So, I'm thinking of a wound system where "star characters" don't get wounded in the traditional RPG sense.  Instead, as they take damage, they suffer reduced effectiveness of some type.  This is cumulative the more they're hurt.  This is supposed to represent fatigue in battle and how the more their battered the slower they act, etc.

Somewhere in here is a saving throw, take too much damage and fall down.  In that aspect, the damage system is conventional, but I do have a twist.

At any time before the character falls down from injury, the character can convert all his damage into a sort of fudge point.  This simulates what I call the "wrestler syndrome" where the hero has been pounded until he can barely walk, but suddenly finds the strength inside to open up a can of ultimate whoop ass.

The catch is that once the hurt character "cashes in" in this manner, the next significant wound will drop them.

Thoughts?

That's a neat idea -- could work for some horror RPGs as well. (eg. The "Dead" killer gets back up)

I think D&D... all versions... has never handled Hit Points for characters the way I believe they were initially intended.  Gaining hit points doesn't mean your character is getting more resistant to being stabbed.  It means they're getting better in combat.  

I really mean all versions of D&D.  I think Gary Gygax had an idea that got derailed by some of his other ideas for the game.  The core idea is good, but the implementation has never been right.  The terminology, the way healing works, the way traps work, the way combat works... it doesn't work with the initial concept of "hit points".

At least, that's *my* point of view.  

And it's the POV I'm approaching the design of my FRPG from (and the SFRPG as well).

Quote from: StuartI think D&D... all versions... has never handled Hit Points for characters the way I believe they were initially intended.  Gaining hit points doesn't mean your character is getting more resistant to being stabbed.  It means they're getting better in combat.  

I handle this by having something like a Hit Point mechanic, but having it deplete based on the difference of the attack roll against the defense of the character rather than the damage roll.

We might be on a similar track.

I guess what I meant was -- "hit points" and "damage rolls" are the wrong terms if what you really mean is "lose X points as your guy gets out of the way".

Watch the Lord of the Rings movies.  How many times do they characters get "hit" and take "damage"?  When they DO get hit and take damage -- they're wounded.  There's no getting peppered with arrows and you keep on trucking. If you get HIT, you get HURT.

I'm being careful about terms like "hit", "damage" and "healing" in my game.

Torg had something vaguely like this... you take damage based on the damage rating of the weapon, the die result, and your Toughness.

But THEN you could spend Possibilities to 'buy off' this damage.

So the experience is 'Oh CRAP I just got my head blown off! Er... I spend a possibility, I buy off two wounds and... hrm. Don't have enough not to be knocked out. Ok, I'm knocked out. But still have my head on.'

I've often thought that allowing a mechanic like that to apply after the fact might be perfect for the dramatic 'comes back' drama, but I haven't seen a system where there'd be a point in doing so.

One possibility would be something like 'I take a decent wound... I'm going to say my character collapses, and earn a hero point for the setback. In the next scene, my character 'recovers,' and now I have a hero point to use...'

But players are notorious about not accepting short term setbacks like that.

Hmmm.

Quote from: StuartWe might be on a similar track.

I guess what I meant was -- "hit points" and "damage rolls" are the wrong terms if what you really mean is "lose X points as your guy gets out of the way".

Watch the Lord of the Rings movies.  How many times do they characters get "hit" and take "damage"?  When they DO get hit and take damage -- they're wounded.  There's no getting peppered with arrows and you keep on trucking. If you get HIT, you get HURT.

I'm being careful about terms like "hit", "damage" and "healing" in my game.

I understand what you mean.  I have the same problem.

A "wound" for a NPC may mean a sword run through their torso.  A "wound" for a PC may merely mean a deep, painful, but not immediately life threatening gash on their arm.  

A more accurate term would be "significant damage."  For a throwaway NPC like some Goblin minion the only significant amount of damage which really concerns us is enough to kill or otherwise incapacitate the NPC.  For a more major character, a significant amount of damage would be enough to hamper the character in some tangible way.

I'm thinking of just keeping a tally of damage points inflicted on a character.  Each time these damage points pass a certain threshold (determined by the Body stat of the character), then penalties to actions will be applied.  They can keep on acting as long as they make a Body saving throw after each bit of inflicted damage.  Failure at this save means the character is incapacitated.

I guess it's very much like Cyberpunk 2020's method, now that I think of it.

As long as the character hasn't failed a KO Save (I guess that's a good thing to call it), they can declare that they're "Battle Inspired."  This means that all penalties for damage disappear, and the character receives a number of fudge points for combat rolls based on the amount of damage they sustained prior to the Battle Inspiration.  (either all the damage or a percentage)  The drawback is that they can take only one Wound, or one level of significant damage, before they are rendered incapacitated, no saving throw.

For a throwaway NPC, you don't even keep track of all that.  A wound/significant level of damage simply renders them incapacitated.  Less than that maybe stuns them, makes them lose an action, or something.

Quote from: WillTorg had something vaguely like this... you take damage based on the damage rating of the weapon, the die result, and your Toughness.

But THEN you could spend Possibilities to 'buy off' this damage.

So the experience is 'Oh CRAP I just got my head blown off! Er... I spend a possibility, I buy off two wounds and... hrm. Don't have enough not to be knocked out. Ok, I'm knocked out. But still have my head on.'

I've often thought that allowing a mechanic like that to apply after the fact might be perfect for the dramatic 'comes back' drama, but I haven't seen a system where there'd be a point in doing so.

One possibility would be something like 'I take a decent wound... I'm going to say my character collapses, and earn a hero point for the setback. In the next scene, my character 'recovers,' and now I have a hero point to use...'

But players are notorious about not accepting short term setbacks like that.

Hmmm.

Not exactly what I'm talking about but definitely along the same lines.

Torg is definitely part of the inspiration for this idea.  The thing I don't like about Torg is having to cross reference that chart and having to keep track of KO, shock, and wounds.

As for the trade offs, right on the nose.  This is precisely what I'm after.  The player should consider the idea of taking a minor wound in order to build up a sort of "Limit Break".  (hey, that's a much better description than Battle Inspiration.)

This is why I like having HP split into VP and WP.  It makes it very clear what is a near miss or parry or what have you and what it a sword in the face.

I'd contemplated such a rule before, in what I dubbed 'The boromir rule'.  This came from my distaste of characters getting brought back from the dead all the time.  I mean if you get killed and all that means is you need a spell, then to me you aren't dead so much as grieviously wounded.  So change the rules so that going below -10 just means you are badly wounded, and must get to a powerful cleric to recover.  Raise dead and Resurrection turn into spells to heal terrible wounds, not return the dead to life.  Otherwise it could take months, or you may pass on your own.

The exception to this is the Boromir rule, where the PC rises to his feet for one last dramatic battle.  He fights at full effectiveness for several rounds before collapsing and dying.  No spell will help the character at this point.

Never got to put it into practice, but it sounds pretty cool.

QuoteThe exception to this is the Boromir rule, where the PC rises to his feet for one last dramatic battle. He fights at full effectiveness for several rounds before collapsing and dying. No spell will help the character at this point.

Also know as the Roy Fokker rule in Sci-Fi / Anime games.

Quote from: GabrielSo, I'm thinking of a wound system where "star characters" don't get wounded in the traditional RPG sense.  Instead, as they take damage, they suffer reduced effectiveness of some type.  This is cumulative the more they're hurt. ... At any time before the character falls down from injury, the character can convert all his damage into a sort of fudge point. ...
Thoughts?

This idea has some similarities to the trauma system I incorporated into the early beta versions of Gnostigmata.  In Gnostigmata, players roll pools of d6's and try to beat a threshold.  The more skill a character has, the more dice a player can roll in a contest.  Each d6 rolling above the threshold represents a "success" that the character attains in the conflict.  All contests are opposed, so the side with the greatest number of successes wins.

The threshold that each d6 had to overcome is based on a number of factors, one of them being damage.  Essentially, the threshold equals the maximum of a number of trauma attributes.  In beta 1.0, these trauma attributes were: "Agony", "Stun", "Wounds", and "Handicaps".   (Actually, there were others related to emotional trauma as well, but I'm focusing on physical damage to illustrate the point.)

Agony was the default trauma attribute.  That is, if a player did not apply damage points to a different attribute, then it was added to Agony.  However, if Agony ever hit a value of 7 or more, the character died.  When a character took damage, his player could opt to apply the damage points to one of the other three trauma attributes, as long as he described how his character was harmed.  Quite often, a player would want to do this, in order to keep the maximum of the 4 attributes as low as possible, which kept the threshold his d6's had to overcome in contests as low as possible.

All Stun damage disappeared at the end of every scene, Wounds lowered by one point at the end of every scene, and Handicaps never healed except through magic.  Generally, players prefered Stun over Wounds and Wounds over Handicaps.  But, players always wanted to keep the threshold low, so they would opt for more serious Wounds and/or Handicaps when necessary in order to remain effective in a scene.

The damage system worked pretty well.  I ended up stripping most of it out in the interest of simplicity, but I really agonized over the decision.

If this seems like an idea that might help your game design along, please feel free to use it.

Quote from: John KirkThis idea has some similarities to the trauma system I incorporated into the early beta versions of Gnostigmata.  In Gnostigmata, players roll pools of d6's and try to beat a threshold.  The more skill a character has, the more dice a player can roll in a contest.  Each d6 rolling above the threshold represents a "success" that the character attains in the conflict.  All contests are opposed, so the side with the greatest number of successes wins.

The threshold that each d6 had to overcome is based on a number of factors, one of them being damage.  Essentially, the threshold equals the maximum of a number of trauma attributes.  In beta 1.0, these trauma attributes were: "Agony", "Stun", "Wounds", and "Handicaps".   (Actually, there were others related to emotional trauma as well, but I'm focusing on physical damage to illustrate the point.)

Agony was the default trauma attribute.  That is, if a player did not apply damage points to a different attribute, then it was added to Agony.  However, if Agony ever hit a value of 7 or more, the character died.  When a character took damage, his player could opt to apply the damage points to one of the other three trauma attributes, as long as he described how his character was harmed.  Quite often, a player would want to do this, in order to keep the maximum of the 4 attributes as low as possible, which kept the threshold his d6's had to overcome in contests as low as possible.

All Stun damage disappeared at the end of every scene, Wounds lowered by one point at the end of every scene, and Handicaps never healed except through magic.  Generally, players prefered Stun over Wounds and Wounds over Handicaps.  But, players always wanted to keep the threshold low, so they would opt for more serious Wounds and/or Handicaps when necessary in order to remain effective in a scene.

The damage system worked pretty well.  I ended up stripping most of it out in the interest of simplicity, but I really agonized over the decision.

If this seems like an idea that might help your game design along, please feel free to use it.

This is actually very close to my initial thoughts on my damage system, and the player descriptions/allocations are exactly the kind of thing I'd really like the system to do.  (but had mostly abandoned to abstraction)

I'm going to think on this and let it simmer for a while.

How about True 20??
Where you roll a toughness save to reduce the amount of damage inflicted, if you fail by 5 then you're wounded and get a -2 penalizer to all your subsequent rolls, if you fail by 10 then your incapacited, etc.

True20/M&M isn't quite there, but I think the role of hero points helps (in much the same way as Possibilities in Torg).

I think it'd be neat, however, to fiddle with the damage system such that specific attacks are translated into other powers.

That is, I hit his leg.. the attack is translated into the power: Do some damage, slow the target (Say, a 10 point attack becomes a 5 point damage/5 point slow down attack).

Here's what I've decided on for now.

Everyone keeps track of Damage Inflicted (DI).  This is a running total on the character sheet.  It's just like HPs, only in reverse.  You keep adding to DI up to a hypothetical infinite number rather than subtracting down to zero.

Everyone has a Wound Threshold (WT).  The Wound Threshold tells how many points of damage it takes to equal one Wound.  Divide the DI by the WT to get the total number of Wounds inflicted on the character.

Wounds are the significant blocks of damage which the system tracks.  They mean different things for different types of characters.

Minor Characters have a Maximum Wounds (MW) which states the number of Wounds needed to incapacitate them.  Once they have a number of Wounds inflicted equal to their MW, they fall down.  If the number of Wounds inflicted is 1 or more greater than the MW, they're dead.

Major Characters use a different procedure.  As each Wound is inflicted, they must make Stamina checks based on the highest Wound level they are currently at, and must make as many checks as Wounds inflicted in the single attack.  The Stamina check is equal to the total Wounds times 5.  Failure means incapacitation.  Success means the character is still conscious and faces a -2 stackable penalty per Wound to all non-defensive actions.

Major Characters aren't killed in the traditional sense.  They can be rendered incapacitated by damage.  Death is only by direct GM intervention, until I think of a better rule for it.

More or less, I seem to have just stolen Cyberpunk's damage system.

Damage can also be absorbed by Combat Pool Points (which can also be used to modify defense totals).  I'm considering adding a rule which replenishes Combat Pool Points if you take the damage to DI (actual damage) rather than absorbing it with Combat Pool.

Major Characters can declare a Limit Break.  Declaring a Limit Break erases all check penalties for the duration of the Limit Break.  Also, it awards points to your character's Limit Break Pool equal to the current Damage Inflicted at the point of the Limit Break.  Limit Break Pool Points can be used to modify attack and defense rolls, but cannot be used to absorb damage.  Limit Break Pool Points can also be awarded for playing the character well, and emotionally, and generally being cool during combat.  When a character's Limit Break expires, all points in the Limit Break Pool disappear.

Damage values for weapons are directly lifted from d20 games.

Checks are d20 based (Attribute Modifier + skill + modifiers + 1d20).

I remember one idea they had on AnimalBall (it must have been Brasky or Mike) who wanted to do a original Star Trek-style RPG while HP were represented by the number of Red Shirts you had surrounding your PC.