I like to play RPGs. I am, however, a logical, consistent sort of person.  This puts me on the horns of a dilemma of sorts.

Most RPG mechanics for damage suck donkey balls.

Nothing is less inspiring to me than to have a pool of Hit Points that are automatically assumed to drop x amount in a give period of time. I stopped playing World of Warcraft and yet, I play EvE Online despite hating PVP (Eve is a PvPer's game, bar none) mostly because EvE lacks 'Hit Points' as we understand them... though yes, the term is used.

That's the default method there, the hit point pool, but its not the only one.

RQ uses a fixed total and is absolutely lethal... even the MRQ with hero points seems a tad excessively lethal for my brand of long term growth/architechtural play.

Then you have the 'wonky lite mechanics' where 'damage' is truely abstracted.  You know: Bad guy hits you, take a d4 dice of 'your girlfriend hates you becuase you missed that big date'... WTF?!!?!! That actually exists?!  Yes. Indeed.  And, WTF is my reaction to it. Damage now can have no relevance at all to what just happened to you.  

The problem is manifold. Hit points work excellently for video games for any number of reasons, and its a way of rewarding long surviving characters by adding to their 'durability'... at the expense of actual coolness or even remotely rationalism (instead of realism, since its a game, after all...).

The problem, of course, is that a realistic damage system is excessively lethal in most cases, perhaps too much (as people survive all sorts of crazy shit in real life!) and anything too much less lethal often removes drama (potental?) and rationalism far too quickly.

One part of the problem lies in the nature of game combat, the collapsed time frame. Heroes don't miss nearly as often as real life combatants do, of course, and no one wants to play out eight rounds of keystone cops before someone lands a telling blow.  This exaggerates the lethal/unrational design spectrum, but is not easily avoidable.  There are reasons we have characters (and NPC's) hit so often, after all.


My own experiment with this has been to try to integrate 'damage' into the combat system, though primarily for dueling rather than chaotic melees.  One's combat effectiveness degrades as you grow weary and accumulate minor wounds until you can no longer defend yourself, and the fight is over.  Damage, then, isn't about health at all.  I have mixed emotions, of course, but for the purposes I designed it for I felt it was an appropriate compromise. However, I still think that there must be out there some game designer who has truely seen outside the box and will truly renovate gaming damage systems... it will be simple, elegant and rational. Perhaps here, in this thread, if we get lucky, we will find that person, that untapped genious. Or perhaps you'll all tell me to suck it up and roll another d10 hit points and like it.

Quote from: SpikeHowever, I still think that there must be out there some game designer who has truely seen outside the box and will truly renovate gaming damage systems... it will be simple, elegant and rational. Perhaps here, in this thread, if we get lucky, we will find that person, that untapped genious. Or perhaps you'll all tell me to suck it up and roll another d10 hit points and like it.

See Fudge.  And the basics provided can be added to and adjusted pretty easily.

There's something similar to what you're aiming for in D6 Star Wars. Basically, if you get hit, the attacker rolls damage (based on weapon used), and you roll your Strength (which is also your ability to resist damage) as modified by armour. It's a dice pool system, so for example the attacker might roll 5D(six-sided) for damage while you roll, say, 3D.

Then you compare the two numbers, and their ratio determines what sort of wound you get. You roll higher, you're only stunned. He rolls higher, you're wounded, and you suffer a penalty to all future rolls until healed. He rolls at least twice as high, you're incapacitated, and if he rolls at least three times as high as you, you're mortally wounded.

As far as I understand what you said, you might be looking for something similar, only with more grades between "top fighting condition" and "out of combat".

Well, look yes yet another topic that I can relate to.

Here is how I do damage in Pandora

Ive removed the word HP or life points or whatever. Were to tied down to these terms as we know them.
Instead, I offer 'Hope' its a powerfull, and driving mechanic and word that conveys alot to the player.

In my combat rules, im offering straight simple mechanics. You roll a 3d6 and compair the roll to either
a fixed number or a random number, the players and gm can decide on this, which is an option I like to have.
Your bonuses are based off two stats to create your bonus stats (Strength plus Con = Agression and your bonus to hit modifier currently I have the number as 1 point for every 10)
this is also your save modifier too! Agression = fort save, defence = ref saves, spirt = will saves

Anyways, you roll to hit, and compair the two numbers. However, it doesnt stop there. I like to reward players by rolling over the target number and offer a bonus to damage as well as another mechanic
if you roll better to hit. Lets say you roll a 18 and the creature rolls a 15 for defense. Since you rolled 3 better you get an "Upshift" Of 3 damage (Up to a maxiumum of 5 damage, but this can be changed depending on what class you pick or talent you take =D)
But wait! there is more, if you want to use it, im going to make a hit chart location that will make sense with regards to what came up on the dice, for what location you hit.

Okay so you hit and you do damage and you get an upshift then what?
Not only does the upshift give you more damage but it also gives the player or creature hit, concequences.
(If you only continually beat them by just one or two points to hit these are glancing blows) The better you hit, the worse the concequences
for the oposing player or monster. One or two points over the to hit number = Glancing blows or Small nicks and cuts minor concequences, three points over and you get dazed -1 to defend next round, four points over your seeing stars, -1 to hit, damage and defend next round
and five points over your blacking out, with  -1 to all rolls (and saves) next round. These effects only last untill the next round, so you can recover, or get hit again and continue to suffer concequences.
Also you can place different effects depending on your class or talents instead of the concequences listed previous.

So okay, thats cool, I roll damage now, I suppose its a point based system. I doesn't seem realistic.

Yes and no. Yes damage takes off from the hope score which is going to be a DIe + some other modifiers
The way it's different is if you go bellow 0 in the hope score you get to 'Fight to survive" By rolling higher than your currrent negative score on 3D6.
during this time your also -1 to all rolls (In addition if you were blacking out from the round before)

Finally criticals will have different concequences on what they are, and certain weapons will, and can take out a 30th level fighter if they have certain concequences attached to them.
Like lets say a .22 to the head is going to have a conceqeunce of at five points over the to hit number you automaticly have to roll to "Fight to survive" Lets say for this purpose it does 3D6 damage and your hope score is 134 (Like a epic fighter or some such)
if your able to hit him or get over his defence by 5,(Lets say hes sleeping and you fire at temple) hes got to roll to fight to survive against your damage you roll on a 3d6. (His hope lowers still, but its technically 0 for this demonstration becuase of the concequence)
theres is a small chance that hes going to make it, but it's there.

Thoughts comments?

Quote from: SpikeI like to play RPGs. I am, however, a logical, consistent sort of person.  This puts me on the horns of a dilemma of sorts.

....My own experiment with this has been to try to integrate 'damage' into the combat system, though primarily for dueling rather than chaotic melees.  One's combat effectiveness degrades as you grow weary and accumulate minor wounds until you can no longer defend yourself, and the fight is over.  Damage, then, isn't about health at all.  I have mixed emotions, of course, but for the purposes I designed it for I felt it was an appropriate compromise. However, I still think that there must be out there some game designer who has truely seen outside the box and will truly renovate gaming damage systems... it will be simple, elegant and rational. Perhaps here, in this thread, if we get lucky, we will find that person, that untapped genious. Or perhaps you'll all tell me to suck it up and roll another d10 hit points and like it.

What you describe I'd swear I've seen on the internet but can't recall where. Not much help I know, but maybe hope?  Basically, from what I recall, is that "damage" has a chance to decrease your performance if you fail to "save" against some stat.  In effect lower power attackers wear down the defenses and combat effectiveness of the target until eventually a telling blow can be delivered.

I hate to say it, but think about what you are describing:

QuoteOne's combat effectiveness degrades as you grow weary and accumulate minor wounds until you can no longer defend yourself, and the fight is over.  

Isn't that really what HP in many systems represent in the abstract?  Add a level where you offensive capabilities decrease as well and you have in effect what you are after.

I'm no genius, but I'll take a whack.

The damage pool (Constitution) in the StarCluster system is a derived stat from your physical attributes. As you age past the mid 30s, your stats go down while your skills go up. Between full and 3/4 Cons, you are fine. Between 3/4 and 1/2 Con, you are hindered, and have a penalty on every dice roll. Between 1/2 and 1/4 Con, you are stunned/unconcious, and have to make an Endurance check to keep going. Under 1/4 Con, you are seriously wounded, helpless, and dying of your wounds. Change the multiplier for deriving Con, and you can adjust the lethality to your liking.

-clash

I handle it slightly different in Iridium. Your base Fortitude is your Strength +Constitution + Will divided by three adding 1/2 your Constitution back in. Once you have your Base Fortitude, you receive 1/2 of the total to your head and chest, the full amount to stomach and groin, and double to your arms and legs. This is then combined with a hit location system that allows you to track damage to your arm or head or any of 10 locations.

In play, this allows the player and GM to act out wounds to locations as severely as they wish. In the rules, if you are reduces to 0 in an area, you cannot use it. If you go negative the base fortitude, it is severed. If you go to 0 in a vital area, you make saves for consciousness.

In play, I have also enforced minuses based on damage to the locations. Reduced past 1/2 your FP in the arm, any skill is at a -20 that involves your arm or hands. Easily done.

Bill

Hit points.

People talk about HPs as not the inherent physical resiliency of a person's body, but the amount of combat and adventure training a person has accumulated. Perhaps we should take that notion a little further, so that hit points represented not only the capacity to get hit by someone or something else, but the ability to actively hit someone else.  I'm not entirely sure how you'd scale it, but an individual's HP total would somehow determine either the likelihood of hitting an opponent, the amount of damage dealt, or both.  They also determine how difficult it is to hit a character, and how badly he can be hit.

Now, these wouldn't be classic D&D hit points -- they'd be something else.  They would effectively encompass weapon skill, armor class, and personal health, all in one tidy package -- perhaps "Prowess Points".  Perhaps you'd even have to spend these points in order to hit an opponent, so that physical exhaustion plays a factor in combat.  As these Prowess Points diminish, either from taking damage or from physically exerting yourself, you become both easier to hit and less likely to hit an opponent (or hit him very hard).

Does that sound something like what you're looking for?

!i!

[Edit:  Ah, now I see Xanther's post above.]

/soap box

I dont know it just doesn't sound realistic.

I Don't like the idea of as your hit points go down, it's easier to get damaged and or miss. I Like the idea of as you in battle, you take concequences of your actions, some of which could include bleeding to death, or hampered attacks or other thematic descriptors that you could add as a concequence from a talent or special ability. You still have a amount of life left in you, hope to kill the foe your fighting.

And the complex math with diferent limbs being different hit points, you going to proboly have to roll location and all these other seperate rolls, instead of just two rolls, attack and damage the attack having pre built in a location randomiser that would make sense for a bell curve, and depending how well that place was hit, a concenquence (Immoblized arm) or what have you.

Also I like that even if you drop below 0 hit points, you can still fight on, with thick negatives, as the concequences pile up, and fate is in your hands as you fight to survive using that last bit of hope left in you.  This is ovously for the players but can be implemented on the BBEG as you fight him for a truly epic battle!  Regular grunt monsters would get simply negatives as their hope is lost, and then eventually drop at a pre determined negative (But with always the option to roll if the gm wants to)  

Man it's starting to sound cooler and cooler everytime I talk about it.

/tosses out two cents.

I've found CORPS by BTRC to have one of the more realistic approaches to damage.  You have lethal and non-lethal damage.  Armor works by blocking some amount of non-lethal damage and converting lethal to non-lethal.  So, armor rated as 2/4 would convert 2 points of lethal to non-lethal, and then block 4 pts of non-lethal.

Lethal and non-lethal have different effects, with most non-lethal damage going away the following round.  An option will apply the damage to individual locations (arms/legs/torso/etc.), which causes a penalty to use that location, with a lesser penalty to adjacent areas.

Any lethal damage can cause death if not treated, sometimes instantly.  There are optional rules relating to knockout, shock, knockback, etc.

In one of the games I'm writing (because I got writer's block on the other and feel the need to keep myself busy) I mix it up with a single hit point pool and a hit locations/wound mechanic that relies on a massive damage threshold.

The progressive fatigue thing you seem to want could be worked in fairly easily as well.

Anyway, it's roll under on 3d8. The damage you deal on a success is your attack roll (I ripped a page from UA combat) plus your weapon's damage value. If you beat a person's massive damage threshold, you also inflict a wound on a hit location. For the hit locations themselves, rather than rolling again... you just look up something based on the first roll (each d8 is a roll on a chart from one to eight... the torso is the first few numbers, because you're likely to hit it but unlikely to wound it... the head is eight, as you're unlikely to hit it but very likely to wound it if you do... limbs in between) and pick one of three hit locations. As for wounds themselves, the first inflicts a penalty, the second disables, and the third destroys a body part.

To modify it to suit your needs, you'd nix the first wound and give a penalty as your hit points decreased.

....

Another way (again, best in a roll-under) is to say that characters trained in a skill could lose a point in it temporarily in order to succeed when they would otherwise fail. Definitely combat would be about wearing people down to the point where they couldn't parry very easily in such a system.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaHit points.

Now, these wouldn't be classic D&D hit points -- they'd be something else.  They would effectively encompass weapon skill, armor class, and personal health, all in one tidy package -- perhaps "Prowess Points".  Perhaps you'd even have to spend these points in order to hit an opponent, so that physical exhaustion plays a factor in combat.  As these Prowess Points diminish, either from taking damage or from physically exerting yourself, you become both easier to hit and less likely to hit an opponent (or hit him very hard).

Is this a bit like ST in TWERPS ?

Quote from: SeanIs this a bit like ST in TWERPS ?

... and Monster Rating in Tunnels & Trolls?

Quote from: XantherWhat you describe I'd swear I've seen on the internet but can't recall where. Not much help I know, but maybe hope?  Basically, from what I recall, is that "damage" has a chance to decrease your performance if you fail to "save" against some stat.  In effect lower power attackers wear down the defenses and combat effectiveness of the target until eventually a telling blow can be delivered.

I hate to say it, but think about what you are describing:
 Isn't that really what HP in many systems represent in the abstract?  Add a level where you offensive capabilities decrease as well and you have in effect what you are after.

Well, I don't want to get too much into it here, but the main idea I was working at the time was that instead of tracking health seperately, you're 'skill points' were actually 'damaged' during a conflict, cutting you off from your best abilities. It was more complex than just 'I got hit, I lose one point of Akido Fu', as you could also burn a point to get an automatic hit, and I wanted to include special effects.

As for D&D: Not quite. Its far to abstract for that. It's
Good.Good.Good.Good. Dead.

Instead of

Good.Pretty Good. Fair. Hurting. Weak. Dead.

You should check out True20.

• Roll to beat your opponent's Defence Rating (which doesn't include armour).


• If you get hit, roll a Toughness check (d20 + armour rating + Con), trying to beat 15 + the Damage Rating (weapon rating + Str).  


• If the check succeeds, all is good - your armour and toughness render the blow ineffective. If the check fails, you suffer varying degrees of hurt, depending on how much the check failed by.


• Bruises (failed by 1 - 5) are cumulative and each give you -1 to rolls. Wounds (failed by 5 - 10) give you worse penalties. Multiple wounds add up to serious debilitating injury, and so on.

I haven't played it in practice - just picked up True20 on the weekend. But it seems to meet your criteria.

I'm toying with damage systems myself. Ideally, the system would be loosely compatible with D&D, would get rid of the fiddly scratching out and adjusting HPs constantly, and would yield results more refined than: Good.Good.Good.Good. Dead.

One simple variant on the D&D system is once you're down to 1/3 of starting HP, you are wounded and suffer -2 to all rolls. Then you could add a crit system, where any natural 20 is a Fort save versus wound. If you're wounded and you suffer another wound, you have a critical wound that seriously fucks you up.