Petition to remove the hitpoint health system from all future RPGs

[fantadomat]

Here's my experimental RNG-based combat system.

You have a combat skill of 70, your opponent has a combat skill of 20. Your chance of landing a strike on him is 70x20 /90 - 100 = 84.45%, otherwise he blocks. If you fail to block an attack from an enemy, there is a chance that you become injured or critically injured. Being in these states gives a negative % modifier to all future combat rolls, for example instead of a combat skill of 70 you'll temporarily have a combat skill of 56 (-20%), thus lowering your ability to fight.

Hmmmm,were have i seen such a mechanic....

 

[Tavernking]

Here's my experimental RNG-based combat system.

You have a combat skill of 70, your opponent has a combat skill of 20. Your chance of landing a strike on him is 70x20 /90 - 100 = 84.45%, otherwise he blocks. If you fail to block an attack from an enemy, there is a chance that you become injured or critically injured. Being in these states gives a negative % modifier to all future combat rolls, for example instead of a combat skill of 70 you'll temporarily have a combat skill of 56 (-20%), thus lowering your ability to fight.

Hmmmm,were have i seen such a mechanic....

That game has hitpoints so it's not what I meant. My game would just have four states. Healthy, Injured, Critically Injured and Dead.

If you are injured, you are more likely to be critically injured or killed when you take your next blow.

If you are critically injured, you are much more likely to be killed in your next blow.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

What are some good alternatives to hit points in combat?

There really aren't any.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[fantadomat]

Here's my experimental RNG-based combat system.

You have a combat skill of 70, your opponent has a combat skill of 20. Your chance of landing a strike on him is 70x20 /90 - 100 = 84.45%, otherwise he blocks. If you fail to block an attack from an enemy, there is a chance that you become injured or critically injured. Being in these states gives a negative % modifier to all future combat rolls, for example instead of a combat skill of 70 you'll temporarily have a combat skill of 56 (-20%), thus lowering your ability to fight.

Hmmmm,were have i seen such a mechanic....

That game has hitpoints so it's not what I meant. My game would just have four states. Healthy, Injured, Critically Injured and Dead.

If you are injured, you are more likely to be critically injured or killed when you take your next blow.

If you are critically injured, you are much more likely to be killed in your next blow.

Soooo you will have only four hit points?

 

[vota DC]

I think no hp would work in a m&b fashion (all weapons one hit you but still leveling will help you shooting with bow and striking faster) or age of wonders style with luck involved.
Would be awesome in rts too, instead of a warrior that is bashing another warrior until he dies (and often run with 1 hp left as fast as a unwounded one despite slower damaged units are introduced in dune 2 already) you get warriors that block, parry and die with one successful hit.

 

[Azarkon]

Physics simulations. That's about it. I was playing around for a while with the idea of applying the physics concept of damage, which would take into account the physical properties of the weapons material, what it can actually do to the armor material given a specific amount of force, what it can do to the human body, what damage actually stands for biologically, etc., but it got too complicated, too fast. I sort of concluded that the best way to get away from hit points is to go with a physics based system but the simulation would have to be done with a computer. It would not work in a paper setting.

 

[Azarkon]

The problem with being injuried giving a negative modifier to combat effectiveness has been know for a while in PnP. We call it the Death Spiral.

Once you start going down, there's very little chances of coming back, because if you went down then it means the fight was already hard, and so with diminished effectiveness it most likely becomes harder if not impossible. The moment-to-moment experience of it is also pretty frustrating, as the actions you take that will most likely fail given the penalties (if the fight was hard, they were already failing some so this is just running you into the ground). Usually injury systems are combined with lasting injuries that can't be healed instantly in combat, since both mechanics exist to simulate reality, so you're pretty much boned until it ends. Gameplay after getting injured becomes about waiting for the foregone conclusion, twidling your thumbs while other characters in your party (if any) save the day, or reloading. I wouldn't recommend it in that form.

I don't think it's that terrible of an idea, but for it to work in a CRPG, you'd either have to be able to recover from it after a battle, or it would need to be a game where hiring and replacing characters is a regular practice, like in strategy games. In fact, I can think of a type of game in which it could be used effectively - ie where you run a mercenary or adventuring company and have to make the hard decision of removing people who become shit because of your own decisions. That could be fun.

 

[DraQ]

Sure, HPs are a shitty abstraction.
Some food for your thoughts:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/hp-less-rpg-combat.22602/
https://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/ind...bers-break-immersion.27788/page-2#post-637005
https://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/ind...g-is-fucking-stupid.66831/page-3#post-1876585
https://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/damage-cap.76748/
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...tative-descriptions.41232/page-4#post-1151482
Knock yourselves out.

 

[Iznaliu]

there is a chance that you become injured or critically injured

Is that chance affected by anything, or is it totally constant?

A bonus of these mechanics, is that the player can always win a fight. If he has a combat skill of 1 and is verusing a dragon with a combat skill of 9000, there is still a chance he can win the fight.

I think there needs to be a hard cap at some point, as at a certain point, overcoming a much more powerful enemy is straight-up impossible.

 

[Cael]

Always wanted my bard to start a fight with few insults targeted at boss and his minions were like: oooooh! What a burn!
And boss would drop his hp in half

Nah. The boss would go cry in in his safespace, scream about how he is oppressed and gets checked into a mental institution. Meanwhile, you win the game.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Cael]

you are talking about pacifist path while im discussing combat usefulness

No. I am making fun of something else. Don't worry, those it is targeted at will get it.

 

[anvi]

You could have it so some enemies have no HP and just need sustained damage to affect a part of that mobs body like organs. And some mobs have HP but it is hidden. You hide them so the player never sees them, and then you associate multiple groups of hitpoints to parts of the body on each character, including internally. So it basically would work exactly like real life.

So you swing your sword at a bandit and he dodges well and it was a weak swing too, and you hit his arm. It does 0 damage and the game keeps track of that but the player doesn't know, he can just tell it looks like not much happened. You hit again, and again it is weak and he dodges well, but you land a bit of a slash on his arm with your sword and it cuts him. He starts bleeding and he has 100% blood, and the cut makes him start losing 2% per minute. If he loses too much blood, he goes unconscious and beyond that, death. But if you bludgeoned him with a staff, he would have no blood loss but a take a different type of damage. With the sword, you drew blood, but also the arm secretly has 10hp and your attack did 2 damage to it. You attack him again on the arm, a better hit, it secretly does 5 damage, so it is at 7/10. It is still attached but injured and bleeding increased too. Another good hit and he will lose his arm and that affects his attacks. You could chop off both arms and both legs and he would still be alive, but the wounds affect blood loss, and losing an entire limb creates huge blood loss. You could attack all parts of the body and he doesn't lose any limbs or have any permanent damage to any part of his body, but the many cuts could make him bleed to death quickly. You could attack his head and it only bleeds slightly and doesn't take much damage at all, but he is stunned and bewildered from it. Attack his leg and he has some bleeding, loses some hp of his leg (secretly), but also affects his movement.

So now a Necromancer casts a poison spell on a bandit. It does no damage, but it starts a death countdown. In a minute, the poison will spread through his blood stream and reach his brain and all organs will fail and he will die. But if he cures himself in that time, he will be fine.

Against a Stone Golem, poison does nothing because he has no blood, slashing at him does nothing becaus he can't be cut and bleed. But if you bludgeon him, it chips away parts of him, and eventually you beat him into pieces.

Against a tentacle creature with 10 arms, attacking the arms is pointless because he has so many, but attack its head and it could die fast.

Against a propolasm cube of magical goo monster, he is immune to all physical damage. You attack with a sword and it just goes through the goo and it does nothing. He can only be attacked with magic and that doesn't do HP damage, it just needs sustained damage of a certain type to kill it. Blast it with fire and the surface singes. You have to do that 4 times quickly and it will fry it to death. Or if you blast it with electricity, it will recover, but if you do it 3 times quickly it will have a heart failure. Blast it with poison, its brain will start to fade. I should be in bed.

 

[flabbyjack]

Shadowrun P&P had a pretty good system of body wound and stamina levels. A former soldier would have a better ability to deal with the negative effects from wounds. Armor provides soak, etc.

 

[ntonystinson]

What are some good alternatives to hit points in combat?

I think if u get stabbed by a sword you should die or be mortally wounded, same goes for been shot

 

[Cael]

What are some good alternatives to hit points in combat?

I think if u get stabbed by a sword you should die or be mortally wounded, same goes for been shot

Depends on where. Getting shot in the foot would be painful as heck, but fatal? That would take some doing.

 

[adrix89]

Rather then if it has HP or not what is more important is how in depth you go into the simulation.

What people want is the fun stuff like gore, dismemberment, guts, decapitations, ripping their beating hearts, teeths flying, jaws broken, eyes gauged, ripping of nails,fingers,hair and penetrating with various objects various holes.
Just imagine the beauty of torturing a NPC with various techniques.

 

[Raghar]

Game developers of Die by Sword removed that feature, when they seen how jerks are some beta testers. They didn't want to participate in that.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Did nobody here play NEO Scavenger?

 

[Keldryn]

I once had a DM who decided that healing in DnD 3.5 is unrealistic (note that this is a game where throwing around a fireball and firing disintegrate rays is perfectly OK) and so basically removed it from the game. This is the edition where the HP bloat went through the roof (Red Dragons used to have about 100hp max, now have over 650, for example). Yeah. It didn't work very well.

In my experience, the vast majority of house rules that DMs come up with are poorly thought out and make the game worse. Especially when the house rules is intended to "fix" something that is "unrealistic."

Very few DMs seem to be able to grasp the far-reaching side effects of their pet house rules on the rest of the system.

In 30+ years of gaming (tabletop & electronic), I've yet to see an alternative to HP that works better.

 

[Iznaliu]

In 30+ years of gaming (tabletop & electronic), I've yet to see an alternative to HP that works better.

What kind of alternatives have you tried? This is important, since giving a few alternatives a bit of a spin is different from constantly trying to shed the HP system.

 

[Cael]

In my experience, the vast majority of house rules that DMs come up with are poorly thought out and make the game worse. Especially when the house rules is intended to "fix" something that is "unrealistic."

Very few DMs seem to be able to grasp the far-reaching side effects of their pet house rules on the rest of the system.

In 30+ years of gaming (tabletop & electronic), I've yet to see an alternative to HP that works better.

This one was particularly bad. He was waxing lyrical about "reality" in a world of Fireball slinging wizards, for example, and think that the Mystic Theurge in DnD 3.5 is the most broken ohmyf-inggodbroken haxxor class evah!!!! Ban ban ban!!!!!

Oh, I forgot to mention. He also thinks 4 ranks in a skill is university level education, so if you want to raise your ranks higher, you need to have a reason for it and you need to have used it extensively in game beforehand. You can imagine how well that played out when we went above level 3 :D

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I would sign any petition to abolish hitpoints from games/RPGs.

Hitpoints are a specific example of a more general phenomenon: the numeric abstraction. If you are trying to model a complex system such as combat, the easiest way to do it is by assigning a bunch of numbers to broadly represent various aspects of the system. Hitpoints, attack, defense, damage, armor value, etc.

I don't blame PnP systems for doing this, as it was generally the most practical way to do it, and same for early video games. But we have pretty powerful hardware now, it's time to put it to use by having more complex simulations.

The big problem with purely numeric simulation is that it basically creates bland, boring combat systems (especially in action RPGs), where you are just essentially comparing two numbers, and the larger number wins. Bethesda games are a great example of this, as their "action" combat simply involves two parties whacking away at each other until the one with higher numbers wins.

If you go away from purely numeric systems, and for example have a system where a single blow can end the fight (ie realistic combat), suddenly combat becomes much more interesting, with blocking/parrying/avoidance/type of armor/type of weapon becoming very important, and it's no longer just a numerical comparison.

 

[Cael]

I would sign any petition to abolish hitpoints from games/RPGs.

Hitpoints are a specific example of a more general phenomenon: the numeric abstraction. If you are trying to model a complex system such as combat, the easiest way to do it is by assigning a bunch of numbers to broadly represent various aspects of the system. Hitpoints, attack, defense, damage, armor value, etc.

I don't blame PnP systems for doing this, as it was generally the most practical way to do it, and same for early video games. But we have pretty powerful hardware now, it's time to put it to use by having more complex simulations.

The big problem with purely numeric simulation is that it basically creates bland, boring combat systems (especially in action RPGs), where you are just essentially comparing two numbers, and the larger number wins. Bethesda games are a great example of this, as their "action" combat simply involves two parties whacking away at each other until the one with higher numbers wins.

If you go away from purely numeric systems, and for example have a system where a single blow can end the fight (ie realistic combat), suddenly combat becomes much more interesting, with blocking/parrying/avoidance/type of armor/type of weapon becoming very important, and it's no longer just a numerical comparison.

For a CRPG, you can make it as complex as you want. For tabletop, that becomes a very messy problem. Battletech, for example, can really bog down fast if you play with more than 4 'Mechs a side, and that has the most basic dice rolling. DnD 3.5, for all its d20 rolling can also bog down, with some combats lasting 30mins easy. If you are going to play with half-a-dozen dice roll per attack, it is really going to get boring real fast.

Abolishing HP is one thing. Making up a complex system in order to do it is counterproductive in the extreme.