Making combat deadlier

[Ashtagon]

Characters have two "hp" statistics:

Hero points (hp): Broadly correspond to hit points. There is no special penalty associated with having 0 hp.

Body points (bp): Equal to your Constitution score. Each round you take bp damage, and each round your bp are less than full and you attempt a standard action or full round action, make a DC 15 Fort save or fall unconscious. If your bp reach 0, you die.

In addition, note the following rules:

* Add your Fortitude saving throw bonus, Constitution score, and character level. Any damage that exceeds this number in a single attack is counted against your bp instead of your hp. (eg. level 20 barbarian with 24 Constitution will have 12 + 24 + 20 = 56; level 1 fighter with 14 Constitution will have 2 + 14 + 1 = 17).
* If the attack roll was a natural 20, the damage goes straight to body points. This replaces the usual damage multiplier for critical hits.

This is designed for a low/no magic setting, and the usual damage boosters (hello Power Attack, oversized weapons, and magic swords) won't be available.

Thoughts?

[Spiryt]

It seems to me that in 3.5 (?) every attack or two in 20 will just be deadly, cause even with like 18 Con probability of loosing all BP will be high...

And what with critical mod differences between weapons? Are they effectively scratched?

Now, I guess it works for making combat "deadlier" but I'm not sure if it's going to work all that well in D&D that's pretty deadly without healing magic already.

It seems that pretty much every 1 attack in 20 can be completely disabling, no matter how little sense that makes - at least if 20 is still automatically hit.

Seems more irritating than deadlier and grittier.

[GodGoblin]

Have you read the Unearthed Arcana hp variant? Its pretty much the same as this but seems to flow a bit better, also what you said about low magic damage output Power attack isnt magical, oversized weapons and Magic weapons also arent really a big part of most melee damage builds, look up your avaerage uber charger its all about feats rather than magic so the problem would remain the same.

[paddyfool]

You may want to see a discussion of similar systems on this thread.