Hit Points Abstraction

[rgrove0172]

Dont anyone take this as a complaint or criticism, Im a big fan of the Conan RPG and the d20 system. Im a newbie to the system but have learned to appreciate why its a classic.

I am having a bit of trouble coming to grips with the damage system though. At face value there are some glaring problems with the Hit Point v.s. weapon damage dynamic. Even with the mass damage rules and such it still seems as though your typical experienced character has very little to fear from an average swordsmen even when the blow actually lands. Characters seem to shrug off hit and after hit.

Now Ive been around long enough to have heard the explanation that Hit Points actually represent far more than the character's state of health. They also reflect luck, skill, fate and a host of other intangibles that allow a higher level character to survive when a lower character would have been injured or killed.

Ive even heard experienced players, GMs, and game designers (one well respected member of this forum lately) comment that a "Hit" may not really be a "Hit". A character with 30 hit points for example, hit by an arrow shot doing 7 points of damage may not have been hit at all. Rather it was a close call, whistling by the target's ear but consuming a bit of his "Mojo" or whatever you want to call it. If he sheds enough of this intangible, eventually one of those arrows is going to connect, his luck or skill will have run out and that final few HPs lost will represent true damage. Now thats an extreme example but I think it spells out pretty clearly the abstract nature of Hit Points most d20 players accept.

BUT - How many of you GMs actually describe hits on higher level characters as misses? Im trying to imagine me running a game with my players. One of them attacks the Chieftain of a wild clan with a thrown dagger. It hits - the guy is unarmored and the damage roll results in 4 points of damage. THe Chieftain has 28 HP.

"Ok, your throw was good one and against a lesser target it would have connected by Barruba the Great is a seasoned warrior and deftly knocks it aside."

"Wait a minute, I rolled a 16, it hit - his dodge is only a 14"

"Well yeah but with only 4 damage it really missed, you spooked him a little though and he isnt quite so tough as he was a minute ago."

"Uh, ok I guess"

Im not sure that would go over at all. I cant recall at any time in 20 years of gaming Ive heard a GM describe a hit as anything other than a hit. Now granted, perhaps that dagger may have only grazed the guy instead, which would have been accepted by the player a bit more - but then some of that hype about what a Hit Point really is , is just that - hype, isnt it?

Thoughts?

 

[Strom]

Interesting. I've never heard a GM style that dismisses a hit regardless of the damage. In your above scenario I would just describe the thrown dagger as a hit that Barruba shrugs off with contempt - maybe even digging the dagger in a little deeper for effect!

There's no reason a fight can't last 8-9 rounds of whittling down a foe. That's 24-36 seconds of real fighting and every bit of damage should be accounted for. The whittling down of the PC's is a real weapon the GM should use considering the lack of quick healing and the usual need for urgency in most Conan RPG adventures.

Not sure if I added to the discussion but I have never heard that rationale for not accounting for a legitimates hit.

 

[Clovenhoof]

It's a common problem really, and it's faaaaaaaaar worse in D&D where high-level chars can easily have 200HP and more.

The way I explain it to my players -- beforehand, not in an acutal fight -- is about as such:
- If the Attack roll fails to meet your Defence score, it's a clear miss.
- If the Attack "hits" but doesn't cause much damage in proportion to your total HP, the defender still manages to block or dodge, but has to put more effort into it. Maybe you pulled a tendon or sprained a muscle in the course of evading or deflecting the blow.
- A Critical Hit may be a real hit, causing an actual injury. Of course that may be a flesh wound, and you're so full of adrenaline that it doesn't hamper you for the remainder of the combat.
- when your HP run low, that means you get tired. You have to put more and more effort into avoiding the worst, and finally, if your HP drop to 0, you're out of luck and take an actual hit that sends you to the boards.

So to make a long story short, a strike that would mortally wound an inexperienced rookie (12HP) does cause a veteran to break a sweat, but he still manages to avoid taking an actual hit.

That's how I interpret HP, at least.

If you're unhappy with the HP system as it is written, you could also switch to the Wound/Vitality system introduced by D20 Star Wars, or the "Grim'n'Gritty" D&D conversion which is a similar system.
The idea here is that a character usually has "Life Points" equal to his Con score, and "Stamina" or whatever you want to call it equal to normal HP. Normal hits deplete Stamina, and once all the HP are gone, further damage is deducted from your Life points. You can also implement a wound system that gives a penality of, for example, -1 for every 3 LP lost, applied to all relevant rolls.

In these systems, Critical Hits often don't deal multiple HP damage, but instead bypass Vitality/Stamina and go right into Wounds. Which of course means that scoring Crits is the A and O of these combat systems, which will cause a run for anything that extends your threat range, unless you work on the balance.

Years ago, I ran a D&D game using such a Life/Stamina system, but it required more tweaking than I liked, so I didn't even consider it for our Conan round. I'm okay with the system as it is.

 

[argo]

Ive even heard experienced players, GMs, and game designers (one well respected member of this forum lately) comment that a "Hit" may not really be a "Hit". A character with 30 hit points for example, hit by an arrow shot doing 7 points of damage may not have been hit at all. Rather it was a close call, whistling by the target's ear but consuming a bit of his "Mojo" or whatever you want to call it. If he sheds enough of this intangible, eventually one of those arrows is going to connect, his luck or skill will have run out and that final few HPs lost will represent true damage. Now thats an extreme example but I think it spells out pretty clearly the abstract nature of Hit Points most d20 players accept.

:nods: yeah that is prety much it right there. Massive damage (hits for more than 20 points) can be described as solid blows, if the player survives the massive damage save then he toughs it out despite the nasty wound. Otherwise I only describe the hit points from +10 down to -10 as "real" damage. The rest of a character's HP is his ablative force field of pure awsome.

BUT - How many of you GMs actually describe hits on higher level characters as misses?

I do, all the time.

Im trying to imagine me running a game with my players. One of them attacks the Chieftain of a wild clan with a thrown dagger. It hits - the guy is unarmored and the damage roll results in 4 points of damage. THe Chieftain has 28 HP.

"Ok, your throw was good one and against a lesser target it would have connected by Barruba the Great is a seasoned warrior and deftly knocks it aside."

"Wait a minute, I rolled a 16, it hit - his dodge is only a 14"

"Well yeah but with only 4 damage it really missed, you spooked him a little though and he isnt quite so tough as he was a minute ago."

"Uh, ok I guess"

First thing to do is to tell your players flat-out that HP are abstract and will be described as such. Tell them you will describe combat in whatever fashion seems best/coolest to you and they will track the mechanical bonuses seperately and the first guy to whine about it is paying for everyone's pizza :wink:

Second try not describing misses as "near misses". A miss is either the defender neatly avoiding the blow or else poor luck causing the attacker to botch his attempt. This will help when it comes time for you to describe a "hit" that doesn't deal "damage".

Third, when they do hit and deal HP damage you should still describe a negative consequence for the defender. So to use your example Barruba does not "deftly knock the blade aside". Instead try this

player - I roll a 16 ranged attack with my thrown dagger

GM - you hit him, roll damage

player - 4 points

GM - "Your dagger streaks towards Barruba with deadly force but with a desperate energy the Chieftan brings up his own blade at the last possible moment to deflect your throw. His face is set in grim defiance as he is forced to take a step back to regain his balance."

Other things to try
Dodge DV - "you barely manage to twist out of the way", "you stumble backwards to escape the deadly blow", "you feel a muscle pull/ankle twist as you dive out of the way"
Parry DV - "you bring your shield up in time but the resounding force of his blow leaves your arm feeling numb afterward", "you barely manage to turn aside his blade as he slips neatly past your guard"
Lots of Armor - "his axe-blade sweeps accross your midsection, luckily your mail holds up but you can already feel the bruises start to form"

It is also OK to describe dramatic scrapes, nicks, bruises, cut cheeks/arms/pectorals and other heroic bleeding. Its just that such minor wounds dissapear as soon as they become inconvenient.

Hope that helps.

 

[rgrove0172]

Thanks, I appreciate the comments. Your examples were particularly helpful argo.

I suppose an explanation to the players would help. I think its only natural to simply see HP as Health and Damage as well, damage. Once you get past this the system does indeed seem to work, it just takes a certain perspective.

Similarly, Im considering how healing is affected by this notion. If my 40 HP character gets hit with a 8 points arrow strike, a 5 point axe hit and a 3 point fall damage - he is down to 24 points but probably not all that hurt really. Hes a bit sore maybe, but the time spent "healing" is probably just regaining his stamina than anything else.

This is a big change in the way Im accustomed to describing combat however and will definitely have to give it some thought - brief the players, and mentally remind myself each time we play before it becomes practiced.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Similarly, Im considering how healing is affected by this notion.

I think the healing speed in Conan matches the "sore limbs" theory best. If your 40HP char is 4th level and has Con 14, he will recover those 16HP in less than two days, and that's even without complete bed rest, just normal "rest".
That alone rules out actual serious wounds, IMHO. A high-level character (let's say 15) with good Con (18 ) can recover 44HP in a single day with bed rest. So you probably shouldn't treat any damage as "serious wound" unless it dropped the character below 0, simply because it is undone so quickly.

BTW: what "sorcerous means" of healing are there? I found none in the book. Though it would most likely be a Nature Magic spell.

 

[Oly]

BTW: what "sorcerous means" of healing are there? I found none in the book. Though it would most likely be a Nature Magic spell.

There aren't any really, they're not meant to be a big issue in the Conan world. Healing spells might occur occasionally but they're not a regular fixture and they're not something that any PC scholars should get their hands upon.

The faster rates of healing, when compared to D&D, are the "replacement" for healing magic.

 

[rgrove0172]

The rapid healing actually presents its own problems when the GM describes the action in the game.

Recently a 22 HP character took a nasty 9 point bite from a wolf to his leg. Given the severity of the damage I described it as a the wolf latching on and ripping through his boot, shredding the flesh underneath. I made him limp (reduced movement) for the rest of the encounter. Later I realized this "grizzly wound" would be healed would be almost completely healed in (3+ 2(con) + 2 level) one day of rest. I described it as one of those "looked worst than it really was" type of things but it took me by suprise. When I guy can heal half his total hit points in a couple days its pretty obvious there is some REAL abstraction in the works.

From what Im hearing here though is that I really overrated the wound to begin with. 9 points on a 22 HP character should probably have been more of a nuisance injury than a really critical hurt.

 

[Oly]

Nietzsche's quote once more springs to mind, "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger."

Either a wound's bad enough to kill or Conan's back on his feet and out to kill those who wounded him in time at all.

I would make exceptions though for the times when a player has to spend a fate point to cheat death, in those cases the player's healing is in my hands and I might do something more akin to a "Witch Shall be Born" with Conan taking longer than usual to recover from the crucifixion.

Perhaps think of hitpoints as someone being dragged closer to their ultimate destiny rather than massive physical wounds. Death's waiting but if you can cheat him for now then you'll be all right, until the next time....

 

[Clovenhoof]

Well, it really can be tricky to find the right interpretation. True, that kind of scrape did not hamper him and almost completely healed in one day -- but another such scrape, and things would have gotten dangerous (4HP left).

What's part of the problem is that D20 conditions are All-Or-Nothing -- even if you have only 1HP left you suffer no penalties whatsoever and are fresh as the morning. But take that one point of damage to drop to 0 and you're out, and in danger of dying if you aren't careful.

What _could_ be implemented would be to impose penalties on all relevant rolls as your HP approach 0, similar to what I described above. That would tell the player: careful, you are at -2 penalty, your character is wounded, better take it easy. Lost HP would in fact represent more or less serious physical harm.

But how would it best be handled?

- you could spread the penalties equally over the entire current HP range. So a 10HP-character gets penalties at maybe 2,4,6 and 8 HP, and a 40HP char gets them at 8, 16, 24 and 32 HP. But this is not a good solution IMO. It makes it harder to survive on low levels and, because HP loss is so common, involves a lot of bookkeeping. And the thresholds have to be recalculated whenever the max HP change.

- the penalties could only apply over the last few HP. So the "top" HP would simply represent stamina, and when you're exhausted, you start taking real damage. Problem again is to find a way of setting the scale without totally shafting lowlevel or low-HP chars. After all, some characters start with 13HP and others begin the game with 5HP.

- What I tried (in D&D) was declaring normal HP as stamina, and once these hit 0, deducting further damage from Life points based on the Con score. So if you have Con 10, you have 10LP, and take a wound penalty for every other LP lost.
The main problem here is that you have to give EVERY creature in the frigging game these Con-based life points. Which makes a lowlevel game particularly deadly:
A normal party of 4 1st-levels has a total of maybe 40HP. That's about as much as 8-10 easy mooks (d8 HD, 10 Con).
With the Life pool, the 1st level party has maybe 90HP, but the 8 mooks have 120-150HP between them. Notice the disparity? It gets worse the more lowlevel encounters you set between healing phases.

So to make a long story short, I was not yet able to devise a working wound mechanism.

 

[rgrove0172]

Great stuff Clovenhoof, thanks for the insight.

I can see where your going with the incrimental penalties but it seems that goes counter to the notion that the loss of HP is not, at least for a high percentage of the pool, representative of actual damage.

If my 50 HP character takes 10 points, and thats to be attributed to simply the loss of some intangible luck/stamina sort of thing and not an actual injury, it wouldnt seem appropriate to levy a hindering modifier at all.

Your absolutely right though that the "all or nothing" effect of damage is kind of an oddity. The system seems to reflect that you can go a time in any combat without injury, relative to your skill, until your innate ability to avoid it fails, at which time almost any decent attack is going to actually hurt - previously ineffective attacks now threaten to kill you!

Perhaps there is a certain logic to this but its extremely linear and doesnt seem to allow the chaotic nature of true combat to shine through.

As I said earlier, I really dont have a problem with the system mechanics as they apply in the game - the interpretation of such an abstract principle in real-life terms is the hassle.

 

[argo]

Another important point about abstract HP is that it lets the GM adjust the reality of what damage means as the situation demands.

Consider this - a character with 50 HP is struck by a poisoned dart. The dart only deals 1 HP of damage but it delivers an injury poision. Now, as we've discussed above an attack that deals 1 HP damage to a character with 50 HP would usually be descirbed as a "near miss" but in this case the GM says

GM - "you feel a sudden pinprick and looking down at your arm you see a tiny needle sticking out of your bicep. Abruptly you feel a cold numbness spreading up from your arm and your vision blurs. Roll a Fort save."

This is difficult to do in a system where "damage" is defined like the Wound Point/Vitality Point system. There Vitality Points are explicilty defined as "near misses" so in the above scenario if the dart deals VP damage then the poision shouldn't apply, it never hit the character.

By keeping HP an abstract concept it means the GM has the freedom to adapt the results of an attack to fit the needs of the scenario. A thrown dagger that deals 4 damage can be a near miss and a poisoned dart that deals 1 damage can be a hit that delivers poison as the situation requires.

Hope that helps.

 

[argo]

What _could_ be implemented would be to impose penalties on all relevant rolls as your HP approach 0, similar to what I described above. That would tell the player: careful, you are at -2 penalty, your character is wounded, better take it easy. Lost HP would in fact represent more or less serious physical harm.

Yes, this then institutes the "Death Spiral" mechanic into the game. As a character takes more damage he becomes less and less able to defend himself and/or win through.

This is not "bad" per se. Many games use a "death sprial" mechanic. But it does change the style of play from bad-ass high-heroic to a more cautious/gritty style.

 

[Axerules]

BTW: what "sorcerous means" of healing are there? I found none in the book. Though it would most likely be a Nature Magic spell.

There aren't any really, they're not meant to be a big issue in the Conan world. Healing spells might occur occasionally but they're not a regular fixture and they're not something that any PC scholars should get their hands upon.

The faster rates of healing, when compared to D&D, are the "replacement" for healing magic.

There's the Golden Wine of Xuthal. It can only be found there, and will cost a fortune if someone wants to buy it outside of Xuthal.

 

[Soulmage]

Off and on I've given some thought to a modified vitality/wound system that really goes all the way with "winded" vs. "wounded."

This is just the basics of the idea. . . more details can be added once 2E comes out.

Hit Points and Damage
Replace the current hit point/massive save system with the following Life/Stamina point system:

- Each character has "Life Points" equal to their Constitution
- Each character also has "Stamina Points" equal to what were formerly known as Hit Points.

- All combat damage is normally done to a character's stamina points. Stamina represent's the character's ability to twist, roll with punches, etc. When they run out of stamina points, they start taking actual wounds.

Nothing particularly new or revolutionary so far. . . but stay with me.

Healing
- Lost stamina points are FULLY RECOVERED at the end of combat. After the character has the chance to catch their breath and rest a little, they are fine so long as they have not taken any actual wounds. From a metagame perspective, this eliminates the cleric issue and allows the party to continue adventuring without the need for long stops, so long as nobody has been seriously injured.

Actual wounds heal at the rate of 1+ 1/2 the characters Con modifier per day of rest (minimum 1) or 1 point per day of adventuring. So a character with an 18 Con has taken 10 wounds. If he rests up completely, he will heal in 4 days (3 points per day, 1 point on the last day). If he continues to adventure it will take him 10 days to recover.

(Penalties could be introduced to impair the characters abilities when they are wounded. . . but this is just the basics of the idea for now to see if you like it.)

Critical Hits
-On a critical hit, the weapon inflicts its BASE DAMAGE DICE as actual wounds - bypassing stamina - while all bonus damage and bonus dice are dealt to stamina normally.

So, if a character suffers a critical hit from a weapon that inflicts 1d4+5 points of damage, that character suffers 1d4 wounds and 5 points of stamina. (If he doesn't have 5 points of stamina remaining, the excess becomes wounds as normal).

Weapons with a crit multiplier greater than 2 gain bonus damage on a critical hit equal to the crit modifier -1. So a weapon with a x3 crit modifier gains +2 wound damage on a critical hit.

(This rule makes big armor smashing weapons more effective at inflicting actual wounds on armored characters than smaller weapons that have a larger threat range. See Damage Reduction below).

Damage Reduction
- Damage reduction reduces damage normally -- except on critical hits

- On critical hits, damage reduction converts actual wound damage to stamina damage. Thus, your armor can protect you from taking actual wounds, even when struck solidy. Combined with the rule about bonus damage, this means that armor smashing weapons are more likely to inflict actual wound damage on armored characters, even if you are more likely to score a critical with a lighter weapon.)

- I believe there is a system where weapons get an armor piercing quality? That system would stay intact for both regular damage reduction, and damage conversion on a critical hit - a further benefit to armor piercing weapons

Bleeding

Here is another bit that makes the system really hum. . . .

- Once a character has taken a wound, he must make a save each round at the beginning of his turn. The save is a Fortitude save equal to 10 + the number of wounds taken so far.

- If the save is successful, nothing happens.
- If the save fails, the character takes another wound from internal or external bleeding
- If the save fails by 5 or more, the character takes another wound AND falls unconcious

This approach will produce a much more exciting feel, as wounded warriors will gradually weaken on their own over the course of the fight as they slowly bleed to death. Eventually they will either die, or fall unconcious if not treated.

This approach allows for things that you see all the time in movies and books, but not in play. For instance: a soldier is shot in the back with an arrow as he rides away on a horse. He stays concious just long enough to get back to camp and tell his general about the enemy's position, then he falls unconcious or dies.

In regular D&D or Conan, that will almost never happen. . . only if the character JUST HAPPENS to be brought to zero hit points by that shot - even then there is no chance of him dying if he has stayed concious long enough to reach help. With this system its very possible given a critical hit or even just accumulated normal damage that the soldier could live just long enough to pass along the message before expiring.

In short. . . this system allows for dramatic death scenes!


Anyway, that's the basics of the idea.

 

[rgrove0172]

The basics sound good - I looked up the Vitality/Wound on the Hypertext d20 and am impressed. Im guessing this is a well recieved and established option? Has anyone out there used it for any length of time? I cant see a serious flaw at the moment but normally something pops up after using an alternate rule for a while.

I do see that the splitting of the base weapon damage and bonuses could potentially reduce the effect of damage in some cases - Im imagining a typical 1st level Mook being attacked by a 2nd or 3rd level character and netting a critical. 1d6 or even 1d10 isnt likely to drop them Constitution wise, as a warrior they probably have at least a 10 or 11. The bonus, probably a 4 or 5 maybe, isnt going to eliminate their "vitality" hit points either by itself. So in this case a roll that might have incapacitated the mook before, now leaves him hurt but standing. Granted this is just one particular case but I can imagine it comes up regularly.

As rare as critical hits are Im thinking most combats would involve a number of slashes back and forth, described as beating down one's guard, glancing blows off armor, nicks and scrapes etc. until the vitality is reduced or a critical hit is achieved, wherein an actual HIT is achieved. Once a solid blow is landed, its quite possible the fight is over, or very close. (Not unlike the typical combats in the Conan stories where the first real hit normally takes an opponant out)

 

[rgrove0172]

Interesting discussion on this here

http://www.gamingreport.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=XForum&file=viewthread&tid=31

 

[Clovenhoof]

I only ready the first post in its entirety, it's funny to see that the D&D brand manager loathes a fundamental d&d mechanics so much. ^^ But he is right in every way.

I don't know if everyone here knows the Shadowrun system (3rd Ed), so I'll briefly explain it just to remind you there ARE other well-working ways to keep track of damage.
In SR, every corporeal creature has two condition monitors, for physical and mental damage, of 10 boxes each. When you take damage from any source, you check a number of boxes according to the severity of the damage.
More precisly, Light damage is 1 box, Medium 3 boxes, Serious 6 boxes and Deadly is all 10 boxes. Of course, when a condition monitor is all full, you go down, either unconscious (mental) or dying (physical).
You get to resist any damage with the appropriate Ability, either Body [=Constitution] against physical or Willpower against mental damage. Successful rolls decrease the damage levels step by step, and theoretically, if your attributes are high enough and you roll well enough, you can totally negate even Deadly damage. (In practice, there are limits to this. An unarmoured human will never negate a hit from a heavy pistol, for instance.)

Moreover, damage incurs penalties. Basically _every_ roll is penalized except damage resistance rolls (luckily). And this is the aforementioned Death Spiral: even Light damage makes you consideraly less effective. Once you have a Medium wound, it is a very good idea to fall back and get that treated before you enter the action again. You won't do any good in the front line anymore.

That's all you need to know about the SR system. I suppose something like that can be devised for D20 as well. In that case, some kind of Fort Save vs Damage could be used as a basis, but it would probably be a lot of work.

 

[rgrove0172]

Im not interested in revamping the whole system at all - heck I just started playing d20 a few months ago - overall Im thrilled with how the system presents the action in our game. I suppose Id be interested in a minor variation of the rule which would....

1. Permit even low level combatants to threaten higher level targets given the right circumstances (modifiers) or luck.

2. Clarify when damage affects a character's intangible luck or whatever and when it actually reflects physical damage.

3. Allow for character hindrances due to damage sustained before incapacitation.

4. Separate recovery of luck or whatever and actual healing of injuries.

 

[Soulmage]

I do see that the splitting of the base weapon damage and bonuses could potentially reduce the effect of damage in some cases. . . . So in this case a roll that might have incapacitated the mook before, now leaves him hurt but standing.

Basically, under this system EVERYBODY is getting a little tougher. You're eliminating negative hit points, and replacing it by adding a character's constitution to his effective hit points in the form of "Life Points."

So it makes no difference from an overall damage standpoint whether the damage is split or not. . . its just that on a critical you start getting the opportunity to skip the rest of their stamina points.

If you never get a critical. . . you will go all the way through their stamina, then all the way through their life points (or at least until they start failing saves.)