Hitpoint houserule -NOT A FIX- [Archive] - Wizards Community

Hitpoint houserule -NOT A FIX- [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
sedai
05-02-07, 02:56 PM Ok, in an upcomming campaign of mine (Wheel of time setting) i want to modify the hitpoint system. wheel of time is, as you might know, a fantasy-novel serie.
the HP as it currently is in the wheel of time setting is the same as in normal D&D and dmg output is more or less the same.

The campaign is going to be a roleplay campaign.

My problem with the current hp system is: In the books, the characters are just as mortal as anyone else, and one stray arrow could be just as lethal to them as to a normal person. the diffrence is that in the series, the characters won't get hit so easily, or are too carefull.

in D&D one arrow wil not be fatal... a normal arrow does 1d6 dmg.. and by the time they are lvl 10 they will have an average of 6d8 HD or so... (roughly..24 hp if they are really weak)

So, the character classes described in the book give them high ac and everything, so thats not the problem, as they grow more important, they will become harder to hit.

so, i want to reduce the amount of HP they have, so that a well placed dagger will be able to kill them. ok, at high lvl, they should be so hardy that it won't kill them, only "mortally wound" them..

What can i do to make them more vurnerable? give them only HP at irragular numbers of lvl (1/3/5/7 etc) giving them half the normal hp? or something else?
Is the vitality system in unearthed arcana i might want to look at? (i don't have the book myself, but a friend of me has)

I'm sorry for spelling, i'm sorry if this whole piece was not understandable, English is not my native language...
Verdande
05-02-07, 03:15 PM I've heard an interesting variant where HD is based on size.

So that a medium creature could get a max of 2 HD, a large one three, a small creature one, and so on.

It'd give the advantage to larger creatures to be sure, but it'd make your heroes and villains much more mortal.

Good luck with your game, by the way. =]
~Verdande
Khoran
05-02-07, 03:15 PM Halfing the amount of HP they get is interesting. Certainly would make them easier to kill and give it a bit more of a feel or realism.
Arcade
05-02-07, 03:17 PM Given your criteria, I would suggest the wounds and vitality system. It is available on the SRD so you don't need Unearthed Arcana to access it. Its key feature is that critical hits (the well placed dagger blow) can seriously injure or even kill characters no matter how many hit points they have. Normal hits come off vitality which is exactly like hit points and would represent your high level characters avoiding normally deadly blows but still needing to be careful of combat since a single arrow or sword thrust could be deadly.

If you go the other route and reduce their hit points, you should be careful and look at reworking a lot of rules. Damage from spells, power attack, magic items, sneak attack and multiple attacks go up quickly as levels increase so if you reduce hit point progression, you will want to slow down this progression as well. Also, characters may get better AC as they increase in level, but in general, attack bonuses increase faster than defense so this is something else to be aware of.

My advice is wounds and vitality.

EDIT: There is a Wheel of Time d20 ruleset out there, too. I don't know if it's any good or not but maybe it reflects these issues in their ruleset.
Drachasor
05-02-07, 03:55 PM Characters are already incredibly fragile, especially ones that don't use magic. Sure, it is hard to kill them with ONE dagger attack, but any extremely experience warrior is going to be hard to land a good blow on.

Here's something to keep in mind:

Hit points (sometimes abbreviated "hp") represent two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a graze or near miss. As you become more experienced, you become more adept at parrying strikes, dodging attacks, and rolling with blows such that you minimize or avoid significant physical trauma, but all this effort slowly wears you down. Rather than trying to keep track of the difference between attacks and how much physical injury you take, hit points are an abstract measure of your total ability to survive damage.

That's the best explanation of hit points you can find, imho.
kgauck
05-02-07, 10:36 PM With a wounds/vitality system, you can also allow critical hits to go right to wounds and bypass vitality (and either ditch the extra damage or apply it to vitality). Every character has roughly the same amount of physical toughness in terms of the wounds they can take, but really powerful characters have the physical stamina to stay in the fight longer, which is represnted by vitality.

I would also houserule healing so that cure spells only cure vitality as described, and that wounds are only healed by magic at the rate of one wound per dice of vitality a spell could heal. Cure Critical Wounds cures 4d8 points of vitality damage or 4 wound points. Wounds otherwise heal as described in natural healing. Players will take getting wounded seriously. Typically a character has enough wound points that no single blow can kill them, but many will decide to withdraw from combat, or seek very powerful healing. A few will take their chances and stay in the fight.
sedai
05-03-07, 06:28 AM thanks alot for the replies. :)

I am using the D20 Wheel of time rules (bought the book) and the module "prophecy of the dragon" to go with it.

i'm not really planning on reducing the amount of dmg from spells, because its not like i don't want to do less dmg in total, i want 1 dmg to be more lethal ;)
but thanks for thinking with me all the same.

I think i'm going with the wounds/vitality system, maybe halfing the vitality points they receive.

and indeed, i could have solved the problem too by just describing the hitpoints in a diffrent way, altough i think this will give the players themselves more the feel they are vurnable.
hawaiianbrian
05-03-07, 08:51 PM Just in case you haven't seen it yet, here are the rules for wounds and vitality:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm

I think they will be just what you're looking for. My suggestion is also to combine it with the "Armor as DR" rule, where armor doesn't add to your AC but instead allows you to reduce incoming damage. Just use the same number the armor gives. If someone gets a critical hit, they do the same amount of damage but it goes off wounds instead of vitality, and the armor can absorb all but 1 hp of damage. Keep in mind, creatures with natural armor will have to have their damage resistance lowered.
Racous121
05-05-07, 03:39 PM Here is something I use in my world. I believe that even a level 1 warrior should be able to kill a dragon or a 20th level warrior if luck happens to be on his side. I have a pretty intense Critical hit and critical miss chart. Now I am working on improving the critical miss chart, but the Critical hit chart works like this. You roll a critical hit. Roll a second critical hit to confirm, then roll on the critical hit chart. Rolling 2 rolls that crit followed by a 20 is always a kill.

To explain this clearly a level 1 warrior with a longsword rolls a 20. He then rolls a 19 to confirm and that is a critical hit for a longsword. So the player would roll on my critical hit chart.

I hope this helps you out and gives you some more Ideas.

Racous
Naderion
05-06-07, 07:39 AM If the characters should be fragile, I think it's best to play at very low levels. If everyone can deal 40 points of damage with one attack, but all characters and creatures just have 10 or 20, it probably wouldn't be much fun. Just one fireball from a 5th level wizard and you have a tpk.
Enchanter_Tom
05-07-07, 01:25 AM I've heard an interesting variant where HD is based on size.

So that a medium creature could get a max of 2 HD, a large one three, a small creature one, and so on.

It'd give the advantage to larger creatures to be sure, but it'd make your heroes and villains much more mortal.

Good luck with your game, by the way. =]
~Verdande
WOW.

I like this. A lot. The one thing I'd change is that small, medium, and large creatures would all have the same max HD to avoid gimping gnomes, halflings, and other small races. (The wounds/vitality system does this, too.)

The only problem is that damage spells become far too powerful in this variant (whereas normally they suck...*sigh*).

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
sedai 05-02-07, 02:56 PM	Ok, in an upcomming campaign of mine (Wheel of time setting) i want to modify the hitpoint system. wheel of time is, as you might know, a fantasy-novel serie. the HP as it currently is in the wheel of time setting is the same as in normal D&D and dmg output is more or less the same. The campaign is going to be a roleplay campaign. My problem with the current hp system is: In the books, the characters are just as mortal as anyone else, and one stray arrow could be just as lethal to them as to a normal person. the diffrence is that in the series, the characters won't get hit so easily, or are too carefull. in D&D one arrow wil not be fatal... a normal arrow does 1d6 dmg.. and by the time they are lvl 10 they will have an average of 6d8 HD or so... (roughly..24 hp if they are really weak) So, the character classes described in the book give them high ac and everything, so thats not the problem, as they grow more important, they will become harder to hit. so, i want to reduce the amount of HP they have, so that a well placed dagger will be able to kill them. ok, at high lvl, they should be so hardy that it won't kill them, only "mortally wound" them.. What can i do to make them more vurnerable? give them only HP at irragular numbers of lvl (1/3/5/7 etc) giving them half the normal hp? or something else? Is the vitality system in unearthed arcana i might want to look at? (i don't have the book myself, but a friend of me has) I'm sorry for spelling, i'm sorry if this whole piece was not understandable, English is not my native language...
Verdande 05-02-07, 03:15 PM	I've heard an interesting variant where HD is based on size. So that a medium creature could get a max of 2 HD, a large one three, a small creature one, and so on. It'd give the advantage to larger creatures to be sure, but it'd make your heroes and villains much more mortal. Good luck with your game, by the way. =] ~Verdande
Khoran 05-02-07, 03:15 PM	Halfing the amount of HP they get is interesting. Certainly would make them easier to kill and give it a bit more of a feel or realism.
Arcade 05-02-07, 03:17 PM	Given your criteria, I would suggest the wounds and vitality system. It is available on the SRD so you don't need Unearthed Arcana to access it. Its key feature is that critical hits (the well placed dagger blow) can seriously injure or even kill characters no matter how many hit points they have. Normal hits come off vitality which is exactly like hit points and would represent your high level characters avoiding normally deadly blows but still needing to be careful of combat since a single arrow or sword thrust could be deadly. If you go the other route and reduce their hit points, you should be careful and look at reworking a lot of rules. Damage from spells, power attack, magic items, sneak attack and multiple attacks go up quickly as levels increase so if you reduce hit point progression, you will want to slow down this progression as well. Also, characters may get better AC as they increase in level, but in general, attack bonuses increase faster than defense so this is something else to be aware of. My advice is wounds and vitality. EDIT: There is a Wheel of Time d20 ruleset out there, too. I don't know if it's any good or not but maybe it reflects these issues in their ruleset.
Drachasor 05-02-07, 03:55 PM	Characters are already incredibly fragile, especially ones that don't use magic. Sure, it is hard to kill them with ONE dagger attack, but any extremely experience warrior is going to be hard to land a good blow on. Here's something to keep in mind: Hit points (sometimes abbreviated "hp") represent two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a graze or near miss. As you become more experienced, you become more adept at parrying strikes, dodging attacks, and rolling with blows such that you minimize or avoid significant physical trauma, but all this effort slowly wears you down. Rather than trying to keep track of the difference between attacks and how much physical injury you take, hit points are an abstract measure of your total ability to survive damage. That's the best explanation of hit points you can find, imho.
kgauck 05-02-07, 10:36 PM	With a wounds/vitality system, you can also allow critical hits to go right to wounds and bypass vitality (and either ditch the extra damage or apply it to vitality). Every character has roughly the same amount of physical toughness in terms of the wounds they can take, but really powerful characters have the physical stamina to stay in the fight longer, which is represnted by vitality. I would also houserule healing so that cure spells only cure vitality as described, and that wounds are only healed by magic at the rate of one wound per dice of vitality a spell could heal. Cure Critical Wounds cures 4d8 points of vitality damage or 4 wound points. Wounds otherwise heal as described in natural healing. Players will take getting wounded seriously. Typically a character has enough wound points that no single blow can kill them, but many will decide to withdraw from combat, or seek very powerful healing. A few will take their chances and stay in the fight.
sedai 05-03-07, 06:28 AM	thanks alot for the replies. :) I am using the D20 Wheel of time rules (bought the book) and the module "prophecy of the dragon" to go with it. i'm not really planning on reducing the amount of dmg from spells, because its not like i don't want to do less dmg in total, i want 1 dmg to be more lethal ;) but thanks for thinking with me all the same. I think i'm going with the wounds/vitality system, maybe halfing the vitality points they receive. and indeed, i could have solved the problem too by just describing the hitpoints in a diffrent way, altough i think this will give the players themselves more the feel they are vurnable.
hawaiianbrian 05-03-07, 08:51 PM	Just in case you haven't seen it yet, here are the rules for wounds and vitality: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm I think they will be just what you're looking for. My suggestion is also to combine it with the "Armor as DR" rule, where armor doesn't add to your AC but instead allows you to reduce incoming damage. Just use the same number the armor gives. If someone gets a critical hit, they do the same amount of damage but it goes off wounds instead of vitality, and the armor can absorb all but 1 hp of damage. Keep in mind, creatures with natural armor will have to have their damage resistance lowered.
Racous121 05-05-07, 03:39 PM	Here is something I use in my world. I believe that even a level 1 warrior should be able to kill a dragon or a 20th level warrior if luck happens to be on his side. I have a pretty intense Critical hit and critical miss chart. Now I am working on improving the critical miss chart, but the Critical hit chart works like this. You roll a critical hit. Roll a second critical hit to confirm, then roll on the critical hit chart. Rolling 2 rolls that crit followed by a 20 is always a kill. To explain this clearly a level 1 warrior with a longsword rolls a 20. He then rolls a 19 to confirm and that is a critical hit for a longsword. So the player would roll on my critical hit chart. I hope this helps you out and gives you some more Ideas. Racous
Naderion 05-06-07, 07:39 AM	If the characters should be fragile, I think it's best to play at very low levels. If everyone can deal 40 points of damage with one attack, but all characters and creatures just have 10 or 20, it probably wouldn't be much fun. Just one fireball from a 5th level wizard and you have a tpk.
Enchanter_Tom 05-07-07, 01:25 AM	I've heard an interesting variant where HD is based on size. So that a medium creature could get a max of 2 HD, a large one three, a small creature one, and so on. It'd give the advantage to larger creatures to be sure, but it'd make your heroes and villains much more mortal. Good luck with your game, by the way. =] ~Verdande WOW. I like this. A lot. The one thing I'd change is that small, medium, and large creatures would all have the same max HD to avoid gimping gnomes, halflings, and other small races. (The wounds/vitality system does this, too.) The only problem is that damage spells become far too powerful in this variant (whereas normally they suck...sigh).