new combat mechanic [Archive] - Wizards Community

new combat mechanic [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Utterdark
04-13-04, 12:27 PM I have an idea... Please comment as to what you think.

Hit Points, as we know them, is broken. A humanoid form can only take just so much physical punishment before they're reduced to one of the following states:

Uninjured (base state)
Bruised
Minor Injury
Severly Injured
Mortal Injury
Dead
Pulverized/Atomized (only from exceptional damage sources)

Level and HD should have nothing to do with the mechanic at all. A 50th level Ranger shouldn't be able to shrug off a Ancient Red Wyrms breath at point-blank range.

So, what if...(and this is a big if)...damaged caused by a weapon (for instance 1d6 base plus strength modifier) becomes the DC to check against and the victim/player rolls a CON check against that number. Failue indicates that you are injured. A critical hit and a failure [or critical failure, such as rolling a "1"] means the victim is reduced by 2 levels on the above chart.

A high CON character would be able to shrug off weak blows, but the higher power characters would do more damage--and it is likely that the defender wouldnt' be able to deal with that and would take the hit (so to speak.)

All that would have to be determined would be the effects that are to be applied based on the damage levels taken. The problem is--undead. As you know, they have no CON stat. So something would have to be done for that situation.

Ideas?

--Utterdark--
Utterdark
04-13-04, 12:54 PM For every 10 or 15 points of damage rolled, perhaps the number of "wound levels" inflicted would be increased by one. Now those dragon breaths are really nasty and do have a chance of frying even a 20th+ level character in one hit--as it should be.
His Magesty
04-13-04, 01:12 PM This thread belongs in the Unearthed Arcana board, since it deals with variant rules. Apart from that, I suggest that you compare your system with white-wolf's (It's different in the various games, but generally alike in all of them), and the Injury and Wounds and Vitality hit-point systems in Unearthed Arcana, although I don't remember those mechanics completly.
Salla
04-13-04, 05:36 PM What you forget, Utterdark, is that hit points aren't solely the ability to absorb physical punishment. They also represent a number of other ways to 'deflect' punishment; anything from divine providence to raw unbridled luck.

Technically, a 10th level Fighter can't take much more physical punishment than a 1st level Fighter. However, he's skilled enough to turn what, to a wet-behind-the-ears sword-slinger, would be a lethal blow into something less lethal; a near miss, graze, or flesh wound.
bitnine
04-13-04, 07:06 PM As noted, you might want to check out the Storyteller system's "health levels", as that sounds somewhat similar to what you are discussing here.

Changing damage into a check such as a constitution check is certainly possible, whereby the success or lack thereoff translates into the number of levels of damage inflicted. If you going with a con check, I would have undead and constructs and the like use one-half their hit dice as their effective con modifier.
bitnine
04-13-04, 07:30 PM Right, and something else I once wrote on the general subject:

I made a long rambling post once that got to the point of HP by the end:

Abstraction and Playability/Realism

Hm, in many of these discussions, one thing that I rarely see mentioned as a seperate factor is abstraction. Abstraction is a very important concept in the relationship between playability and realism, as it largely acts as a middleman or filter that allows the two to gel better in areas where they might conflict. Generally, I'd view the cases of that sort largely as such:

Realism/Description <-> Abstraction <-> Playability/Rules Balance

And in many cases, people interject ideas about the levels of abstraction versus description (and the realism issues that arise) without thinking of them as a seperate, yet related issue. It's been mentioned here that a strive towards realism does not mean excessive micromanaging and tearing away all layers of abstraction, and also that many game mechanics can filter through abstraction to be described in a realistic manner.

If I say that my character possesses an undrawn dagger, that isn't any more or less realistic than if I describe exactly where the dagger is secured, the composition of the binding, the material that the dagger is made of, the style of the dagger, and how its weight impacts my movement. One is just more abstracted than the other. Where this sort of issue often intersects the realism/playability debate is when someone, for example, wants the descripion to know how well-secured the dagger is and how that might impact their attempt to snatch the dagger from said character.

From what I've noted, one of the key complaints of realism against abstraction is that abstraction often asserts that a variety of related items are similar enough to not warrant different treatment or specfic rules, whereas those who disagree feel that there should be some gradiation and acknoweldgement of differences to maintain believability.

(I've seen a player who believes in modifying the rules to better represent realism, for example, assert that in the case of his character being invisible near a large creature, that crouching down out of its general swing path should provide him a bonus to the miss chance. The DM stated that the 50% miss chance already respresented his character avoiding blows to the best of his ability, whereas the player thought that there definately should be some difference in this case, as it wasn't really reasonable to think that the specific circumstance would have no impact on the checks being made.)

Then there's the issue of filtering playability through abstraction in order to generate a description. One example recently made was a DM who thought that a successful sneak attack versus an unaware combatant (a throat shot, for example) should result in the immediate death of the victim (saves and HP nonwithstanding). To which I responded with the idea that that might be using pre-check description to try to circumnavigate the abstraction that helps to keep the game running. That a successful sneak attack that did lethal damage could indeed be described as a throat shot, but one that did a small portion of damage in perspective the the victim's total HP would better be described differently. However, this largely falls into the next thing...

Which Type of Realism?

One important thing to realize is that people have different goals to shoot for in the persuit of realism. Some people, of course, take the term literally and try to accurately enact things that are physically possible, a world that might be entirely historical except for the addition of a few key fantasy elements, and even those elements (such as magic) fitting into a logical working as closely as possible. However, that's not what everyone's shooting for, even when they move towards "realism".

To say that one either wants the above or either a set of mechanics purely to play a game (or in a greatly exaggerated manner to state that to deny the above is essentially welcoming a jumble of nonsensical cause and effects that follow little logic, believability, and consistancy) is a false dichotomy. Aside from a historic and real world pursuit of a set of consistant workings, there is another form that is also popular.

And that would be literary/cinematic 'realism'. The portrayal of characters as if they were characters in a fantasy movie or novel, with a set of generally realistic principles with some alterations and deviances that follow the general formation of a story. To a minor extent, even more historical realistic pursuits take some concessions from this idea. One example might be that though it might be more realistic to check to see if a given character develops cancer or another fatal disease during their lifetime, one of the main characters of a story would rarely randomly contract such.

Hit Points work fairly well with the idea of such a system, considering the idea of abstraction and filtering decriptions. Consider a character darting across a field which is being peppered with arrow fire. Realistically, the arrows hit where they may and the very first wound that a character receives might be fatal, even instantly so.

However, in most story constructs, a hero is scratched, grazed, exhausted, or otherwise superficially harmed before he suffers a fatal hit. Perhaps a few commoners daring a run across the field get pegged and die ignoble deaths. However, the main character attempting the same act might instead suffer a grazing hit or an otherwise less critical injury.

Filtering descriptions is helpful here in preserving believability. Seeing a common cutthroat leap from the shadows at (name your favorite important character from a novel here and replace bracketed text accordingly), you just know that [Menion Leah] isn't likely going to just get stabbed and die. Not because [Menion Leah] is a [6th level ranger/2nd level fighter] with over [50] HP and the rogue only does 1d4 + 2d6 + 2 for his damage, including sneak attack, even if that's the mechanical reason. [Menion Leah] is simply too important of a character to get killed by a lucky stab from a common punk. In a book, it's a lot easier to say that he notices the thug at the last second, that the blow is deflected, that the thug trips, or something else - which is part of how you can choose to describe HP loss.

That doesn't mean that characters are invincible. Seeing the main character of a story breathlessly lean against a wall, covered with knicks, bruises, and superficial cuts, you know that he's been worn down and is in real danger. Other important characters or tough monsters or groups of enemies pose a real threat as well, even if they rarely kill with their first attempt. (As you remember, [Menion Leah] almost get taken by [a Siren].)

I don't know if any of you have ever played the Siphon Filter games, but in them, there's a "Danger" bar. When enemies are firing guns at you as you dash to find some cover (and then peek out and headshot them), there's a "Danger" bar that begins to fill up. As in many action movies, those grunts with machine guns and the like fire at you, the bullets hitting all around you and getting closer as you stay in the open. When that "Danger" bar fills up (and depending on your enemy it may almost instantly do so), you're going to get shot.

Likewise, if you wish to think of it as such, some of (including possibly all but your very last) HP can likewise be described as representing a similar idea.
Salla
04-14-04, 10:52 AM Very very VERY good, Bitnine. That should be stickied up somewhere for all to read, I think. Have a :cookie:.

If I weren't doing Wounds/Vitality in my next game, I'd definitely be using this rationale for Hit Points, and I'm going to show it to other DMs, especially my friend who's running the Swashbuckling Adventures game and is feeling a little dismayed by the 'we're getting pelted but still standing' way he's interpretting the hitpoints, which is against the genre (it's usually a lot more duck-dodge-parry-thrust-ho-ha-spin *whack* than ow-ow-ow-ow). He'll definitely find this useful! Kudos!
Dreamstryder
04-14-04, 05:56 PM If you want to use your system, Utterdark, you could treat undead as objects with hp. As long as you don't use hp with living things, this shouldn't be confusing.
77IM
04-15-04, 06:57 PM The Injury System (mentioned by His Majesty) is a variant in Unearthed Arcana which is very similar to what you describe. It uses a Fortitude save instead of a Con check, and the degree of failure determines the penalty. Simple failure earns you a -1 on all future damage saves, a failure by 5 or more stuns you for a round, and a failure by 10 or more makes you disabled and bleeding (like having 0 hit points).

-- 77IM
Masterful_Norg
04-15-04, 10:31 PM Alternately a failure by 20 can outright kill you if you're DM wishes. Personally, as a DM, I wish. :D
bitnine
04-16-04, 01:14 AM Originally posted by Salla
Very very VERY good, Bitnine. That should be stickied up somewhere for all to read, I think. Have a :cookie:.Well, that was as part of the large Realism vs Playability (wizo-sponsored) debate in which there were a lot of really good posts made, though the thread died with disappointing speed. You can find the original thread here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103993). Mebbe it should get put up in Redgars? Not really an article, though.The Injury System (mentioned by His Majesty) is a variant in Unearthed Arcana which is very similar to what you describe. It uses a Fortitude save instead of a Con check, and the degree of failure determines the penalty. Simple failure earns you a -1 on all future damage saves, a failure by 5 or more stuns you for a round, and a failure by 10 or more makes you disabled and bleeding (like having 0 hit points).Yes, that's probably very close to what the OP described and should work reasonably well. I once thought about an HP/LP system that was sort of a mix of things, but it's probably not exactly what the OP had in mind.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Utterdark 04-13-04, 12:27 PM	I have an idea... Please comment as to what you think. Hit Points, as we know them, is broken. A humanoid form can only take just so much physical punishment before they're reduced to one of the following states: Uninjured (base state) Bruised Minor Injury Severly Injured Mortal Injury Dead Pulverized/Atomized (only from exceptional damage sources) Level and HD should have nothing to do with the mechanic at all. A 50th level Ranger shouldn't be able to shrug off a Ancient Red Wyrms breath at point-blank range. So, what if...(and this is a big if)...damaged caused by a weapon (for instance 1d6 base plus strength modifier) becomes the DC to check against and the victim/player rolls a CON check against that number. Failue indicates that you are injured. A critical hit and a failure [or critical failure, such as rolling a "1"] means the victim is reduced by 2 levels on the above chart. A high CON character would be able to shrug off weak blows, but the higher power characters would do more damage--and it is likely that the defender wouldnt' be able to deal with that and would take the hit (so to speak.) All that would have to be determined would be the effects that are to be applied based on the damage levels taken. The problem is--undead. As you know, they have no CON stat. So something would have to be done for that situation. Ideas? --Utterdark--
Utterdark 04-13-04, 12:54 PM	For every 10 or 15 points of damage rolled, perhaps the number of "wound levels" inflicted would be increased by one. Now those dragon breaths are really nasty and do have a chance of frying even a 20th+ level character in one hit--as it should be.
His Magesty 04-13-04, 01:12 PM	This thread belongs in the Unearthed Arcana board, since it deals with variant rules. Apart from that, I suggest that you compare your system with white-wolf's (It's different in the various games, but generally alike in all of them), and the Injury and Wounds and Vitality hit-point systems in Unearthed Arcana, although I don't remember those mechanics completly.
Salla 04-13-04, 05:36 PM	What you forget, Utterdark, is that hit points aren't solely the ability to absorb physical punishment. They also represent a number of other ways to 'deflect' punishment; anything from divine providence to raw unbridled luck. Technically, a 10th level Fighter can't take much more physical punishment than a 1st level Fighter. However, he's skilled enough to turn what, to a wet-behind-the-ears sword-slinger, would be a lethal blow into something less lethal; a near miss, graze, or flesh wound.
bitnine 04-13-04, 07:06 PM	As noted, you might want to check out the Storyteller system's "health levels", as that sounds somewhat similar to what you are discussing here. Changing damage into a check such as a constitution check is certainly possible, whereby the success or lack thereoff translates into the number of levels of damage inflicted. If you going with a con check, I would have undead and constructs and the like use one-half their hit dice as their effective con modifier.
bitnine 04-13-04, 07:30 PM	Right, and something else I once wrote on the general subject: I made a long rambling post once that got to the point of HP by the end: Abstraction and Playability/Realism Hm, in many of these discussions, one thing that I rarely see mentioned as a seperate factor is abstraction. Abstraction is a very important concept in the relationship between playability and realism, as it largely acts as a middleman or filter that allows the two to gel better in areas where they might conflict. Generally, I'd view the cases of that sort largely as such: Realism/Description <-> Abstraction <-> Playability/Rules Balance And in many cases, people interject ideas about the levels of abstraction versus description (and the realism issues that arise) without thinking of them as a seperate, yet related issue. It's been mentioned here that a strive towards realism does not mean excessive micromanaging and tearing away all layers of abstraction, and also that many game mechanics can filter through abstraction to be described in a realistic manner. If I say that my character possesses an undrawn dagger, that isn't any more or less realistic than if I describe exactly where the dagger is secured, the composition of the binding, the material that the dagger is made of, the style of the dagger, and how its weight impacts my movement. One is just more abstracted than the other. Where this sort of issue often intersects the realism/playability debate is when someone, for example, wants the descripion to know how well-secured the dagger is and how that might impact their attempt to snatch the dagger from said character. From what I've noted, one of the key complaints of realism against abstraction is that abstraction often asserts that a variety of related items are similar enough to not warrant different treatment or specfic rules, whereas those who disagree feel that there should be some gradiation and acknoweldgement of differences to maintain believability. (I've seen a player who believes in modifying the rules to better represent realism, for example, assert that in the case of his character being invisible near a large creature, that crouching down out of its general swing path should provide him a bonus to the miss chance. The DM stated that the 50% miss chance already respresented his character avoiding blows to the best of his ability, whereas the player thought that there definately should be some difference in this case, as it wasn't really reasonable to think that the specific circumstance would have no impact on the checks being made.) Then there's the issue of filtering playability through abstraction in order to generate a description. One example recently made was a DM who thought that a successful sneak attack versus an unaware combatant (a throat shot, for example) should result in the immediate death of the victim (saves and HP nonwithstanding). To which I responded with the idea that that might be using pre-check description to try to circumnavigate the abstraction that helps to keep the game running. That a successful sneak attack that did lethal damage could indeed be described as a throat shot, but one that did a small portion of damage in perspective the the victim's total HP would better be described differently. However, this largely falls into the next thing... Which Type of Realism? One important thing to realize is that people have different goals to shoot for in the persuit of realism. Some people, of course, take the term literally and try to accurately enact things that are physically possible, a world that might be entirely historical except for the addition of a few key fantasy elements, and even those elements (such as magic) fitting into a logical working as closely as possible. However, that's not what everyone's shooting for, even when they move towards "realism". To say that one either wants the above or either a set of mechanics purely to play a game (or in a greatly exaggerated manner to state that to deny the above is essentially welcoming a jumble of nonsensical cause and effects that follow little logic, believability, and consistancy) is a false dichotomy. Aside from a historic and real world pursuit of a set of consistant workings, there is another form that is also popular. And that would be literary/cinematic 'realism'. The portrayal of characters as if they were characters in a fantasy movie or novel, with a set of generally realistic principles with some alterations and deviances that follow the general formation of a story. To a minor extent, even more historical realistic pursuits take some concessions from this idea. One example might be that though it might be more realistic to check to see if a given character develops cancer or another fatal disease during their lifetime, one of the main characters of a story would rarely randomly contract such. Hit Points work fairly well with the idea of such a system, considering the idea of abstraction and filtering decriptions. Consider a character darting across a field which is being peppered with arrow fire. Realistically, the arrows hit where they may and the very first wound that a character receives might be fatal, even instantly so. However, in most story constructs, a hero is scratched, grazed, exhausted, or otherwise superficially harmed before he suffers a fatal hit. Perhaps a few commoners daring a run across the field get pegged and die ignoble deaths. However, the main character attempting the same act might instead suffer a grazing hit or an otherwise less critical injury. Filtering descriptions is helpful here in preserving believability. Seeing a common cutthroat leap from the shadows at (name your favorite important character from a novel here and replace bracketed text accordingly), you just know that [Menion Leah] isn't likely going to just get stabbed and die. Not because [Menion Leah] is a [6th level ranger/2nd level fighter] with over [50] HP and the rogue only does 1d4 + 2d6 + 2 for his damage, including sneak attack, even if that's the mechanical reason. [Menion Leah] is simply too important of a character to get killed by a lucky stab from a common punk. In a book, it's a lot easier to say that he notices the thug at the last second, that the blow is deflected, that the thug trips, or something else - which is part of how you can choose to describe HP loss. That doesn't mean that characters are invincible. Seeing the main character of a story breathlessly lean against a wall, covered with knicks, bruises, and superficial cuts, you know that he's been worn down and is in real danger. Other important characters or tough monsters or groups of enemies pose a real threat as well, even if they rarely kill with their first attempt. (As you remember, [Menion Leah] almost get taken by [a Siren].) I don't know if any of you have ever played the Siphon Filter games, but in them, there's a "Danger" bar. When enemies are firing guns at you as you dash to find some cover (and then peek out and headshot them), there's a "Danger" bar that begins to fill up. As in many action movies, those grunts with machine guns and the like fire at you, the bullets hitting all around you and getting closer as you stay in the open. When that "Danger" bar fills up (and depending on your enemy it may almost instantly do so), you're going to get shot. Likewise, if you wish to think of it as such, some of (including possibly all but your very last) HP can likewise be described as representing a similar idea.
Salla 04-14-04, 10:52 AM	Very very VERY good, Bitnine. That should be stickied up somewhere for all to read, I think. Have a :cookie:. If I weren't doing Wounds/Vitality in my next game, I'd definitely be using this rationale for Hit Points, and I'm going to show it to other DMs, especially my friend who's running the Swashbuckling Adventures game and is feeling a little dismayed by the 'we're getting pelted but still standing' way he's interpretting the hitpoints, which is against the genre (it's usually a lot more duck-dodge-parry-thrust-ho-ha-spin whack than ow-ow-ow-ow). He'll definitely find this useful! Kudos!
Dreamstryder 04-14-04, 05:56 PM	If you want to use your system, Utterdark, you could treat undead as objects with hp. As long as you don't use hp with living things, this shouldn't be confusing.
77IM 04-15-04, 06:57 PM	The Injury System (mentioned by His Majesty) is a variant in Unearthed Arcana which is very similar to what you describe. It uses a Fortitude save instead of a Con check, and the degree of failure determines the penalty. Simple failure earns you a -1 on all future damage saves, a failure by 5 or more stuns you for a round, and a failure by 10 or more makes you disabled and bleeding (like having 0 hit points). -- 77IM
Masterful_Norg 04-15-04, 10:31 PM	Alternately a failure by 20 can outright kill you if you're DM wishes. Personally, as a DM, I wish. :D
bitnine 04-16-04, 01:14 AM	Originally posted by Salla Very very VERY good, Bitnine. That should be stickied up somewhere for all to read, I think. Have a :cookie:.Well, that was as part of the large Realism vs Playability (wizo-sponsored) debate in which there were a lot of really good posts made, though the thread died with disappointing speed. You can find the original thread here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103993). Mebbe it should get put up in Redgars? Not really an article, though.The Injury System (mentioned by His Majesty) is a variant in Unearthed Arcana which is very similar to what you describe. It uses a Fortitude save instead of a Con check, and the degree of failure determines the penalty. Simple failure earns you a -1 on all future damage saves, a failure by 5 or more stuns you for a round, and a failure by 10 or more makes you disabled and bleeding (like having 0 hit points).Yes, that's probably very close to what the OP described and should work reasonably well. I once thought about an HP/LP system that was sort of a mix of things, but it's probably not exactly what the OP had in mind.