http://montecook.livejournal.com/115075.html

Tony,

The above link is to Monte Cook's blog where he has been pondering the same question about hit points.

Judd

P.S.  How dare you think critically about hit points, you fucking swine!  Just roll the dice and have fun.  Fucking hell.

I always accepted them for what they were orginally meant...how much damage you could take before dying.  I don't mind wound levels, stun points, and other resource stats if someone wants a bit more realism.  HP was never meant to be a literal measurement of the intangible (INHO).

Explanation shamelessly stolen from ENWorld's Hong Ooi:

QuoteCertainly.

You will note that a dagger has only an eentsy little blade. The thing is that as characters advance in levels (sometimes termed "developing", or "maturing"; this is a process a bit like fruit ripening) they develop a protective force field around them. This force field is sometimes called the "dude factor". The dude factor is very thin for 1st level characters, in particular 1st level commoners, who are not dudes at all. 1st level PCs are by definition dudes, so they have more of a dude factor. As your level increases, so does your dudeness, and hence the thickness and strength of your protective dude field. A dagger, having only an eentsy blade, can only penetrate a certain thickness of dude field. A longsword has a bigger blade, and so can penetrate many more inches of dudeness (only dudes can wield a longsword, which is why it's a martial weapon, whereas any schmuck can wield a dagger, which is a simple weapon). Finally, a greatsword is the ultimate dude weapon, and has unsurpassed ability to penetrate dude fields. Even the most mojo dudes find it hard to control a greatsword, which is why it needs two hands to use.

Hope this helps!

And so on.

The standard way I always dealt with it was to have the character accumulate minor cuts, bruises, injuries, limps, etc. as damage increased, proportional to level. The aesthetics of constant small wounds and sucking yourself back up to something near full effectiveness has a cinematic (and modest real life) basis and works fine with the hit point system if you want to rationalize it.

You don't do limbs chopping off and gushers of blood and disfiguring scars under normal circumstances not because they're not realistic, but because they're not fun.

This is such a non-issue. The only thing that's an issue about it for some people is that once you accumulate some you can't be killed in one shot by an arrow or sword, and that bugs some people in some cases. Again, you might consider this a feature of the game, but if you really want that 'risk of death' to be always there in every fight, that's what critical hit systems were originally invented for, and by now there are like 10,000 of these out there.

Quote from: CalithenaThe standard way I always dealt with it was to have the character accumulate minor cuts, bruises, injuries, limps, etc. as damage increased, proportional to level. The aesthetics of constant small wounds and sucking yourself back up to something near full effectiveness has a cinematic (and modest real life) basis and works fine with the hit point system if you want to rationalize it.

You don't do limbs chopping off and gushers of blood and disfiguring scars under normal circumstances not because they're not realistic, but because they're not fun.

This is such a non-issue. The only thing that's an issue about it for some people is that once you accumulate some you can't be killed in one shot by an arrow or sword, and that bugs some people in some cases. Again, you might consider this a feature of the game, but if you really want that 'risk of death' to be always there in every fight, that's what critical hit systems were originally invented for, and by now there are like 10,000 of these out there.

I am not interested in starting some kind of war, or what not, but damage track systems address some of these concerns. Even so, a damage track is just another abstraction, which comes with its own set of problems and issues. Some people find book keeping to be an ordeal, others feel damage tracks have too much leathality, ect...

That said, if you do find yourself tired of hit points giving a track system a try might be a good idea. At first I thought they were lame and unworkable, now it is my preferred system.

But if you're happy with hit points, keep using them. They can be a lot of fun.

Hi Aos,

Damage track systems are pretty cool by me. I don't see them as a lot different from hit point systems: where they seem to do better is in (a) describing 'how bad you are wounded' and (b) handling critical damage in certain situations.

I guess in practice the one problem I've had with most damage track systems is that there tend to be negative modifiers to your acting as you get more damage, introducing the famed 'death spiral'. I tend to find this Not Fun. PCs who are already suffering have an extra hassle to deal with, while beaten-down monsters might as well be put out to pasture right away instead of flailing for the last couple rounds before they finally get killed.

I often use fractions of hit points as a 'damage track' for purposes of describing to players how they feel (less than 1/4 is not a big deal, 1/4 to 1/2 you're breathing hard and in some pain, 1/2 to 3/4 you're maybe limping a little and have some bandaged cuts, 3/4 to 1 you're beat to hell and knocking on death's door, e.g.).

Quote from: CalithenaI often use fractions of hit points as a 'damage track' for purposes of describing to players how they feel (less than 1/4 is not a big deal, 1/4 to 1/2 you're breathing hard and in some pain, 1/2 to 3/4 you're maybe limping a little and have some bandaged cuts, 3/4 to 1 you're beat to hell and knocking on death's door, e.g.).

Praedor does something similar by handling HP (or "Blood") as a track, although losing more than a quarter of the points also incurs some penalties and losing more than three quarters leaves a character effectively defenseless. The HPs are divided into four categories ("Scratch", "Wound", "Injury", "Shock"), and by default a character's Stamina attribute determines how many points he receives for each of them: all in all, someone with Stamina 3 would have 4x7 HP, and someone with Stamina 20 4x15 HP. Certain advantages or disadvantages can change those figures, as well.

Absolutely every "damage" system is some kind of abstraction, so the whole argument is bullshit.  You're trying to claim that a "damage track" or an "injury circle" or an "unwellness rhombus" or even a 200000 page critical table is "more realistic" than hit points, and that's all just bullshit. They're all just different kinds of abstractions.

RPGPundit

Isn't there a system where weapons inflict wounds? The character doesn't get some set limit of wounds but the severity of the would caused would determine  the detrimental affects... penalties, unconsciousness, crippling, and death.

What game was that. Was it just a fancy way to track hit points, or was it something else.

Abstractions they all may be, yet some offer play experiences that are more vivid and visceral than others.

I wouldn't remove WFRP's crit. tables for all the tea in China, nor would I attempt to tack on the same system to D&D. Each has it's place according to the design goals of system and setting.

The real question for me is which do I find more satisying at the table? WFRP without a doubt. Why? Because the system graphically represents serious injury in such a way that is both entertaining and plausible. It may not be 'realistic,' but it's a hell of a lot more fun than simple bean counting.

Quote from: RPGPunditYou're trying to claim that a "damage track" or an "injury circle" or an "unwellness rhombus" or even a 200000 page critical table is "more realistic" than hit points, and that's all just bullshit.

That's not even vaguely what anyone has said.

Sounds like some people find value in a hit-point system and find value (presumably different value) in a damage-track system.  Sounds like a good, good thing to me.  I can't help but admire that kind of open-mindedness.

Can someone give me more of a sense of what a damage-track system is, in this context?  Is it like the wound-tracks in CP2020, where you get various detriments at various levels of "wounded"?

Quote from: darIsn't there a system where weapons inflict wounds? The character doesn't get some set limit of wounds but the severity of the would caused would determine  the detrimental affects... penalties, unconsciousness, crippling, and death.

What game was that. Was it just a fancy way to track hit points, or was it something else.

HarnMaster.

It's definitely different from hit points, and is quite flavorful (you can die from sepsis as a result of a wound quite easily).  I've only read the rules (never had a group who wanted to play it), but the damage system seems to act as a sort of death spiral, with each significant wound adding to your universal penalty (a negative modifier to all skill/magic/etc. checks).

I take them literally, especially in all d20 RPGs that don't explicity do away with Touch Attacks (and none do), so your Hit Points are the literal measure of how much damage your character can take before dying.  Nothing else makes sense.

A review of the HarnMaster combat system. It reads fairly complex, and interesting.

Quote from: RPGPunditAbsolutely every "damage" system is some kind of abstraction, so the whole argument is bullshit.  You're trying to claim that a "damage track" or an "injury circle" or an "unwellness rhombus" or even a 200000 page critical table is "more realistic" than hit points, and that's all just bullshit. They're all just different kinds of abstractions.

RPGPundit

No body is arguing at all- what the fuck are you on about? you should at least have the self control not to thread crap on your own forum.