Hit Points, is there a place for them?

[Hogscape]

My houseified 4E rules use a 'magic point' system with casters deriving their spell potential from IQ and CHR (Magic = IQ + 1 per point of CHR over 12). Which means all spell casters have a brand new characteristic...

Should I do the same with Hit Points?

At the moment I use CON but every now and then I find myself wondering whether a wounded character (reduced CON) should be penalised when making (for example) a CON based Saving Roll to fight off the effects of a poison...

If I use a HP characteristic (maybe CON + 1 per point of ST over 12), that issue will never arise since a character with CON 12 and ST 12 has 12 Hit Points; if he takes 6 damage he still has 12 CON and Saving Rolls are not impacted.

Okay, so what if we decide that a character's wounds should play a part in a Saving Roll? You could either apply wounds as a modifier (tricky) or make the SR on the current HP value (better)...

I don't think it adds much in terms of complexity.

Thoughts please?

[sligo]

My understanding (and it's in my house rules) that if you need to make a SR on an attribute that has been reduced (STR - Fatigue, CON - Damage, or WIZ - Kremm), you normally make the saving roll at the current value of the stat, not its undamaged value. There are exceptions. What other games call a "fortitude save" against death is against CON, but at its undamaged value (i.e. I'm not going to make a character try to make a 1st level saving roll on CON when its current value is -5!)

[Toad-Killer-Dog]

Well I've always liked the lack of a hit-point statistic, but I have no real objection to the idea.

I always handled SR's & fluctuating CON by modifying the severity of the SR's against it ( holding of breath underwater, poison, staying conscious, walking through the night while exhausted ) by taking the characters current CON into consideration.

However if the hell has been kicked out of a character then blood loss, fatigue, shock and wounds should take their toll.

I wish I had a hard and fast rule, but I try to be very flexible with SR's.

So I guess I would go with the "Current Hit-Point" option as far as SR's go.

As far as CON + 1 per point of ST over 12 for hit points, I would almost want to keep that as a perk for warriors only and keep wizards and rogues at base CON.

It would certainly help keep the "Balance" ( AHAHAHAHAH ;D ) between the three classes more even at the upper levels.

It would be nice to see a warrior who could shrug off a few good hits from a wizard at high levels.

Thats my feeling anyway,

[Hogscape]

Groovy, thanks for the feedback.

That begs the question 'what is damage?' Or CON loss?

For monsters damage (usually) reduces their combat ability; for player characters, it doesn't.

In 5E all damage is restored once the character leaves the adventure area (dungeon) and no further rules are offered. In 7E (I think) there is some mention of restoring some lost CON over a given period.

In my game if you take less than half CON in damage, you recover all of those points after the battle (fatigue, minor cuts and bruises). If you take more than 50% losses, you recover points equal to your level per day until your reach 50%.

So my point is, if a loss of CON has zero effect on your ability to fight off a hoard of enemies, why should it (for example) impact on your Saving Roll to avoid catching a cold?

ST loss is a different story. It is fatigue; the rules say if your ST drops below the required level to use your weapons, your effectiveness is reduced (see Too Heavy Weapons)...

More feedback please?

[Toad-Killer-Dog]

I like the "Heal damage if less than 1/2 CON taken in a battle" rule, it fits in with the swashbuckling T&T ethos very well.

If I did it I might throw in a little something about getting a serious injury if you fall below 3 CON, but that would be so I could use my surgery and healing rules. ;D

You make a good point about resisting a cold with your reduced CON, that indeed doesn't seem fair.

I know this may sound kooky, but what about resisting poison, disease, fatigue and the like with STR instead of CON?

It makes sense in a Conan-esque sort of way, that way CON would become simply your ability to resist combat damage and as a last ditch SR against death ( Hitpoints in other words ).

[machfront]

Even though I'm of the opinion that CON is much like (though maybe not as much as) D&D's hit points with respect to their abstract nature, I can see how someone who is a bit spent, who's not operating at 100% physiological capacity, would be less resistant to poison, disease and the like.
Maybe it sucks, but it makes sense to me.

After all, when the body goes through fights and/or is injured, it's redirecting it's energies to take care of that stuff.
So, to have to repair itself and shore up it's defenses against infection at places where there may be wounds (however small) and to have to fight off a poison too?...

Sure, CON being reduced may not affect battle-hardiness, but that personally doesn't bother me. After all, ST is in there and it covers more than just muscle power, so there ya are.
When someone is severely weakened or otherwise over-taxed, ST is reduced and it does affect combat ability.

In short, I'd rather find out how and why something does already work, or a reason it does where a reason may not be at first apparent, and keep the rules as they are, rather than introduce a new rule.
Besides, does the new rule really add anything to play? (an incredibly subjective question, of course)

[Hogscape]

The other approach to take, and one that I've taken in the past is that damage doesn't reduce CON. Instead, CON acts as a limit to how many Damage Points you can take. When damage exceeds CON, you're kaputnik.

[mgtremaine]

When I first read this I had a totally Off Thread thought.... [naturally]

You use Iq + Chr for your Magic Points, I used Str + Iq... Which made think what if different Wizard Cults, Schools, etc used different Attribute combos to generate your base Magic Points.

Iq + Str
Iq + Lk
Iq + Cn
Iq + Dx
Iq + Ch

You get 5 basics schools [and pure Iq if you want a Sixth...] That would be an interesting dichotomy to explore..

As far as the real topic, if it works for you play it. Like I others I'm a bit torn as Con seems like it works to me. [Especially when you bring in the Armor system that absorbs hits.]

-Mike

[gaptooth]

I stole Hogscape's idea of deriving Power from IQ + "Adds" derived from Charisma; I've been using it for a long time and I love it. One of the things I like about it is that it creates a parallel: Warriors depend on Combat Adds derived from their fighting abilities, Wizards depend on Magic Power derived from their will and acumen. Since I'm using 7.5 with house rules, Warriors add their level to Combat Adds, and Wizards add their Level to Magic.

Like Mike and Mach said, I like having "hit points" and health CONsolidated into a single score (sorry, couldn't help it), and I'm reluctant to clutter up my character sheets with even more stats. But the idea of deriving hit points from CON + Adds derived from Strength seems sound. When you first wrote "Should I do the same with Hit Points", I thought you would propose deriving the bonus from Luck instead of Strength, but that's a matter of seasoning.

[Toad-Killer-Dog]

Gaptooth's post made me think, what about CON + STR Adds for warrior hitpoints, CON + LUCK Adds for rogue hitpoints and CON + CHR Adds for wizard hitpoints?

I don't know it just kind of popped into my head.

[sligo]

Mar 7, 2011 10:00:44 GMT -5 mgtremaine said:

When I first read this I had a totally Off Thread thought.... [naturally]

You use Iq + Chr for your Magic Points, I used Str + Iq... Which made think what if different Wizard Cults, Schools, etc used different Attribute combos to generate your base Magic Points.

Iq + Str
Iq + Lk
Iq + Cn
Iq + Dx
Iq + Ch

You get 5 basics schools [and pure Iq if you want a Sixth...] That would be an interesting dichotomy to explore..

As far as the real topic, if it works for you play it. Like I others I'm a bit torn as Con seems like it works to me. [Especially when you bring in the Armor system that absorbs hits.]

-Mike

I've kind of done this in my House Rules system. Out of 8 stats, three are necessary for magic users: INT, WIZ, and DEX. There are 5 others, and these define the 5 schools:

STR - Cosmic
SPD - Conjuring
CON - Metabolic
LK - Divine
CHR - Illusion

Each school has its own advantages and disadvantages, for example:

For Conjuring, Illusion & Divine, the magic user may opt to use their 4th key stat for their Caster Check saving rolls, and for Cosmic and Metabolic, they can draw from their 4th key stat for Kremm energy (in the form of fatigue or subdual damage). (Metabolics can use their CON for their caster check, too, but may only spend 1/2 the spell's cost from their CON)

[machfront]

Actually. Ya know? If you're considering this for the purpose of your 4e reboot, then what's the harm in including it as an option and keeping the standard rule as the...well..standard rule?

[ragnorakk]

I don't see the *harm* of having hit points, obviously it ain't gonna break the game. Personally I like having CON mean 'hit points' and keeping damage coupled with penalties to the (seemingly very rare) SR on CON - but as a disclaimer, I'm starting to swing back around to spells draining STR too... I'm becoming a fundamentalist as I age!