The Gaming Den

That's a lot of additional bookkeeping. Can you elaborate a bit more on what the benefits would be? How do you envision it affecting the arc of play? Within combat? Across a campaign? Especially the FP <-> XP exchange thing seems like it would have significant ramifications, I'm wondering what you think those would be.

Stubbazubba wrote:Just come out and say that HP does not represent your physical health, it represents a combination of your ability to sustain damage and will to fight and whatever else.

I cannot disagree with this more. I don't see any gains to being able to yell at someone and cause HP damage that don't lead to darker paths, more arguments and less immersion.

Previn wrote:I cannot disagree with this more. I don't see any gains to being able to yell at someone and cause HP damage that don't lead to darker paths, more arguments and less immersion.

I don't think there is a concrete definition of what HPs are, even if there was I'm sure the 5e devs wouldn't be aware of it.

John Magnum wrote:That's a lot of additional bookkeeping. Can you elaborate a bit more on what the benefits would be? How do you envision it affecting the arc of play? Within combat? Across a campaign? Especially the FP <-> XP exchange thing seems like it would have significant ramifications, I'm wondering what you think those would be.

Basically, this is the biggest difference it would make: In anything short of a TPK, dropped characters can be revived, gather themselves, and keep playing the game*. Odds are you didn't even gain a Wound in the fight that dropped you, and a short rest will bring you back to 1/2 HP and then some. It prevents game-stopping or plot-altering deaths which can really throw off the balance of the encounter in the next room. That's the benefit. Within a single combat, nothing would really change; if you are dropped to 0 HP, you are unconscious, but not in danger of bleeding out and dying (again, with the exception in *). As to the FP to XP exchange, it would basically just mean that each PC has 5 or so FP per adventure, and you can use them to re-roll, mitigate damage, etc. At the end of an adventure, each remaining FP increases your XP total by, say, 3%. Thus if you complete the entire adventure "cleanly" you earn an additional 15% XP, but if necessary, FP can be used to make-up for either bad rolls or going into a fight in poor condition. I don't see that as much additional book-keeping, as opposed to keeping track of negative HPs, rolling a d% every round to see if you stabilize, and needing to remember that you regain 1 HP every day of natural healing, not that anyone does that.

*You could label certain encounters (like your campaign's BBEG or what-have-you) as High Stakes, where 0 HP is bleeding out and -10 or total HP/2 means you really die, to give those encounters an added measure of drama and tension.

@Previn: Just because you say that HP isn't just tissue damage doesn't mean that you have to allow shouting to influence it. Presumably, Intimidate and shouting and stuff already have other effects, and I'm not advocating collapsing everything into HP damage here, just changing the already nebulous definition so that it can be regained quickly without offending anyone's sense of verisimilitude too much.

EDIT: For reference, here's the 3.5 explanation of what HPs are

D&D 3.5 Player's Handbook, p. 145 wrote: What Hit Points Represent: Hit points mean two things in the
game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going,
and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one. For
some characters, hit points may represent divine favor or inner
power. When a paladin survives a fireball, you will be hard pressed to
convince bystanders that she doesn’t have the favor of some higher
power.

I don't think I'm proposing any substantial change.

Juton wrote:

Previn wrote:I cannot disagree with this more. I don't see any gains to being able to yell at someone and cause HP damage that don't lead to darker paths, more arguments and less immersion.

I don't think there is a concrete definition of what HPs are, even if there was I'm sure the 5e devs wouldn't be aware of it.

There isn't a concret definition, and look how many arguments and inconsistencies that's spawned. Then you have 4e which did go into HP being your 'will to fight' or some such which leads to....

PC Bard : I Vicious Mockery the goblin, telling him goblins suck.
DM : The Goblin is insulted, and his head explodes from the insult, killing him.
Players : .... wtf?

I could see multiple condition tracks, but I can't see a sane coherent way of tying 'will to fight' to HP that doesn't lead to bad things.

Stubbazubba wrote:@Previn: Just because you say that HP isn't just tissue damage doesn't mean that you have to allow shouting to influence it. Presumably, Intimidate and shouting and stuff already have other effects, and I'm not advocating collapsing everything into HP damage here, just changing the already nebulous definition so that it can be regained quickly without offending anyone's sense of verisimilitude too much.

So you're now going to have to define everything that does and doesn't effect hp. The Warlord's shouting does, but the bard's insults doesn't? What effects 'will to fight' and how do you handle it on the fly?

HP have been abstract, but until 4e, they actually represented physical wounds in all but the rarest of cases. What you want seems to be a stun track that can be recovered quickly, and covers lots of different things slowing or stopping an adventurer without killing or physically injuring them.

Make all non-damaging effects deal conditions which apply penalties which will be responsible for HP loss, just indirectly, not directly. Intimidating enemies makes them flat-footed until they Save, insulting enemies, I dunno, gives them a penalty to one save, or something, just for variety. But no, I do not want HP to cover lots of different non-physical things, I want it to cover physical things, your body's ability to keep going, but I want it to be able to come some of the way back with a breather. So I suppose you could re-phrase it as your body's ability to be pushed, so that it's clearly mostly dependent on your physical condition, but it comes back for round 2 pretty quickly.

The idea of "HP as much more than just physical wounds" always falls apart for me when you consider things like environmental hazards and executions. I can sort of grok the idea that almost getting shanked decreases your overall endurance and whatever without actually wounding damaging your body. But how does that explanation account for getting dunked in a pool of lava?

Or, even worse: Suppose that the PCs want to slit the throat of a sleeping 10th level fighter who is at full HP. Chances are, a coup-de-grace is not going to kill or even seriously wound the fighter. But, in a system where hp are really abstract, we expect that slitting someone's throat is basically going to be lethal.


I suspect that the best solution for a D&D style game is really just to say "Powerful characters can get stabbed in the face multiple times without dying." You could fluff it like spess mehrins, and have the PCs grow extra vital organs or have really tough skin, or they could sustain themselves by will/(A wizard did it!) after they should be dead. But hp would still correspond to a concrete measurement of physical wounds.

Blicero wrote:I suspect that the best solution for a D&D style game is really just to say "Powerful characters can get stabbed in the face multiple times without dying."

it always has. HIT points.. how many hits you can take before you fall down. just some things HIT harder than others and take away more than a single point.

this allows for people to use HP as strict physical damage, and other to use it as whatever...

on a sillier note what is the proper level that you want to stop playing a character....?

A Menagerie of Topics
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20120402

First of all, I think that most people don't want to play the same character for months at a time. After a while, you've done what you wanted to with your current character and are ready for a new one. So, finding out that 12th level is the end point that many folk want to hit confirmed my suspicion.

WTF?!?!

there is no level to hit before you want to play a new character.. it is the game itself. if i am playing a one-shot, i expect it to last one or less levels for a game-in-a-night, or more depending on the length of the one-shot. if i am playing in a campaign, then i expected to play until i get tired of the campaign or the players. there is NO cut-off level.

the reason people probably hit a certain level and want to change then is probably burn-out on the current game. either the players they have gotten tired of, or the game took a turn that they arent interested in, or maybe they jsut got tired of the character for that game and it isnt working out to be a fun character, so they change hopefully to a more fitting one to the game.

to limit the idea of stopping at a certain level is VERY narrow-minded. something i expect from ENWorld, not a game designer. why did people stop at level 20 when the game allowed level 20 as the highest?

So all this brings us back to the question of how long a player feels invested in a character. Is it how often you level, how much power you gain with a level, hitting a satisfying end point for a character, or are all of these factors?

none of those really. MAYBE the end point for the character, but that really depends on the things i mentioned above.. how much you enjoy the character and the game together.

your poll is also useless as it tries to pick a specific level and has no "none of the above" option in it, so it has failed as a useful poll.

who the fuck would want to play D&D by-the-book? the point of the game is to be able to make it your own. didnt you learn that from 4th you cock sucker?

does the game stay relatively the same across all levels, or does it undergo a radical change at high level?

this high level shit also tries to assume a universal constant which is also false assumption. the game can go to the highest elvel and play exactly like it did at 1st elvel, or it could start with the PCs owning a castle, business or whatever... this is all a part of playstyles, not some universal constant. also in case you didnt think about it, the game can change MANY times over the course of it never having a start or end playstyle, because that is the nature of an RPG.. the unexpected means you cant plan for the future that far into it as to how it will play or you expect it to play.

5e the board game coming to a GenCon near you.

Blicero wrote:Or, even worse: Suppose that the PCs want to slit the throat of a sleeping 10th level fighter who is at full HP. Chances are, a coup-de-grace is not going to kill or even seriously wound the fighter. But, in a system where hp are really abstract, we expect that slitting someone's throat is basically going to be lethal.

Ignoring everything else being discussed. You just made a really stupid argument there.

You described a failing of a specific existing HP/Assassination system, assumed it was universal, pretended it was a good thing with your interpretation of what HP "mean" and then attacked the same effect in essentially the same system with a slightly different interpretation of HP meaning for doing... the same thing.

1) The different system doesn't have to share the same failing at all.

2) Assassinations not working against high hit point targets is either a good thing (because you meant to do it) or a bad thing (because assassinations should somehow be a viable action). And that has no relation to your interpretation of the abstract "meaning" of hit points.

Do you want assassinations to be viable or not? Right, well if you say yes, then somehow they bypass or overload your HP system (if you use one), if you say no then they don't, and I don't give a crap if you have abstract broad hit points or if every hit point is literally an axe blow to the head. It holds true in both cases.

Blicero wrote:The idea of "HP as much more than just physical wounds" always falls apart for me when you consider things like environmental hazards and executions. I can sort of grok the idea that almost getting shanked decreases your overall endurance and whatever without actually wounding damaging your body. But how does that explanation account for getting dunked in a pool of lava?

You really don't understand how being dunked in lava physically injures you? Seriously? You're not sure how BEING BURNED physically wounds a creature?

Or, even worse: Suppose that the PCs want to slit the throat of a sleeping 10th level fighter who is at full HP. Chances are, a coup-de-grace is not going to kill or even seriously wound the fighter. But, in a system where hp are really abstract, we expect that slitting someone's throat is basically going to be lethal.

You don't actually know the coup de grace rules in 3.x do you? A really crappy 9th level rogue with a +2 damage bonus and a short sword will get an automatic critcal hit and his sneak attack, for 7d6+4 damage, or an average of 28 damage. The fighter now has to make a DC 38 fort save or DIE.

Chances are the fighter is going to be dead because if he had +18 to his fort save at 10th level, which he doesn't, he still needs to roll a natural 20 on top of that.

Previn wrote: You don't actually know the coup de grace rules in 3.x do you? A really crappy 9th level rogue with a +2 damage bonus and a short sword...

Anyone who takes Coup de Grace Assassinations seriously enough to do it a lot invests in a scythe. No, not even a magic one most of the time - they literally use it just for the CdG, even if they're not fucking proficient. A first-level Rogue will easily do it (the hardest bit is actually affording the scythe as well as the usual Rogue gear at that point).

No, I didn't add anything particularly useful to the conversation, but it's always good to remember just how easy such things are, when pointing out that people are wrong and don't know the rules they're complaining about.

PhoneLobster wrote: why don't we have our own forum bot that makes more sense than he does?

Ever seen the occasional spambot we get? The titles of their threads are pretty fucking bizarre, but the content (generally just ads for crap) makes more sense.

Koumei wrote:

Previn wrote: You don't actually know the coup de grace rules in 3.x do you? A really crappy 9th level rogue with a +2 damage bonus and a short sword...

Anyone who takes Coup de Grace Assassinations seriously enough to do it a lot invests in a scythe. No, not even a magic one most of the time - they literally use it just for the CdG, even if they're not fucking proficient. A first-level Rogue will easily do it (the hardest bit is actually affording the scythe as well as the usual Rogue gear at that point).

Actually a Heavy Pick would tend to be better than a Scyth since it's much more portable/concealable and can be used 1 or 2 handed and has the x4 multiplier.

No, I didn't add anything particularly useful to the conversation, but it's always good to remember just how easy such things are, when pointing out that people are wrong and don't know the rules they're complaining about.

I honestly thought that a naked 9th level rogue using only his basic class abilities and a +2 str mod and a common weapon was about as simple as I could make it so that he couldn't get into complaints like 'no one uses a scyth' or other contrived defenses.

Previn wrote: I honestly thought that a naked 9th level rogue using only his basic class abilities and a +2 str mod and a common weapon was about as simple as I could make it so that he couldn't get into complaints like 'no one uses a scyth' or other contrived defenses.

I seriously do give scythes to all characters I play who are enthusiastic about the CdG - Sorcerers, Wizards, Clerics, Beguilers, Rogues, whatever. Number of these who are proficient: zero

Previn wrote: You really don't understand how being dunked in lava physically injures you? Seriously? You're not sure how BEING BURNED physically wounds a creature?

What he's complaining about is how 'HP is not entirely physical damage' doesn't explain how a character can be immersed in lava for a round, and be just as capable of fighting as long as he had enough HPs. Where was the 'ducking and dodging, getting worn down' rationale there?

That being said, a handy fix has been released for that particular complaint.

thats easy to fix in the game on many levels. falling into lava.. you die. its like a video game cut-scene where you fall off the clif in certain places, you just cant climb back up.

none of this Vader shit...you fell into lava, you died, unless you had magical protection.

then you can still come back to life and continue playing that character if you want to. (reincarnate+wish/polymorph)

also something i realized about the newest L&L... 2 hours per week, combined with the previous 1-hour adventure.. maybe Mearls is trying to scale in a way since people said 1-hour isnt enough time to play, or much of an adventure with his 3-pillars nonsense and 6 room HOUSE (dungeons with 6 rooms can stay stupid for the facebook game, but in a real TT game this is just a small house or small crypt/mausoleum or something, NOT a dungeon), so that you get a game day in and it has 2 complete mini-adventures so it doesnt feel as empty?

i sense a strong forced scale will be involved with this line of thinking: the 2-hour game night, and 1-hour adventure. i also sense there will be a time-budget, not unlike the XP-budget for encounter that will appear, that assumes each of the pillars gets equal time, interaction, exploration, and combat....sadly those are NOT things the game can design for as that again is up to individual groups as to what THEY want and how much of each they want.

i can only see BAD published adventures coming from 5e at this rate, and a good product should be the adventures as they are more consumable than the sourcebooks. you always need the sourcebooks, but an adventure you get through quickly and have to have another. while it may spur greater sales of adventures having them small like 2-pages in DDi, the problem is those sorts of adventures wont sell that well even at the lowest cost they can make them, because time=money. an hour adventure that costs $7 is basically minimum wage hourly cost per adventure. its just too much to spend on something that gets little use when used once.

Ptolus is a good idea, but not in book form.. it was basically just a boxed set, and THOSE are good sellers because of replayability...or the fact that you dont just play it once (for a week) and shelf it. there are plenty of other places to explore beyond just an hour long adventure or 2-hour game night.

WotC never had good adventure design, so this new idea of 1-hour and 2-hour means more towards board game style play and not TTRPG play.

or worse... it resemble the facebook games where you log on once or twice a day to harvest your whatsit and use your energy. so it will be a social game, in that a "society" of people is playing it at various times, rather than your social group are face-to-face playing it.

Koumei wrote: Anyone who takes Coup de Grace Assassinations seriously enough to do it a lot invests in a scythe. No, not even a magic one most of the time - they literally use it just for the CdG, even if they're not fucking proficient. A first-level Rogue will easily do it (the hardest bit is actually affording the scythe as well as the usual Rogue gear at that point).

I did this as a Sleep-abusing Sorcerer. 18 gp is a good investment.

DM raged.

It strikes me that a lot of the complaints about "slitting the throat not working" arise from one issue - the dagger is not a good weapon to CdG with.

If we assume a heavy pick instead, then even a 1st level commoner with no Strength bonus does 4d6 damage, meaning on average a DC 24 Fortitude save.
Given that's as high as most of the deadliest poisons, that seems ok. And it goes up pretty fast from there.

So, here's some options for that:
A) Precise CdG: Takes like 3-10 rounds, somewhere in that range. Weapon is treated as having a x4 critical, and damage dice are maximized.
B) Certain weapons (daggers, stilettos, etc) have a x4 critical, only for CdG.
C) Aforementioned weapons are super effective against helpless people and do bonus damage.

or just remove stupid rules like this CdG. a prone/helpless character can be killed outright with a single blow. whether the sleep is natural, magically induced, incapacitated, etc that is allowed by the game.

there is nothing wrong with a killing method that completely bypasses the HP system, since the HP system is for trading blows and allows for deflection, while unable to defend provides for none of those protections or even using the HP system.

@Guilty Spork: when you have the balls to sign up here, feel free to ask me directly what it means, otherwise you can hide the "gently caress" on SA. thanks for quoting me with my name on the post unlike Rasamune though.

Maybe character hit points shouldn't go up every level for 20+ levels.

OgreBattle wrote:Maybe character hit points shouldn't go up every level for 20+ levels.

why? or should i say why NOT?

it fits more int he abstract nature of HP, while still allowing for physical damage.

more HP means you have gained more ability to roll-with-the-pain and continue on. it also shows that you can prevent more damaging injuries by deflecting to a minor one, etc.

HP is just damage mitigation, not an increase in the amount of damage you can take.

would you assume it takes 1 HP or 20 to lose an arm? why THAT number?

The problem is with how they scale. Even trimming it back a little would be okay. Something like .... maybe you simply get 1+constitution bonus each level after 10th. I know it doesn't seem like much, but when compared do d4 vs. d12+con mod, it's a big deal.

just a thought.

how about something like this then?

The Constitution bonus ends when a character reaches 10th level (9th for warriors and priests)--neither the Constitution bonus nor Hit Dice are added to a character's hit points after he has passed this level

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

OgreBattle wrote:Maybe character hit points shouldn't go up every level for 20+ levels.

I'd prefer if characters got a boost with every 5-level section, right when attacks increase and spells become more powerful. It would be easy to track and leave large portions of adventuring between benchmarks when nothing scales numerically, you're just increasing the number of options in combat during that time.

If you're worried about environmental damage and assassinations, why not just have those scale with the target's level? Like CDGing someone deals weapon damage + 75% of the target's maximum HP. Then for the most part humans never outlevel having their throats slit, and you still get results that interact correctly with healing and damage reduction.