HP Calculations for Creatures

OK, I'm doing some work on my creature stats utility (building the XML schema) and have hit a kinda miniature brick wall.

I don't see rules for generating HP for non-humanoid creatures anywhere. Take the Centaur: the HP can be inferred from the humanoid table, but there's nowhere that it gives definite confirmation that's the way things are meant to be.

Can someone confirm, and maybe can it be added to the MRQ "buglist" and flagged for inclusion in the next player's guide?
 
GbajiTheDeceiver said:
OK, I'm doing some work on my creature stats utility (building the XML schema) and have hit a kinda miniature brick wall.

I don't see rules for generating HP for non-humanoid creatures anywhere. Take the Centaur: the HP can be inferred from the humanoid table, but there's nowhere that it gives definite confirmation that's the way things are meant to be.

Can someone confirm, and maybe can it be added to the MRQ "buglist" and flagged for inclusion in the next player's guide?

That seems to be the way. Look at a Dragon or Giant. HP only vary by 1-2 points per location, so the table in Character Creation seems to apply to creatures, you just have to infer the equivalent location. It does not seem to be based on any kind of multiplier, as in previous editions.

EDIT: Maybe the monsters book will have more on this?
 
It'd make sense in a way if they were just arbitarily assigned by the writers. I know thats how I've been doing it for third-party RQ stuff with nothing to say to do it any other way. Plus if you just make the numbers up rather than calculate them, you can copyright the stats... :)
 
THe hit locations are based on a fomula, and it is a mutiplier (0.20). It is just that the multiplier is based on 5 HP brackets, and applies to all hit locations, instead of a ddiferent mutiplier ofr each location.

THe formula is (CON+SIZ-1)/5, round down (minimum 1 hit point)

THe modifers to this are:

Arms: None
Head, Legs: +1
Abdomen: +2
Chest: +3


For monsters, use the same formula, but themodifers by location are differnt.

Quadruped (Horse, Wolf,m Why bears use the humn hit location is a mystery))
LegsHead: +1 hp
HindQ/Fore Q: +2 hp

Quadrped Flyers: (Griffon)
As quadrupmed, by winds are treated as arms : +0 hp

Quaruped with Tail (Mantucore)
As quadreped, but tsail had same modifers as legs: +1 hpt

Quadruped flyer with tail Dragon)
As a quadrped but use both flyer and tail modifercations above.


Centaurs: (basically mixing huuman and quaduped vales)
Arms: +0 hp
Legs, Head : +1 hp
HindQ/ForeQ: +2 hp
Chest: +3 hp




THat should be wenough to work out hp/location. Just remeber (CON+SIZ-1)/5, down (min 1) and do a +0, +!, +2 and +3 coulms and assign to each body part.

Arms, Wings: +0
Head, Legs, Tail: +1
Abdomen, Forequarters, Hindquarters: +2
Chest: +3
 
Mine ought to work out okay then, as I just took the closest creature in the book and tweaked the locations up or down depending on the size/toughness of each appendage.
 
mthomason said:
Mine ought to work out okay then, as I just took the closest creature in the book and tweaked the locations up or down depending on the size/toughness of each appendage.

You could always check. Divide by 5 is easy. It is the -1 that is the pain in the butt. If the HP chart read 1-4, 5-9, 10-14 instead of 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, the math would have been so much easier.

I supposed I could do an RQ3 stule chart with Arms, Legs, Wings, etc. and the Hit Point vales at certain CON+SIZ vaules. IT would be a very easy spreadsheet too!

RQ3 went up to 118 hp. Does 200hp sound like a good enough range?
 
Greetings

atgxtg said:
THe hit locations are based on a fomula, and it is a mutiplier (0.20). It is just that the multiplier is based on 5 HP brackets, and applies to all hit locations, instead of a ddiferent mutiplier ofr each location.

THe formula is (CON+SIZ-1)/5, round down (minimum 1 hit point)

THe modifers to this are:

Arms: None
Head, Legs: +1
Abdomen: +2
Chest: +3


For monsters, use the same formula, but themodifers by location are differnt.

Quadruped (Horse, Wolf,m Why bears use the humn hit location is a mystery))
LegsHead: +1 hp
HindQ/Fore Q: +2 hp

Quadrped Flyers: (Griffon)
As quadrupmed, by winds are treated as arms : +0 hp

Quaruped with Tail (Mantucore)
As quadreped, but tsail had same modifers as legs: +1 hpt

Quadruped flyer with tail Dragon)
As a quadrped but use both flyer and tail modifercations above.


Centaurs: (basically mixing huuman and quaduped vales)
Arms: +0 hp
Legs, Head : +1 hp
HindQ/ForeQ: +2 hp
Chest: +3 hp




THat should be wenough to work out hp/location. Just remeber (CON+SIZ-1)/5, down (min 1) and do a +0, +!, +2 and +3 coulms and assign to each body part.

Arms, Wings: +0
Head, Legs, Tail: +1
Abdomen, Forequarters, Hindquarters: +2
Chest: +3

atgxtg - I'm impressed. Did you work that out or was it based on knowing how RQ3 allocation worked? I hadn't even got round to thinking about it.

Regards
 
kustenjaeger said:
Greetings

atgxtg said:
atgxtg - I'm impressed. Did you work that out or was it based on knowing how RQ3 allocation worked? I hadn't even got round to thinking about it.

Regards

Yes.

That is to say, I worked it out, but started under the idea of it working like RQ1/2/3, but had to work out the formula after seeing that it didn't quite match up. I was working on a RQ variant over the weekend (posibly for my Pax Romana campaign/book, and looked at the HP formula in an effort to replace it (No hit points just penalties/modifiers for injuries).

THe 5 point brackets was easy (it is on the chart) so the divide by 5 stuff was easy.

Most of the "Work" I did after reading the thread tonight and just flipped through the monsters section of the book.

Maybe, I shoould sent a chart off to S&P? :wink: :roll:
 
atgxtg said:
kustenjaeger said:
Greetings

atgxtg said:
atgxtg - I'm impressed. Did you work that out or was it based on knowing how RQ3 allocation worked? I hadn't even got round to thinking about it.

Regards

Yes.

That is to say, I worked it out, but started under the idea of it working like RQ1/2/3, but had to work out the formula after seeing that it didn't quite match up. I was working on a RQ variant over the weekend (posibly for my Pax Romana campaign/book, and looked at the HP formula in an effort to replace it (No hit points just penalties/modifiers for injuries).

THe 5 point brackets was easy (it is on the chart) so the divide by 5 stuff was easy.

Most of the "Work" I did after reading the thread tonight and just flipped through the monsters section of the book.

Maybe, I shoould sent a chart off to S&P? :wink: :roll:

You're rounding up aren't you?

If one was to round down, we'd say (CON + SIZ + 4) / 5.

Pain in the butt by hand alright, but piece of cake for a PC to handle. So all I need to store then is the add. Cool.....
 
N0pe, rounding down, but with a minimum value of 1 hit point.

CON+SIZ = 20
WIth (CON+SIZ-1)/5 you get 19/5 = 3.8 which rounds down to 3 (MRQ seems to round down, wehre RQ rounded to the nearest).

With (CON+SIZ+4) /5 you would get 24/5, or 4.8 that rounded down to 4, a 1 point difference.

Not surprising since the difference between -1 and +4 is 5 points, and 5/5 =1 so there is a 1 point difference.

THe only real difference is that with the -1 formula you are getting arm HP, where as with the +4 formula you get leg HP, amd have to remember to subract a point for arms and wings.

We could even use (STR+CON)/5-0.2 or +0.8. I might do just that for the spreadsheet
 
OKay here is the table for monster hit points based off of a spreadsheet I just did up.


121fs720094.png


P.S>> One interesting thing about the table is that does make the game a bit more player-biased (not savying that is necessarilty bad, just pointing it out). For instance, a dragon used to have around 4 time the hit points of an average human. While this has changed with MRQ, and dragons have gotten a little smaller, even without the change in SIZ, the dragon's hit points would still "go down: in portorption to the human. This is becuase all location now go up 1 hp per 5 points in CON or SIZ rather than each area having its own mulitpler.
 
Actually, I was going to say the opposite. Everything else being equal (SIZ and CON values), as those totals increase, the current formula provides *more* HPs then it did in RQ3 as you gain HPs above human norms.

For example. A slightly above average human with a 15 str and siz under RQ3 rules would have 15 total hps and 4-6 hps on his locations. The same character in MRQ will have 5-8 hps on his locations (a slight bonus).

However, a Dragon with say 100 total STR+SIZ in RQ3 would have 50 hps and 13-20 hps in his locations. In MRQ, that same creature will have 20-23 hps per location. It's flattened, but it's flattened at the top end not the bottom. Overall, this means that big tough creatures will have fewer "weak spots" to aim for since the relative difference in hps on their locations will be much smaller.

Honestly, the biggest issue isn't the change in formula for location hps. Since they've eliminated total hps, non-human creatures will be inherently tougher simply because they have more locations. This means a lower chance of hitting the same location again everything else being equal. A centaur will have 3 more locations then a human. The number of locations alone will provide a pretty significant combat advantage...
 
Gnarsh said:
Honestly, the biggest issue isn't the change in formula for location hps. Since they've eliminated total hps, non-human creatures will be inherently tougher simply because they have more locations. This means a lower chance of hitting the same location again everything else being equal. A centaur will have 3 more locations then a human. The number of locations alone will provide a pretty significant combat advantage...

Precise Attack anyone? :)
 
Okay... so I am running over some of the data and ran into an issue... Gorp.

I am thinking +6 for total body types... no arms, legs, chest, abdomen, or head. It looks a little light to me... maybe +10.

What do you think?
 
Depends on the creature. For something like Gorp I'd go back to the old average of CON and SIZ. Although to be honest, I seriously can't remember anyone ever killing a Gorp from the old days...
 
GbajiTheDeceiver said:
Depends on the creature. For something like Gorp I'd go back to the old average of CON and SIZ. Although to be honest, I seriously can't remember anyone ever killing a Gorp from the old days...


Tough call. The (CON+SIZ)/2 forumla sounds good, but means that Gorp will increase in total Hit Poionts faster than everyone else, since they will go up 5 hp/10 points (CON+SIZ) rathern that 2 per 10.

THe +10 modifers would seem to fit MRQ better, althoiugh it will mean that a lhuge GOPR won't be a tough as it used to be. THen again with Gorp immunities, it will still be a formidable monster.
 
Gnarsh said:
Actually, I was going to say the opposite. Everything else being equal (SIZ and CON values), as those totals increase, the current formula provides *more* HPs then it did in RQ3 as you gain HPs above human norms.

For example. A slightly above average human with a 15 str and siz under RQ3 rules would have 15 total hps and 4-6 hps on his locations. The same character in MRQ will have 5-8 hps on his locations (a slight bonus).

However, a Dragon with say 100 total STR+SIZ in RQ3 would have 50 hps and 13-20 hps in his locations. In MRQ, that same creature will have 20-23 hps per location. It's flattened, but it's flattened at the top end not the bottom. Overall, this means that big tough creatures will have fewer "weak spots" to aim for since the relative difference in hps on their locations will be much smaller.

Honestly, the biggest issue isn't the change in formula for location hps. Since they've eliminated total hps, non-human creatures will be inherently tougher simply because they have more locations. This means a lower chance of hitting the same location again everything else being equal. A centaur will have 3 more locations then a human. The number of locations alone will provide a pretty significant combat advantage...


Some good points. I agree with most of those points too. THe elemination of total HP, and failure to replace it with some sort of wound peanlty mechanic means that more hit locations=tougher creature. I've been thinking of swiping a stun/shock/painrestiance mechanic and a injury penatly to put into MRQ. I dislike the idea of a character of creature with 1 hp loeft in each location running around as if he were perfectly A-OK. I think it make more sense for everythintgt to work, but for the character to be in a lot of pain, and suffering.
Probabyl something like a peanlty to actions, and to fatigue tests. When one is banged up, even simple tasks are fatiguing.

And yeah, with the hit location formula all the same, monsters don't really have a signficant weak spot after they hit a certain point. 21 hp or 24 hp is all pretty much the same.
 
atgxtg said:
GbajiTheDeceiver said:
Depends on the creature. For something like Gorp I'd go back to the old average of CON and SIZ. Although to be honest, I seriously can't remember anyone ever killing a Gorp from the old days...


Tough call. The (CON+SIZ)/2 forumla sounds good, but means that Gorp will increase in total Hit Poionts faster than everyone else, since they will go up 5 hp/10 points (CON+SIZ) rathern that 2 per 10.

THe +10 modifers would seem to fit MRQ better, althoiugh it will mean that a lhuge GOPR won't be a tough as it used to be. THen again with Gorp immunities, it will still be a formidable monster.

Actually, using a Gorp is probably misleading here, on account of those immunities. My bad.

So the question should be, leaving aside the fact that it's a Gorp, and leaving aside any hypothetical immunities or other special abilities, how - in the absence of total HP - does one handle single-location creatures?

Strikes me that this is the kind of supplementary info that should have been in the SRD, but not necessarily in the core rules (as it wouldn't apply there). After all, it's going to hamstring people using the SRD to create new creatures, some of which may be single-location.
 
Hit points are the sum of SIZ and CON so I'd just give the Gorp the FULL total. The human example with 15hp in RQ2 or 3 can now take much more than 15hp's before dropping.

Don't forget that spells have changed as well, Bladesharp 8 on a sword is a distinct possibility where in older editions it was max'd at 4. Other spells have had damaged bumped up too so giving the Gorp more hp means it won't roll over too quickly.
 
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