I use a skill-based homebrew system for most of my gaming, but last summer it fell to me to create a set of rules out of thin air to run a game for a group of old players.  One of those, "Remember when we used to play all night" moments, when we were driving up to the house in Maine.  And while we had connectivity and ipads and laptops and could have used my main ruleset, the chargen is pretty involved and we did not know if we'd get more than one night of gaming in.  (turned out to be 2 nights for that crew, but that is only a side story).

So, basically, I cogitated for about 20-30 minutes while driving and figured I had enough d20 in my brain to put something together.  So to cut to the chase in this part of the story, we got to the house and I wrote down the rough rules of what might be categorized as a human-only, low HP, retroclone.  With 20 minute chargen.

Accis, World of Bronze and Heroes was born.

Anywho, it is nice to have a simplified ruleset for those moments when you just want to throw a game together on IRC or live, and it has been a fun distraction and intellectual exercise.  I've shaped up the rules and used them for just over a dozen live games and maybe 2 dozen IRC games.  And the golden rule has been to balance/focus the game on exploration and the game unit of the adventure.

But despite trying to keep it very simple, there were a few things that I had to do to fit the game-feel I was trying to create.  Also, as a designer, the HP conundrum of what represented physical damage and other factors is one I like to try to answer, without losing the non-complicated feel.

Here they are in the Accis Wiki, which is a bit better format.

 

In Accis, we are splitting traditional Hit Points in half. The lower half are considered physical HP, real wounds and actual bodily damage. The upper half is to be considered partially stamina, endurance and ability. These are called Physical HP and Endurance HP, respectively.  Hit Point in Accis are low anyway, so this is designed to help the smart player manage them better.  The Fighting Man gains only 2-5 HP per level+ their Health bonus, the Priest 1-4, and it goes down from there.

The upside is that players regain the upper half, the Endurance HP after a good night's sleep. All of them. They can also regain 1 endurance HP after a half hour break after a combat, and fghters and priests can heal 1/10 their endurance HP with a gulp of wine after an injury.  The idea here is that these Hit Points represent loss of wind and adrenaline, knowing when to rest and how to take a shot (and knowing how to take a shot is a critical part of real combat).  So they come back pretty quickly, and all of them come back after a night of rest.

The downside is that physical HP heal more slowly, by magic or by rest, and rest means one Hit Point per night recovered only if a Fort CC of 15 is made, or a minimum of one HP healed per three nights of rest.  These represent actual sprains, strains, pulls, cuts, and downright wounds.  These hurt, and take time (or magic) to heal.

So if Patricus the Warrior has 10 HP, he splits them into 2 tracks, Physical and Endurance. HP 1-5 are physical, hp 6-10 are Endurance HP. Patricus can take up to 5 HP a day and still recover and be in peak form the next day. It is only when he takes more damage that he starts dealing with sprains, cuts, strains, wounds, etc.

If Patricus gains a level and has 15 HP, he would have 7 Endurance Hit Point and 8 Physical Hit points.


Please note that a PC can never recover more endurance HP then they have physical HP. So if Patricus Takes 7 hits of damage one day, 5 Endurance related and 2 Physical, if he misses his Fortitude CC the next day and remains at 3 physical HP, he can only regenerate 3 Endurance HP the next day.

Also note that since a character cannot have more Endurance HP than Physical, in the case of an uneven number of Max HP, the extra one goes to Physical HP.

 

Please note that players and NPCs can decide if their shots avoid Physical HP.  Most wrestling moves are considered to only do Endurance HP damage, unless the player wishes to try to do more.



Actual Maximum HP
15
 
Endurance HP
 Max: 7
 Curr:7
 
Physical HP
 Max:8
 Curr:8
 
I like the way this separates what damage really relates to a player character, and has an in game effect of allowing the players to stay in a game longer.  Maybe I am crazy, but I find this makes more sense to me, as well.  

Basically, during the game, the players keep track of two Hit Point sets instead of one, or two damage tracks, if you prefer.  The damage is always taken off the Endurance Hit Points first, and the Physical Hit Points are affected only after the Endurance Hit Points are gone.  Healing works the same way in most cases.

The only problem I see with defining HP in this manner and calling the bottom half of the pool physical wounds is that there is no loss of effectiveness for being seriously physically wounded.

Supposedly, Joe fighter is near death at 1hp but fights just as well as Bob fighter who is unhurt. If physical wounds only represent a separate pool to track and heal then it may not be worth the extra accounting.

Hit points are ugly things and don't play nice with specific wounds and start to look kooky when viewed under a microscope. They are part of an abstract combat system and need to remain fuzzy by design.

In the traditional hit point system, a fighter is considered good to go so long as he/she has a positive hp in the bank. This keeps things simple,and avoids wounding death spirals since all "damage" is superficial at worst until the hit that lays the fighter low.

I was thinking, why not make that the point of major difference? Everything is fine and business as usual until 0hp or less is reached. At that point the guessing about a physical wound is over. Fighting effectiveness is null and the fighter is clearly incapacitated.

Suppose that point marked the place where normal hp healing ceased to be effective. Once actually taken down, returning to action will take some time or serious mojo to make happen.

(This is what I proposed for D&D Next)

How about the hit point and healing rates stay just as they are with the exception of one circumstance:

Things change when anyone is reduced to 0 HP or less. Thus hit points are all just dings, bumps & bruises until the hit that takes you down. Whatever reduces a creature to 0 hp or less causes an appropriate actual wound.

If the hit that caused the wound was delivered as a non-lethal attack then the victim awakes in 2d6 hours with 1 HP as per the normal rules.

If the hit that caused the wound was a lethal attack then recovery time is needed. The wounded character will awaken in 2d6 hours but will still have 0 HP for a time determined by his/her CON score:

CON SCORE / DAYS OF REST
1 8
2-3 7
4-5 6
6-7 6
8-9 5
10-11 5
12-13 5
14-15 4
16-17 4
18-19 3
20-21 2

While at 0 HP the wounded can walk short distances, but must otherwise rest. Strenuous activity will negate healing for that day. No normal means will restore the character to 1 HP including healing magic*. At the end of the rest period the character gains 1 HP and can be healed as normal.

* Magic to restore a character more quickly to 1 HP should be available in ritual form but rare and expensive. All normal healing magic works only as described so long as the recipient has 1HP.

Thus characters can end up with long term injuries but must actually be taken down by a lethal attack for that to happen. Nothing separate to track and you know when to describe something as a wound.

starting
Health 60/60
Stamina 10/10
Full HP 70

after attack
Health 40/60
Stamina 5/10
Full HP 45

how much stamina you lose affects how much fast you regain health
(health counts to but the higher your stamina the faster you heal)
count that with magic if you use it affects the time you have to heal
simple really.

Quote from: ewizardThings change when anyone is reduced to 0 HP or less. Thus hit points are all just dings, bumps & bruises until the hit that takes you down. Whatever reduces a creature to 0 hp or less causes an appropriate actual wound.

This is pretty much more how regular HP are looked at right now, and the root of many of the issues in terms of healing, the amount of blows it takes to hurt someone, etc.

And again, this is a simple, d20 clone, so I am trying to add as thin a layer as possible and I want it to represent as much as posible.

The reason I used the term Endurance HP is that is partially represents wind/endurance/resource management/geting one wind knocked out of them....  

Also, I want that numerical area that represents real wounds not to be totally incapacitating, but also to be not a tiny amount, but a substatial % of Total HP.
Thanks for the response, I always enjoy them.  We all add our own flavors.

Quote from: LordVreeg;557157This is pretty much more how regular HP are looked at right now, and the root of many of the issues in terms of healing, the amount of blows it takes to hurt someone, etc.

The major difference is that being knocked to 0 or below is currently treated as every other hp loss, so getting someone back in the fight from -15 is just as trivial as healing them from 1 hp or more and the numbers actually encourage letting a fighter get dropped before healing since any healing starts at 0 no matter how far in hole you are.

In your system how much more difficult is it to heal physical wounds by magic than stamina hp?

could you use sub damage
Health 60/60
Stamina 10/10
Full HP 70/70

after battle
Health 50/60
Stamina 5/10
Full HP 55
Wound -2 with every move

(see the counter damage would handle fatal wounds or wounds so you lose health and or stamina with every move until you heal the wound.)

One thing I'd like to see if I were using a system like this (and you may certainly disagree) is that a critical hit of some sort should go straight through to the physical damage in some way.  For example, if a critical rolls double damage, maybe the second roll goes straight to physical damage or maybe just half of the normal damage does.  Combined with variable critical ranges like those in D&D 3.5, that could be pretty interesting.

A simple alternative is to use the system in Barbarians of Lemuria, where you get half of the hps you lost in a combat back if you rest for 10 minutes after the combat. The remaining damage is permanent and must be healed normally (i.e. 1 hp a day, or level hps a day, or whatever system you use). It would have much the same effect as the system you're proposing, but wouldn't require you to split hps into two stats.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;557162The major difference is that being knocked to 0 or below is currently treated as every other hp loss, so getting someone back in the fight from -15 is just as trivial as healing them from 1 hp or more and the numbers actually encourage letting a fighter get dropped before healing since any healing starts at 0 no matter how far in hole you are.

In your system how much more difficult is it to heal physical wounds by magic than stamina hp?

It is not more difficult...except Magic, like damage, affects Endurance/Stamina HP before Physical HP.  Which might be a problem, now that you mention it.  I might have to have that work the other way.

So, thank you.!

Quote from: John Morrow;557366One thing I'd like to see if I were using a system like this (and you may certainly disagree) is that a critical hit of some sort should go straight through to the physical damage in some way.  For example, if a critical rolls double damage, maybe the second roll goes straight to physical damage or maybe just half of the normal damage does.  Combined with variable critical ranges like those in D&D 3.5, that could be pretty interesting.

This is another great idea.  The game is already low HP/high damage, but with armor allowing some DR/protection, so crits are a little less effective.  But your idea makes too much sense.  I actually do something similar with criticals in my more advanced game, so I'd be nuts to disagree.
I could just say that on a crit, a minimum of 1/2 the damage that gets past DR must go to physical HP.  By itself, this makes them more, 'Critical'.

Quote from: Glazer;557453A simple alternative is to use the system in Barbarians of Lemuria, where you get half of the hps you lost in a combat back if you rest for 10 minutes after the combat. The remaining damage is permanent and must be healed normally (i.e. 1 hp a day, or level hps a day, or whatever system you use). It would have much the same effect as the system you're proposing, but wouldn't require you to split hps into two stats.

It is more simple, and that is something that I am fighting with, but that changes the resource management and also discards the clearer understanding of what part of the characters actual HP are endyurance and the ability to take a shot and taught adrenal urges and how much is actually damage.  So far, the PCs we've used this for say it has helped their immersed understanding of how their characters really feel in combat and what is actually hapenning, so I am trying to keep that.

For example, a fighting man with 14 HP (7 ENDHP, 7 PHYS HP) and a Priest with 10 HP (5 ENDHP, 5PHYSHP) both take 6 HP damage in a combat.  
in BoL, arbitrarily, 3 are considered permanent damage for both, where in my system, the Fighting man is considered to have been winded and taken no physical damage, whereas the priest really got rattled, was exhausted after the combat, and got pinked and has to be bandaged up.  So you can really get a feel for how the toughness of the Higher HP character makes a difference, and a better immersed feel of the combat as well.
And assuming they both have access to some beer or wine, they both can get 1 ENDHP back from a short rest and the priest gets one more ENDHP back for a swig, and the Fighting Man gets back 2 more from his swig.

The real change comes after they rest for the night.  Since the Fighting Man did not take any PHYSHP damage, he gets all his END HP back after sleeping, and is functionally good as new, but without magical healing, the Priest must make a Fort CC to get back 1 PHYSHP during the night, and since a character cannot hve more ENDHP than PHYSHP, the priest will literally not heal as much ENDHP during the night if he misses the roll, and the next day, will awake at 4PHYSHP and 4ENDHP.

Quote from: John Morrow;557366One thing I'd like to see if I were using a system like this (and you may certainly disagree) is that a critical hit of some sort should go straight through to the physical damage in some way.

In Microlite74 Extended (which is basically OD&D with my 1978-era house rules added in, all translated to Microlite20 --very lite 3.x system-- terms), characters have hit points which represent fatigue and body points which represent actual wound damage. HP are rolled as normal for your version of D&D. Body points are equal to the character's CON (or some set number, 20 in M74 extended as it makes other calculations simple).

Normal damage subtracts from hit points and is just represents fatigue, when you run out of hit points you start taking actual wounds (body point damage and are usually unconscious). So far it just works just like AD&D hit points with one not dying until reaching a set negative number. However:

Body Damage reduces Effectiveness: Each two points of body damage a character has suffered gives a -1 to all attack, success, saving, and similar rolls (optional: also to strike speed/individual initiative). This is for a BP base of 20. If your average (warrior-type, if you vary BP by character class) character has far fewer or far more body points, you will need to adjust this.

Hit Point Recovery: If you have no Body Point damage, you recover all your hit points after a night's sleep -- with a optional rule allowing a 20% recovery once a day after a good meal eaten as part of a one hour rest in a safe place. If you have taken any unhealed body damage, only 50% of your hit points lost are recovered per night of rest.

Body Point Recovery: Body points recover at the rate of CON bonus (minimum of 1 point) per day of total rest. If a character with up to 50% Body Point damage (up to 10 points of BP damage if base 20 BP is used) performs more than very light activity or careful travel during a day, he has a 50% chance of losing an additional body point. If a character with more 50% of Body Point damaged (11 or more points of BP damage if base 20 BP is used) does anything other than rest quietly in bed during a day, he has a
50% chance of losing an additional body point.

Critical Hits: A natural 20 that would otherwise hit is automatically a critical hit (or whatever critical rules you use) doing maximum damage and doing a number of body points damage equal to the number of damage dice rolled (normally 1). As monsters in my system usually don't have body points (for speed/less tracking on the GM side), critical hits to monsters do double hit point damage.

Bleeding (Optional): Characters who have taken body point damage from a weapon or similar trauma-related damage may bleed out. They will lose one point of body point damage per combat round until their wounds are bound or magical healing is used. The character may attempt a saving throw (type varies by version of D&D) each round to avoid the point of body damage.

Comments: I have been using rules like these in my D&D games since 1977 or so -- whenever I picked up a copy of C&S (first edition) and saw how they split damage into fatigue points and body points. I had to tweak it a lot to get it to work well with D&D and this was the eventual result. It works very well in my games even with the need for slightly more bookkeeping and the possible death spiral. The "death spiral" is less of a problem in the games I run because running away is a valid combat option which players are not afraid to use.

Note that when I use a spell point system (which I often do), hit points are used as spell points so casting spells wears casters out making them less able to use "fatigue energy" to avoid actual damage in combat.

Quote from: LordVreeg;557480I could just say that on a crit, a minimum of 1/2 the damage that gets past DR must go to physical HP.  By itself, this makes them more, 'Critical'.

Yes, and then you don't have to have criticals do more damage to make them "critical".

Quote from: RandallS;557487In Microlite74 Extended (which is basically OD&D with my 1978-era house rules added in, all translated to Microlite20 --very lite 3.x system-- terms), characters have hit points which represent fatigue and body points which represent actual wound damage.

That all looks really good, especially at the level of abstraction you favor to keep combat moving quickly.  Quite a bit of flavor without a lot of overhead.  I think I need to take a more serious look at Microlite74 Extended, which always seemed to me to be close to what the core of D&D Next, at the lowest complexity level, should look like.

I think this line of thinking could also deal with the Wizard vs. Fighter at higher level issue being discussed in another thread.  If higher level fighters are more likely to do critical hits, that would make the plausibly more dangerous at higher levels.

Quote from: John Morrow;557566That all looks really good, especially at the level of abstraction you favor to keep combat moving quickly.  Quite a bit of flavor without a lot of overhead.  I think I need to take a more serious look at Microlite74 Extended, which always seemed to me to be close to what the core of D&D Next, at the lowest complexity level, should look like.

I think this line of thinking could also deal with the Wizard vs. Fighter at higher level issue being discussed in another thread.  If higher level fighters are more likely to do critical hits, that would make the plausibly more dangerous at higher levels.

Yeah, this convo is nice because a bunch of designers are doing similar things...therefore, if this follows my normal pattern, versions of this will show up in 5E or something.  
I do prefer having a little DR/Prot compared to more hp, personally, but I like the way Randall is doing it, but I like using the 1/2 HP as this allows the endurance/body HP to go up as well, representing increased endurance and the ability to take a punch and not get rattled in combat.