Cloaked Figure
Arcane
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Erebus said:I don't like HP much, but too much realism can be really annoying as far as wounds are concerned. If my PC were to lose an eye or a hand, I'm pretty sure I would simply reload to avoid being plagued by such a handicap for the rest of the game (unless, of course, such damages could be repaired within a reasonable period of time).
Mind you, the idea's interesting, but it would require a very special combat system.
soggie said:Erebus said:I don't like HP much, but too much realism can be really annoying as far as wounds are concerned. If my PC were to lose an eye or a hand, I'm pretty sure I would simply reload to avoid being plagued by such a handicap for the rest of the game (unless, of course, such damages could be repaired within a reasonable period of time).
Mind you, the idea's interesting, but it would require a very special combat system.
This.
What games should do is to penalize HP loss more. In my design, when the player loses HP, all his skills suffer a universal decrease.
50-100% HP = no stat loss
25-50% HP = 1 point decrease
10-25% HP = 2 point decrease
1-10% HP = 3 point decrease
Given that all stats only range from 1 to 10, losing 3 points is a huge thing.
BearBomber said:soggie said:Erebus said:I don't like HP much, but too much realism can be really annoying as far as wounds are concerned. If my PC were to lose an eye or a hand, I'm pretty sure I would simply reload to avoid being plagued by such a handicap for the rest of the game (unless, of course, such damages could be repaired within a reasonable period of time).
Mind you, the idea's interesting, but it would require a very special combat system.
This.
What games should do is to penalize HP loss more. In my design, when the player loses HP, all his skills suffer a universal decrease.
50-100% HP = no stat loss
25-50% HP = 1 point decrease
10-25% HP = 2 point decrease
1-10% HP = 3 point decrease
Given that all stats only range from 1 to 10, losing 3 points is a huge thing.
This is very similar to the Savage Worlds RPG, but in that you just have penalty to every roll,not to the stats, as stats are used for something different.
The real problem here isn't the low amount of HP. The real problem is getting hit by that arrow. A game with a lethal combat system would need to provide players with a way of avoiding getting hit with arrow. Historically, there were lots of fighters that somehow avoided getting killed with one arrow. I don't see any reason why PC shouldn't be like them.Malakal said:HPs may be needed for gameplay reasons, getting killed by one arrow isnt fun,
Awor Szurkrarz said:The real problem here isn't the low amount of HP. The real problem is getting hit by that arrow. A game with a lethal combat system would need to provide players with a way of avoiding getting hit with arrow. Historically, there were lots of fighters that somehow avoided getting killed with one arrow. I don't see any reason why PC shouldn't be like them.Malakal said:HPs may be needed for gameplay reasons, getting killed by one arrow isnt fun,
A system based on avoiding getting wounded would also solve the problem of potion spamming.
Yeah, but games with rising hit points are a bad idea because encountering 150 opponents, each of which has 589689689895489048905906590679065904904390489058975 hit points and regeneration of 59689685830390689658409 hitpoints per turn while you do only 856868548 points of damage simply isn't fun.soggie said:I agree with Malakal that getting killed by a lucky arrow shot (while realistic) is not what I call fun.
Fixed it for you.soggie said:What's the point of grinding?
Being capable to take more punishment dealt out with tools designed to kill and horribly maim people is anything but logical.soggie said:HP goes up in levels because it represents your character being capable of taking more punishment, which is logical.
Castanova said:Conceptually, hitpoints are closer to a measure of tactical advantage in a single fight. I.e., after each combatant makes one move, hitpoints are decreased depending on who achieved more with that one move toward the goal of eventually winning altogether. It has nothing to do with health or wounds whatsoever except in an extremely abstract sense (in that, stabbing someone non-fatally does, in fact, give you an advantage going forward).
Hence, some kind of "wound system" where your dice rolls are penalized at 75%, 50%, and 25% hitpoints (as an example) is inappropriate as it double counts the "injured" combatant's disadvantage. In other words, his wounds are taken into account by his decrease in hitpoints already.
If there is anything to complain about with hitpoints, it is that increasing hitpoints with level-ups implies a uniform improvement in the character's ability to win fights regardless of the form of the threat to that character. Whether the character is met with sword, bow, or magic, that increase in HP improves his chances all the same. It is up to the system designer to come up with a way to fix this, if they are interested in fixing it at all.
Awor Szurkrarz said:Yeah, but games with rising hit points are a bad idea because encountering 150 opponents, each of which has 589689689895489048905906590679065904904390489058975 hit points and regeneration of 59689685830390689658409 hitpoints per turn while you do only 856868548 points of damage simply isn't fun.soggie said:I agree with Malakal that getting killed by a lucky arrow shot (while realistic) is not what I call fun.
Fixed it for you.soggie said:What's the point of grinding?
Being capable to take more punishment dealt out with tools designed to kill and horribly maim people is anything but logical.soggie said:HP goes up in levels because it represents your character being capable of taking more punishment, which is logical.
Better armour protecting from damage is logical.
Except that usually you already have AC, DR, DT, variable weapon damage, skill/attributes bonuses to damage, etc. etc. etc. to represent these things. Redundant concept is redundant.soggie said:It's called Hit Points and not Health Points for a reason - it is supposed to abstract the nature of combat where you only go down after an amount of hits. It's not supposed to represent a character's overall health, but rather a person's combat efficiency in that situation.
Is it more or less fun than knowing that you can take additional several arrows through your ribcage before the situation even starts being tight?Malakal said:HPs may be needed for gameplay reasons, getting killed by one arrow isnt fun
Castanova said:Why can't you understand that RPG combat is entirely abstracted? Just because you can kill someone with a single lucky hit in real life doesn't mean that is appropriate for a game. HP allows a battle to play out over a longer period of "time" than a real fight would last in order to reduce excessive variance and the resulting player frustration - because it's frustrating to lose a battle in one turn and it's also frustrating for battles to become so inconsequential that you can win them in one turn.