Desperation mechanic?

[Greywander]

I've been playing with an idea for a variation on Angry GM's Fighting Spirit rules hack (https://theangrygm.com/fighting-spirit/). The basic idea is that a lot of players don't really know when they should run away, and instead keep fighting until they're dead, so we're going to add a state between "healthy" and "dying". This basically works by having two HP pools; the first is more just your ability to defend yourself and your will to keep fighting, while the second represents actual injuries you've sustained. (I was thinking about just using max HP for the second pool; thus a character who is injured i.e. has reduced max HP, will also have less will to fight, i.e. less HP.)

When the first HP pool is exhausted, the character is inflicted with a "defeated" or "dispirited" condition. This gives you disadvantage on your attack rolls and gives enemies advantage on saves vs. your spells and effects. This is meant to hinder your ability to act offensively while still allowing you to run away or act defensively. It is only in this state that your second HP pool can be damaged. The idea is that the game is mechanically signalling to you that you've lost and should retreat (the closest vanilla equivalent is when you're bleeding out, but there the game takes away all your control and you no longer have any agency over your fate).

The thing is, there are some cases where this might not make sense. Maybe there's no where to run to. Maybe it's a close fight and your character wants to make one last ditch attack. Maybe they don't care and just want to go down in a blaze of glory. Or maybe they're just so determined that they won't give up, even when they can no longer defend themselves. So this got me thinking about having a "desperate" condition as an alternative to "defeated". Perhaps on your turn you could choose to swap between the two, and it would last until the start of your next turn.

Then there's the question of what the "desperate" condition would actually do. I don't think it's enough to merely negate the penalties of being defeated. In my mind, desperation is dangerous to both sides, so there should be an element of risk and reward. Something like Reckless Attack might be a good baseline to use; you get advantage on your attacks (good if the enemy is nearly defeated themselves) but enemies have advantage on attacks against you (bad since you're already on your second HP pool taking real injuries). We could maybe extend this to saves as well, giving both you and your enemies disadvantage on saves.

I'm not sure this is doing what I want it to, though. I feel like the most desperate situation is when you outnumbered and outgunned, and I feel like the mechanic above would be a rawer deal for you than for your enemies in such a situation. At the same time, if the situation were a lot more favorable, e.g. a weak monster gets the jump on you and knocks down your first HP pool, there would be very little reason not to invoke the desperation mechanic above. In other words, you would end up using it in situations where you don't really need it, and not using it in situations where you would need it, because it would just make it worse for you.

Hmm, maybe something like all attacks hit you automatically, but deal half damage. That way, against an enemy that is likely to hit you anyway and/or deals a lot of damage, it's actually quite effective, whereas against enemies that aren't that likely to hit it's actually not so great. Maybe this, combined with negating the defeated penalties, would work.

Can you think of something better for a "desperation" mechanic? I'm sure this could also be applied in other situation aside from this variant HP system; it could work as a bloodied mechanic for when a monster drops below a certain percentage of their HP, for example.

[Cikomyr2]

It's a cool mechanic, and I like the idea of diminishing the maximum HP when you take damage beyond the threshold (to be healed only by spending HD on full rest, say).

I would allow maybe for a saving throw against fear when you enter battle or every time you get hit while in this state. Players who have special advantage (or immunity) against fear would see these benefits greatly increased, but then I think it's thematic to see certain individuals stand up and double down even when pushed at the brim.

[Unoriginal]

You could have the PCs stay conscious during Death Saves, making it the "desperate" state.

[Greywander]

It's a cool mechanic, and I like the idea of diminishing the maximum HP when you take damage beyond the threshold (to be healed only by spending HD on full rest, say).
I was kind of thinking along the same lines. Perhaps reduce total HP, but make HP fully heal on a short rest, but max HP requires spending hit dice over a long rest or something. Might also add a week-long rest a la gritty realism that would fully restore max HP and hit dice.


I would allow maybe for a saving throw against fear when you enter battle or every time you get hit while in this state. Players who have special advantage (or immunity) against fear would see these benefits greatly increased, but then I think it's thematic to see certain individuals stand up and double down even when pushed at the brim.
I've thought about this, for example with zombies, who wouldn't get dispirited or lose morale. I think in those cases there would be no effect on them, they just basically have two health bars. I'm not sure if I'd extend this to all monsters that are immune to fear, but I suspect that a lot of the monsters who are immune to fear would also be immune to feeling defeated for the same reasons.

For PCs, I don't see a point in giving them a save; if they're down to their second HP pool then they're defeated, that's the effect of depleting that first HP pool (otherwise what's the point of two HP pools?). Now, maybe some characters might have a feature that prevents feeling defeated, but that would be an exception. The whole point of the defeated condition is to signal to the players when they should retreat. The point of the desperate condition is that retreating isn't always an option, or not the one you want in that specific situation. Desperation should be a gamble, however, where you're knowingly taking a big risk in the hopes that you can pull through.


You could have the PCs stay conscious during Death Saves, making it the "desperate" state.
You mean able to move around and take actions? That could also be a thing (though might require some special ability), but I probably wouldn't call that "desperate". Desperation, as I'm using it, is more about realizing that you're in a bad situation but escaping is not an option, so you double down or take a huge risk in the hopes that it might swing things back in your favor. I'm sort of envisioning a few soldiers holding a bunker against thousands of enemies, knowing they're many times outnumbered but they must hold, no matter what. Or, the feeling of an animal that is backed into a corner and has no where to run, so it attacks ferociously, literally fighting for its life. This is about a "flight or fight" response, where the defeated condition is flight, and the desperate condition is fight.

I'm considering giving a level of exhaustion the first time you use desperation in a fight (you could switch back and forth after that with no exhaustion penalty). That way, at least, you don't trivially invoke desperation if the situation isn't really that dangerous. Another idea for what desperation might actually do is increase crit range, both for you and against you, though I'm unsure what numbers exactly to use. I feel like I need something that's going to work both against hordes of weak enemies and against a few powerful enemies, and those are both very different situations.

[Samayu]

I'm not sure I quite understand what you're going for, but it sounds to me like something the player would invoke when it's do-or-die time. Once per day they can invoke an adrenaline-powered blaze of glory. They've got one round to vanquish their foes, and if they fail, they collapse. And maybe even if they win?

[Cicciograna]

Angry GM's Fighting Spirit rules hack (https://theangrygm.com/fighting-spirit/).

You know, as an aside, I generally like the Angry GM, apart from the fact that actual data is drowned in a vast ocean of noise, but I am kind of annoyed at how he spent over nine thousaaaands words to say "Hey, rather than plain HP, use the Vitality/Wound system with the extra 'Dispirited' condition, which is just a 5E-compliant variation of what used to happen when losing Wound points (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm)". Yeah, he didn't invent anything new, while it seems to me he's claiming he had this huge breakthrough in game design.

[JNAProductions]

When did this article come out?

Because I have an HP hack called Fighting Spirit too. He owes me royalties :P

[Cicciograna]

2016, according to his website.

[JNAProductions]

2016, according to his website.

Okay. Not sure when I did mine-we probably came up with the name independently. It’s a decent name.

[Demonslayer666]

I've always disliked being as effective at 1 HP as at full. Yet another drawback of the HP system. It makes it easier though.

But I don't want to complicate things and introduce wound levels.

Unoriginal, I really like your idea of not getting knocked out at 0 HP. Maybe a save or something based on overflow damage.

Before the fight, I just prefer to telegraph the danger, so they can avoid the fight and the complication of trying to run away. It's always too late to run away, because you don't know the fight will go bad until someone drops, or until two are down. Running then assures their death, while fighting to the end might save them. Or you pull out the negotiations and try to collect your friends...

[Naanomi]

If one is to have such a system, barbarians in rage should ignore it... Fighting past rational defeat is part of their schtick

[Zhorn]

Okay. Not sure when I did mine-we probably came up with the name independently. It’s a decent name.
So much so that Samurai Fighters also went for a feature with that name with Xanathar's release a year later :smallwink:

If one is to have such a system, barbarians in rage should ignore it... Fighting past rational defeat is part of their schtick
Barbarians AND Fighters... more Barbarians with the whole Relentless Rage as a base class feature, but Fighters dip their toes in the same last stand territory with the Samurai's (yeah there was a reason I mentioned them before) Strength Before Death.

But more to Greywander's OP, would you intend for enemy creatures to operate on the same rules?
Not sure if I'd be more insulted by the DM softballing my character with a "you should be dead but I'm giving you extra chances at living", vs annoyed at a particularly hard monster having extra homebrew death throes that might still take someone down even once the fight was "won"
Not saying the idea is a bad one, I'm just still processing my thoughts on it all.

[Dr. Cliché]

I've always disliked being as effective at 1 HP as at full. Yet another drawback of the HP system. It makes it easier though.

I'm inclined to agree. I also think it's a bit of a shame that wounds and injuries don't really mean anything. You might think that reducing a character to 1hp in a single attack or scoring a critical might indicate some significant harm had been inflicted, but all they need is an hour's rest - 8 hours at most - and they're completely fine again. :smalltongue:


That said, I think going the opposite route has a potential risk of accumulating failure. For example, if you gained disadvantage on attack rolls when you dropped below a certain hp threshold then you'd be less able to kill enemies and so would end up taking even more damage.

With regard to the OP's system, I'd be very careful about giving enemies advantage on saving throws against your spells if you drop too low. Mainly because those spells probably represent the best chance of the players actually escaping with their lives (e.g. by running and webbing/entangling the area behind them). So you might well end up impeding their ability to fight whilst also making it virtually impossible for them to get away.

[Greywander]

You know, as an aside, I generally like the Angry GM, apart from the fact that actual data is drowned in a vast ocean of noise,
Ain't this the truth. I know I can be verbose, but it's like he treats verbosity as an Olympic sport. He probably just enjoys writing that way, as it is kind of an art form. It can be entertaining, but it becomes less so when you come back the article and are skimming it trying to find a specific thing he talks about.


Yeah, he didn't invent anything new, while it seems to me he's claiming he had this huge breakthrough in game design.
It's possible he came up with it independently. Otherwise, it can be worth explaining why you would use a particular variant rule/homebrew, instead of just saying, "Use this homebrew."


If one is to have such a system, barbarians in rage should ignore it... Fighting past rational defeat is part of their schtick
This certainly makes sense. There would definitely be ways to bypass the system, but they would be exceptions to the rule.


But more to Greywander's OP, would you intend for enemy creatures to operate on the same rules?
Not sure if I'd be more insulted by the DM softballing my character with a "you should be dead but I'm giving you extra chances at living", vs annoyed at a particularly hard monster having extra homebrew death throes that might still take someone down even once the fight was "won"
Not saying the idea is a bad one, I'm just still processing my thoughts on it all.
This might depend. Personally, I usually do Combat as War, so having the enemies try to run away after a certain point makes sense. If the enemy flees, that's still a victory, though there may be cases where you need to make sure they don't get away. I could see enemies using a modified system that allowed damage to spill over into the second HP pool (for PCs it would not; even 1 HP in the first pool prevents all damage to the second pool), or maybe doing something like with minion rules where they only take one hit (or some other number) before they die/get knocked out.

And would it really be any more insulting than getting to roll death saves instead of just dying as soon as you hit 0 HP? The main problem with the bleeding out mechanic is that it completely removes your agency; you know you screwed up but there's no longer anything you can do about it. I suppose if you wanted to simplify the system I talked about in the OP, then reaching 0 HP would put you in the "defeated" state, allowing you to run away, but taking any more damage would cause you to start bleeding out. Basically giving you one extra hit where you retain your agency. I'm just not sure one extra hit is enough, particularly with multiple monsters that get multiple attacks. Being able to move while bleeding out would be similar, though potentially more dangerous if enemies still see you as a threat and continue to target you.


With regard to the OP's system, I'd be very careful about giving enemies advantage on saving throws against your spells if you drop too low. Mainly because those spells probably represent the best chance of the players actually escaping with their lives (e.g. by running and webbing/entangling the area behind them). So you might well end up impeding their ability to fight whilst also making it virtually impossible for them to get away.
This is a good point, and your example with Web is a good one that illustrates specifically how this could come up. This might be such a situation where you would use the desperation mechanic to remove the penalty, allowing you to hit enemies with Web while running away. The thing is that a lot of offensive spells also use saves, and even something like Web can be used offensively, as it does more than just slow enemies down. If the players can continue to fight effectively, then they probably will, in which case that's just HP with extra steps.

I know that desperation should remove the penalty for being defeated, the tricky part is figuring out what the drawback is, as well as if desperation should give any additional benefits.

[Kane0]

My first thought was making use of exhaustion somehow. Like once you hit 25% or less HP you can use your reaction to take a level of exhaustion but also get to reroll all your attack and damage rolls for one min or until knocked to 0 HP

[Vogie]

I mean, you're running into the wall of "what do hit points represent?" and falling on the 'meat' side of things.

I've heard of DMs splitting Max HP in 2 halves, with the 'top' half being spirit and the 'bottom' half being meat. In those scenarios, the spirit comes back really fast, but the 'meat' damage takes more time to regenerate.

I personally use the exhaustion mechanic in lieu of failed death saves. That effectively doubles the potential failed death saves, but provides a pseudo-lingering injury effect. In my Icewind Dale game, that is on top of the exhaustion that the environment can provide. I also included a homebrew feat called Die Hard, a half-Con feat that adds yet another level of exhaustion (requires 7 instead of 6 to die) and keeps the PC conscious, while prone and with a crawl speed of 10 ft when they're at 0 hit points.


However, for your specific desire to show desperation, A different horror campaign I ran a while back, I just straight lifted the Stress/Panic mechanic from the Alien RPG.
Essentially, each time a PC would have a sanity-impacting effect (psychic damage, something horrifying happening, being frightened, et cetera), they gained Stress dice, which were d6s. The PCs could also give themselves Stress dice for a bonus to attack rolls and saving throws. However, whenever those dice rolled 1s, I rolled on the Panic table to determine what their panic would look like. Would they be running for cover? Shaking in terror, giving them a -2 on everything, and occasionally dropping their weapon? Attacking the nearest thing, even if it's an ally? Curling up in the fetal position? Rolling with advantage on everything, but Screaming like a banshee and Stressing out their nearby allies?

That sounds closer to the thing you're looking for.

[TigerT20]

Applying K.I.S.S:

When you reach 0 HP, you are not incapacitated. Instead, you remain able to move and fight. However, for each failed death save you gain, you also gain a level of exhaustion. These levels of exhaustion do not go away if your HP rises above 0.

Once you have succeeded at least 3 death saves, you may choose to stabilise and become unconscious at the beginning of each of your turns. (Standard rules for waking up)

--

This lets you run away instead of making you useless. However, it also slowly makes you more and more useless - the longer you stick around, the more likely that you won't be able to save yourself later. It also stops a single healing word making everything all better. Though I'm not sure if it makes it too death-spirally. Or invalidates the Samurai.

[sethdmichaels]

You know, as an aside, I generally like the Angry GM, apart from the fact that actual data is drowned in a vast ocean of noise

if he had a parallel site that had the exact same content but with zero of the smug schtick or the editorializing about how stupid everybody is, call it The Straightforward And Polite GM, i'd pay for a dang subscription

[Lunali]

The main reason I don't run from fights is that the mechanics of the game don't support it. It is very rare that I find myself fighting an enemy that I can't beat that I feel it would be possible to escape from.

Assuming someone is in melee range, to escape from a fight you need to either disengage or eat opportunity attacks. If you disengage, you can't dash, which means if the opposition has equal or greater speed, they get a full round of attacks, if not, the situation hasn't changed much. If you don't disengage, they get an attack and can dash after you, allowing you to escape if you're faster than them, but giving them the advantage if you aren't.

This means it's only practical to run away if you're faster than your opponent, which doesn't happen that often. Even less common is the situation where you're faster than your opponent and you're outmatched by them as if you're faster, you can control the amount of damage they're capable of dishing out by manipulating the range of combat.

[NorthernPhoenix]

The main reason I don't run from fights is that the mechanics of the game don't support it. It is very rare that I find myself fighting an enemy that I can't beat that I feel it would be possible to escape from.

Assuming someone is in melee range, to escape from a fight you need to either disengage or eat opportunity attacks. If you disengage, you can't dash, which means if the opposition has equal or greater speed, they get a full round of attacks, if not, the situation hasn't changed much. If you don't disengage, they get an attack and can dash after you, allowing you to escape if you're faster than them, but giving them the advantage if you aren't.

This means it's only practical to run away if you're faster than your opponent, which doesn't happen that often. Even less common is the situation where you're faster than your opponent and you're outmatched by them as if you're faster, you can control the amount of damage they're capable of dishing out by manipulating the range of combat.

This is the constant factor in any discussion of "escape", "moral", or "retreat" systems. The only games I've seen that do avoid this problem are the ones that transition out of "tactical movement" and into chase rules once that is what is happening.

[Greywander]

The main reason I don't run from fights is that the mechanics of the game don't support it. It is very rare that I find myself fighting an enemy that I can't beat that I feel it would be possible to escape from.

Assuming someone is in melee range, to escape from a fight you need to either disengage or eat opportunity attacks. If you disengage, you can't dash, which means if the opposition has equal or greater speed, they get a full round of attacks, if not, the situation hasn't changed much. If you don't disengage, they get an attack and can dash after you, allowing you to escape if you're faster than them, but giving them the advantage if you aren't.

This means it's only practical to run away if you're faster than your opponent, which doesn't happen that often. Even less common is the situation where you're faster than your opponent and you're outmatched by them as if you're faster, you can control the amount of damage they're capable of dishing out by manipulating the range of combat.
This is a good point, actually, and it might make sense to give some kind of bonus to move speed or allow anyone to Dash/Disangage/Hide as a BA while they're defeated. Then again, this could get annoying if it applies to enemies as well. And it's not like D&D players never retreat, so there must be a way to pull it off. What does a tactical retreat normally look like?

It may just be a matter of going into each encounter with an exit strategy in case things goes south. You might get surprised and thus not be able to make a detailed plan ahead of time, but your exit strategy could be as simple as, "I deploy my ball bearings and book it out of there," or, "I shove the enemy prone and run." If it's not something you can run away from, then look for another strategy. For example, finding a place to hide. If escape was easy, there would be no tension to tough encounters. And not every enemy is necessarily interested in chasing you down, either, so the DM might give you a few freebies if it makes sense the enemies will be satisfied merely chasing you off.

[DwarfFighter]

The main reason I don't run from fights is that the mechanics of the game don't support it. It is very rare that I find myself fighting an enemy that I can't beat that I feel it would be possible to escape from.


Agreed: Round-by-round, blow-by-blow retreats are not practical, or at least have the appearance of that, enough that players are discouraged from backing out of a fight once they are too committed and find they are losing. Quitting the field of battle means leaving behind fallen allies, and that can look a lot like the death of the party and/or the campaign! When the player with the last character standing makes a desperate attack he's not just being stubborn, he's also fighting to keep the game going.

I think some sort of house rule for sounding the retreat should be implemented that gives the party a greater chance of surviving than will fighting against impossible odds. And this sort of rule should be laid out in Session 0. Off the top of my head:


If the party sounds the retreat, the encounter immediately ends. All the characters allied to the player characters that are still able to fight automatically escape. Each may select one incapacitated ally that they will carry with them off the battlefield, but in doing so they both are reduced to 1 hp. Any dying character that is rescued is automatically stabilized. Any incapacitated characters that are not rescued are instead captured and reduced to 1 hp. Dying characters that are captured are automatically stabilized. The player characters that escape regroup at a nearby location that is safe enough for them to perform a short rest.


-DF

[DwarfFighter]

If escape was easy, there would be no tension to tough encounters.

I don't think that is always the case. Players will want to WIN, and losing still hurts even if they get to run away and lick their wounds instead of being obliterated.

-DF

[Greywander]

I don't think that is always the case. Players will want to WIN, and losing still hurts even if they get to run away and lick their wounds instead of being obliterated.

-DF
To a degree, for sure. I know I've had some tense boss battle in the Dark Souls series, even when running back to the boss room isn't that much of a challenge. I just feel like it would be easy to become apathetic if you know you can easily just duck out of a fight that isn't going well for you. It should be a tactical judgement, where it's become clear that victory is no longer feasible but escape might still be possible, and so you fight to live another day. Getting out alive against a foe that you couldn't really have defeated can still be considered a "win".

From another perspective, when you engage in combat, or get pulled into it, you're committing yourself to the fight. That's not a commitment that should be made lightly, because combat is deadly and you're going to die if you don't take it seriously. The easier it is to run away, the less you need to commit to a fight. By contrast, if combat is especially deadly, then the party should make every effort they can to avoid it, only engaging in combat when there are no other options or those options have failed. I generally prefer Combat-as-War, which probably explains this mindset; someone who's more into Combat-as-Sport probably thinks of combat differently.

[DwarfFighter]

To a degree, for sure. I know I've had some tense boss battle in the Dark Souls series, even when running back to the boss room isn't that much of a challenge. I just feel like it would be easy to become apathetic if you know you can easily just duck out of a fight that isn't going well for you.


That assumes that the PCs will actually have the option of trying again, and that's a trap I often end up in as a GM myself: I assume the PCs will be successful and therefor I have no planned consequence for what happens if they show up, fight/confront, and are forced to back down. With no plan for the PCs losing, it's easy for GM's to apply video game logic an let the returning PCs pick up where they left.

Let's assume the PCs will want to return to finish the job. The GM will need to make some adjustments to the adventure. Did the PCs seem like incompetent trouble makers? Maybe just the guards at the gate have increased their vigilance. The PCs can essentially make another attempt.

Did the PCs seem like a credible threat? The whole complex is on alert, and the bad guys hardest lieutenants will go meet the PCs in the field instead of waiting with the boss in the throne room.

Did the PCs seem like an unstoppable force? The bad guy abandons his clearly indefensible position and evacuates to a different location with the evil artifact.

Losing should have consequences, of course.




From another perspective, when you engage in combat, or get pulled into it, you're committing yourself to the fight. That's not a commitment that should be made lightly, because combat is deadly and you're going to die if you don't take it seriously.

Yes, but DnD is still a game and a story, not an combat simulator.

-DF