3.5 Alternate Rules, Making Damage Count (PEACH)

[NeoSeraphi]

Author's Note: Please, please, please don't suggest an alternate system from another game. I don't care about how Pathfinder or 4.E or d20 handles damage and HP. I've come up with this system after a lot of thought, and I just want to perfect it.

Spoiler

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Damage in 3.5 is a very difficult system. Often, while melee emphasizes damage, they put themselves in danger in order to do so (See Also: Heedless Charge) and if they don't drop a creature in one round, they're dead. Damage by casters is generally regarded as useless as well.

The reason for all this is best stated by the above picture. Health is just health in 3.5, there are absolutely no penalties for fighting while you are gravely injured or near death. The massive damage rule is nice, but I've rarely seen a game where it was implemented. So I've put together a little system that I hope to see playtested to make blasters and melee more effective.

The Rules

Enemies in battle (Not PCs) take penalties to actions while they are wounded. The penalty is based on the relative amount of health the creature has. The creature takes a -1 penalty in increments of 25% of its maximum health. For every 100 max hit points the creature has, this penalty is increased by 1. (A creature with 22 max hit points would take a -1 penalty per 5 hit points it lost, while a creature with 630 max hit points would take a -7 penalty per 135 hit points it lost)

If a creature has less than 10 maximum hit points, it takes a -1 penalty for every 1 hit point it was below its maximum.

The penalty applies to any d20 roll, save, or check other than a caster level check or a character level check. It also applies to weapon damage rolls. A caster takes the penalty to both his caster level and the save DCs of his spells.

The penalty is doubled for Concentration checks.

Additionally, when a creature falls below 50% of its max hit points, it is fatigued. No amount of rest will cure this, only when the creature's hit points are restored to above half its maximum will the creature no longer be fatigued. (Even magical healing such as restoration cannot cure this)

A creature who is below 25% of its maximum hit points is instead incurably exhausted until it recovers its lost hit points.

Undead, constructs, and oozes are immune to these restrictions, as the former two are purely magical in nature and oozes cannot feel pain.

That's it! What do you all think? How would you improve this?

[Kenneth]

while the concept behind this is nice. that being that you suffer penalties at varying degrees of life. in reality it is a system that only really ever affects melee. As any half decently played ranged will never take damage from just being too far away, not there, or having the counter for what have you.

[NeoSeraphi]

while the concept behind this is nice. that being that you suffer penalties at varying degrees of life. in reality it is a system that only really ever affects melee. As any half decently played ranged will never take damage from just being too far away, not there, or having the counter for what have you.

You're right, but I only intended it to affect melee fighters anyway. If you're not taking damage, you shouldn't be penalized. I mean, sure, ranged characters won't be taking damage, but as archery is so pitifully bad in 3.5 anyway (and again, can't do anything but damage, which in the current system is either kill them or have them keep fighting) I'm okay with that.

Besides, even if it makes things slightly unfair for archers, this system is about being realistic. If I was charging towards you with a sword, and you managed to sink three arrows into my shoulder before I managed to get a swing off, it would probably not hurt you nearly as much as if I had sliced you up when I was at full health.

[Kenneth]

while I concede your point on archery being a not well supported rol in 3.5 (mush like weapon+sheild)

what about casters? that was rreally in my mind at least what I was referring to. this is just another case of melee can't have nice things, and that makes me cry :(


being realistic is a great thing I think, but I also belvie that you need to balance it out with the fact that it is a fantasy game and the Players are supposed to be heros saving the damsels and defeating the dragon. WHile Archery trumped melee in real life ( look at the 100 years war for proof) the image of a knight with a few arrows in him tudging on despite or maybe becuase of the fact of being injured to land a death blow on the archer.


I just don't think that melee should be penalized even more so than it already is in 3.5. FOr me with this house rule in effect I would never play a melee centric character and just go wizard becuase i can use all my best abilities all day long and never worry about having to suffer any penalties, while mf greatsword weilder has to worry about getting hit once and then being more useless than normal.


Though. you do have a good idea nd I have something that I used in my d20 modern games. imma try to find those rules and post them up later tonight.

[NeoSeraphi]

while I concede your point on archery being a not well supported rol in 3.5 (mush like weapon+sheild)

what about casters? that was rreally in my mind at least what I was referring to. this is just another case of melee can't have nice things, and that makes me cry :(


being realistic is a great thing I think, but I also belvie that you need to balance it out with the fact that it is a fantasy game and the Players are supposed to be heros saving the damsels and defeating the dragon. WHile Archery trumped melee in real life ( look at the 100 years war for proof) the image of a knight with a few arrows in him tudging on despite or maybe becuase of the fact of being injured to land a death blow on the archer.


I just don't think that melee should be penalized even more so than it already is in 3.5. FOr me with this house rule in effect I would never play a melee centric character and just go wizard becuase i can use all my best abilities all day long and never worry about having to suffer any penalties, while mf greatsword weilder has to worry about getting hit once and then being more useless than normal.


Though. you do have a good idea nd I have something that I used in my d20 modern games. imma try to find those rules and post them up later tonight.

This system is more about penalizing monsters than PCs. Sure, PCs will be hurt by it, but as long as the party healbot is doing his job, those penalties won't last. Besides, if you win initiative, you can use your power to wound your opponent before they wound you, and then they have a lower chance of hitting you and deal less damage even if they do.

And even if you say "Casters will never take damage" that doesn't mean we should give melee magical immunity to being wounded. Especially when you can take the dragon down 600 hit points and it's still fighting like it was at the beginning. There's absolutely no penalty for wearing a creature down.

[Siosilvar]

Creatures (both monsters and PCs) take penalties to actions while they are wounded. The penalty is based on the relative amount of health the creature has. The creature takes a -1 penalty in increments of 10% of its maximum health. For every 100 max hit points the creature has, this penalty is increased by 1. (A creature with 22 max hit points would take a -1 penalty per 2 hit points it lost, while a creature with 630 max hit points would take a -7 penalty per 63 hit points it lost)

That's effectively just -1 per the lower of 10% or 10hp.

At some point, gaining more HP hurts you, because you start taking terrible penalties to everything long before you die... your 630hp critter becomes practically useless after it starts taking a -14 penalty, because it has no way of succeeding on anything except with a natural 20, but it still has 80% of its hit points left.

-1 per 10% is probably good enough if you're dead-set on including this rule.

And even if you say "Casters will never take damage" that doesn't mean we should give melee magical immunity to being wounded. Especially when you can take the dragon down 600 hit points and it's still fighting like it was at the beginning. There's absolutely no penalty for wearing a creature down.

It doesn't mean melee needs immunity to wounds, you're right.

What it does mean is that melee now has something extra to worry about that casters don't - that they take penalties while doing their primary thing. If they don't want to, they need to focus even more on one-shotting their opponents or doing enough damage to completely disable them.

It's a good idea, but I don't think it works with the 3.5 system as written. You'd have to make melee just as good as the magic system to compensate for one of them taking penalties while doing what they're supposed to and the other one not taking penalties for doing what they're supposed to. It might be more realistic, but it doesn't necessarily make for a good game if you're using the rest of the 3.5 system.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Hmm. Fairly simple and fairly effective. Maybe two effective- those 10% penalties are going to stack up, fast. I agree that the system hurts melee warriors most, although that aspect certainly makes sense. Two suggestions:

1. Apply the penalty to all rolls the injured character makes. It makes things even simpler to remember, and it makes a certain amount of sense- I bet you'd have trouble dodging or identifying a spell if there was a sword in your gut.

2. Maybe reduce the penalties just a bit? Apply the penalties every 20%, instead of every 10%? That would also make it a bit easier to keep track of, since you'd need to remember fewer benchmarks.

[Yitzi]

I would advise against having the penalties to d20 rolls scale with hit points. Otherwise, a 1000 hit point creature can (assuming there's a decent chance of missing when it's not wounded) be made largely ineffective with only 100 damage. It's as bad as wizards with save-or-lose, if not worse.

Well, unless you like the "win the fight with a single attack" paradigm of those wizards...

[YouLostMe]

Just as a general rule, I'm putting my opinion out against penalties based on damage taken. As you take more damage, you become easier to kill, and having a PC be easier to kill as it gets weaker really really bad, IMO. Also, I saw a comment about party Healbots, and I do believe you already know that Healbots aren't always in D&D parties--your system should be a reflection of that fact, and shouldn't force Healbots.

In addition, I can't emphasize how awful this would be for a DM or a low-level player. As a DM, calculating the 10% marks for all of my enemy combatants is more bookkeeping than I want to do. And as a PC with 6 HP, taking a knife from a goblin could literally put you out of combat completely, even if you're not dead, because of that DAMN PENALTY TO ACTIONS.

I'd reduce the benchmarks to 2, or 3 if you really want to push it. 50% and 25% is all you need. At those places you'd get -2 and then -4 to actions. Those are hefty penalties, especially if you're being insane and putting them on save DCs--it's effectively a death sentence.

Finally, I agree with SioSilvar about not increasing the penalty based on max HP. Penalties scale, so increasing penalties would cry.

[Ziegander]

You're right, but I only intended it to affect melee fighters anyway.

I'm sorry, but what the ****? Melee fighters suck worse than anything else in the game already, and you want to slap them with HUGE penalties to everything they care about without meaningfully effecting any other characters in the game whatsoever, and you went into this fully intending to do so?

This doesn't sound like anything you've given a lot of thought. It sounds completely idiotic to me.

[NeoSeraphi]

I'm sorry, but what the ****? Melee fighters suck worse than anything else in the game already, and you want to slap them with HUGE penalties to everything they care about without meaningfully effecting any other characters in the game whatsoever, and you went into this fully intending to do so?

This doesn't sound like anything you've given a lot of thought. It sounds completely idiotic to me.

I went into this fully intending it to penalize monsters, not PCs. If a PC is taking damage, he needs to get healed anyway. I agree that melee PCs have a hard time already, but this system also makes their attacks more powerful, as when they strike an opponent, their attacks deal more than just damage, they impose significant penalties.

Scaling penalties is a bad idea

The higher a creature's hit points, the higher their HD, and that means the higher their BAB is. The penalties are intended to scale with BAB, not with hit points, so that a creature who has 20 BAB suffers a penalty to hit that is as significant as a creature with 4 BAB.

Otherwise, a 1000 hit point creature can (assuming there's a decent chance of missing when it's not wounded)

There is no "decent chance of missing" when a creature with 1000 HP is not wounded. A great wyrm red dragon has 660 hit points. It has +49 to hit. The average AC of a 20th level character is 40. Optimized AC can be 45. There is no chance of missing, let alone a 'decent' chance of missing.

[FireJustice]

Yeah. I really see what you are aiming for. It's not bad per se, but it won't fix much.

Everything is more math intensive and may break the rhytm. (not a huge thing)

Now rocket-tag (and odious part of d&d combat) is even more blatant.

The one who hits first may knock a penalty so great that he autowins.
penalty to eveyrthing? this includes to-hit, damage and CA. How can you hit back.

Your example may be good for monster, that can have 500+ HP.

A PC with lot of luck and other stuff may have ~200 HP, at level 20.
10% of that is just 20 damage, anyone do lots more in one hit at that level.

You see where i'm trying to get? At level 10 with ~120 HP, its just 12 damage per -1. One warrior using -6 on his two handed power attack do that just with his bonus damage.

But enough of saying why that won't work as it is.

One solution adopted by Mutants and Masterminds IIRC is like.
You don't have HP per level, you have a "toughness" value.
Every time you get hit. You make a toughness save using that damage as DC. If you pass, nothing really happens. If you fail, you get a "wound token".
Every wound token you have gives you -1 in everything.
If you get (i don't remember) 10 wounds tokens or more, you may die.

Not saying to make a exact copy, just look deeper in that and see how it work.

[Ziegander]

I went into this fully intending it to penalize monsters, not PCs. If a PC is taking damage, he needs to get healed anyway. I agree that melee PCs have a hard time already, but this system also makes their attacks more powerful, as when they strike an opponent, their attacks deal more than just damage, they impose significant penalties.

But you know that melee monsters hit more often than melee PCs and typically (unless we're talking about uberchargers or tome of battle) deal a lot more damage too. Requiring powerful healing to be used on the melee PC every round is not an indicator of a good rules change.

I can't think of any way that this would ever work in a standard D&D game and feel like a good idea...

[NeoSeraphi]

Yeah. I really see what you are aiming for. It's not bad per se, but it won't fix much.

Everything is more math intensive and may break the rhytm. (not a huge thing)

Now rocket-tag (and odious part of d&d combat) is even more blatant.

The one who hits first may knock a penalty so great that he autowins.
penalty to eveyrthing? this includes to-hit, damage and CA. How can you hit back.

Your example may be good for monster, that can have 500+ HP.

A PC with lot of luck and other stuff may have ~200 HP, at level 20.
10% of that is just 20 damage, anyone do lots more in one hit at that level.

You see where i'm trying to get? At level 10 with ~120 HP, its just 12 damage per -1. One warrior using -6 on his two handed power attack do that just with his bonus damage.

But enough of saying why that won't work as it is.

Yes, 10% was too much, that's why I followed You Lost Me's suggestion, sort of, and made it every 25% instead. Now there are only 3 penalties.

[Grod_The_Giant]

If a PC is taking damage, he needs to get healed anyway.

The guy playing the cleric won't like that. Especially if (as is likely) everyone is getting hit, and he's blowing through healing spells like water because he needs to heal every single time someone gets hit.

Looking back, I didn't realize quite how bad the math was. I'd honestly go down to something like:

25% damage- fatigued
50% damaged- exhausted
75% damage- dazed

[gkathellar]

Aside from penalizing melee even further (and demanding the existence of "the party healbot," a loathsome, boring and inefficient role), this system significantly increases the power of fast-healing and regeneration, which will almost certainly need review if you're dead-set on using this.

I'm not clear on why HP can't simply be a metaphor — a buffer zone between your character and taking actual lethal hits, as it were. HP damage has always struck me as "running out of luck," not "I have this many swords embedded in my pancreas.

Besides, even if it makes things slightly unfair for archers, this system is about being realistic. If I was charging towards you with a sword, and you managed to sink three arrows into my shoulder before I managed to get a swing off, it would probably not hurt you nearly as much as if I had sliced you up when I was at full health.

If the point of this system is realism, then three arrows in someone's shoulder should permanently ruin the shoulder and probably kill them.

[NeoSeraphi]

The guy playing the cleric won't like that. Especially if (as is likely) everyone is getting hit, and he's blowing through healing spells like water because he needs to heal every single time someone gets hit.

Looking back, I didn't realize quite how bad the math was. I'd honestly go down to something like:

25% damage- fatigued
50% damaged- exhausted
75% damage- dazed

25% fatigue is really bad for PCs, actually. And 50% is worse. Characters cannot rage or charge when they are fatigued, and a -2 penalty to Strength and Dex is going to affect a melee character MUCH more than a giant or a dragon or even a treant. But at that 50% mark, a -6 penalty to Strength and Dex would basically shut the character down, while barely scratching the surface of a titan or a dragon.

See the problem with no scaling? PCs will always have problems with small penalties, but powerful monsters won't.


Edit:

If the point of this system is realism, then three arrows in someone's shoulder should permanently ruin the shoulder and probably kill them.

Yes, but that's the real trick, finding a balance between "I'm not dead yet" and "I'm a level one commoner". D&D is a game of heroes, so the ability to take damage from monsters is important, but it also makes no differential between a tiger who has just woken up from a nap and a tiger who just got hit by a fireball or having its skull smashed in by a morningstar.

[Ziegander]

Looking back, I didn't realize quite how bad the math was. I'd honestly go down to something like:

25% damage- fatigued
50% damaged- exhausted
75% damage- dazed

Good god, no. Dazed. What, permanently? Great, now I'm at 25 out of 100 health and I just can't act. I might as well be dead.

The reason I say that there's no way I can imagine a system like this working in D&D is because the players get into 4 encounters per day. the monsters get into 1 encounter in their lifetime. This is what is called, in the biz, a Death Spiral mechanic, because it means that the more you are damaged, the more likely you are to die. Players are dealt literally thousands more damage than any monster or NPC in any game ever. The game is already inherent balanced against the PCs, a mechanic like this just escalates their demise. In the short term, a 1 encounter vacuum, yes, it can be used against team monster; however, even by the end of the 1st day this mechanic will be showing how much it penalizes the players.

[gkathellar]

The higher a creature's hit points, the higher their HD, and that means the higher their BAB is. The penalties are intended to scale with BAB, not with hit points, so that a creature who has 20 BAB suffers a penalty to hit that is as significant as a creature with 4 BAB.

What? Penalties don't need to scale with BAB in d20 systems, a 15% penalty is just as relevant at level 16 as it was at level 4. True, higher-level characters have more potential. sources of AB, but it doesn't seem like this system should be designed to follow that.

[NeoSeraphi]

What? Penalties don't need to scale with BAB in d20 systems, a 15% penalty is just as relevant at level 16 as it was at level 4. True, higher-level characters have more potential. sources of AB, but it doesn't seem like this system should be designed to follow that.

That's not true at all. A -3 penalty to a character with 4 BAB is devastating, but a -3 penalty doesn't matter to a character with 20 BAB nearly as much. (Especially when the 4 BAB character had 18 Str and the 20 BAB character has 38 Str)

It's not a 15% penalty.

And then there are damage rolls to consider. If you do hit, a -3 penalty to damage doesn't matter at all. Meanwhile, a -8 penalty to damage can actually seriously change whether a creature is dealing 100 damage a round or 70 (depending on its number of attacks)

[Ziegander]

D&D is a game of heroes, so the ability to take damage from monsters is important, but it also makes no differential between a tiger who has just woken up from a nap and a tiger who just got hit by a fireball or having its skull smashed in by a morningstar.

Let me ask you something: In real life, if you hit a tiger with a fireball, do you think it's going to be any less effective at murdering you with its claws than it would have been if you hadn't?

Another couple of points:

1) D&D is indeed a game of heroes, so the ability to not be completely ****ed upon taking damage from monsters is important.

2) A tiger that has its skull smashed in by a morningstar is a dead tiger (or maybe hovering between life and death, Staggered, at 0 hp), not one that you successfully hit for 1d8+4 damage.

[NeoSeraphi]

Let me ask you something: In real life, if you hit a tiger with a fireball, do you think it's going to be any less effective at murdering you with its claws than it would have been if you hadn't?

Another couple of points:

1) D&D is indeed a game of heroes, so the ability to not be completely ****ed upon taking damage from monsters is important.

2) A tiger that has its skull smashed in by a morningstar is a dead tiger (or maybe hovering between life and death, Staggered, at 0 hp), not one that you successfully hit for 1d8+4 damage.

Alright, Zie. So then what's your suggestion for making damage a viable strategy, and making a barbarian or a fighter feel viable and not like a tank or an aggro who exists solely to soak damage while they wait for battlefield control and save-or-dies?

Edit: I'm sorry, that was rude. But please, offer some advice on how to fix this instead of just dismissing my entire premise every post.

[Seerow]

Alright, Zie. So then what's your suggestion for making damage a viable strategy, and making a barbarian or a fighter feel viable and not like a tank or an aggro who exists solely to soak damage while they wait for battlefield control and save-or-dies?

Edit: I'm sorry, that was rude. But please, offer some advice on how to fix this instead of just dismissing my entire premise every post.

I like my solution: Using WP/VP, but instead of all damage going straight to WP on a crit, or when beating the DT, it just deals a point (maybe a few points for a crit or really damaging attack), of WP damage. Then give penalties for accumulating WP damage.

Your tanking characters will be the guys with really high DTs, because they can take a hit without getting seriously hurt. On the other hand, a lot of monsters, mooks, and squishies, will have lower DTs, so they're in more danger of taking real damage, and thus also taking the penalties and **** associated with that.

[Ziegander]

But please, offer some advice on how to fix this instead of just dismissing my entire premise every post.

Well... that is my advice. You cannot make damage "count" without an entire overhaul of the game. So unless you want to do that you shouldn't try this. That's my advice. I'm not just dismissing your premise I'm giving you sound analysis on the nature of the game itself that shows why your premise doesn't work.

The "best" way I can see something like this working is to remove Con modifier from hp per level, have creatures sustain an Injury when reduced to 0 hp, have hp reset to full with 5 minutes of downtime or upon sustaining an Injury, and have creatures start dying after sustaining a number of Injuries equal to their Con modifier.

Then you can plug penalties into the number of Injuries sustained.

Cure spells would restore hp as normal and if a Cure spell would have excess healing it removes an Injury, sets hp to 0, and then heals the excess. The Regenerate spell would automatically remove all injuries.

Fast Healing and Regeneration would have to be dealt with. I'd say that Fast Healing never removes injuries, while Regeneration can remove them like Cure spells do (if the creature has any injuries and regenerates up to full hp, it resets to 0 hp, removes an injury, and regenerates any extra hp remaining).

I still don't like the way that works very well, because it's still death spiral-y, but the mechanics at least favor the PCs a lot more.

[NeoSeraphi]

I like my solution: Using WP/VP, but instead of all damage going straight to WP on a crit, or when beating the DT, it just deals a point (maybe a few points for a crit or really damaging attack), of WP damage. Then give penalties for accumulating WP damage.

Your tanking characters will be the guys with really high DTs, because they can take a hit without getting seriously hurt. On the other hand, a lot of monsters, mooks, and squishies, will have lower DTs, so they're in more danger of taking real damage, and thus also taking the penalties and **** associated with that.

That system involves recalculating every monster in the Monster Manual's hit points, as well as their VP and DT. It's a fine system, but I don't think many DMs will go for that much extra work.

[Mulletmanalive]

I actually use < 50% = Fatigued, < 25% = Exhausted, <10% is staggered.

It works pretty well as a set of penalties and actually encouraged caution in my games. It also meant that, in my lower healing environment [no wands] that players were more likely to defend, prepare, wcoordinate with the healer and so on.

Whether this would work in a normal game is unknowable because i genuinely don't play what gets called "normal" D&D around here and never have, but it's seen some good play.

[NeoSeraphi]

Well... that is my advice. You cannot make damage "count" without an entire overhaul of the game. So unless you want to do that you shouldn't try this. That's my advice. I'm not just dismissing your premise I'm giving you sound analysis on the nature of the game itself that shows why your premise doesn't work.

The "best" way I can see something like this working is to remove Con modifier from hp per level, have creatures sustain an Injury when reduced to 0 hp, have hp reset to full with 5 minutes of downtime or upon sustaining an Injury, and have creatures start dying after sustaining a number of Injuries equal to their Con modifier.

Then you can plug penalties into the number of Injuries sustained.

Cure spells would restore hp as normal and if a Cure spell would have excess healing it removes an Injury, sets hp to 0, and then heals the excess. The Regenerate spell would automatically remove all injuries.

Fast Healing and Regeneration would have to be dealt with. I'd say that Fast Healing never removes injuries, while Regeneration can remove them like Cure spells do (if the creature has any injuries and regenerates up to full hp, it resets to 0 hp, removes an injury, and regenerates any extra hp remaining).

I still don't like the way that works very well, because it's still death spiral-y, but the mechanics at least favor the PCs a lot more.

That doesn't help anything. You're still only penalizing a creature who drops to 0 HP, which doesn't help the fighter or barbarian's attacks carry any weight. It doesn't help make melee any better at all.

You lower a creature's HP, and then when they take, say, 143 damage (the hit points of a Mature Adult black dragon, who is a CR 14), they get a single penalty. Then they go back up to full hit points and you have to fight them again with a single penalty. That doesn't representing "wearing a creature down" at all.

[Ziegander]

That doesn't help anything.

Actually, it makes Cure spells a little more relevant and it makes the PCs a little more durable over the course of a campaign. Hell, it's even slightly more realistic than the normal hp model.

It doesn't help make melee any better at all.

And neither does your system.

Are you after realism or are you after making melee better? Or are you after some magic genie bottle that makes melee better strictly through the avenue of altering how hit point damage works?

[NeoSeraphi]

Actually, it makes Cure spells a little more relevant and it makes the PCs a little more durable over the course of a campaign. Hell, it's even slightly more realistic than the normal hp model.

See my above edited post.

And neither does your system.

Are you after realism or are you after making melee better? Or are you after some magic genie bottle that makes melee better strictly through the avenue of altering how hit point damage works?

I want a fighter to be able to weaken a creature with 500 hit points after his attack of 50 damage. I want there to be a purpose behind the fighter attacking a creature, other than hoping he survives long enough to kill the creature with 400 more hit points than him, when it deals around 40 more points of damage per round than him. I'm trying to narrow the margin between a melee character's attacks and a caster's save-or-sucks.

I'm trying to make it so that if a character hits a monster for 300 points of damage, he is rewarded for that high output, rather than the monster simply turning around and eating him, then the wizard getting his turn and petrifying it or turning it into a cat or simply killing it.

[Ziegander]

See my above edited post.

I'm not saying my system is perfect. I wrote it in like 5 minutes or less. I said it was the best way I could imagine something like this working without radically overhauling all of D&D, and I still said it didn't work that well.

I want a fighter to be able to weaken a creature with 500 hit points after his attack of 50 damage. I want there to be a purpose behind the fighter attacking a creature, other than hoping he survives long enough to kill the creature with 400 more hit points than him, when it deals around 40 more points of damage per round than him.

I'm trying to make it so that if a character hits a monster for 300 points of damage, he is rewarded for that high output, rather than the monster simply turning around and eating him

And you're never, ever going to do those things by simply attaching penalties to melee creatures based on how much damage has been dealt to them. At least not without feeling very contrived.

If you add inherent benefits to dealing hit point damage, aside from reducing the total number closer to 0, the melee monsters will benefit more than the players every single time. There's just no way around that without significant rewriting a rebalancing. If a melee PC of X level always had a better attack bonus and dealt more damage with his attacks than CR X monsters, then something like this would "help melee be more effective" even if it would still death spiral against the PCs in the long run. I don't think you're interested in going down that avenue, and even if you were it would only heap more trouble on the players than it's worth.