So this isn't as crazy as it sounds.  All of the West End Games D6 Star Wars and the generic D6 games that came later can fit here.  They don't use hit points. You had a damage status.  Unharmed, wounded, badly wounded, incapacitated, and dying.


I've also been playing around with a little combat system I made myself.  It works by using opposed rolls accumulating penalties until you wind up rolling on a critical hit table, and that table can kill you. 

It wasn't until today I realized that it doesn't need hit points.  Just keep playing until that critical hit table kills you or him.   

So now I'm curious about other games out there that don't use hit points.   

Savage worlds doesn't, heroes and hardships also doesn't, burning wheel are the most obvious, technically traveller or Cepheus engine games don't use hit points. Shadow run uses a wound track, just off the top of my head

Is a wound track hit points? Is tracking received hits and rolling a save based on attack's damage and hits taken so far negative hit points? Is wounds and vitality and alternative to hit points or just two kinds of hit points?

Wound levels are simply a limited and generally non-improvable version of hit points, they just add a dice modifier penalty to it.

"Keep going till you get a crit" is simply a system where everyone has one hit point.

There are only so many ways to do things, really.

HarnMaster. The old Warp World game by BTRC doesn't either IIRC.

The Riddle of Steel (and successors like Blade of the Iron Throne or Song of Swords).

Though if you count the points of the HT (or analogous) Attribute that a character loses as he bleeds out from failed Bleeding rolls, one could argue that these are still hit points, just a very limited number which take a lot of processing time to remove. But I think that may be broadening the definition to the point of uselessness.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on October 25, 2022, 08:06:32 AM
Though if you count the points of the HT (or analogous) Attribute that a character loses as he bleeds out from failed Bleeding rolls, one could argue that these are still hit points, just a very limited number which take a lot of processing time to remove. But I think that may be broadening the definition to the point of uselessness.

True.  OTOH, things like the Burning Wheel wound track involve so much tracking, that it might as well be hit points.  The only reason it's not hit points is that it uses a table lookup to be able to say that technically it doesn't have hit point.

Having flirted with such systems, my general view is that they fall into two camps:  Simple alternatives that fit the game they are in.  And systems that go round and round the maypole desperately trying to avoid what hit points would do better.  Nothing wrong with using something different.  Desperation to avoid a mechanic is not a good motivation.

Well, off the top of my head, Mutants and Masterminds is a big one. Uses a similar system that you described, actually. Just hit them, until you hit them so hard that they aren't moving anymore. You can optionally hit them again after that to kill them. For a less classic take on hit points, you've got World of Darkness/Exalted that use a damage track. Exalted also uses your initiative as a sort of hit point pool, which is kind of cool. FATE uses a weird damage track, that, once filled, you then start taking injuries that your opponent can exploit to make things worse. Also works in social encounters in FATE as well, which is cool.

Quote from: jaseoffire on October 25, 2022, 08:46:03 AM
Well, off the top of my head, Mutants and Masterminds is a big one. Uses a similar system that you described, actually. Just hit them, until you hit them so hard that they aren't moving anymore. You can optionally hit them again after that to kill them. For a less classic take on hit points, you've got World of Darkness/Exalted that use a damage track. Exalted also uses your initiative as a sort of hit point pool, which is kind of cool. FATE uses a weird damage track, that, once filled, you then start taking injuries that your opponent can exploit to make things worse. Also works in social encounters in FATE as well, which is cool.

Yeah, I'd put World of Darkness firmly in the "uses hipoints" category. Here's a basic breakdown of what I have seen.

1. Uses hitpoints.
a) Just hitpoints and lots of em.
b) limited hitpoints with penalties when you get low. nWoD
c) multiple hiptoint like tracks -- typically a physical and mental track but may have more.

2. Just conditions/negative modifiers of some sort/losing options.
a) Roll less dice, or loose other resource (card, token, runes).
b) Opponents can use the condition against you
c) Just damage attribute - but this may be better under 1 depending on implementation.

3. Irrelevant to play, or if you are injured run/surrender or die
a) there's no real fighting / damage -- mostly narrative story-games like say Wanderhome or The Quiet Year. In the later case you aren't even one person.
b) Injured? run/surrender or die - here the GM is really warning you that you are over-matched, perhaps Amber Diceless fits here.

4. ??
I here Mutants and Masterminds has some sort of save mechanic. But I don't really understand it.


Note that systems can use both -- Fate Core is 1c + 2b.

I worked on a fantasy heartbreaker that used roll under Stats for most tests. Damage reduced stats so each wound had an instant effect. I don't remember exactly but most wounds reduced CON, some reduced STR. Burns reduced CHA. It all made sense but I never got it really where I wanted before I abandoned the idea.

Anyway, would stat reduction count as HP?

Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 24, 2022, 10:42:51 PM
I've also been playing around with a little combat system I made myself.  It works by using opposed rolls accumulating penalties until you wind up rolling on a critical hit table, and that table can kill you. 

Are you familiar with the game "Warlock!"? It does something similar. Stamina (hp) gets reduced without consequence until you are at 0 or less, then you start rolling on crit tables. Stamina recovers quickly.

Quote from: Ruprecht on October 25, 2022, 11:55:51 AM
I worked on a fantasy heartbreaker that used roll under Stats for most tests. Damage reduced stats so each wound had an instant effect. I don't remember exactly but most wounds reduced CON, some reduced STR. Burns reduced CHA. It all made sense but I never got it really where I wanted before I abandoned the idea.

Anyway, would stat reduction count as HP?

In this implementation I think it's fairly distinct. I put that under my number 2, "reducing options/efficacy."

IMO HP are any mechanic where there is a progression along a track or numerical continuum, where once a certain point is reached the character is dead or disabled.

They make a game fun, but I find their lack of realism very unsatisfying.  In an actual fight you can end up dead or disabled at any point.

I have a non-hp mechanic, but it's from an unfinished project of mine from a few years ago, not a published game.  Here's the first take on it.

Attacks are resolved by opposed rolls with the results on the defender determined by the margin of success of the attack, according to this table:

Margin                    Result
Less than 3            No effect
3-5                         Disadvantaged, -3 to all rolls next round
6-8                         Body part incapacitated, roll randomly for head, torso, arm, arm, leg, leg
9-11                       Body part destroyed, randomly determined, this is a kill on the head, and gives dying status on the torso
11+                        Dead
               
I found this hard to tune, as if the numbers were too big, fights will take too long, and if they're too small PCs die too quickly, so I added a damage mechanic to the low end of the table.

Margin          Result
1-2               defender takes 1 point of damage

Damage is global modifier on every single roll for the PC.  It's cumulative, so if you've been damaged 3 times, you have a -3 on every roll until healed.  With damage in the mix I could raise the numbers whilst still keeping the length of combats under control

Damage is not hp because there's not a threshold you reach and you get a new status like dead or wounded, it instead affect probabilities.  Theoretically your character could take a any amount of damage and still be fine in the next attack provided the enemy doesn't get at least a 6 margin.

I quite like this mechanic, but sadly am not using it for my current project as it does not fit the style of the game.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 24, 2022, 10:42:51 PM
So this isn't as crazy as it sounds.  All of the West End Games D6 Star Wars and the generic D6 games that came later can fit here.  They don't use hit points. You had a damage status.  Unharmed, wounded, badly wounded, incapacitated, and dying.

That is a system with four hit points.

4 hit points = Unharmed
3 hit points = wounded
2 hit points = badly wounded
1 hit points = incapacitated
0 hit points = dying.

Quote from: Jason Coplen on October 25, 2022, 07:45:57 AM
HarnMaster. The old Warp World game by BTRC doesn't either IIRC.

In Harnmaster you suffer injury. Which degrades your skills and attribute rolls including saves. But in theory, you can take infinite injury. There is no max, you just keep tallying injury levels as you get hit.

But... every time you get hit, you have to roll a save, often multiple saves depending on the hit locations. The amount of injury you suffered factors into the save. This means late in a fight you can pass out from a minor scratch (1 or 2 injury levels). Because your total cumulative injury is so high that you add +10, +11, +12, etc. to your 1d6 (or 2d6) shock roll and you still blow your attribute save. Or in some editions of HM the injury levels you suffer add additional dies to the shock roll or other injury rolls.

https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-walk-through-harnmaster-combat-part-2.html