Hit Points and Character Death

 

I'm reading a lot of posts asking, "What do hit points really measure?" or something similar. Where hit points seem to jump the shark for people is when a high level character falls 100 feet, gets up, dusts himself off and walks away - or the giant fights with one hit point as effectively as he did with fifty.

D&D seems to me to be about resource management - and hit points are just another resource to manage. Do I have enough to get through another encounter? If not, am I in a safe place to rest? If not... how do I manage my resources? 

So here's my proposal for hit points (almost certainly not original of course - but I haven't seen it exactly like this anywhere).  

NOTE that this is, of course, an untested work in progress :)

Health, Hit Points, Damage and Recovery

Health Points at 0 Level - all characters roll 1d8 for Life Points, Creatures have their Hit Dice in Life Points

Hit Points are rolled at each successive level according to class and added to the Hit Point Total, as normal. Hit Points represent exhaustion, tenacity, skill, survival instinct, and the blessing (or not!) of the fates and are easily lost and fairly quickly recovered. 

Damage in combat and adventuring (with some few exceptions, see below) reduces Hit Points until they are exhausted, then Life Points are reduced accordingly. Additionally, once Hit Points are exhausted, Life Points are drained normally (that is, a 0 level human, or a levelled character who has 0 Hit Points remaining, who is hit for 5 points loses those 5 Life Points) and each point is a wound or scar (see below). 

Each time a character takes 10 or more hit points in damage in a single round, regardless of how many total Hit Points the character has, his or her Life Points are reduced, one Life Point per 10 Hit Points of damage, rounded down (1 Life Point for 10-19 Hit Points, 2 Life for 20-29 Hit Points, etc.) with a subsequent Wound or Scar (see below).

Hit Points are recovered with Rest, while Life Points with Recuperation.

Rest: for every 10 minutes of rest, recover one Hit Dice of Hit Points.

Recuperation: for every 2 hours of recuperation, recover all Hit Points and 1 Life Point.

On Death, Dying and Dismemberment

Characters reduced to 0 Life Points are Dying. Dying Characters make a death save every round. A Death Save is a d20 rolled against the PC’s Constitution score, adjusted by his or her Constitution bonus. Two successive failed Death saves and the Character is dead. If a Dying Character is tended to by another Character (or NPC), the Death Save is rolled at Advantage.

Wounds and Scars: When a Life Point is lost, the Character receives a wound or scar appropriate to the situation. Roll on the general wounds and scars table below, adjusted by the number of Health Points lost in a single round and the Character’s Constitution Bonus (adding the Life Points lost, subtracting the Constitution Bonus).

Roll 1d12	Effect
1 or less	a surge of adrenaline returns 1d4 hit points per every other level (1d4 at 1st and 2nd, 2d4 at 3rd and 4th, etc.) At the end of the combat, the adrenaline drains away, hit points are reduced to zero, and the PC faints for 2d6 rounds.
2	No Effect
3-4	Minor Scar. It’s just a flesh wound, really. A little blood, a little pain but no lasting effect except a little scar (as determined by player and DM)
5-6	Major Scar. Out of action for remainder of combat and heal at half rate for 24 hours. Permanent scar (as determined by player and DM)
7	knocked down, disadvantage on rolls next round
8	knocked out for 2d6 rounds, unless wearing a helm. With helm, only stunned for 1 round. Disadvantage for 1d12 subsequent hours
9	broken bone (DM's choice), 2d4+9 weeks to heal.
10	severed limb (DM's choice or roll randomly) will die in 3d6 rounds unless tourniquet applied, wound cauterized with fire, or Cure Serious Wounds cast (CSW used for this will not restore lost hp).
11	fatal wound (gutted, stabbed through lung, broken back, etc.) die in 1d6 turns.
12+	instant death (decapitated or other grievous wound).

NOTE: While death is generally final, there are some rituals of the Church of the Holy Saints that can potentially resurrect a dead Character. In addition, the clerics of the old gods (Druids) can employ spells like Reincarnation to keep a Character’s Soul from traveling to the great beyond and magic users are able to trap souls in the Mortal Realm (in decaying bodies or as disembodied spirits). 

Attribute (Statistic) Idea: I hate dump stats

Over on dragonsfoot.org someone suggested an alternative to the traditional 6 attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma) to 4 attributes, each split in two (Strength/Endurance, Dexterity/Agility, Intelligence/Perception, Will/Charisma). 

Interesting notion. Somebody pointed the discussion to MEGS (Mayfair Exponential Game System)** which is cool: each attribute increase DOUBLES - hence the name - the ability so if a Strength 1 can lift 50 pounds, Strength 2 can lift 100 pounds, Strength 3 can lift 200 pounds, Strength 4 can lift 400 pounds, then 800, 1600, 3200, etc...

Neat idea and works for superheroes rather elegantly.

I'm more interested in their breakdown of abilities, however:

Dexterity, Strength, Body

Intelligence, Will, Mind

Influence, Aura, Spirit

What I like is the kind of holistic approach to body mind and spirit. 

Here's a half-baked, untested, early morning attribute idea to consider:

Body: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution (or Strength, Agility, Health)

Mind: Intelligence, Wisdom or Perception, Sanity

Spirit: Influence or Leadership, Piety, Luck (Not completely sold on piety or luck, tbh)

Rolling Attributes: for each CATEGORY (Body, Mind, Spirit) roll 10d6 and arrange to taste (yes, you will have one bonus die to figure out what to do with). All must fall between 3 and 18.

OR 

roll 3d6 for each attribute and roll one bonus die for each category, adding the whole die to one attribute. All must fall between 3 and 18. 

OR

roll 3d6 (or 4d6 drop lowest) for each attribute in order or arrange to taste.

OR

maybe you roll differently for different archetypes with one (or maybe even TWO) bonus die in a single category: Mages might roll 3d6 straight for Body and Spirit but 3d6 plus one bonus die for mind. Clerics might get their bonus die in Spirit, Fighters in Body, Thieves could choose which one category they get a bonus die in (before they roll).

I'd use a universal bonus/penalty chart for the attributes because it's easier for me to remember, and I like patterns (again, easier to remember) so I'd use:

3        -3

4-5    -2

6-8    -1

9-12    +/-0

13-15    +1

16-17    +2

18        +3

(19-20 [+4]; 21-23 [+5]; 24-27 [+6]; 28-30 [+7]; etc. - not that I expect anyone to get that high, just more mental exercise)

WHY?

Now... there's no real reason to do this, I recognize that... unless mechanics are built out from here: you have broad categories and some granularity. 

This could be useful for skills or ability checks or maybe saving throws. 

Skills: a check against any of the sub-categories would be useful for general skill checks. Want to jump on the back of an untamed horse (or an elk or a rhino)? Give me a Dexterity check. So that's nothing new. 

Saving Throws: The Category (Body, Mind, Spirit) checks would be against the AVERAGE of the scores in the category, round DOWN (say St 17, Dex 15, Con16 - BODY would be 16, whereas St 17, Dex 13, Con 10 BODY would be 13) or the bonus/penalty for Saves could be determined by the category (in the second example the person's strength would somewhat mitigate their lack of constitution and give them a BETTER bonus toward something like poison or paralysis, perhaps). System shock (jumping into freezing water, for example) would be a CATEGORY (Body) check, for good or ill...

But, again, there's no NEED for this. It's just a idea that I'm toying with. 

I like the idea of all attributes being important in a game (I HATE the idea of a "dump stat") and the meaningful choices that come from making those decisions at the beginning of the game and then living with them (sometimes regretfully...). So I like systems where attributes/stats matter. Anyone can wear any armor they STRONG enough to wear (something like plate being reserved for ST 18, perhaps, while even leather armor might require a ST of at least 9). So the granularity comes into play in details like this. 

** Yeah, crummy Wikipedia entry - but you get the gist of the system. One cool thing in the DC Heroes rules is that the rules are summarized in what they call "Eight Ideas": There are eight simple ideas behind the rules for the DC HEROES Role-Playing Game. In order to play the game, Players must be completely familiar with these eight ideas. (DC Heroes Third Edition page 82). I like the ability to summarize the system in X ideas or steps or whatever. 

Skills

Every time we game - and we've drifted through mashups of all kinds of D&Desque rules sets - from Black Hack and S&W, D&D B/X and AD&D 1st and 2nd ed, we've dabbled in fifth ed - as well as dropping in all kinds of house rules and other games' rules - critical hit/failure, DCC's magic system, the STUNT tables from Fantasy Age (using 3d6 for combat rolls no less...) and a million others.

For so many reasons, I want to go back to a fairly flexible, mostly rules-light system. I usually default to S&W with a bunch of house rules and that's okay. Most of what I been writing for publication has been in a houseruled S&W campaign world. 

So here's an idea for skills that keeps the idea of "rulings not rules" without getting too bogged down...maybe

On the character sheet are four columns with headings:

Very good at     Good at      Bad at     Very bad at

Maybe at the beginning of character creation could add one or two actions/skills in the good and the bad columns.  Like Good at swimming, running, bad at horseback riding, being quiet.

Good at skills come out at the player's discretion, bad at skills come out at the DM's discretion. 

When a roll is a critical success (Nat 20), the skill moves one column to the left, when a roll is a critical failure (Nat 1), it moves one column to the right. 

Being good or bad at something might make a +/-1 adjustment to the roll. Being VERY good or bad at something could use the advantage/disadvantage system. 

The DM might have a list of appropriate skills mapped out ahead of time or they could simply be the skills that come up during play. 

Say a character attempts to leap over a low wall and fails a dexterity check. No big deal, that's what we use the check for. BUT, suppose the player rolled a 1 on the check... then Bad at acrobatics or something could be added to the list (the player/DM would agree on the "skill" in question). Undaunted, the player tries the skill several more times (with a -1 penalty) and succeeds and fails a few times but eventually rolls a 20. He moves the skill over to "Good at". If he rolls another 20 he can become very good at the skill which gives him advantage and won't ever be reduced unless a double failure happens (two 1s) which move his skill back to the right (good at), etc. If you are very bad at something and you roll 2 20s, you shift it to the left, bad at...

Probably too complicated for a system that I want to be simple... 

But it'll be fun to playtest.