Fixing Hit Points
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- Опубликовано: 20 авг 2024
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This is an inspiring idea! I think for 5e, HP is generally too high for characters and monsters. Reducing that across the board, then treating all regular HP as grit, and maybe the PC death saving throws as a stand-in for flesh that can scale with advancement is a neat direction to take this concept
I love how you (both in comments and in your channel) bring a very OSR optic to work into 5e without completely abandoning it. Kudos Monsieur Bob Builder? If I ever have to play 5e again I think I will use that approach. Thx.
OSE D&D solves this problem. It reduces hitpoints and makes characters think twice before running into combat.
That is an interesting idea. In the video he mentions that things like poison cause you to lose HP which doesn't line up with the whole HP = grit idea. What if poison caused you to make a death saving throw even though you aren't at 0HP and you could hypothetically die without ever losing HP?
@@Chilrona that is a good point. Maybe poisons should be a saving throw only. Failure = death. Success = ill and at minuses to all rolls for a random period of time, say 3d6 hours, whatever, depending on the poison.
@@Chilrona That's how it works in Moldvay Basic D&D at least (I don't know other editions of D&D well enough to say off the top of my head how they handle poison).
You get poisoned, you save or die.
I’ve always looked at high level characters as being like the heroes in a movie who routinely endure damage that would seriously injure or kill a normal person. The problem with 5e is the healing on rests. The idea that an Orc can run you through with a spear and you just sort of sleep it off breaks any willing suspension of disbelief. The amount of HD you regain on a short rest should have been switched to a long rest and full healing should only occur after significant downtime, at least a week if not a full month.
If you didn't know already, there are optional rules like the one you stated in the 5e DMG.
@@GreenThingonTV Yes, I saw that before as part of their Gritty Realism rules.
Yes, a month sounds better to me. Even the 5e gritty rules are overpowered. I got rid of hp altogether and just use CON (or ST in my last homebrew) as "Flesh" and healing is difficult and slow.
Regarding 5e specifically I view hitpoints as a combination of those things you've mentioned (stamina, luck, near misses, etc) and physical health.
The difference is that I don't think the swimming in lava bit is bad by itself (or falling from the stratosphere and other insane shenanigans high level pc's get up to). I fully embrace the logical implications of the rules: high level characters are legendary people, their strength of will, purpose, skill or raw magical power puts them beyond the common human, I have in-world explanation for how and why they get that powerful.
Instead of trying to rewrite the rules to make the world make sense, I build the world taking into account the implications of the rules.
Although, were I playing low fantasy, low powered game I'd totally steal this idea, but then again, I wouldn't use 5e for such a game to begin with xD.
yeah this, 5e was designed as an epic fantasy adventure at higher levels your characters are supposed to be living mythical heroes capable of battling and defeating demigods
when a level 20 barbarian gets hit straight in the face by a dragons breath dont have any fear to describe how that fucker just takes the full blunt of the attack with a smile on his face and after that just cracks his neck, grabs his axe and jumps for the neck of the lizards, getting into the mindset that "they are supposed to be powerful" is the best way to tackle this "issue"
you want a more "gritty and realistic experience" then either play at low levels, or try any of the many other RPGs that are designed from the ground up to support such gameplay, there is aparently a game of thrones rpg where you can die in a single hit no matter at what level your character is
This is basically a HP-based/OSR version of Stress & Harm from Blades in the Dark. But as a lot of people mentioned, it seems like these kind of mechanics have been thrown around even in traditional games for a long time
definitely read that as "Stress & Ham" from Blades in the Dark
Logan's post came out years before Blades in the Dark... I wouldn't be surprised if the Blades rule was descended from Logan's.
Star Wars d20 did something like this, using vitality points and wound points. Vitality was used to fuel certain force abilities, which created an interesting tradeoff.
Was about to comment this.
Coming to say this too. I liked that critical hits went straight to wounds, but wasn't doubled.
@@spaceranger7683 I mean, not so much - vitality is a measure of physical and mental effort. Soldiers are spending it to avoid taking a serious hit, while force users are spending it on other things in addition to that. You technically could spend into Wounds, as I recall, but that's a last desperate effort kinda thing. For example, with the Battlemind force skill, you might spend 5 vitality receiving a +3 to hit, or 3 vitality to get a +6 to your strength or dexterity score.
In addition, force users get access to the Heal Self force skill which, on a 15 (a reasonable result to assume for taking 10 even at low level) restores 1d6+2 vitality. You can do this once per hour, so if you use this power, rest for an hour (during which time you also receive your level in vitality back naturally), you're getting a significant chunk of vitality back.
Finally, a level 1 force user is not a fully trained force user. To use the clone wars series as an example, Ahsoka Tano would start that series at level 1, Anakin at level 7 (having just passed his trials), and Obi-Wan at level 10 (almost but not quite experienced enough to qualify as a master).
@@Parker8752 Sorry, but the early age of padawans building their own lightsabers in 3.5 along with the Darkhorse comics and the Clone War cartoons is around age 12 or 13 years old. And to have the Force feats needed will put the PC as a 4th-level Jedi.
Ahsoka Tano at the start of the series was about 14 or 15 years old and would have been 4th or 5th level Jedi Guardian class PC, due to her acrobatics. After three years of fighting in the war and her own side missions she would have become a 7th-level Jedi guardian earning the title " knight," and a bonus class feat.
Then you can start playing around with the XP charts and multi-classing from the core book and the other source books.
Cause the Xp to bring a single class 4th-level Jedi up to 7th level is just enough to raise a 7th-level Jedi to level 9th. From the source books the average age to be knighted/ passing one's tests was 26 years old. Due to Kennobi defeating Maul at the age of 24yo, he was knighted earlier than most in the order.
Starting play, 7th-level Jedi age 26 is pair up with a padawan age 13 as a 4th-level Jedi. EL: average party level is 6th on XP/ CR of game encounter play. Then over the course of 13 years the padawan is raised/ trained to become a knight. So the average age of a " master " who has just raised a padawan was 39 or 40yo. This is during times of .. " peace " ..
2.) Eras of play and XP charts, D&D3.5e/ Star Wars WotC. has different rules for multi-classing than D&D4e/ Star Wars Sage edition.
Luke Skywalker starts the game as a 2nd-level Fringer and gains 7 levels as Jedi " Jedi Guardian " over the course of four years in the Rebellion civil war. Which end in him becoming a 9th-level character. So as XP goes, once he fully trains another Jedi within the next four to five years he would be a 9th-level Jedi & a 11th-level Character, and a 27yo man.
3.) As for Anakin Skywalker, other than effecting his over all BAB " base attack bonus," due to multi-classing, and from the novels of " Young Jedi " series, Anakin by the age of 12 to 15 years old was running off to every street race he could find. So he would have pick up a few levels of Scoundrel Class to boost his acrobatic skill and pilot ranking which would have made him able to pick up the Prestige Class: Jedi Ace Pilot which stacks with stander Jedi core class to gain Jedi Knight ranking. For a more .. power gamer .. approach give Anakin a few levels of Force Adept to boost a few of his force skills to higher levers.
4.) To nit'pick the early Clone War cartoons/ the non Disney ones, for Obi Wan to function in clone armor with out penalty he would have to have two levels in the Soldier class or he would have lost his Dex/ Reflex ability to Deflect Blasters.
5.) D&D3e DMG had a chapter on Optional rules for learning skills & feats training time, compare that to character creation of the starting level of a 1st-level Soldier class in SW, then compare that to real world military training. On average it could be argue that a RPG N/PC could earn/ gain study/ train for two to three class levels per year. And Luke Skywalker gain 7 Jedi levels in four years of military conflict. Other than the " Jedi " aspect of a class character, his other team mates in Rogue Squadron would have still end up as 7th or 8th single class PC. But SW3e was set up as a multi-classing style of power gaming. And the source book " Starships of the Galaxy," had a bunch of Prestige Class multi-classing character built options for campaign game play.
Example, ..
Princesses Leia from the Classic Marvel comics of the 1980's and the early novels that came out after RotJ, had Leia spend so much time in one of the Falcon's quad blaster torrents " Chew's chair," she would have the requirements for the Prestige class " Master Gunner " by the time ESB came out. My pass game shops spent weeks trying to figure out how to .. power game .. SW PC into multi-class them pass 20th-level characters. Just a bunch of word math problems to solve.
WEG Star Wars is a better system in my opinion.
Palladium had a similar mechanic. SDC was like grit, HP was like flesh.
I was thinking the same thing.
Yup, it can get pretty ridiculous though with characters having a hell of a lot of SDC.
@@maxducoudray OG Palladium fantasy characters had only HP. Armor and items had SDC. The first game I remember having SDC was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Regardless, SDC spread to the rest of the Palladium Megaverse, including later editions of Palladium fantasy. The real debacle was SDC vs MDC. Which really got out of hand in Rifts and Manhunter.
Old Champions (1980s) separated Stun and Body. Some attacks were Stun only, some attacks were "killing attacks" that targeted body. If I recall correctly, ordinary attacks (which were all lots of d6) only did Body damage on a "6". I can dig up my copy to look this up....
I ran HERO for years and I really liked the way the damage system worked, especially how it was possible to be stunned or KO'd without being killed or even while you're health was relatively high.
I have been using Hero System since 1999
"For Coin and Blood" has a good system that I've pretty much adopted to B/X: HP is your Con score + your level. And conceptually we just regard HP as non-life threatening injuries.
We tried making a Bushido Blade style game where you counted "hits" the number of times you got whacked with a sword, rather than hit points. So your standard peasant with a sword could take 1 hit before going down, a soldier could take 2 hits, and an action hero could get hit with a weapon 3 times before going down.
We had to say that getting hit by anything, a sword, a spear, an arrow, the blast of a spell, was one hit.
D20 Modern does this with their hit points. Critial hits bypass your regular HP and do ability score damage.
4th Edition D&D: At 1/2 hit points, a character is "bloodied", which is only flavor unless some ability uses it as a trigger. I was sad to see that go in 5E. Characters would sometimes get into non-lethal "first blood" fights, so that was a handy mechanic to have.
I still use "bloodied" in 5e as do many other people. But what's funny is that it has no mechanical effect. The thing with it is though is that (barring peculiar circumstances such as illusions) when anybody is bloodied it has to be announced. And let me tell you that can change the stakes, flow and tension of a combat real quick. Because if you think it's bad hearing that your cleric went bloody just imagine the implications that all the enemies are aware of this fact as well.
@@4saken404 When we played 4E, we refrained from meta-discussing how damaged our PCs were -- healers would usually just wait until someone was bloodied before rendering aid.
I think it is funny how some of these ideas pop back up in the OSR community and a person is given credit for being so creative when the idea itself has existed for decades. The first "Flesh" vs "Grit" type mechanic for D&D I ran into was around 1981 or so at a convention. The person shared the idea and was giving out small sheets with the basic idea spelled out and a few suggested changes for things like traps and falling. The struggle with HPs has been real and has been with us for almost as long as D&D in any edition has existed. LOL
I’m always amazed how simple, old ideas can be repackaged and some people will call them “groundbreaking”. Hit points have always been a broken concept and even with the various borrowed fixes they are still broken - you’re just changing one set of paradoxical, nonsensical incongruity for another.
I've never felt the need to do this in OSR games where the HP remains low and works as a combination of health and willpower. In situations like the lava pit, a vacuum, slitting the throat of a sleeping enemy, it has never a problem to just accept it as an auto-kill or save or die roll. The reason I can't do 5e type game sis the insane HP bloat you referenced in the lava example.
Same answer as me.
Totally agree. My players are level 6 / 7 and they already have huge hit point totals. Which means battles are troublesome, esp. when the paladin can heal himself for 30 at a time.
Scale those numbers right back to add more danger to the game. Right now it's just a battle of attrition with really no excitement in combat.
@@stubie so sorry. My party split over that. I have now a different party and we are loving some homebrew OSR. Fight on!
If you don't like characters advancing to the degree they become resilient to lava... Don't run games at that level?
That's the entire point of levels (although 3rd edition displays it more effectively than 5th imo,) the characters becoming intrinsically more powerful.
Run the levels you want to run
there is stuff such as "level of play"
level 1 to 5 characters are pretty much still very squishy and can die and be instantly killed by mostly everything, if you play my milestones instead of HP you can have your players at lowers levels for even the entire duration of the campaign
level 20 characters are supposed to be absurdly powerful near mythical heroes, they arent normal people, they arent realistic, wizards can make reality their bitch at level 20
I've not hacked the 5e hit point system, but this gives me a great idea. What I already do for PCs and NPCs is use an abstracted system: If you've taken less than 1/3rd your total HP, you're in "green", if you've taken between 1/3 and 2/3rds, you're in "Yellow", and if more than 2/3rds, you're in "Red." Rather than telling the healer that "I'm down 7 hit points", you say, "I'm in Green." To help with this, I print out the character sheets for my players (from an Access database) that has little circles for each of three sections. The algorithm divides their HP, placing the divide-by-three remainder logically.
This 3-level distinction works well for this: When the PC/NPC takes damage, the player (or DM) chooses where to apply the damage - in the green section, the yellow section, or the red section, instead of just starting at the top and working down. When it comes to healing, here's how we do it:
1. At the end of a battle, all green damage is immediately restored.
2. During a short rest, a player may spend hit dice to restore yellow damage.
3. During a long rest, heal one hit die of red damage.
There are effects:
1. If a PC uses up all green hp, they gain 1 level of exhaustion.
2. If they use up yellow, they are incapacitated, but stable.
3. If they use up all red, they die (making death saves).
Furthermore, upon recovery from death, they risk taking a lingering injury. Also, if they take more damage than 1/3 their total hp in a single blow, they also risk a lingering injury. Lingering injuries is rolled on a table/graph that is based on the damage type of the received blow.
When a healer heals and announces how many points are healed, the player chooses where to apply, but with these changes:
1. Green: 1 heal point restores 2 green hp.
2. Yellow: 1 for 1
3. Red: it takes 3 heal points to restore 1 red hp.
(These ratios may need adjustment pending playtest!)
Pros: This incorporates a more "realistic" form of taking battle damage; Adds to player agency by giving them the choice of how to apply damage.
Cons: Adds complexity, potentially slowing the game down, but with the character sheet already set up for this (at least at my table), this may be mitigated.
We had a homebrew for third edition. At character creation, your hit points where split into three. Your CON score determined what percentage of your overall HP was for physical damage (PD). Your DEX score determined how fast your reflexes (RF) are. Your WIS score determined how good you were at premeditating (PM) your opponents movements. When you got a new hit die the points would be split in half. Your class determined where half of the points went and you picked the other at character creation. For warrior classes, your points went into PD, for magic using classes, your points went into PM, and for stealthy classes, your points went into RF. Everyone gets two full hit die of PD plus any bonuses at character creation, after that, its all up to the mechanics.
People thought it was too complicated so we stooped after a few sessions. I thought it was good, and gave you that combat is war and not sport vibe. Especially if you where a magic user.
This is a very old concept used in Midgard, Germanys first own FRPG (1981). Grid is also used by magic users to fuel their spells, instead of having spell slots.
Ok but unrelated. It's very satisfying when your head is so perfectly aligned with the background.
Just off the cuff thinking - another way to approach this would be to consider Hit Die as flesh - Everytime your character takes a Hit die worth in dmg they are forced to roll on a Flesh result table -- some of those results being serious like scars or limb loss etc. - So their HP becomes their Grit or something like that... not fully thought out but seems like using hit die could be an easy way to incorporate it.
This is pretty much the "Vitality point" system from the WotC Star Wars RPG. I think it was later included in Unearthed Arcana for 3rd edition as an option.
I ran a "Grimdark" merc band campaign some years ago and I introduced a Alt HP hack that involved "wounds". It's a little more complex than Grit/Flesh but seemed to work fairly well. As a side note, in this world there was only very little direct healing magic but the medicine skill became more important.
So you start with full HP of, say 50 and 0 wounds. Each time you take damage 1/5th of that (rounded down, with 0 being a possibility) is added to the wounds. When you short rest or are tended to by a medic you can heal up to a max of HP - Wounds until you can have a long rest. Each long rest can recover CON bonus + Medicine bonus of whoever is tending you. This means, for 1-2 combats you'll be fine you'll probably fully recover, but the longer you go without a medic and long rests, the longer it'll take to recover to your max HP.
I'm quite surprised I haven't seen one comment mention that the term "pool of flesh" was thrown around.
Player 1: "Hey, how are you looking after that last hit?"
Player 2: "Not good man. Got me right in the flesh pool."
Not only does Electric Bastionland not give you more HP (which is capped at 18 and can only be increased by receiving scars), the insta-hit combat makes it even more lethal.
Initially I loved this idea when I first saw this video. The only thing that kept me embracing it fully was all the nuance of what type of attacks actually Could bypass grit and go straight for flesh, and then it clicked for me:
Assume all damage is going straight for flesh. Period. Players, if they want to duck, weave, dodge, or jump out of the way, spend grit equal to the damage dealt, and in that case, they get to choose to tank the damage or strategically save up their grit for later in the combat. Takes the pressure off me as the DM to have every situation covered.
Some games (like Traveler) have the characters take attribute damage. In D&D/OSR terms, you'd be losing maybe STR or DEX as you take damage, and you die at 0
My hack doesn't have Flesh points. However, it does have Injuries. On a critical hit or a roll with Advantage that hits twice, the target sustains an Injury that can take a few days or weeks to heal. It might be scarring, damage of a limb or eye, organ damage, shattered bones, etc. The more wounds you take, the more severe and permanent they become.
Additionally, if you take 3 Wounds, regardless of your hit points, you die.
Originally I didn't know if I should use Wounds like the ones from from Savage Worlds or Hit Points, so I just said "Why not both?"
I'm very keen to rework the idea of HP in a way that helps everyone to be on the same page and consistent.
At the moment we're using something similar in our OSE game. HP as per normal, it's the hit prevention version. At 0 HP the character saves vs death. Failure equals death - the attack dealt a fatal wound. On a success, the attack dealt a wound but doesn't take the character down. All damage beyond 0 HP fills an inventory slot, and death is automatic if all 10 slots are filled. Any attack hitting a character on 0 HP requires a save.
If a wound fills a slot that had an item in it, the item is dropped. Thus wounds affect a character but don't send them into a death spiral.
We've found this works particularly well for focusing the attention on a character who might die, rather than some players only realising it after a character has been killed. Almost mirrors 5e death saves, but in a far more interesting way.
It gives a little bit of a bonus to character survivability, but those saves vs death are not something you want to depend upon!
My way of dealing with this in the short stint that I ran 5E was to trigger +1x crit for every 5 points an attack roll exceeded the target. Each crit also added max damage. So if someone scored an 18 against a target AC of 8 with longsword that does 1d10+3 damage, their damage for that attack (x2 crits) was 1d10+23. Not the most elegant way to deal with it, but it did make combat run much more quickly and every hit actually felt like a blow (non-crits were glancing blows and crits were heavier and usually lethal). I actually didn't lose any PCs during the first adventure, but at least one went down in most fights, and the players were more likely to talk until options ran out than to charge into combat.
I recently got into Ed Greenwood’s Elminster series. I was immediately struck by how viscerally violent his arcane combat is. Mage duels are a marriage of high stakes sudden-death slaying magic and long gruelling victory through bodily attrition. Wizards lose fingers, ears, hands. In the third book, Elminster gets disemboweled by beholder eye beams within minutes of his introduction, and survives it. Adventuring in those stories sounds AGONISING.
When I DM DnD and it’s derivatives, I lean hard into the weird physics and metaphysics of its universe. Scaling HP is so fundamental to the mechanics as to not be worth resisting in the fiction.
So a fighter with even as few as five levels is an utter prodigy of physical and mental endurance. He can take a common militia man’s sword cut straight to the unarmoured chest and laugh at it (it’ll bleed, it’ll hurt, it’ll be gruesome, but he’ll outlast it). A twentieth level barbarian leaves the battlefield FILLED with arrows, like Jet Li at the end of Hero, but he doesn’t even notice them.
The in-universe explanation is that psychological and bodily toughness are entangled. In a cosmos where human will is the literal fuel of divine power, the flesh can be sustained beyond rational limits by the nearly deranged obstinacy of a heroic mind.
Striving and overcoming great challenge in this universe makes you preternaturally resilient. People take for granted that the most puissant of heroes are going to be able to survive being punted by a storm giant. Mundane bandits don’t antagonise bands of obvious seasoned adventurers, on the simple premise that they possess nothing with which to speedily incapacitate them. No, this does not reflect Old School sensibilities at all.
I found this easier to represent in 3rd than in 5th edition, because of the closer relationship between monster HD and their various other attributes. I made commoner a 1HD humanoid, 1d8 or 4 hp, and so a decent cut from a longsword would drop them instantly. This was a decent enough baseline. For most other folk, I wouldn’t scale HP beyond three or four HD at most.
If a high priest wasn’t accustomed to physical conflict, he might have ninth level spells but only a couple of HD. If the players insisted on fighting him, he’d go down in a single round, guaranteed, if not for his powerful magics, which might delay them. A proper archmage, on the other hand, someone whose career involved decades if not centuries of physical challenge, would have many more HD.
When I NEED combat and damage to reflect the physics and physiology of our real world, I just don’t play DnD. At the other extreme, I’ve GMed Godbound with mortal protagonists: 1hp glass airsofts in a universe where pretty much everything with a stat block will one-hit a PC in the first two levels. I recommend it!
Your in-universe explanation hits the mark, I prefer to view D&D characters as ascendant heroes akin to mythological heroes like Heracles or Perseus.
If no magic is involved, then no, a 20 level barbarian cannot take a powerful blow of a sharp longsword into naked chest and laugh it off. Human flesh is not able to resist such force, no matter the non-magical training involved. In a D&D world the only explanation would be that -6HP longsword blow wasn't taken straight into naked chest, but rather was absorbed by the barbarian's grit, stamin, toughness or whatever you want to call it.
The same applies to a human hit by a trunk of a tree (or a huge limb) swung by a giant monster. When you calculate the forces involved in such an impact, even a peak level strongman clad in full plate armor would be easily shattered by such a crazy powerful blow. The only way to fight such a monster is to dodge like a ninja and never get hit full on.
When I watched The Hobbit I marveled at the sight of Smaug the dragon. Huge monster that was crazy powerful by its sheer weight but it was also very nimble, intelligent, perceptive, clad in an almost impenetrable armor and had a deadly fire breath weapon to top it all. For a non-magical warrior it would be basically impossible to defeat such an adversary head on. The dragon could simply twist and turn and roll around and the warrior would be simply crushed or maimed first and then crushed. One powerful swing of its tail would be like falling 50 meters on your back and would break the spine of any man.
The only way to fight and survive the crazy odds that fantasy worlds throw at PCs is by magic. Magical artifacts or personal magic. For a warrior without 'real' magic a kind of qigong magic could be imagined. Great level of control over their energy channels and centers that could give them superhuman strength, stamina and durability.
But no, normal non-magical human body can't withstand a blow of a sharp sword without deadly consequences.
D&D is a game that evolved from a relatively normal low-power fantasy into superhero fantasy. I wonder how many people's games reflect that reality - that they are basically playing superheroes. For example in the world of Tolkien there were quite a few superhero-level characters. In D&D the worlds seem to be littered with superheroes disguised as bards, druids, thieves etc. I mean imagine a city where there were 20 Batmans and 20 Banes. It would take only a few years to turn the city into ash. But anyway, I went on a tangent here :-D
@@PeterKoperdan Tangentiality is the mother of invention!
In the context of a fictional universe, over whose metaphysics we as DM's have unmitigated authority, I do not agree that "If no magic is involved, then no, a 20 level barbarian cannot take a powerful blow of a sharp longsword into naked chest and laugh it off." This can be a true statement in your D&D world, but not in all D&D worlds. In a fictional universe of my devising and my possession, human flesh is actually able to resist such a force, when I want it to, if I want it to. I can just decide that. To be clear, this isn't the thematic assumption of system itself, this is explicitly my rationalisation of the system's metaphysical peculiarities.
Like I said, this does not reflect Old School sensibilities at all. But classic D&D endorses dragons as big as jetliners, who can fly in an antimagic field notwithstanding their physics-defying immensity; and it endorses the massless regenerative powers of trolls and hydras; and it endorses actual physical combat with the material embodiments of metaphysical concepts. So _when I DM D&D and it’s derivatives,_ preternaturally resilient human tissue doesn't bother me any more than any of those things. If it bothers other DMs, that's cool.
Perhaps the only way to survive the crazy odds that fantasy worlds throw at your PCs is by magic. Nothing wrong with that. It cleaves more closely to the game's genre inspirations, and also, I believe, makes greater intuitive sense than my interpretation of the d20 system. But I don't play D&D that way. I decide by pure executive fiat that heroic will toughens flesh, bone and sinew without aid of the arcane. Because I am the actual literal boss of that universe.
As you say: the game has evolved from a relatively normal low-power fantasy into superhero fantasy. I'm one of those people whose games actually reflects that reality. A 20th level Barbarian is more like the Immortal Hulk than like Conan the Cimmerian. Except when I don't want to play that way. Then I run something else like Maze Rats, or Burning Wheel, or Riddle of Steel, or Adventure Fantasy Game, or GURPS, or FATE, or... 😋
@@jeremytitus9519 Fair enough ;-)
This has to be the most metal HP commentary ever made. It reminded me of this passage in Kill Six Billion Demons:
"A brain is useful only up until the point when you are faced with your enemy. Then it is useless. The only truly useful thing in this cursed world is will. You must suffuse your worthless body with its terrible heat. You must be so hot that even if your enemy should strike your head off, you shall continue to decapitate ten more men. Your boiling blood must spring forth from your neck and mutilate the survivors!"
The new stargate RPG suggests playing the game like a TV show and looking at the players HP as their fear or willingness to continue the fight. In less serious battles losing hp means the character was almost shot or perhaps nicked by a bullet and surrenders when it hits 0. In more serious battles with more story weight to them the player could actually die when it hits 0. (They have a chart to set the seriousness of each episode/gameplay session)
The Hero System (Fantasy Hero and Campions) has long had this sort of system (going back to the 1980s). There all characters have a BODY score (similar to Flesh) and a STUN score (similar to Grit). Stun recovers very quickly (even between rounds in combat), while BODY takes much longer to heal. All attacks do both BODY and STUN damage (usually much more STUN than BODY), and a defense stat (Physical or Energy) is subtracted from each to determine how much a character takes. Certain types of attacks (called Killing Attacks) are much more focused on BODY damage and are not normally resisted by the defense stats. Like if someone without armor was hit by a sword, they take the full BODY and STUN damage from the attack (their natural defense scores do not lower the damage), but if they are wearing armor, then that armor would help reduce the damage some.
Palladium did this decades ago with hit points and structural damage points. I always liked their system.
"Vitality points"/"Vigor points" have been an official D&D system modification since 3e in the late 1990's. I've used them ever since.
Ooh, where is the source? I would like to track that down. :-)
@@TheEctomanceroh man there's a lot but I can remember the major titles off the top of my head. D&D 3e Unearthed Arcana by WotC, PF1e Ultimate Combat by Paizo, D20 Star Wars RPG by WotC... During the D20 craze many 3rd party publishers expanded on it, but it maybe older than 3e. I'll give ya more when I get home.
Same, I use a tweaked version of the Vitality/Wound Points system. I let Critical Hits bypass Vitality to hit Wound Points directly, but still do their multiplied damage. Very lethal.
@@TheEctomancer I think it first appeared in the d20 Star Wars rpg.
@@twi3031 Adamatine Armor gonna be sought after like the holy grail and Champions going to get more use
My favourite interpretation is that of the Uncharted developer - HP is luck, and losing it is your luck 'running out'. Cuts that could've killed you but didn't hit anything vital, poison that your metabolism was luckily able to stave off. It's different, but I've always found it interesting.
The old DragonQuest RPG by SPI was similar - Most damage affected "Fatigue" points, which were also tied to the exhaustion rules. Critical Hits or damage in excess of Fatigue were applied directly to "Endurance" which was the game's version of CON. When that was gone the character was dead. It was a very good system.
I think that the concept of hit dice meant the average amount of hits you could take before dying in combat, since dice were rolled to determine both your hit points and the damage you take with each hit. It had a context. Things that harmed you outside of this context, like traps, poison or spells, used the save-or-die mechanic. That is brutal, but more grounded.
In the ttrpg I am writing, Vigor represents physical fortitude, Arcana represents magical capability, Psyche measures mental stability, and Luck is used to "turn the tides of fate". Each is a pool of points used in comparison tests, and spent to perform corresponding actions. As these deplete, the character is getting more and more worn out throughout the game. There's more to this mechanic but that's a general idea.
I have done away with dice, levels, and classes in this game.
Still in the revision process from initial play testing, but so far it has worked really well.
I started using a roleplaying supplement called Arms Law in about 1981 or '82 with my AD&D game. Arms Law eventually became Rolemaster. Arms Law used greatly increased hit points, but nasty, detailed injuries that took time to heal.
Good post Ben, I too have long been troubled by the odd mix of abstraction & simulation in D&D hit points. At Akratic Wizardry, Akrashia’s system which is similar predates that of Logan’s I believe. It was actually used in Crypts & Things. A nifty little swords & sorcery RPG based on Swords & Wizardry.
D20 Lava Rules: If you fall in lava, you die (no save).
AD&D lava rules: if you walk into a room filled with lava, you die (no save.)
Roll Perception to see the lava
@@lucasbarcellos3319 Perception is for (slang word for cats).
i've been thinking about this recently as well. nice to have some examples to adapt
I've been slowing working on my own fantasy TTRPG for years and I've done something similar. Players have Fatigue Points(FP) and Health Points(HP). FP is primarily used to absorb non-lethal damage but can also be spent on extra movement, extra attacks, attempts to dodge attacks that may have hit, and other forms of pushing your character to their limits. If you are out of FP you fall unconscious, if you are out of HP you die.
- “How did he survive that?”
- “Because he has 10 hit points left”
- “The hammer was the size of a child!”
- “Well hitpoints can represent luck and near misses rather than actual physical contact”
- “Then what the heck is the point of AC?!”
To me, a hit with hit points remaining is more of a glancing blow. This level of abstraction works fine in most situations, outside of the "swimming in lava" situation listed above.
One other point where it doesn't work is for someone who is incapacitated. Honestly this should do far more damage or practically bypass hit points. There's no way hitting someone with a Warhammer while they're sleeping could be a glancing blow.
@@godminnette2 Well hitpoints are meant for combat and situations where a character can activly avoid harm. When somebody is incapacitated/sleeping etc. the thing you want to do just happens. Slitting the throat of a sleeping bandit requires no rolls, execpt maybe some sort of roll to not alert his buddies.
Great ideas… however I feel like when we overthink it we may bog down a game with additional mechanics that make perfect sense but turns seconds into minutes of MATH! Ive begun simply describing the “first half” of damage taken and received as mostly getting your “grit” thrown around. A successful attack with a weapon doesn’t always have to mean blood is drawn. I believe a long sword can sometimes be used to pull people close to knock someone’s teeth out with their elbow if the timing and position suited them. If it was me I would’ve given you the satisfaction of smacking that halfling across the room and cracking a couple ribs (at 10 HP you’ve just about run out of body parts to smash) 🤣 That sounds like early HP damage to me! Once my PCs start taking damage that is less than half their maximum HP, I start drawing blood and twisting body parts. I applaud the continued discussion and question that has plagued many an RPG though… 🤙🏻
If the hammer was the size of a child, that halfling's probably going to be okay, since it spread the force out so much.
This is why I ended up opting for a "Damage Only" mechanic when designing a combat system. It also just generally fits with the idea that damage can be a whittling down of one's stamina, makes it easier to justify the idea of glancing blows, and you always have some amount of forward momentum no matter the result (1 damage will always feel better than missing an attack entirely).
Pathfinder is a different beast than OSR, but that's where I've used this. I followed the wound/vitality system outlined in Pathfinder Unchained, but somewhat modified. I scrapped vitality and just kept the term "hit points," calculating them as normal, but explaining them in terms of vitality. For the "wound points" pool, characters added 1/2 their Con (rounded down) + their base attack bonus (BAB) - so it scaled, but slowly. HP couldn't go below 0, but a character died when their WP reached a negative number equal to their Con score. It seems like I was just giving players extra HP, but monsters also got this. Plus some things became more deadly: critical hits did damage that went directly to WP (for example, a x3 crit modifier would do an automatic 3 WP damage), and taking massive damage from your environment (falling, traps, lava, etc.) automatically caused wound damage - as well as making you roll on a special critical hit table (if you survived). The overall effect was to make the game more deadly and realistic. It DID slow down the game slightly, but I used some other house rules that sped up combat, so it all balanced out. And we had a lot of fun with it.
I liking the similar concept introduced by Benjamin Loomes from Dicestormers game group. There's Health and Stamina. Stamina can be recovered by general means like rest, healers kit or specific spells. Health recoveres 1 point per day, professional help, magic potions and healing spells.
Tried this system in an urban adventure (Scarlet Heroes inspired) and suddenly two guys with clubs in a narrow street are a formidable danger.
In my games, hit points for PCs act like Grit in your video.
When they run out of HP, any additional damage is scored against their ability scores, with the ability score determined randomly with a d6. STR, DEX, and CON represent the body, while INT, WIS, and CHA represent a person's spirit.
Damage to the body can be negated by sacrificing a shield. Damage to the spirit can be negated by sacrificing a helm.
Once any ability score drops to zero, the PC is incapacitated, and makes death or spirit saves at the start of their turn, depending on if the ability score is body or spirit. It's possible for both death and spirit saves to be rolled by the same character in the same turn, but no more than one of each if multiple ability scores of the same type are 0.
The max number of failed death rolls is equal to the PC's CON score. The max for failed spirit rolls is their CHA score. If the number of failed saves exceeds these limits, the character either dies (for death saves), or retires (for spirit saves).
Short and long rests heal HP as normal. Short rests do not heal ability score damage. Long rests can heal 1 point (player's choice) of ability score damage, increased to 2 points after a successful Medicine check.
Magic healing can heal 1 point of ability score damage for every 5 hit points of magical healing. HP and ability score damage healed this way can be split however the player wishes.
One additional benefit of two types of hitpoints is skills and weapons with ability to ignore main pool.
In our system we have health (1-3) , armor (1-6) and shield (1-6). Health can usually be damaged only after armor is broken and no shield presented... But we have flails, which can be thrown over the shield, and dagger, estoc and rapier which can be slided in visors, armpits, and other slots in armor. Sure, magic can do even worse things,like flesh eating insects and electricity,ignoring any protection. So, even biggest tank in chunkiest armor, with giant shield can be threatened by some specific opponents, and with careful planning can be disabled in literally one round, PC or NPC.
I'm fondest of the concept of "Hit Protection" which reflects ability to avoid serious injury (whether it's dodging, flesh wounds, etc.) and when they run out, your injuries are reflected as reduction of stats. It makes increasing HP per level more sensible - experienced fighters being harder to kill isn't because they are literally physically tougher.
Reduction of stats naturally reflects the nature of injuries without needing complicated charts - especially in games like certain Traveller versions where damage is randomly applied to Strength, Dexterity, or Endurance.
I'm also partial to games where when HP runs out, injuries are grave - like Scars in Into the Odd-based games and the particularly brutal Zweihander system. I don't think it needs to be abstracted into "grit" and "flesh" if specific injuries and their corresponding penalties are something that happens on every hit after HP runs out.
Since we tend to blur physical damage and "grit," another option is just to acknowledge that up front. This is what Castle Falkenstein does. It uses two attributes, Courage and Physique. A matrix of those two abilities gives you your HP's. Poor Courage and Poor Physique indexes to 3 HP's; Extraordinary Courage and Physique indexes to 10 HP.
YES! finally someone else that gets it. I've found that running 5e at higher levels while also telling a cohesive & fun story just isn't all that possible due to hit point bloat, and I'm quite tired of it. So what i've been doing for awhile now is I've been doing the "Health & Stamina" pools of 'hit points' - Your "Stamina" is taken out first, followed by your "Health" - if things like poison or a necrotic blast hit you, they deal direct Health Point damage, rather than just a sword striking you to remove some Stamina.
for 5e in particular:
Health = Character's Level * Constitution Modifier (Minimum = to their Level)
Stamina = Character's Hit Die value (maxed at 1st level with the option of taking Averages each time)
This doesn't affect the overall health each character has too much compared to the baseline game, AND it feels more gritty to get up to higher levels and still have the players fear the consequences of a "Power Word Kill" bypassing their stamina all together.
I have almost all the books that are in the background on this video. Man I love this channel.
I like this style of video! It’s punchy and addresses the topic in concise and direct manner.
I’m working on a system that is d6 based, where 5s and 6s are hits. You have hit points as “grit” but when it runs out attacks damage a stat specifically, and you must save each time a stat is hit or suffer a trauma. Depending on the stat this might be a wound that knocks you out that you will bleed out from if not treated to going mad. If a trauma isn’t treated within a day the character succumbs to it, but this might not always be death. You might lose a character to madness, and now they are a roaming villain in the dungeon.
I’ve started to cap hit dice so that after a certain level (depending on how difficult you want it) when you level up, instead of adding that 1D8 or 10 you just add your constitution modifier. As a caveat, I haven’t run into situations where someone’s had a negative in constitution, but I do see it as being a potential pitfall.
Imo you're better off taking away the constitution modifier.
Otherwise you're just taking away one of the few advantages martial classes have, at the levels where casters are already making them feel weak.
Everybody tries to get a good constitution if they can. Barring a Roll In Order system everyone is going to be getting similar HP per level from Con
All this talk HP talk reminds me that I have to play Burning Wheel before I die at least once. I find the idea of Steel tracking your willingness to take risks and suffer damage pretty compelling. Plus I haven't played a game where we have needed to take months or longer of downtime for a party member to heal from injury.
Try Cyberpunk 2020, or Traveller, (Mongoose 2nd edition)
I've used the Vitality/HP from Saga edition d20 Star Wars, which also was called Stamina/HP in some d20 modern unearth arcana hacks, and it was used in Starfinder as the baseline. It sounds almost exactly like Grit/Flesh. There is definitely a logic to it, but HP being easier has always given it the upper hand in a lot of system that I use.
In the D&D multiverse the main currency is souls or their energy.
Hit Points are a representation of how much of this energy you or a creature has accumulated. Not really how damaged your body happens to be.
It is this divine spark pool that fluctuates in battle and offers a form of protection that would have meant a person without it would have died at 4 hp.
This energy accumulating in you as you level feeds your increased powers towards a potential immortality but also makes you a target for stronger entities that want to take and absorb your power into their pool.
I've often thought of things in a similar way, and thinking about it again now I had the idea to make this even more explicit in my games, i.e. I might actually have each PC have like a gem embedded in their body, or a tattoo, given by a patron, that gains power with each level. Damage reduces the store of power in the gem, healing spells or rest recharges it. When they take damage the gem/whatever can flare with light or something, rather than the PC spurting blood....(so as the DM I have something to describe)...until the gem is depleted (when they hit their level 1 HP#). This can work along with magic items and spells that give temp HP quite smoothly. The gem can even protect when the PC is unconscious, so you can ignore the ugly abstractions HP requires for that. AC still makes sense, monsters with high HP are just really tough. NPCs maybe have similar gems or alternate "protective energy" sources.
I run modified 1E AD&D. In RAW, non-adventuring NPCs (“zero levels”) get d3 to d6+1 hp. Based on that, I designate the first 6 hp each PC has as “real” damage, the slow-healing kind. All hp beyond that is the metaphysical, quick-healing kind, which is removed first. Thus low level characters (or higher levels without access to magical healing) who are knocked below 6 hp have to slowly heal back to 6 before quick healing takes over. Using the same number for all PCs, and not adding a second stat for grit vs flesh, keeps this easy to remember and implement quickly.
The system I'm slowly cooking up doesn't really have hit points at all, you have stamina which you spend to take actions / reactions. If you're out of stamina you're essentially an open target with no chance to evade or block. The combat revolves around trying find or force an opening to land a lethal blow
HP = " Dexterity stamina " in keeping your guard up and avoiding being hit, along with rolling with a hit turning it into a glancing blow instead of a lethal hit. Side stepping gun fire.
Star Wars RPG has some fun ways of explaining combat to look like the movies.
Sounds similar to the Cypher System rules. In that system you have 3 ability pools; Might, Speed, and Intellect; you spend points from these pools to take certain actions; improve your chances of success on ability checks; attack rolls, and defence rolls; and increase the damage you deal. These pools are also your hit points and are depleted when you take damage. If one pool hits zero you start taking penalties; if two do they get more severe; if all three of your pools are at zero you die
Star Wars d20 did the separate "hp" pools. It was a cool system. They called it "VItality" and "Health" instead of "Grit" and "Flesh" but it was the same idea. They also changed the crit rules so that instead of dealing extra damage (or maybe in addition to, it's been a while since I read the rules), crits would bypass vitality and go straight to Health. Health was equal to your Con score and pretty much never changed and vitality went up by level.
Did something like this in a system I worked on years ago, but never finished. I called "grit" Stamina and "flesh" Wounds. Stamina worked more-or-less like DnD HP, and when you ran out you were just too weak to defend yourself. Wounds meanwhile added up, and were much harder to get rid of.
In battle wounding functioned somewhat like a Critical Hit, but some weapons/attacks had a higher chace of causing it then others, which represented penetrating armour or puncturing a weak spot. So for example a spear would do relativly little stamina damage, but have a higher chance of causing a wound, while a club would rarely cause a wound, but would do a lot more reliable Stamina-damage.
I also toyed with a hit-location system where Wounds got assigned to different body-parts and if a body-part got enough Wounds it would first be rendered useless (until healed) and then destroyed/permanently-non-functioning. But I don't remember if I found a good way to impliment this without slowing the game down.
I also considered a Bleeding system where with enough Wounds the blood-loss would start sapping away at Stamina and/or Max-Stamina until the wound was bound, which would be easier and quicker than actually healing the wounds, but would let them be reopened if another Wound was added on top of that.
I also had the idea of letting players spend Stamina on extra physically taxing activities, but couldn't make up my mind if it should be a DM says "ok you did it, but you lost X amount of Stamina" thing or more like players can spend Stamina on doing things they'd otherwise fail at (or to at-least increase their chances).
First I describe minor wounds - a bashed in nose, a slashed hand, a torn ear or kick to the groin - then as damage mounts, armor gets damaged or displaced or removed; when hp is drained the player is pretty banged up and disheveled. Any blow at that point may be life threatening blows.
Also remember when a player goes down they aren’t dead, just unconscious. Takes a few more hits and some bad death saving throws to actually die.
They are heroes in a fantasy world, so with some health potions/magic and time to mend they can patch their wounds, and armor, take some drugs and get back to kicking the door down.
Great video! This is exactly the sort of discussion I'd like to see more of. Excellent points! I've been thinking about this a lot.
I'm currently in play-testing of my game, "Dream of the Dragon," a rules-light fantasy RPG. In that, you get 1 Life Point (LP) at 1st level and get character points each new level that could be spent on increasing your LP up to once per level. 1 LP represents the ability of a character to avoid death or incapacitation. When they get hit, they roll a Wound Die. They either receive a Minor Would (storied out), a Serious Wound (deduct from Attributes), or a Critical Wound (lose 1 LP). You can get to 0 LP without a problem, but if you receive a Critical Wound at 0 LP, you die or are incapacitated (depending on the weapon that hit you and the armor you're wearing).
My reasons for this were (a) it's rules-light so it should be super simple (no damage dice, easy math), (b) the reason why I want a good rules-light game is because I believe that it makes everything more vivid and flow better, (c) I don't believe in PC's never dying, but I did want some chance of hanging on even when you're at 0 LP.
In play-testing, we found some problem, though. (1) It's the same damage for everything, (2) even really nasty attacks, like dragon's breath, just does 1 LP of damage (though some attacks like those automatically do 1 LP damage, bypassing the Wound Die, or some things, like poison, do 1 LP periodically until cured). (2) Although there are different rules for different weapons, damage is not a vector that matters, so daggers and halberds to the same damage (thought it's easier to attack someone with a halberd, because of its reach).
I think what I'll do is change to a Hits system, in which each weapon does set damage (e.g. 1 for daggers, 2 for 1-handed swords, 3 for 2-handed swords). That frees me up to say that, say, giants do, say, 5 Hits and dragon breath does maybe 7 Hits.
I like your idea of two types of damage. I've often thought that maybe a neat D&D variant would be you start out with HP = CON and then only get a 1, 2, or 3 HP per level depending on your class. In "Hero's Journey" you get max HP at 1st level, HD at 2nd and 3rd, and then just 1, 2, or 3 HP each subsequent level. This keeps HP low and makes them more the wound type.
Another interesting piece of info I found out is that Dave Arneson's original fantasy RPG group from the early 70's apparently sometimes played with the rule that you only ever have 1 HD, but you always get a saving throw to avoid all damage. Your save goes up as you level up, not your HP. HP represents flesh and blood. Saves represent your ability to avoid injury. I'd like to try that sometime.
Another very weird idea I had is to scrap HP altogether. If you get hit, you roll a hit-location. If it's somewhere lethal, you get a lethal wound. Otherwise, you get penalties based on what was hit (movement if the leg, to hit and skills if an arm, etc.). If you're wearing armor, you have a good chance of only being knocked out. If you're knocked out, anyone can kill you, as long as they have time to find the openings in your armor.
Apparently, in real Medieval battles, knights rarely died. The custom was to take them captive and ransom them back to the enemy, not kill them. That shows you just how well armor like chain mail worked (which is what most knights actually wore back then, typically).
I did this sort of thing way back in the '80's playing 1st edition AD&D, calling it 'physical damage points'. These were based on constitution and would increase slightly with each level as the rough and tumble of combat made characters physically tougher and resilient. These would be separate from the remainder of HP which reflected combat skill etc, and mostly came into play when characters were defenceless/helpless - such as falling damage, poison, attacked while unconscious/immobile etc.
I played 1st edition in the eighties and the first ten letters of our names are the same! Funny.
I'm sorry, I have to replay this video as I couldn't pay attention to what you said. I could just concentrate and nod at all the amazing books you have in your library.
Loving how you basically did this in Knave 2e
Basic modifications I typically make to the FATE Core system are to completely remove the "Stress" mechanic, which are de facto hit points. Instead, I have any and all hits that characters take turn into injury Aspects, which can be invoked to penalize that character's stats. If the players want to avoid injury, they have to invoke other, positive Aspects in order to boost their rolls. Rather than an abstract pool of points, the invoking their Aspects means that the players have to actually describe *how*, in the fiction, they turn a nasty injury into a glancing blow.
I like the idea of using Exhaustion to represent physical damage. Fall damage deals 1 point of Exhaustion per 25 ft, poisons deal Exhaustion damage, lava deals 4 points of Exhaustion each round, etc.
Yeah, I'm seriously considering a body/stamina type split for the HP pool in my game (probably with body based on CON plus level) but also want to use 5e exhaustion levels in there more somehow. Like hitting 0 HP gives you a point of exhaustion even if your HP are magically healed. You also need to recover from the exhaustion somehow.
I really think that hit points aren't a great problem no matter how we envision them, as long as they are low enough to be reduced from 100% to 0% in under, say, four hits. They only become real problems when they sprawl like in dnd5e. Lasting/Permanent injury systems are also great in aiding this.
E.g. the "Vurt" Implementation of Cypher System does this quite well, where passing significant "hp threshholds" (~2/3, 1/3, 0), you gain lasting injuries like broken arms or permanent ones like cut off hands
Oddly enough, my High School gaming group used roughly this system (not called "grit" and "flesh" but "hit points" and "body"). We used standard 1st edition for hp and Dave Hargrave's Arduin system for body. It worked reasonably well.
I love that concept : it makes me think of ''BRUISES AND CUTS'' Versus ''BROKEN BONES AND ORGAN INJURIES'' - - You could have the healing spells provide half of their potency when your character has a massive internal injury (broken arm, perforated lung, broken rib)
This was actually one of my first gripes with D&D! Apart from that and heavy armor/dex feeling so similar I was very happy with 3.5.
Back then I made up "Aevum" which came down to a sort of personalized magical energy shield. Never used it but it got me tinkering the first time :)
Grit is way more elegant.
I'm really coming to love the osr playstyle thanks to your channel. Beforehand I've always thought it was mainly about high lethality which I hate (there is no death in my games).
In the OSR I'm developing I decided to actually depreciate the dice used every 3 levels. I don't think anyone should ever even approach 100 HP. Rather than just giving them an arbitrary ceiling I just gradually make level ups less rewarding. d8 to 3 d6 to 6 d4 to 9 d3 to 12 d2 to 15 1 beyond that (4 or five levels per Hitdie for classes with lower pools to begin with). Also a wound system may exist as an optional rule, like a rolemaster type thing done at 1/10th the crunchiness. This isn't totally on topic, but I think we can all agree that HP is a resource that always ends up getting out of hand before 10th level, even.
Similar to Palladium’s HP and SDC (structural damage capacity)back in the 90’s. Damage came off SDC first and the given example was John Wayne getting hit with the chair in a brawl and shrugging it off. SDC damage was pretty much non lethal. Certain attacks or actions could bypass SDC or do extra damage to HP.
Of Palladium did get carried away with this notion and created MDC which was Mega Damage Capacity. 1 MDC equaled 100. It was used for military weapons, mecha, and the like.
Logan has some aweseome ideas on his site. I've been stealing his ideas for years! Love his stuff.
So many OSR mechanics had their origin there, like the resource die
It's a pity you didn't give Blades in the Dark a chance since it has some interesting stuff going on in that regard. Grit and Flesh sounds a bit like Stress and Harm. Though Stress is used more often like a resource in BitD than HP are in most RPGs [except for some 'use HP to cast spells / use abilities' systems] and then can lead to a different type of 'harm' i.e. Trauma.
Since you mentioned Electric Bastionland, Mausritter - effectively a hack of that or Into the Odd - takes it even farther by having hp as hit protection, STR as 'flesh' and then serious harm as conditions covering inventory slots. Funnily enough it has a stat called 'grit', which actually allows you to ignore serious harm instead of the 'soft hp'. :)
I 100% agree with this, i think bitd's stress and harm system is really good replacement for hit points. Especially with how physical harm isnt represented by just a number but by actual injuries that add to the game. Like if you have a broken foot that changes what your character can do in the fiction but if you just took 10 points of damage who knows what that means - its subjective.
I remember many discussions like this one on Dragonsfoot years ago. As a result, I implemented a similar HP structure in my rules. There is the "vitality" portion that is the combat prowess that increases with levels and then there is the actual health portion that is more a factor of race, weight, constitution, etc. Falling damage, for example, goes straight to the health portion delivering actual wounds which are much more difficult to recover from. Wounds actually temporarily lower the character's Strength or Dexterity as well. I.E. the more injured, the less able the character is to get around and be active. I think this makes the game more dangerous rather than less. Yes, you can recover from the "vitality" or "grit" portion quicker, but it is scary when you have to roll on my injury table.
I keep the HP as is, using OSE, but I do treat HP as Hit Protection (cuts and bruises but not a possibly fatal wound). I would then make pit traps (and other hazards) have other effects than just HP loss, like an injury of some sort. The HP loss would reflect the loss of fighting ability that falling into a pit incurred. For the monsters, I would say they're getting hit by the PCs weapons only if they're big tough monsters, for humanoids I would say they nearly avoid your "hit" and are staggered by the onslaught.
It seems to me (perhaps wrongly), that the easiest solution to the problem is the way DMs describe the result of HP loss in the fiction of the game played. And that, by holding to the concept of Hit Protection, you can use the system (with perhaps some optional injuries) to relate more closely the shared fiction.
"You've taken a bad fall, you take 4 damage and you sprained your ankle, you need some rest before you'll be back up to full"
"That hits his AC, your sword nicks the side of the arm of the troglodyte and he backs up for a spell before coming back once more into the fray..."
In my homebrew game, the way I deal with HP is by using Hp and Stamina, Hp is derived from your Stamina score x 30, once your HP is reduced to 0, the PC has the option to either be knocked out or lose 1 Stamina then regain full HP, if Stamina is lost that is where complications like broken bones, bleeding, etc enter in now once the Stamina lost is more than half your Stamina score , this is where you go into major damage to your body like Internal injuries, temporary blindness, etc. this would require intensive medical attention healing a point of Stamina at this point will require at minimum a week to restore or if magic is used very powerful healing spells like greater restoration type of spells to heal that 1 point, If a source of damage reduces the character to 0 stamina, the character will die. as a point of reference a typical character will have a Stamina score in the range of 4-7 with a HP of 120 - 210, while a dagger can inflict at least 45 damage on a hit while a single longsword hit can inflict 105 damage on hit usually.
I've been using this distinction in my game for years, though I term it Health and Stamina rather than Flesh and Grit. Like Logan's system your first hit die (which I maximize) is your health and you heal just 1 point a day, and all subsequent hit dice are stamina, which heal entirely after a good night's rest but are also unrolled, so you roll stamina anew each day and at the moment you first take damage. Bonuses to hit points from constitution (which tend to be rather low) are added to health, while penalties are applied to stamina except a possible penalty at level if your con is very low (5 or less). I only use d6 hit dice and non-fighters gain hit dice slower than 1/level, ala OD&D, so many characters only ever have exactly 6 maximum health.
I don't usually have many effects that bypass stamina (the first point of damage from a hit and subsequent blood drain from a stirge's bite is the only thing that comes to mind) because I usually rationalize stamina points as encompassing more than just combat mojo: for example if a high level sleeping character is stabbed by an assassin in the night and survives due to their stamina points I'd narrate that encounter as the character awaking at the last second and narrowly avoiding the would-be fatal blow.
Wolf-Packs & Winter Snow - Revised, Esoteric Enterprises sister game also uses this concept. Another worthwhile version of damage management can be found in Mutants and Masterminds which I highly recommend (I highly recommend this dmg management system as well as MnM as a game engine). A very hard to find Rpg called Cutthroat: The Shadow Wars, had a really nifty sudden-death system which essentially had you making a save vs dmg or Death (it also had an amazing magic system - criminally this is a game that has disappeared down the well-of-time and we may never see it again. I owned the first edition but lent it to a friend and never got it back which I really regret). Warhammer Fantasy Role play 4th edition is an excellent old school game with new school production values and great combat mechanics plus down-time Endeavours you can engage in - really great game tbh.
I like this idea and trying to figure how to implment it into a 5E setting I'm brewing. Particularly Logan Knight's post
I recently started running Soulbound and it has this concept of health. Toughness is a quickly refilling pool of points that buffer damage but when you take further damage you take Wounds which are more unique and far more difficult to heal and carries the chance of death relates to how you were wounded (in short, death saves are a test and the harder of a wound you suffered, the harder the test). Actually pretty impressed with the combat system as a whole.
Currently working on an RPG myself that has this "Grit vs Flesh" distinction but it's "Luck" vs "Condition". "Luck" is exactly what it sounds like. A combination of character skill and talent plus general good fortune. It refreshes with rest and with downtime activities. It also functions as a meta currency for different things. "Condition" is more like actual physical damage that you sustain and goes from 0 being totally fine to 4 being on death's door. Every 2 points of damage after your luck runs out knocks you down a condition so a solid hit could easily take you down.
This is why I like Electric Bastionland and it's lack of AC. I like how HP, or Dodge as I call it, must be stripped away before damage starts chewing into your strength stat and you have to make saving throws.
Another solution to this is of course a death and dismemberment table or the like when HP are gone. So HP is "grit" (stamina, experience, topical injuries) and once it runs out, serious crap starts happening. I actually really like the Mork Borg table for this, it's quite simple, evocative and has meaningful interesting results. I tend to prefer this approach to separate pools but great shout to Electric Bastionland for handling this really well having separate pools but without adding more "mechanical bits".
I'm surprised you didn't mention Pathfinder 2e's HP variant rules from the GM's guide. How we use them is you basically divide your HP in half; Health and Stamina. Health is your flesh and recovers slowly, Stamina can recover very quickly just requiring a brief rest. Constitution modifiers are actually applied to the Stamina so as time goes by your stamina pool grows faster than your Health pool. Damage is taken off the Stamina pool first and once your Health pool is reduced to zero you do your death conditions (whatever you do for your table).
A couple things of note: we always apply critical hits directly to the Health Pool (by passing Stamina). Also, we roll for HP at 1st and 2nd level then only every second level after that. I can hear the squirming from here, lol. We have heroes, not superheroes, characters should be dying periodically and reaching 7, 8, 9th level is an achievement worthy of note. It is always possible that a Critical Hit can still end up being a one shot kill (although rarer at higher levels but still possible).
We use hit points as what he calls grit. Once HP hits 0 you're Unconscious, then we start hitting Constitution. Once that hits 0, you dead.
Critical damage bypasses HP and goes straight to Con.
You can also have crits cause normal damage, but applied directly against "Flesh" (or, if you want to be kind, have the character make a Str, Dex, or Con save against a suitable DC to halve the damage).
I personally grabbed a rule from traveller, where your physical attributes are your final hit point pool. When all your physical attributes are at 0 you die, and if one is 0 you pass out. I let the players choose how to allocate stat point dmg.
I like a very deadly feeling game... I have ALL classes use their Con score as HP. If they fall to 0 HP they are knocked out. If they fail their 'death' save, they lose 1 point of Con permanently but can be rescued and healed later, barring some kind of kill shot for the enemies. (I also use a heavily homebrewed system that blends 5e with TBH)
I use this system, but I give the PCs half their standard HP as flesh and 1.5 HP as grit. My modification is if you have to roll a dice on a skill check, attack, or if you cast a spell you have to spend 1 grit to do so.
Of course if you narratively describe a reasonable way to succeed at a task you forego rolling dice and simply do it. Feeling under the alcove to press the button, no grit spent. Blindly searching every crevice, spend grit.
When you level up you get 1 flesh and 1d4 grit. Grit heals on a long rest, flesh heals 1 per full day of downtime. Crits don't do extra damage but directly target flesh.
I'd give 2 hitdice of flesh in the beginning, with a little grit gained each level and introduce permanent damage. That way you get a journey from a young fighter who hasn't got much experience, but who is in top form, to a grizzled veteran who has seen it all and knows to expect it, but old wounds burden him, a broken leg that never healed properly, a stiff shoulder, a hole where his good eye used to sit etc.
Thanks for the video Ben! More like this please!
I’ve been rolling this idea around in my head for a bit. I’m not bothered by the healing like some are, I embrace the abstraction.
For me:
HP are the mechanics of combat. I think the mistake is to try and apply ALL damage to HP because it is convenient.
For lava, falling and gnome croquet, I think narrative damage makes sense:
The ground never misses!
Unless you fell into that lava I have no idea how you even got close enough to swim in it! (poison gas and upwards of 1400C? Good luck)
And maybe that gnome will wish for death!
If needed the second HP pool already exists (as some commentators have noted) and it’s Constitution. Then apply the gritty realism rule from the DMG (5e) to recovery. My variant is you can’t have a long rest outside a civilized area!
You can add some verisimilitude by having them roll a Con save vs some high DC, say 25, and then subtract their roll from the DC to see how many bones were broken or organs ruptured. Are they bleeding out? Compound fracture? Continued Con saves until healed or dead.
When attacking Con with poison a 4d6 roll is going to avg 11-17. That’s a lethal poison If 0 Con means death. Even with resistance 5-8 is going to hurt, and 2 months to heal back? Ouch! Plus all those bonus HPs gone while recovering, or if stuck out in the wilds?
Everyone who said you can’t do horror in D&D was wrong, attack the attributes. At best they top out at 20! (5e)
Just, you know, make sure your players know about this stuff ahead of time. Do not ambush them with it.
I made it Vigor & Health. Vigor was 3/4 of your HP pool, while Health was the other 1/4. Vigor recovered very quickly while Health recovered very slowly. I later changed it to something a bit more complicated, but I thought it was cool. When a PC took damage, half the damage they took would go into their “Current Max HP”. They’re normal “Current HP” recovered via game rules however fast that was, but CMHP recovered at a strict 1 per day. It made it so that my players would be losing a lot of their combat capacity very quickly and would take fights a little more seriously. After a few months, I dropped it and just started playing Year Zero which gave me the lethality I wanted.
Edit: Credit where credits due. I got the Current Max HP idea from a game called Salt & Sanctuary. Very good game go play.
This is straight out of Vitality and Wound Points from 3.5e Unearthed Arcana.
My personal goal for quite some time has actually been to develop a system that does away with HP entirely and can just track injuries directly, without being overly burdensome. The basic system divides wounds into three types based on the amount of damage taken relative to a character's "Mortal Threshold". Less than half MORT is a Minor wound (light cuts and bruises), more than that is Major (heavy gashes, broken limbs) and your full MORT or more is Mortal (shit that will most likely kill you). Also 2x MORT is just instant death no matter what.
Injuries are generally tracked in the abstract during combat (e.g. "major wound, left leg") which can trigger some very basic effects (basically disabling that limb temporarily). It's only after the battle is complete and the adrenaline is worn off that you must take stock of your injuries, and roll on various tables to find out what exactly is wrong with you.
Narratively this has huge benefits in making fights feel more real, as players are forced to deal not only with the threat of death, but the consequences of injuries (blood trails, incapacitated limbs, infections, scars, etc.) It's also quite nice in terms of pacing, as everything stays nice and quick during combat but afterwards there's a natural pause for a breather as injury details are rolled. It also adds a nice degree of ambiguity, as nobody really has a hard number showing how close they are to death.
The system's not perfect, and healing in particular is proving very difficult to formalise, but as a prototype it's been very promising.
I actually think HP works fine as is. All it needs is proper description. Whenever my players get hit i like to describe it as a partial dodge or a failed parry. The blow connects, but not in the way the attacker intended. The result is usually heavy bruising or light cuts.
Perhaps it's not the ultimate way to handle HP, but my players seems to enjoy it :)
Here's an interesting "Option" for those using a 5e type system with the Increasing (upon Leveling up) Proficiency Bonus...
You start the game with your CON + a Hit Die for hit points and only add another Hit Die when your Proficiency Bonus improves. So a 20th Level Fighter would have 60 Hit Points + CON.
I might reduce certain magic spells' damage but I think the increase in lethality would help the PCs decide to be more cautious about entering combat.
Wow I am currently doing this and did not know it was already being done. I am working on an armor system that adds hit points as well.
Love the way you arranged your background