful simply because they are the second simplest way to measure injury, after "you get hit, you die". It's not an accident Hit Points became so ubiquitous in games after D&D introduced them. (Seriously. As far as I've been able to discern, hit points as we know them were invented by D&D and spread to other games, notably videogames, from there.) Many more complex and superficially more realistic injury systems in video games are just layered Hit Point systems.)

However, for the same reason, arguments like "Hit Points are Plot Armor" (and counter-arguments based on how Plot Armor is bad) are fundamentally obtuse. Sure, you can use Hit Points that way. But you can just as well use it as measure of straight physical durability and calibrate the numbers untill they reflect what goes on in-universe. Or many other things or combination of things. Because the actual judgement is done after-the-fact by a GM and depending on how the GM opts to play it, the exact same mechanics can be used to convey radically different atmosphere. I can run realistic and magically realistic games with OSR rulesets which are completely devoid of trope logic. I could also run trope logic games, I just don't want to.

---


I mean that's not a particularly weird effect, and can in fact be exactly the effect the system is trying to produce, because it means combat can still be a challenge whilst letting people feel the growth at long as they still encounter "easy" enemies from a couple of levels ago from time to time.

Let me explain more in depth, then:

Imagine you're fighting a duel with swords. It doesn't last very long and ends with both parties injured. You and your opponent both agree on a rematch and retreat to train.

When you next meet, the duel doesn't last very long and ends with both parties injured. Again you and your opponent retreat to train. Rinse and repeat.

What I refer to as the "weird" part is that since both HP and damage scale equally, all successive duels are mechanically identical. The same dude with the same sword remains exactly as able to kill you. Even their Strength score might stay the same.

Yet somehow, mundane fire stops or falling from great distances stops being a threat. It creates questions of what exactly damage is supposed to be - why is this guy who is not dramatically stronger than before so much more able to hurt you than hitting the ground is?

Contrast with the situation where HP increases but damage doesn't. A guy with equally high HP is still equal match to you, but now the fight at later levels is mechanically distinct - it will take much longer. This way, the improvement is tangible even if overall chance of victory remains the same.

There are, of course, ways to dodge the weird part which don't involve HP at all. Improved defenses, new modes of attack etc. can create the same effects as pertains to combat, while keeping your vulnerability to non-combat threats even.

GloatingSwine
2017-09-17, 02:31 PM
Let me explain more in depth, then:

Imagine you're fighting a duel with swords. It doesn't last very long and ends with both parties injured. You and your opponent both agree on a rematch and retreat to train.

When you next meet, the duel doesn't last very long and ends with both parties injured. Again you and your opponent retreat to train. Rinse and repeat.

What I refer to as the "weird" part is that since both HP and damage scale equally, all successive duels are mechanically identical. The same dude with the same sword remains exactly as able to kill you. Even their Strength score might stay the same.


Yeah, but a dude who's only as good as you were when you started is now a total chump who can't touch you. And as long as you as a player meet that sort of content as well the fact that your nemesis who has been training as long and hard as you have always manages to be an equal match when you meet isn't a problem.

Frozen_Feet
2017-09-17, 02:45 PM
Ah, but you missed a thing:

An equal match may remain an equal match even when HP increases but damage doesn't. The overall chance of victory can remain the same even when everything else changes.

The weird part is a match between equals always looking the same mechanically because the numbers cancel out. This rarely improves verisimilitude, because usually contests between unskilled equals and highly skilled equals are different.

Lower level characters are not important, because even if damage does not increase, the increase in HP means a higher level character will ve able to fight more of them, and for longer.

Pleh
2017-09-17, 03:11 PM
On the other hand, it also means that in order to do interesting things with skills like lockpick you need to spend hours picking every lock you find whether you want what's behind it or not.

Actually, that reminds me of another thing I liked in that game: you can pay a trainer to teach you or read books. How much you can learn from education is limited, but it makes training in skills a resource to be sought like loot.

But the problem you describe is more a problem of video games than table top. A video game can't just create new content for your character to practice with just because you want more locks to practice with. In a tabletop, you can just go to a blacksmith and buy a lock or manacles and practice with it over and over (get DM permission to train with diminishing returns).

oxybe
2017-09-17, 03:47 PM
I'm aware of all that, the same excuses for D&D Hit Points have been posted dozens of times before, here and elsewhere -- and it makes no difference to my thoughts on the matter.

Plot Armor is a bad idea, a narrative contrivance. If D&D Hit Points are trying to emulate that bad idea, that doesn't make D&D Hit Points better, it just makes it a bad mechanic emulating a bad idea.

But then, most tropes are less tools to be used... and more landmines to be avoided. (And then there are the tropes so generalized and broad as to be pointless. "OMG I've seen three characters who use magic and have white hair, the white haired magic user is totally a trope!")

Good for you, you have thoughts. I might say that I largely disagree with them on a fundamental level, but you haven't actually brought up a point as to why they're bad though. You just said "they're bad" and that's it.

I say they're good.


"But Dragons!" -- the fallacy that any break from reality justifies all breaks from reality in a fictional setting. When you say "Is it realistic? No but if D&D were big on realism, we wouldn't have Bhaube the Elven Warmage:", that's pretty much "But Dragons!" stated as "But Elven Warmages!". Not all breaks from reality are created equal, and not all breaks from reality are fitting or consistent for any particular setting.

D&D Hit Points, like the contrivance of plot armor they attempt to emulate in a fuzzy and badly abstract way, aren't even a "break from reality" of the same sort that a dragon or an elf would be. They're a game mechanic, not a setting element. Using one sort as a justification for the other sort doesn't fly. A game can have dragons and elves and warmages and magic lightning without trying to emulate bad narrative contrivances like plot armor. Plot armor, and D&D Hit Points, aren't bad because they're not realistic, they're bad because they don't feel like they could be real (see sig below).

Yes all break are created equal because while they all hinge on the same currency, player buy in, the only difference is some players value one break more then another, but that's just up to personal taste and not due to any intrinsic value of the break itself: plot armour, HP or whatever, is a setting element, or at least one that describes the tone of the setting. Not as overt as "yes there are dragons", but D&D characters can survive things normal peasant folks cannot. It's one of the things that allow them to go and punch the verisimilitude out of the dragon where a peasant cannot. It's one of the reasons why the game focuses on them over Kevin the Blacksmith. Yes it's a setting element and the mechanics back it, so it has just as much intrinsic weight as the elves or dragon that populate the world.

As for your sig, I read it and my conclusion was "I hate your imagination" or "my make believe is broked" or "I dislike other people's way of having fun". Verisimilitude is a laughable term used by people who can't or won't try to buy-in into a concept and needed a big word to justify it to themselves and toss their contempt at others who can buy in and enjoy the work in question. taste is subjective.

How pretentious do you have to be to claim "It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead." and then toss what I find to be a perfectly viable suspension of disbelief under the bus and claim it to be the equivalent of fresh and still dangling corpse, and hide behind a big word that in the end means nothing in a subjective sense by it's very definition your quoted: "the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability" is entirely in the eye of the beholder.

I would apologize that my choice of fiction gave you the feel bads, but I have nothing to apologize for. To paraphrase the dungeonmaster: I reject your verisimilitude and substitute my own.

Now what?

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-17, 03:59 PM
What now... is that I'm relieved you have no role in worldbuilding anything I'll ever have to deal with. "All breaks from reality are equal" is how we end up with kitchen-sink mashup garbage that can't tell the difference between a coherent or an incoherent setting. It's how you end up with dragons in a gritty alternate history WW1 story... after all, if that one little piece of history changed, that's a "break from reality", and now it's time for dragons and magic and spaceships, because "they're all the same", right?

Since that's where you evidently want this to go, with personal commentary rather than sticking to the facts.


Oh well.

Meanwhile, a few descriptions of Plot Armor, which is evidently according to that guy what D&D Hit Points are trying to emulate -- anyone who can get through these and not see Plot Armor as a total mess and something that should be avoided at all costs... well, not sure what to tell you after that.



"When Bob is the lead protagonist of a work, his presence is essential to the plot. Accordingly, the rules of the world seem to bend around him. The very fact that he's the main character protects him from death, serious wounds, and generally all lasting harm (until the plot calls for it). Even psychological damage can be held at bay by Bob's suit of Plot Armor.

Sometimes referred to as "Script Immunity" or a "Character Shield", Plot Armor is when a main character's life and health are safeguarded by the fact that he's the one person who can't be removed from the story. Therefore, whenever Bob is in a situation where he could be killed (or at the least very seriously injured), he comes out unharmed with no logical, In-Universe explanation.

Bear in mind that having Plot Armor is not the same as being Nigh Invulnerable. When Superman takes a bullet to the eye and survives, that's his superhuman nature — there's an explanation, albeit a fantastic one, for how he comes out unharmed. When Indiana Jones survives the same thing, that's Plot Armor — the only explanation for his survival is that it's only halfway through the movie and you know he can't die yet. (Bonus points if he isn't even blinded.)

The downside to all this, of course, is that when it is Bob's time to die, nothing can save him. And his inability to heal or escape death may seem just as illogical as his ability to avoid it was forty minutes ago. The plot gods giveth and the plot gods taketh away..."




"Character shields (also known as plot armor or plot shield) are plot devices in films and television shows that prevent important characters from dying or being seriously injured at dramatically inconvenient moments. It often denotes a situation in which it strains credibility to believe that the character would survive"




"The notion that some characters are too important to the plot to be discarded, and are therefore seen as not as vulnerable as other characters. The plot is their armour - they are needed to serve it."




Emulating plot armor is emulating horrible writing.

See also, "narrative causality" or "narrative contrivance".

.

Knaight
2017-09-17, 04:50 PM
Yes all break are created equal because while they all hinge on the same currency, player buy in, the only difference is some players value one break more then another, but that's just up to personal taste and not due to any intrinsic value of the break itself: plot armour, HP or whatever, is a setting element, or at least one that describes the tone of the setting. Not as overt as "yes there are dragons", but D&D characters can survive things normal peasant folks cannot. It's one of the things that allow them to go and punch the verisimilitude out of the dragon where a peasant cannot. It's one of the reasons why the game focuses on them over Kevin the Blacksmith. Yes it's a setting element and the mechanics back it, so it has just as much intrinsic weight as the elves or dragon that populate the world.

They're not all equivalent though, and the idea that breaking from realism in one way means that breaking from realism in every way should just be assumed to be fine is ludicrous. To take a fairly extreme example, the existence of orcs is a break from realism. Does that mean it's a reasonable argument that a Kevin the Blacksmith should be able to make a plasma rifle in a medieval forge? No, and just about every GM and player will reject that immediately because it's both ridiculous and because it clashes with the rest of the aesthetic in a really blatant and dramatic fashion.

Cluedrew
2017-09-17, 06:03 PM
I'm all right with it. Personally I view HP not as plot-armour, but as supernatural toughness. So yes a fighter can be set on fire, dumped off a cliff onto a spike only to pull themselves off it as the fire burns out. Because they are just that tough. On the other hand a wizard getting much in the way of bonus HP does not make a lot of sense. If a wizard gets stabbed, they should of wizarded harder because now they are bleeding on the floor.

Of course, this is only in settings where superhuman toughness is a things. In sci-fi and modern games, I think other solutions are preferable, even if it is just a VP/WP split or something similar.

Nifft
2017-09-17, 06:31 PM
The weird part is a match between equals always looking the same mechanically because the numbers cancel out. This rarely improves verisimilitude, because usually contests between unskilled equals and highly skilled equals are different.

That's an interesting observation, and I think it's valid.

If the game were using something like Tome of Battle, then contests would NOT look the same -- the Maneuvers are different at different levels, and higher-level maneuvers give better perks, and you have more of them at higher level.

If the game were between wizards using standard D&D magic, then contests would NOT look the same -- the spells are different at different levels, and high-level spellcasting opens up many new capabilities.

If the game were D&D 4e, then contests would NOT look the same -- powers are different at different levels, and higher-level powers often offer new or better capabilities.


It's only some classes, and only in some systems, which suffer from a lack of capability improvement over levels.

JNAProductions
2017-09-17, 07:07 PM
I'm all right with it. Personally I view HP not as plot-armour, but as supernatural toughness. So yes a fighter can be set on fire, dumped off a cliff onto a spike only to pull themselves off it as the fire burns out. Because they are just that tough. On the other hand a wizard getting much in the way of bonus HP does not make a lot of sense. If a wizard gets stabbed, they should of wizarded harder because now they are bleeding on the floor.

Of course, this is only in settings where superhuman toughness is a things. In sci-fi and modern games, I think other solutions are preferable, even if it is just a VP/WP split or something similar.

Alchemical reinforcement of bones and flesh.

Magic wards built into the clothes, or even the flesh.

Experiments on the self to improve one with spells.

There are ways for Wizards to be "that tough" too.

Psikerlord
2017-09-17, 07:19 PM
Fighting Spirit (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?531771-Fighting-Spirit-(An-Unoriginal-Idea-For-HP)&p=22243345#post22243345) is my attempt at making HP more sensible.

I very much like the idea of Fight Points and Hit Points, and crits going straight to Hit Points: keeps the game nice and dangerous every fight.

I think you'd want a similar set up for monsters though.

I'd be tempted to go with something like HP = Con score. Amour provides some amount of damage reduction, so heavy armour PCs like warriors etc effecively end up with more HP). Then add the class based Fight Points. Short rests etc would restore FP but not HP.

I dont think this would work too well with 5e above 10th because of HP and damage inflation, but certainly up to 10th I think it would be cool.

JNAProductions
2017-09-17, 07:20 PM
I very much like the idea of Fight Points and Hit Points, and crits going straight to Hit Points: keeps the game nice and dangerous every fight.

I think you'd want a similar set up for monsters though.

I'd be tempted to go with something like HP = Con score. Amour provides some amount of damage reduction, so heavy armour PCs like warriors etc effecively end up with more HP). Then add the class based Fight Points. Short rests etc would restore FP but not HP.

I dont think this would work too well with 5e above 10th because of HP and damage inflation, but certainly up to 10th I think it would be cool.

If you're custom designing monsters for use with FS, definitely give them HP and FS. But taking by-the-book monsters, it can be a hassle to convert them over.

Plus, part of the point of Fighting Spirit is to ensure you CANNOT be one-shot. Monsters don't need that protection, usually.

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-17, 07:22 PM
If you're custom designing monsters for use with FS, definitely give them HP and FS. But taking by-the-book monsters, it can be a hassle to convert them over.

Plus, part of the point of Fighting Spirit is to ensure you CANNOT be one-shot. Monsters don't need that protection, usually.

I'd say you'd want both kinds of monsters -- those who can be one-shot, and those who cannot.

Cluedrew
2017-09-17, 07:31 PM
There are ways for Wizards to be "that tough" too.True, and you could probably justify a bit just from the rough life of adventure. That would make sense for a battle mage as well, but I don't think the standard pure mage would do that. Which is highly dependent on the setting and archetypes used in it.

Jay R
2017-09-17, 08:33 PM
It depends on the kind of game. If it's a modern style game in which it's assumed that PCs never die, then hit points won't matter.

The question of hit points only matters if PCs might die.

oxybe
2017-09-17, 09:00 PM
And I'm more then happy to never have to suffer a seat your table, Max.

Peace out all.

Knaight
2017-09-17, 10:29 PM
It depends on the kind of game. If it's a modern style game in which it's assumed that PCs never die, then hit points won't matter.

The question of hit points only matters if PCs might die.

This is nonsense. Putting aside how the assumption that PCs never die isn't even that common in modern games, it's not a requirement for them to matter anyways. HP depletion could mean getting knocked out and captured instead, and it will still matter. HP depletion could mean being out of commission for weeks as wounds slowly heal, and it will still matter. HP depletion could mean your robotic form blows up and you have to restore from a backup far away, and it will still matter. Heck, HP depletion could mean that you lose the current engagement and are forced to retreat with no meaningful injuries - even in that example where it means about as little as possible it still matters if the fight was about anything other than killing the other side.

Now, it is true that the rest of these require a bit more context to matter, where the players have goals beyond "don't die". If "don't die" is the full goal of the players, then yes, hit points won't matter if hit point depletion means something other than death. It also takes some real ineptitude and/or apathy somewhere to end up with a game entirely about survival with nothing else going on it where death is off the table.

2D8HP
2017-09-17, 10:54 PM
While it's mostly about Armor Class, Hit points are also mentioned, so I thought this piece by one of the guys who helped write rules for early D&D would be germane:
What we really meant—Pt. 1--AC


In recent weeks I have found myself, as part of an exciting new project I have embarked upon, doing a lot of synopsizing what some have come to see as complex or confusing concepts. One example that springs to mind is the old stat known as Armor or Armor Class (AC). In OD&D it was a really simple system that ranked plain old street clothes as AC9, while at the other end of the non-magical spectrum was plate mail and a shield at AC2


If Hit Points (HP) are considered to be your ability to avoid/evade a mortal blow (which they were in OD&D), then AC was how hard you were “to hit” (in this case threaten your well-being to some degree).


“To Hit” is another term that does not exactly mean what it seems to mean based on just the words. Confused yet? Consider “the Mountain” from Game of Thrones on HBO. This is one HUGE dude encased in metal. If three or four puny (normal-sized) guys attack him, chances are that their weapons will actually make physical contact with The Mountain lots of times; this is not what is referenced in “To Hit”. Of those several physical contacts, only a small proportion of them will actually strike with a potential to do actual damage; i.e. pierce the armor at a weak point or joint, or slice or pierce some flesh. Those are what are winnowed out of the combat to be represented by the To Hit number.

Back to AC; something as small and ephemeral as a pixie or sprite, or small and quick like a stirge would be somewhat difficult to simply swat out of the air like an over-sized wasp. To simulate that facet of their being I make them hard “to hit” by giving them a very good AC.


(OD&D had a descending AC system starting at 9 and going down; other systems use an ascending system, where 1 is street togs and 7 or 8 is really buff. Readjust this in your head to match your system; the concepts remain constant. Something slow and ponderous, such as a pachyderm, would be easier to strike, but the thickness of the skin somewhat mitigates this as well as the high number of HP an elephant or mammoth might have.)


AC does not always indicate what is being worn. AC is a combination of several concepts, not only the weight of the metal being worn.


To maintain perspective remember this: we were trying to bring miniatures to the table top. Several of the seemingly complex considerations and calculations were second nature to miniatures gamers. We tried to abstract a lot of what was second nature in minis to a whole new milieu—Table-top Role-playing (and this before it was even called role-playing).


Once this concept is grasped in the abstract, it then becomes more clear why extraordinary attributes can affect AC, or otherwise make the PC harder “To Hit”. These same attributes also can grant the PC more HP, all in recognition of how that last, fatal blow is just that, fatal. I have never counted anything more than “dead”; hit 0 HP and you died. Whether or not your PC can be Raised or Resurrected is another matter entirely. We had PC’s brought back from dead several times, although not always with absolute best results.



But anyway, that’s what we meant.

The source of the quote is here (http://kaskoid.blogspot.com/?m=0).

Pleh
2017-09-18, 05:39 AM
It also takes some real ineptitude and/or apathy somewhere to end up with a game entirely about survival with nothing else going on it where death is off the table.

Or a specific setting. Post apocalyptic survival OR survival horror are very popular game genres.

spinningdice
2017-09-18, 06:33 AM
I find it amusing that many people on here should probably be playing Call of Cthulhu/Basic Roleplaying where you only advance by using skills and don't get more hit points... I personally like games with more consistant increases, but perhaps a part way solution would work somewhere

For the uninitiated - Call of Cthulhu/BRP you gain 'ticks' next to a skill when you use it successfully (in an appropriate manner, and subject to the game-master's approval), at the end of the session/adventure you then get to make a check with each skill and on a failure you gain +1d6 (or 1d10 in later versions) points in that skill (skills are percentile based, so that's not as big a gain as it sounds for people used to D&D). Training and 'skillbooks' do exist in various versions of the game, though how they work is inconsistent between editions.

Hit Points just don't get better (at least not without magic or some other effect).

I wouldn't translate the system to D&D5e where you don't generally gain new skills without multiclassing, in 3.X/pathfinder, I could see a tick system where instead of giving you a bonus, it limits what skills you can increase at level up.


- - - - -

For HP, I'm not really a fan of HP, but not to the point where I would re-write it. I think that the softened levels in 5e seem to conflict with with the extra HD every level approach, I would rather add CON instead of Con bonus at 1st level, then give 1-4 hp each level. (say 1 for d6 classes, 2 for d8, 3 for d10 and 4 for d12).

I also like the WFRP hit points (2e version at least, not played others), where hit points are specifically nothing/scratches/bruises, until you run out, then every hit does 'critical damage' (i.e. actual physical injuries or chance of death). Critical hits/nasty environmental damage can then go straight to injuries.

However there also has to be a point where you need to decide what balance there is between realism and speed. Looking up a chart for every time you're hit gets tiresome very quickly. Even just on criticals (depending on how often them come up of course), it's annoying.

Finally, don't dismiss plot damage, in opposition to plot armour. If someone intentionally hurts themselves it will hurt them (i.e. I might give you a shot to jump between rocks floating in lava with just some hp damage, but if you purposefully jump into lava you're dead, I don't care that you have 206 hp left - though I will make it clear that this is a consequence, not just wait for someone to try it).

Thrudd
2017-09-18, 11:25 AM
Or a specific setting. Post apocalyptic survival OR survival horror are very popular game genres.

Yes, but in both those genres you expect that there is a decent chance some or all of the characters will die. If "survival" is the objective, then there must be a chance that you fail the objective, or else it isn't a game.

JBPuffin
2017-09-18, 01:46 PM
As a kid, I played JRPGs and TCGs before starting tabletop with Dungeons and Dragons, so honestly? It's so familiar, I could care less how realistic it seems. I've read other systems and have grown to like Fate with its Stress/Consequence delineation, but I have no qualms against HP, or levels, or HP scaling by levels. In my head, HP measures your ability to continue fighting, and like to flavor attacks in that light (grazing blows and exhaustive blocks being the norm, with the final few or extremely grievous blows excepted). Levels are a representation of growth - exact growth is abstract, just like most mechanical aspects, but it reflects getting better over time. HP gained per level, then, is learning to fight longer, take more smaller injuries, grit your teeth and bear the consequences. Of course, that's all if you need an explanation; I don't, and can live with games mechanics not tying to anything resembling reality.

Morty
2017-09-18, 03:52 PM
This discussion would be a lot more productive if people dropped the false dichotomy that it's either ever-scaling HP or realistic and/or low-powered game. This is not true at all, since you can have an unrealistic, high-powered game without continually escalating the PCs' passive ability to withstand punishment. And it'll be better for it.

Nifft
2017-09-18, 04:25 PM
This discussion would be a lot more productive if people dropped the false dichotomy that it's either ever-scaling HP or realistic and/or low-powered game. This is not true at all, since you can have an unrealistic, high-powered game without continually escalating the PCs' passive ability to withstand punishment. And it'll be better for it.

Exalted is a citation that you are correct.

One of the highest power games, but no particular "level" scaling for their HP analogue.

ZamielVanWeber
2017-09-18, 05:37 PM
Exalted is a citation that you are correct.

One of the highest power games, but no particular "level" scaling for their HP analogue.

But the insane rocket tag that occurs in Black Crusade eventually is a citation that he is not. Also the ability to soak damage in Exalted can scale with exp as long as you assign exp to it.

Scaling defensive capacity and power level are preferences, flat out. There is no objectively better combination of the two in a vacuum. As long as everyone in the gaming group is happy with what you use and what you use does not break the versimilitude asserted by that particular system you are fine.

Nifft
2017-09-18, 08:16 PM
But the insane rocket tag that occurs in Black Crusade eventually is a citation that he is not.

Um, no, sorry.

You've failed at basic logic there.

One example of a non-binary proves falsity of a false binary.

You: "But there's this other thing that totally fits the binary!" -- Great, good for you, but that's irrelevant.

A false binary is a case where a binary is presented as if nothing else exists. The existence of something outside the binary is sufficient to discredit the proposition.

There may be a valid point which you're trying to argue, but you can't justify your point using false binaries -- nor a false equivalence, like one piece of evidence which proves the falsity of a false-binary being somehow equal to one example in favor, because one data-point in favor is not equivalent to a conclusive disproof.

ZamielVanWeber
2017-09-18, 10:18 PM
Um, no, sorry.

You've failed at basic logic there.

One example of a non-binary proves falsity of a false binary.

You: "But there's this other thing that totally fits the binary!" -- Great, good for you, but that's irrelevant.

A false binary is a case where a binary is presented as if nothing else exists. The existence of something outside the binary is sufficient to discredit the proposition.

There may be a valid point which you're trying to argue, but you can't justify your point using false binaries -- nor a false equivalence, like one piece of evidence which proves the falsity of a false-binary being somehow equal to one example in favor, because one data-point in favor is not equivalent to a conclusive disproof.

1) I merely citated a counter example, no more or less. The whole binary thing? Literally an assumption on your part.

2) You asserted that a single instance out of hundreds agreeing with the initial statement was evidence to its veracity. This is a variant on Jumping to Conclusions, which is a logical fallacy. You then openly insulted me with the second line of your post. This is an Ad Hominem, which is a logical fallacy. You then declare that because (in your misinterpretation of the statement) a fallacy exists that it is wrong. This is the Argument from Fallacy, which is a logical fallacy. I am pretty sure the average person can figure out the next line...

Edit: I totally forgot that you ignored the central part of my post and instead took a single line and declared that because THAT is wrong the entire argument must be wrong, which is a strawman.

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-18, 10:30 PM
1) I merely citated a counter example, no more or less. The whole binary thing? Literally an assumption on your part.

2) You asserted that a single instance out of hundreds agreeing with the initial statement was evidence to its veracity.



Context:


This discussion would be a lot more productive if people dropped the false dichotomy that it's either ever-scaling HP or realistic and/or low-powered game. This is not true at all, since you can have an unrealistic, high-powered game without continually escalating the PCs' passive ability to withstand punishment. And it'll be better for it.

Exalted is a citation that you are correct.

One of the highest power games, but no particular "level" scaling for their HP analogue.

Morty's statement called out a false dichotomy.

In agreement, Nifft gave an example what shows that said dichotomy is indeed false, because it does not conform to either of the choices supposed by the false dichotomy.

It only takes ONE example of an alternate, middle, or different possibility to demonstrate that a dichotomy is indeed false.

Your response was then as follows:


But the insane rocket tag that occurs in Black Crusade eventually is a citation that he is not. Also the ability to soak damage in Exalted can scale with exp as long as you assign exp to it.

Scaling defensive capacity and power level are preferences, flat out. There is no objectively better combination of the two in a vacuum. As long as everyone in the gaming group is happy with what you use and what you use does not break the versimilitude asserted by that particular system you are fine.

Your example did nothing to demonstrate that Morty's statement was untrue -- to do so, it would have had to prove in some way that the dichotomy is question is not false. A single particular example of an instance that does fall under one of the two options of a false dichotomy neither proves the dichotomy true, nor disproves arguments made against said false dichotomy.

Morty's statement also had nothing to do with preferences. It was purely about the way some posters have repeatedly offered up a false choice between "D&D-style ever-scaling hit points and a high-powered epic/fantastic game" on one hand, and "non-scaling HP in a low-power/realistic game" on the other hand.

Nifft's statement offered up an example of a game that is both insanely high-powered and fantastic and does not featuring ever-scaling massive HP pools, thus immediately demonstrating that the aforementioned dichotomy is indeed false.

ZamielVanWeber
2017-09-18, 11:04 PM
I parsed Morty's statement as "dichotomies are bad" and "high powered without HP are the best" as two separate statements. Then Nifft responded to "high powered without HP are best" "this is correct and here is an example why" which prompted my response of "your example is meaningless as there are counterexamples as well" and then I went on to argue a point similar to what you assert Mroty was saying. If this was legitimately started by my mistaKen reading of Morty's original statement than I apologize for the confusion it caused.

Nifft
2017-09-19, 01:23 AM
I parsed Morty's statement as "dichotomies are bad" and "high powered without HP are the best" as two separate statements. Then Nifft responded to "high powered without HP are best" "this is correct and here is an example why" which prompted my response of "your example is meaningless as there are counterexamples as well" and then I went on to argue a point similar to what you assert Mroty was saying. If this was legitimately started by my mistaKen reading of Morty's original statement than I apologize for the confusion it caused.

He said that the discussion would be better without the false dichotomy that he described.

You've been spraying mud into the thread for literally no reason.

ZamielVanWeber
2017-09-19, 02:05 AM
He said that the discussion would be better without the false dichotomy that he described.

You've been spraying mud into the thread for literally no reason.

You openly and hypocriticaly insulted me and are now complaining when I explain where the confusion came from and apologized for my part in it especially since you literally made the same error immediately after? Okay then...

veti
2017-09-19, 04:02 AM
I think hit points are a clumsy and half-baked way of implementing plot armour. And the version of hit points where you just gain more of them linearly as you go up levels - is the worst version.

If you must use hit points at all, then I favour something like the Hero approach (an explicit split between Body - long-term, slow-healing, potentially-fatal damage) and Stun (short-term pain and fatigue). And "resistance to damage" is better modelled as - well, what in D&D is called "damage resistance", rather than increasing hit points.

But even better is a system that eschews hit points entirely, in favour of a combination of status conditions and wound levels. As for plot armour: I remember an obscure game called TORG, which gave an actual in-universe rationale for the apartheid between "characters" and "mooks", and had the two categories use different tables for attacking and being attacked. Thus allowing characters to mow down large mobs of mooks with little risk to themselves, while still allowing for real contests between characters. That, to my mind, is a better way of implementing plot armour.

spinningdice
2017-09-19, 04:22 AM
That's hardly unique to TORG. Notably Spycraft (a D20 game) used Damage saves for standard npcs (save or drop basically) and wounds/vitality for heroic characters/special npcs (actually pre-dating the Star-Wards Wounds/Vitality system).
WFRP has mooks drop at 0 wound points while specials take critical wounds after this point.
Numenera/Cypher the enemies don't even roll their own dice and are mostly reduced to having a 'level', with exceptions for anything that doesn't fit with it's single statistic.
Even in D&D I usually fudge npc hit points, most npcs that aren't specifically motivated will fall down screaming rather than fight to their last hit point. All that really matters is if they're in the fight or not.

Florian
2017-09-19, 06:17 AM
*Shrugs*

We simply have a problem mapping "real effects" and "narrative effects", which hp represent.

veti
2017-09-19, 07:44 AM
That's hardly unique to TORG. Notably Spycraft (a D20 game) used Damage saves for standard npcs (save or drop basically) and wounds/vitality for heroic characters/special npcs (actually pre-dating the Star-Wards Wounds/Vitality system).

And TORG predated Spycraft...

But the point is that TORG actually includes an in-universe justification for it. A reason why some of its people are really, objectively, that much better than the common herd - even if they're, like, a weedy librarian with no combat skills at all, and the "mooks" in question are elite Navy SEALs or something.

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-19, 08:26 AM
*Shrugs*

We simply have a problem mapping "real effects" and "narrative effects", which hp represent.

And it's the narrative effects I have approximately zero interest in (see any post by me involving the term "narrative causality").

Nifft
2017-09-19, 09:45 AM
You openly and hypocriticaly insulted me and are now complaining when I explain where the confusion came from and apologized for my part in it especially since you literally made the same error immediately after? Okay then... Nobody insulted you. Moving on...


And TORG predated Spycraft...

But the point is that TORG actually includes an in-universe justification for it. A reason why some of its people are really, objectively, that much better than the common herd - even if they're, like, a weedy librarian with no combat skills at all, and the "mooks" in question are elite Navy SEALs or something. One has to wonder how the mooks became elite Navy SEALs if they were always mooks.


We simply have a problem mapping "real effects" and "narrative effects", which hp represent. IMHO the problem is that HP are supposed to represent both gritty and cinematic "reality", and they're an okay-ish compromise as such, but only if you avoid looking at them too hard. For example, in several editions it's possible to poison your weapon, and the poison is delivered if you deal HP damage. In those editions, HP damage must represent some sort of physical injury, or the poison delivery doesn't make sense.

Overall they work well enough for casual use, but fall down when someone tries to tinker too extensively.

4e had a good compromise solution: at half max HP, you're Bloodied. That means the top half of your HP bar is luck / avoidance / narrative / etc. -- but once you're down to the bottom half, you have taken a palpable hit, and you've suffered real injury.

IMHO the Vitality / Wound systems are better at representing this sort of thing, but they're far less explored.

ZamielVanWeber
2017-09-19, 03:22 PM
Nobody insulted you. Moving on...
You did. Twice. But I am honestly not surprised you are pretending not to.


One has to wonder how the mooks became elite Navy SEALs if they were always mooks.
Elite mook are a thing in RPG in general. Oxymoronic? Yes. But they are there.


4e had a good compromise solution: at half max HP, you're Bloodied. That means the top half of your HP bar is luck / avoidance / narrative / etc. -- but once you're down to the bottom half, you have taken a palpable hit, and you've suffered real injury.
It suffered the exact same critical issue where you could fall in lava/acid/etc and suffer no debilitating harm, alyough sue to 4e's mechanics it was not as extreme as 3rd ed could be. Bloodied was about creating useful design space than solving the reality breaking issue of HP.


IMHO the Vitality / Wound systems are better at representing this sort of thing, but they're far less explored.

UA's sadly do nothing to fix it (and I generally do not like theirs). As long as there are reasonable consequences to being dunked under lava for a few seconds I am more willing to think it is not having issues.

It occurs to me that we have not mentioned the Marvel SAGA edition (the one that has a deck of cards specifically). Their approach to damage is an oddball one: instead of dice you have a hand of cards (3+). If you take damage you must throw away cards who totals meet or exceed the damage taken. The downside is that your pool of "hit points" fluctuates from turn to turn as you spend cards in offense and defense while the upside is that there are clear consequences to taking damage that are a lot less complicated than many systems.

Knaight
2017-09-19, 03:29 PM
It suffered the exact same critical issue where you could fall in lava/acid/etc and suffer no debilitating harm, alyough sue to 4e's mechanics it was not as extreme as 3rd ed could be. Bloodied was about creating useful design space than solving the reality breaking issue of HP.

It's not a reality breaking issue of HP - it's an issue of the choice to implement HP and damage that way. GURPS doesn't have these problems. It does make escalating HP hard to implement at all while leaving in the other damage systems - the best I can think of off the top of my head is task specific HP multiples that map back to real HP. A character might have 10 HP. A great warrior might then have 100 Combat HP, where every 10 Combat Damage translates to 1 real damage. Meanwhile an excellent scout might have a much higher HP multiple for exposure to dangerous conditions, a mage might have an excellent psychic reserve where it takes a lot of mental attacking to drop real HP. This gets pretty clunky pretty quickly though.

Nifft
2017-09-19, 04:26 PM
It's not a reality breaking issue of HP - it's an issue of the choice to implement HP and damage that way. GURPS doesn't have these problems. It does make escalating HP hard to implement at all while leaving in the other damage systems - the best I can think of off the top of my head is task specific HP multiples that map back to real HP. A character might have 10 HP. A great warrior might then have 100 Combat HP, where every 10 Combat Damage translates to 1 real damage. Meanwhile an excellent scout might have a much higher HP multiple for exposure to dangerous conditions, a mage might have an excellent psychic reserve where it takes a lot of mental attacking to drop real HP. This gets pretty clunky pretty quickly though.

One way to work around that clunk is task-specific resistance & mitigation abilities.

For example, a Scout might have Environmental Resistance 10 -- reduce all incoming damage by 10 if the damage has the Environmental tag.

(Some spells like Cloudkill or Ice Storm might have such a tag, for example.)


The Warrior might have Weapon Resistance 5.


A Duelist might have an active defense which can only trigger once per turn. This might be some sort of overwhelmingly good Parry, which gives a distinct advantage in 1-on-1 combat, but which isn't as good as passive resistance when a pack of monsters attacks.

veti
2017-09-20, 02:22 AM
One has to wonder how the mooks became elite Navy SEALs if they were always mooks.

The same background story explains that, actually. But the difference between "possibility-rated vs non-possibility-rated" characters is so great that it makes all the differences between "non-possibility-rated" characters insignificant by comparison.

Nifft
2017-09-20, 05:01 AM
The same background story explains that, actually. But the difference between "possibility-rated vs non-possibility-rated" characters is so great that it makes all the differences between "non-possibility-rated" characters insignificant by comparison.

Huh, cool.

I'll have to give TORG a read some time.

RazorChain
2017-09-21, 12:25 AM
I've been wracking my brain and I have a trouble coming up with another system than D&D that has a bloated HP issue. I've probably tried over couple of dozen systems, some name's I don't even remember. I really don't remember any system that treats HP like D&D or D20.

Fiery Diamond
2017-09-21, 12:47 AM
Having not read the thread, I'm just going to answer the initial question:

It depends. If I have a system with levels or the equivalent, I'm going to want a scaling way to survive and endure harm. Whether that be through HP, higher Avoid stat, damage reduction, or whatever, ultimately what matters is that at level 10 I can survive things without trouble that were life-threatening at level 1. Whether this means I can take five arrows to the chest and keep fighting or whether it means I can knock arrows out of the air, I need some method. I like using HP as a "I can take five arrows to the chest" sort of deal, so if that's what I want, then high HP is good.

Tinkerer
2017-09-21, 10:56 AM
I've been wracking my brain and I have a trouble coming up with another system than D&D that has a bloated HP issue. I've probably tried over couple of dozen systems, some name's I don't even remember. I really don't remember any system that treats HP like D&D or D20.

Palladium can have it even worse, you have two ranks of HP and your armour adds HP as well (depending on your enemies roll to strike). Of course Palladium was based on the owners D&D game. Aside from that... huh there's one other system which is on the tip of my tongue but I can't recall the name. But yeah it is pretty rare.

RazorChain
2017-09-21, 03:25 PM
Palladium can have it even worse, you have two ranks of HP and your armour adds HP as well (depending on your enemies roll to strike). Of course Palladium was based on the owners D&D game. Aside from that... huh there's one other system which is on the tip of my tongue but I can't recall the name. But yeah it is pretty rare.

Thanks, I bought some palladium books 25+ years ago, skimmed it and never played it. But I remember the arms and equipment guide impressed me. It had lots of pictures and Al Gore was busy inventing the internet so I coulndt just google things.

Ergdorf the Fly
2017-09-27, 06:08 PM
Essential. Even if it doesn't make total sense from a story standpoint, it makes perfect sense from a mechanical standpoint. High level enemies have higher HP and more damaging attacks, so if you didn't scale with them, or vice versa, the game becomes either impossibly hard or insultingly easy. I know my poor character Ergdorf needs more HP; last session, he got downed with one stab from a magic butler's dagger. I was only level one, and I did make it out alive, but I definitely need more than my paltry 9 HP.

JNAProductions
2017-09-27, 06:52 PM
Essential. Even if it doesn't make total sense from a story standpoint, it makes perfect sense from a mechanical standpoint. High level enemies have higher HP and more damaging attacks, so if you didn't scale with them, or vice versa, the game becomes either impossibly hard or insultingly easy. I know my poor character Ergdorf needs more HP; last session, he got downed with one stab from a magic butler's dagger. I was only level one, and I did make it out alive, but I definitely need more than my paltry 9 HP.

This is not true in all systems. It's true in D&D, but not, say, Traveller.

Ergdorf the Fly
2017-09-28, 10:44 AM
This is not true in all systems. It's true in D&D, but not, say, Traveller.
Never played it. I'm just saying this from the D&D standpoint.

Knaight
2017-09-28, 02:01 PM
Never played it. I'm just saying this from the D&D standpoint.

At which point the argument basically becomes "you need to gain HP with level because everyone gains HP with level". That's not actually saying anything about the mechanic one way or the other, just noting that it doesn't work well when only applied to NPCs.

Mendicant
2017-09-28, 02:48 PM
I'm curious how threats escalate and how that's dealt with in these systems where HP doesn't increase by level. Increasing damage and HP are the norm not just in d20 systems, but in most CRPGs as well, and for good reason. It's mechanically elegant, easy for a player to understand quickly, and it makes it simpler to eyeball a monster or NPC's durability and basic threat level.

Tinkerer
2017-09-28, 03:09 PM
I'm curious how threats escalate and how that's dealt with in these systems where HP doesn't increase by level. Increasing damage and HP are the norm not just in d20 systems, but in most CRPGs as well, and for good reason. It's mechanically elegant, easy for a player to understand quickly, and it makes it simpler to eyeball a monster or NPC's durability and basic threat level.

Normally by either a toughness or a dodge mechanic. Bear in mind to a number of people the HP scaling can seem completely out of whack, a master swordsman might be able to defeat 100 opponents by dodging them but it kinda strains credulity that he could withstand getting stabbed 500 times. Of course these systems have their own issues but that is another story. Also D&D has an absolutely massive level of threat escalation compared to a lot of games.

JeenLeen
2017-09-28, 03:23 PM
I'm curious how threats escalate and how that's dealt with in these systems where HP doesn't increase by level.

Exalted has been noted already. In it, you get better at landing a hit and at avoiding hits as you increase in power, but actual damage stays fairly static (although you can certainly boost it) and HP stays more static (although you can boost it a few times, and there are ways, as previously noted, to boost Soak, which lessens damage.) Old World of Darkness was similar. In both, I guess I could describe it as you get slightly better ways to deal more damage, but mainly you get more ways to deal damage or otherwise hinder foes and accomplish goals. You might just have an extra +2 damage after a lot of experience and getting better gear, but your means to get that damage to land (and your utility powers) have increased a lot more.


Increasing damage and HP are the norm not just in d20 systems, but in most CRPGs as well, and for good reason. It's mechanically elegant, easy for a player to understand quickly, and it makes it simpler to eyeball a monster or NPC's durability and basic threat level.
Although I tend to prefer systems without increasing HP, I agree completely with this statement.

I prefer static HP (and fairly static damage-causing abilities) with games that have a more gritty feel. Death and injury are serious in Exalted and Mage, so it seems fitting.
For other games, a D&D-esque HP systems seems fitting. For example, my group (which largely uses just d10 systems now) considered a Naruto game, and d20 seems best for it as scaling HP fits the setting well. Higher-skilled ninjas can do just about everything better, including doing and taking damage.
(Not sure if 'gritty' is really the word I want, but it's the closest adjective I can think of.)

Knaight
2017-09-28, 04:59 PM
I'm curious how threats escalate and how that's dealt with in these systems where HP doesn't increase by level. Increasing damage and HP are the norm not just in d20 systems, but in most CRPGs as well, and for good reason. It's mechanically elegant, easy for a player to understand quickly, and it makes it simpler to eyeball a monster or NPC's durability and basic threat level.

For the most part the escalation is dramatically reduced - d20 systems and CRPGs have a tendency to be really well optimized towards combat heavy games where a small group of heroes gets in a bunch of progressively more difficult fights while gaining ever more power. Most other RPGs aren't about that, and thus don't have that same level of scaling.

With that said, the big things are usually scaling up the size of conflicts (more opponents), higher skill levels, and in games with combat powers by bringing in more and better combat powers. Eyeballing a basic threat level is also pretty easy, particularly when the big thing involves looking at one or a couple of skills. If you see someone with Swordsman 8, Archer 7 in Burning Wheel you know they're terrifying at a glance, just the same way that seeing 300 HP in D&D is an indication that a monster is dangerous. There's much more to it in both cases, but the eyeballing is still there.