First and foremost is the biggest problem and the biggest buggaboo...hit points.
Even realizing that hit points are more luck and the will of the gods and the like than they are any direct representation of how much damage you can take, hit points break versimilitude more completely and more easily than anything else in D&D. This isn’t so bad in combat where things aren’t easily quantifiable and you can sway out of the way and partially block and have your armor absorb much of the impact from most weapons and so forth. But this doesn’t account for it all well at all.
Example: A 7th level Ranger has no qualms about making that 30 foot leap down off a roof top to flee from a powerful foe...and won’t even pause when he hits the ground longer than it takes to go from prone to standing..a move action. Here luck or will of the gods gets pushed WAY out of skew. That fall might well kill you and would almost certainly break something in your body, but with D&D hit points the 3d6 damage our Ranger will take is just too insignifigant to make him pause. On average, if he’s got a 12 Con, he’ll have taken about ¼ of his normal hit point total from the fall and afterwards his actions won’t be curtailed in any way.
Major problem there for versimilitude.
So, what do we do in such cases...or for others that also fall outside the normal limits of versimilitude? The idea here is to find a mechanic that could be applied across a wide range of the problem situations, so maybe something tied to the saves might be useful.
Alternatively you could steal from 2E Players Options, but it's crunchy, clunky and kinda lame.
It's a way better idea to add new rules on top of the existing ones. An example:
When a character has less than half its hit points the character becomes injured. An injured character gets a -1 penalty on any skill check, ability check, attack roll and saving throw, the character also loses 10% in all of his movement speeds (even magical ones) and have a 5% chance of fumbling the casting of any spell or power.
When a character has less hit points than a quarter of his total the character becomes wounded. A wounded character gets a -2 penalty on any skill check, ability check, attack roll and saving throw, the character also loses 20% in all of his movement speeds (even magical ones) and have a 10% chance of fumbling the casting of any spell or power.
You can add more flavor by adding some more rules, like making the Diehard feat prevent the character from becoming wounded.
You can (and should) also change some damage values, like the falling damage, try using this formula:
Falling damage = (distance / 10)² d6
So a 10' fall is 1d6 damage... a 20' fall are 4d6... a 30' fall are 9d6... ... a 100' fall is instant death (100d6 ~ 350 points of damage)
Although a system based off saving throws seem attractive at first be very careful about this, the base save system is very poorly designed, multiclassing sends base save bonuses off the sky and beyond, unless you fix the good base save progression (2 + half class level) or heavily limit multiclassing, do not use a health system based on saving throws. Imagine this, you have two players, one is a 9th level rogue and the other one is a 2nd level fighter, 3rd level ranger, 2nd level exotic weapon master and 2nd level dwarven defender... they are both 9th level characters but what are their base fortitude saves? The rogue has a +3 and the multiclassed character has a +12. Yes it's completely outbalanced, and no other modifier has been added. With the rules as they are it's posible to get to +30 at 10th level on a saving throw by heavy multiclassing, feats and magic items... so please, do not use health system based on saving throws, saving throws are not well done. One way to fix the imbalance a bit is to lower the good base save formula a bit removing the +2 or making it +1.
You could use a Con check for stuff like that - every crit, fall other major damage situation requires a Con check - you fail you suffer an effect - depending on your taste you could create an effects table (cough Rollmaster cough) or you could simply have grades of effects and narrate them how you want.
Or you could use ability damage - striges use Con damage for blood drain, so it makes sense that anything involving major blood loss causes Con damage. Anything crippling (or potentially crippling) causes Dex/Str damage. Any kind of Concussion causes Wis/Int damage.
For fall damage every 6 rolled causes ability damage, for saves every natural 1 or failure by 10 or more, for attacks every crit.
So our Ranger takes 6+4+3 damage - 13 HP and 6 Dex - this is narrated as a leg injury (but mechanically it's unimportant).
As DM you could offer a choice of ability damage or a hard effect (do you want 6 dex damage or half movement?, Six Int damage or be knocked out, 6 Str or a broken right arm) forcing players to make hard decisions when they're injured.
2) The players' characters are heroes(tm). They are supposed to be doing extraordinary things.
3) Player characters easily break the laws of physics and can accomplish non-magical tasks far better than in the real world.
Consistent realism is only necessary for the game world, not in comparison to the real world. If the ranger wants to jump down 30ft because he figures he can take the impact, and it's much better than the alternative, whatever that is, then so be it.
A 7th level ranger is not a joe schmo. It makes perfect sense a 7th level ranger can do things and live through it that a typical NPC commoner could never do. He's 7th level! 7th level means something. Some situations that were very difficult at 1st level are supposed to become trivial as the levels progress. That's a feature, not a bug.
My opinion is that hit points, as a concept, is not something that is wrong with D&D and doesn't need fixing. Wanting to fix the possibility of a barbarian rolling lots of <5's on a d12 as he levels is another matter.
You know it can add to the excitement - not just fighting yet another orc, but fighting an orc when you've got a broken leg and can hardly see for the blood dripping in your eyes from a cut in your forehead.
Think of Kill Bill when she fought Buck - she was basically paraplegic and that scene was great. If she'd been at full strength Buck would have been a total non-event. There are lots of films, stories and legends where heroes fight while severely weakend by injuries.
I think that's the point of having injuries that hurt characters - it adds another level of strategy to the game and pathos to the characters.
Not for everyone, but fun for some.
If you want to stay in the HP system however, I think Werral has some good ideas. Keeping it really simple, you could say that falling more than a set distance requires a Fort save or you're dazed/stunned/unconscious for a number of rounds, with the condition and duration based on the length of the fall and how badly you fail. A chart for this could be drawn up pretty easily.
This keeps the heroic feel of the game; after all if a Monk or Rogue can take no damage when standing in the middle of a 10d6 fireball (where did he hide??), then characters should be able to fall great distances and get right back up if they make their save. If they fail, though...could be nasty. This way you get the best of both worlds; characters can be heroic, but it's a bit of a gamble.
Mor
now classes and PrC gives only progression (on BAB too) and first level gives some front load (+2 on high, +1 on average1, and +0 on low, nothing for BAB) problem solved.
works in both side:
- help the 1/1/1 from being crippled at +0 to hit (makes it +2),
- from Killy's example (2nd level fighter, 3rd level ranger, 2nd level exotic weapon master and 2nd level dwarven defender):
it comes from Fort +12, Ref +3, Will +3 to Fort +6(.5), Ref +3(.5), Will +3(.333)
(assuming Fgt level taken first and Exotic Weapon Master to have high Fort, low Ref, low Will)
... it seems like a loss but consider Brd2/Wiz2/Sorc2 (I know it's silly, but the previous example was designed well enough to compensate)
it comes from Fort +0, Ref +3, Will +9 to Fort +2(.0), Ref +4(.333), Will +5(.0)
he looses in Will but gain in Ref and Fort
[edit]
in fact, UA does not restrict front load, just one of our house rules to further emphasize starter level and reducing multiclass sweetness (in exchange of no penalty whatsoever for multiclassing),
so with killy's example we get Fort +6(.5), Ref +5(.5), Will +5(.333), so a trade instead of an utter loss
and the second (silly) example give the exact same result except you are not required to take Bard for your 1st level (which you'll do anyway SP-wise, but that's another story)
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1: yeah I know DnD doesn't use them but they exist in other D20 systems and in various homebrew classes presented on these boards
Multiclassing is self-correcting. You can get some synergy goodness in class abilities. You'll also be getting a little more versatility in exchange for overall power. Saving throw progressions, with bumps of +2's and stagnations of +0 are merely features of multiclassing, not bugs. A fighter/cleric multiclass gets a real nice fortitude save, an evened out will save, and a really crappy reflex save. That's a feature of multiclassing, not a bug. No one multiclasses for the saving throws. No one multiclasses monk or favored soul because they have all good saving throw progressions. Class features and character concepts matter a lot more.
Asurya, I know fractional progression, but I do like to hurt multiclassing characters a bit... and actually, even with lower base saves, they are still a lot more powerful than single-classed characters, so it hasn't been a problem in my games. I run 2 games, in one my players have a good save equal to half class level with 4 save points at first level, in the other game the good save equals 1 + half class level with 2 save points at first level. Both work OK and now I don't have to worry about some player succeeding only with a nat 20 another one is only rolling to see if it's not a nat 1.
Going back on topic, you can make a more "realistic" system on top of the HP system, but as I said before, changing the HP system for another can be a pain in the butt during play.
The object here isn't realism. That's the last thing a fantasy game needs. The object is versimilitude.
You do NOT need to be able to take a bazooka round to the chest and smile or jump off five story buildings and run off afterward to be heroic. The better class of fantasy literature NEVER has these kinds of silliness in them. Cheap anime/fantasy and superhero schlock...sure, but not well done heroic fantasy. This game CAN be used to deliever that, but hit points make it more difficult than needed...or appreciated.
The idea isn't to fix just falling/jumping down. The idea is to set a mechanic that can be used to make a broad ideal more workable...and that can still be applied universally, not just to PCs. The old "Grim and Gritty" variant system is beginning to look more and more like the way to go, but I was hoping, against hope it seems, that SOMETHING else I was missing might crop up. I don't like Grim and Gritty because it changes too many sub-systems and many of those in a less than optimal manner. I tried the system a few years back and gave it a good 20+ session run. Yes, the games are much less super-heroey, but the loss of flexibility seems to curtail so many things that way.
I don't know....maybe it'll just be a wait and see with 4e and maybe something there will suggest itself, although more and more that seems to be going in the direct opposite direction INTO the anime/stuper hero style.
Isshia
In OD&D you got no max hp at first level. Magic Users and Thieves got 1d4, clerics 1d6 (I think) and fighters 1d8. After 10th level you only got a flat amount of HP - 1 per level for wizards, 3 for fighters.
No max hp at 1st, only fighter types get full Con bonus to hp (other classes get half). Suddenly the toughness feat doesn't look so bad...
This was all in the original game and changed as players wanted better survival chances (OD&D, then greyhawk, then 1e then 1e UA, then 2e then 3e and now 4e all seem to up the power level of PCs) (I think the baseline assumption in the original game was that the PC's would probably die, whereas in 3E it's that they'll probably win).
Combine that with crits that cause a special effect - say the crit multiplier in abiity score damage (defender chooses unless the attacketr makes a called shot at -4, rolls and confirms a crit, then attacker chooses which stat) OR simply a flat penalty (so after taking a critical hit with an axe you suffer a -3 to all actions and that's cumulative)
Add in a massive damage equal to Con and it gets pretty rough out there. Too rough for some, but that's what separates the men from the boys (and the women from the girls).
One different approach would be not change the HP, but something that can't provoke problems with the rest of the rules, something not overruled... something like Weapon Damage. Increase all references to Weapon Damage, so a critical hit would become something really frightening and every hit will count.
For example, this is the normal table for attack damage:
navar100, I don't know how many high level campaigns you have played or DMed, but i have done a few, and at that level some numbers start to matter a lot more than before, some of them are the base save bonuses, and when making encounters for them I know that the Fighter 2 / Ranger 3 / Psychic Warrior 2 / Deepwarden 2 / Exotic Weapon Master 3 / Dwarven Defender 8 is gonna succeed in practically any fortitude saving throw, and the 20th level fighter probably not, and they are both warriors, both have good fortitude base save bonuses, so what's the deal here? you say this is no design bug but how can you know that, it's pretty obvious that when they published 3rd Edition prestige classes weren't much of an option, there were like one PrC for every base class so nobody thought this could happen, but at high level games it does, and bothers. If it wasn't a design bug, why did they fix it in 4th Edition?
What is this character's reflex and will saves? He's a 20th level character that can handle any fortitude saving throw. I have no problem with that. He's still vulnerable to reflex and will.
I don't care what 4E is doing.
Lower HP and kill the uber charger stuff - would it be a problem with just the three main rulebooks for example?
You could go old-school and simply make all stats a straight 3d6 roll with no kiggling (you roll str, then COn, then dex etc.. and you get what you're given). No uber anything's then.
I still think ability damage/penalties is the way to go. Maybe instead of saves you could use Con checks? Or even just a check based on level (d20 +level versus damage)
Also anyone takes a crit they become crippled (like when you're at 1 hp under current rules) until they take one round of rest (so it's a teamwork element - get your buddy out of combat or he's a gonna).
You could also say that you're crippled at half HP.
The trick is keeping it simple.
What is this character's reflex and will saves? He's a 20th level character that can handle any fortitude saving throw. I have no problem with that. He's still vulnerable to reflex and will.
You seem not to have made your homework:
Multiclassed character base save bonuses:
Fortitude: +21
Reflex: +6
Will: +11
20th level fighter base save bonuses:
Fortitude: +12
Reflex: +6
Will: +6
So no, he doesn't have a crappy reflex save... just as much as much other characters of the same level, and the Will save is almost as good as the Wizard's. And I wasn't even trying with that example.
Lower HP and kill the uber charger stuff - would it be a problem with just the three main rulebooks for example?
With just the three main rulebooks you can deal more than 100 points of damage with a single charge, a high level mounted paladin can pull this off just having a score of 13 in Strength... and the ubercharger stuff was just an example of unbalance, there can be many unbalanced stuff if you lower the HP, direct damage magic is one of them, spells that functions with HP restrictions like the power word spells, healing magic would be too good all of a sudden, my point is that if you change the HP system for another one there are a lot of little stuff that won't work and a new system will have to deal with it, that's why i say that removing the HP system is a bad idea, cause it's too much work and it doesn't seem to be worth it.
I like the idea of ability damage, but found it hard to rule, when do you have to roll for an injury? every critical hit? every time you're dealt more than 10 hit points of damage? does this system makes poison use useless? does this system makes stunning fist useless? does this system makes heavy hitting characters too powerful? does this system makes power attack or smite evil too powerful?
You seem not to have made your homework:
Multiclassed character base save bonuses:
Fortitude: +21
Reflex: +6
Will: +11
20th level fighter base save bonuses:
Fortitude: +12
Reflex: +6
Will: +6
So no, he doesn't have a crappy reflex save... just as much as much other characters of the same level, and the Will save is almost as good as the Wizard's. And I wasn't even trying with that example.
+6 at level 20 is rather crappy.
The character in question will almost assuredly make every fortitude save, make some will saves and fail some will saves, and fail most reflex saves.
Factor in save bonuses from item and spells. He will almost assuredly make every fortitude save as before, will make more will saves than he fails, and will make some reflex saves and fail some reflex saves. He's level 20. Considering all the save or die/screwed floating around, that's about right.
It's not only that the high end of the scale is too high, but also that the low end of the scale is too low. And the House Cat isn't the only problem there either, so solving it is a band aid at best.
A goblin with a spear is just too fragile. A peasant with a pitch fork can kill this boy dead with one shot almost as easily as a 3rd level half orc ranger with bastardsword, yet these are a primary predation problem race on "frontiers". For that matter there is too great a gape between the average NPC guardsman and a first level Dwarf Fighter (or gods forbid, Barbarian). Heroic is one thing, disdain (our Dwarf Fighter will likely have triple the hit points or more of the veteran guardsman) is another. How often have you seen it as DMs? You almost are obliged to make your guardsmen (especially those around a ruler) with double the relative levels the DMG tells us they should have.
So, up the basic person? Maybe the average peasant farm boy at 18 is a Commoner*1, but beyond that age and that degree of relative life experience there maybe should be some scaling to keep the House Cat (or a Wizards familiar worse yet) from pulling a "Pet Cemetary" without even being undead.
But how do we do THIS and really keep the PCs specialness factor...which since this is a heroic fantasy game, they need, without getting simply in to a different power creep spiral?
The "old school" idea wouldn't solve the problem either though. It'd merely exacerbate it. The problem then becomes differntial. The barmaid with the 18 strength and the town militiaman with the 6 strength...or worse the PC with equivalent of a 12 point build in a game universe that expects a 25 minimum in the same party with the mad roller and his equivalent 43 point build.
Isshia
A while ago I started DMing for some friends starting at third level... made some calculations and find out that all my traps that deal damage were too deadly for first levels, but completely surmountable for third level characters, only because of HP, the problem was that two players wanted to play races with a +2 LA, they were starting with only 1 HD.
By the rulesn, there were a grey elf 3rd level wizard with like 12 hit points, two human 3rd level warlocks with about 20 hit points each and a dwarf 3rd level cleric with about 24 hit points, finally a drow 1st level ranger with 9 hit points or so and a (tiny) fairy 1st level bard with measely 7 hit points, all character had an ECL of 3. They started escaping from slave traders and getting by mistake into a dungeon, it was a maze like dungeon so getting out should have taken more than just one session... then adjusting the CR of the enemies and traps I found out that the fairy and the drow (probably the Wizard) weren't gonna make it, on the other hand they were 6 characters, so solo monsters weren't gonna be much of an adventure, if all 6 of them attacked it was gonna be over in like a round and if the monster attacked one of the weakest characters it was gonna be over for him/her. So, for the fun facter decided to give more HP to everything.
The houserule was simple, the first Hit Die wasn't maximized, it was rolled, but every single being in the world receives 10 extra hit points (just for being an adult of their species), for every size category over medium receives an extra 2 hit points, and for every size category below medium loses 2 hit points. Every single character received 10 hit points but the fairy, she got only 6 extra hit points. The HP chart became something like this:
Grey elf 3rd level wizard: 21 hp
Human 3rd level warlocks: 30 hp or so each.
Dwarf 3rd level cleric: 32 hp
Drow 1st level ranger: 17 hp
Fairy 1st level bard: 12 hp
I also gave an extra feat at first level, and 10 extra skill points. But this was true for every single creature in the game so enemies weren't that easy to beat.
The game was a blast, the players didn't feel like... low level characters but more like low level heroes, then when they gained more levels those benefits started to lose importance and didn't affect game balance at all. Since then I consider a great idea to boost low level characters.
As a side note, Commoners stopped dying when falling or attacked by a cat, besides could take 2 Skill Focus feats instead of just one and had some ranks in things other than just Craft (whatever this commoner does) or Profession (something else).
I do like the stat penalty effect. You fall more than 20 feet, make a dex con check (-1 for every 10 feet past 30), if you fail, you take a 1d4 dex penalty due to a twisted ankle, or something of the sort. After a days rest you're back to ok. A class like rogue or monk or a character w/ high tumble or jump would get some bonuses.
This is just for the 'fall' example, but i do ad-hoc rulings quite often for situations that either are not covered in the rules, or do not satisfy me (either too heavily ruled or not ruled enough).
See my "nature of a hero" thread for my views on the hero vs superhero effect that has occured between versions of d&d. I still play by the ad&d mentality that the PCs are normal people, not superheroes (at low level at least). NPC civilians are for the most part in my games lvl 1-3, except for ex adventurers and the like.
A single goblin w/ a spear is fragile and should be, and a bunch of commoners w/ pitch forks woudln't fear him... it's when you have a while clan of goblins that they call in the adventurers.
Yes, d&d is a game, but I (and others) prefer it to be a highly internally consistant and realistic game. Realistic in the "cause and effect laws" of the world make sense. Not realistic to earth, 2008.
Yes, d&d is a game, but I (and others) prefer it to be a highly internally consistant and realistic game. Realistic in the "cause and effect laws" of the world make sense. Not realistic to earth, 2008.
And that is the essence of versimilitude. It's an internal consistentcy to such a degree that a pseudo-realism is acheived thereby.
Too, because a game is just a game doesn't mean that one shouldn't try to optimize it... improve it.
The 10 extra hit points might be a way to go for solving some of the low end issues and a combination of emphasising individual rules towards that consistency might have to be the other end of it. Being the lazy sort (actually, since I'm also running two Shadowrun games and a second D&D game from the one we are contemplating tinkering with, it's more truthfully a lack of time than laziness) I was hoping for something more universal. So, as I always make sure my Players know the rules of the world they are interacting with intimately (and thus can't on the fly alot of the things I might want to shake out of ym wrist otherwise), a mecahnic replacing HP would have been the ideal.
This is especially the case as this still leaves the higher end problems in place, but as we will start off slowly, maybe this can STILL get fixed ahead of time if the hopefully proposed mechanic is compatible to that.
Isshia
I agree totally that there is always room for improvement, whether to make the game more detailed for a certain group or more streamlined for another.
Best of luck finding something that works well for your group.
In our context, a 7th level ranger can leap off a building, a fighter can defeat a lion with ease, a druid can change into a bear, and a wizard can fly. In that context, verisimilitude is kept. In many respects, leaping off the building is more believable than everything else.
Your ranger jumps off a tall cliff to land at the bottom. That avoids the challenge that you set up. A wizard casts levitate, and that also gets around the challenge that you set up. The ringer gets lots of his hit points from his class and he uses them to solve a problem. The wizard gets spells from his class and uses them to solve a problem. Why can the wizard use his class features to solve a problem while the ranger's class features break verisimilitude?
I think that you are using a dual standard.
e.g. Player - My ranger jumps off the building
DM Okay, you may well break your leg though
Player Yeah?
DM You'll need to make Dex/tumble DC 20 (or whatever) or he breaks his leg - half movement and lose dex bonus to AC till healed - sure you want him to jump?
Player - Okay, is there a ladder?
or I'm game! gimme that die.
It's predictable, because that may happen and the player doesn't feel screwed becaue they have a choice.
It is important for the Player to know ahead of time what the outcome of certain actions might be as part of their planning. If the Player has his Ranger race across the roof tops planning to jump down and suddenly finds out that such a thing would be untenable, after having gotten there and put himself in to the vulnerable position, even if it is before he actually does the act in question.
And as for the example:
There is NO consistency in the three stated examples. The Wizard doesn't JUST fly. He flies by means of a spell, a supernatural ability. Hit points are not supposed to represent a supernatural anything. They are used for both the 1hp barmaid and the 40+hp Ranger. It needs to stay consistent between both...or atleast close enough to consistent that the barmaid doesn't die EVERY TIME she falls from a stool and the Ranger doesn't jump up and run off everytime he falls from a 3 story roof top.
The man defeating the lion CAN happen, within the dice and probability even with the 1st level Common against the lion and even then it is a loose enough system, so different from the leap and run scenario, that there can be no comparison drawn that makes sense in this manner.
Men are amazing creatures. They've hunted lions using nothing more than sharpened, fire hardened sticks. And yes, they have also survived three story falls. And there may even be a man (without training) who has survived a three story fall and gotten up and run off completely unaffected afterwards...but in this case the rarity is soooooo great that it beggars winning the lotto jackpot.
So, it isn't contextual... not within any reasonable degree of versimilitude. Try seeing how well an african elephant does in the same three story fall, with ALOT more hit points as our Ranger has. The elephant will be able to swan dive off of buildings twice as high and suffer less proportional damage. There is NO versimilitude in that.
Isshia
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=999950
No HP at all.
This does make it less predicatable - the barmaid can survive a tremendous fall and the ranger could injure himself falling from a stool. You might want to tinker with it to taste and maybe look at balancing save progression as well as adjusting the DCs.
If you've ever played Cyberpunk this is exactly the effect you get - things are consistently dangerous but there is still a chance of getting over things.
Otherwise, you know D20 just isn't designed for that- it's designed for power play. Runequest, Pendragon, Cyberpunk, GURPS and probably some others all do the mortal heroes thing better IMO.
If you want realism, play GURPS.
Funny how that seems to be the main answer to all things that has to do with realism... Nothing against Illithid Tentacles, its just a general observation...
Because full BAB is so rare in that game and multiclassing is so prevelant, folks don't get iterative attacks until fairly late game so it rarely becomes too troublesome.
Obviously this effects game balance and is totally unsuitable to D&D....