Alternatives to Hitpoints

I'm working on an iPad text-centric RPG (I usually say it's halfway between Zork and NetHack). I tend to think of it in terms of PnP RPGs — I'm trying to capture the notion that the game really takes place in your imagination, not on screen.

Most of the engine work is done so now I'm really starting to get into the game model itself. One thing I'm interested is finding an alternative to hit points. I've never particularly liked HP — it just seems so bloody fake to me to have a character be in top form right up until they hit 0 HP, and then they're dead. Critical hits help, but I'm wondering if there's a good way to do away with HP entirely.

Since this is on a computer, I can obviously have models that are more realistic than anything that could be done by hand in a PnP RPG. But simulation must take a back seat to fun. The main reason HP is so successful, I think, is that the game stays just as playable right up until you hit 0 HP, at which point you can try again.

I like the idea of all meaningful damage being critical hits, but I'm worried this would be more annoying than fun. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

 

Track wounds and use damage tables

Which is horrible and not necessarily linked to HP, plenty of games that have HP also have wound penalties for HP levels

 

Explaining Hit Points

 

It sounds less like you have problems with hit points, and more with how hit point loss is generally handled. A simple solution is to continue with hit points, and whenever the player tries to do anything, penalize their character based on what percentage of their total hit points are remaining. For instance, if their max hit points is 100, and their current is 75, then all of their abilities are simply 75% of their normal value. Some other ratio than 1:1 would probably be better, but that's the general idea.

But here's a few ideas that are similar to the old standard, and might work for you:
- Characters have 'fatigue points' and 'life points'. Basically, fatigue works like the normal hit points - when a character is 'hit', fatigue is reduced. Once fatigue is depleted, then life points are affected. When fatigue is 0, characters are negatively affected. Fatigue recovers quickly (a couple hours rest), while life points do not. Fatigue increases with level, but life points are set from creation. Fatigue can also be used for casting spells or any other high exertion activity. Critical hits, and some special attacks, can bypass fatigue and directly affect life.

- Characters have wound levels. We'll say four. When a character is hit, they make a check. The higher the damage, the more difficult the check. Tougher and/or higher level characters have a bonus to the check. If the check is failed, their wound level is reduced. At each wound level, characters have increasingly greater penalties to their abilities.

 

Thanks. But that's more a matter of interpretation than intent of the game mechanic, don't you think? I think it's fair to say a lot of players will equate loss of HP with direct damage. Having to explain to them that this is wrong (even though healing spells, as the link says, suggest that this *is* the correct interpretation), rather than designing the game mechanic to reflect the intent of the game mechanic, is a bit of a dodge.

 

A few of the basic alternatives.

• When an individual is damaged, the individual (or the individual body part if tracking that far) takes damage. But instead of tracking life force, the damage becomes a direct penalty that is applied to all skills. Thus, take enough damage, and the chance of success of every skill becomes 0%. And at some point, the person slumps over.
• Track wounds instead of hp. No point totals are used. Instead, a wound is like a status effect. Each type of wound causes a different type of status effect. The penalties of multiple wounds of the same type stack.
• When a person suffers damage, instead of tracking hp, the total damage is compared to a table of a short list of theshholds. The more damage done, the higher the threshhold achieved. Tougher people have higher threshhold numbers. Each threshhold applies worse penalties. So, a wound applies the penalties of the threshold, and those penalties are all that is recorded.
• Cancel the damage-based system altogether. This is left-field stuff. But, have a fight attack a person's guard instead of their body. When their guard is defeated, then an attack strikes home on the body. Everyone can still have hp, if you don't want instant death when guard is defeated, but hp then is a low number. And penalties for wounds can easily be applied at various levels of hp loss.

There is one thing that one should keep in mind with these kinds of systems, though. In a single character RPG, when one applies wound penalties early and often, fights can easily end up being decided at the first wounding. The penalties applied tend to immediately turn the battle in the wounder's favor, making it much more likely that they will be the one to get the second wound also. And it just accelerates from there. Which has far-reaching effects beyond just the stated end. Since the first wound decides things, getting the first wounding becomes all-important. So, characters who have high initiative and high to-hit rule the roost, even if they're so weak they can't even lift a sword.

 

How bout dying in 1-2 hits and some additional protection for another 1-2 shots to survive, not to mention various states (bleeding, temporary disability etc.). Who will bother with some numbers, amrite.
Simpler but more difficult for casuals (no grinds for higher HP or whatever).
Quite fitting for text game, though.

It worked in XCOM and 762mm.

 

The Riddle of Steel had a quite interesting model.

 

That was the intent of the game mechanic, according to Gygax. Just a sample from the AD&D Dungeon Master's guide:

It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability in his or her class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. It is preposterous to state such an assumption, for if we are to assume that a man is killed by a sword thrust which does 4 hit points of damage, we must similarly assume that a hero could, on the average, withstand five such thrusts before being slain!

 

And that's why they based HP on condition instead of on dexterity.

 

Hitpoints aren't just flesh and bones. They reflect your combat experience, defense strategy and general toughness. It's your call to decide how much you would like to simulate and kill our fun.

 

Alternatives to hitpoints.

Implement various strike points on the body and each point can absorb a certain amount of damage based on damage type applied to the area.

Then set fatal conditions based on the amount of damage inflicted to a specific body area or amount of damage inflicted over the entire body (like getting cut a hundred times and bleeding out instead of getting one big kill shot). There would still be "points" of a sort but there wouldn't be any hp bloat with levels. You could modify damage resistance based on armor but that would be about it imo.

 

In other words, localized HP.

 

You could call it that, but I think the term hitpoints would be misleading because of the variance in what would constitute a deadly strike to a given region.

Getting punched 5 times in the face wouldn't be as deadly as getting stabbed 5 times in the face for example.

I think having a solid "hitpoint" number for a body region would require all sorts of damage modifiers for each specific damage type and things could get way to complicated for your non-aspie person to comprehend how it works.

I think it would be easier to make a chart of "deadly" body damage states and whenever you are inflicted with a condition like "grazing piercing damage to shoulder" or "solid blunt damage to knee" it gets flagged on a condition chart (think of it like a state machine) and then whenever a "deadly" condition state is met.. your character is dead.

Of course, any non-deadly damage to individual body regions could have effects on your characters combat performance and chances of striking, evading, etc.. but I think numbers are a dumb way to go about describing character health. Just inform the player how damaged the character is and go from there. Hitpoints are a lazy way of describing how a character is damaged.

 

Yes, the punches do 5 damage while the stab does 20.

Your system is basically a hp and damage system, except it goes out of its way to dress it as something else. Which just goes to show that there's a reason why HP are so popular: they're an accurate enough abstraction that there's not much reason to use anything else.

No, it's a smart way to go about describing character health. In both a regular and logal damage system you can tell at a glance how badly you're doing. Why complicate displays just for the sake of complicating displays?

 

This is meaningless unless you provide HP for each region. Then you have to figure out what the proper hp relation between regions is and balance that shit out (ie.. how much more damage can the leg take than the head) and then figure out damage modifiers for each weapon (for each region as well).

I'll take the smug face to mean you are trolling at this point.

You obviously aren't able to recognize the difference between a variable (Hitpoints) and a state (what i was describing). They are not the same thing.

I haven't said anything about displays at this point. You are changing the point of discussion without actually adding anything of value to the discussion. It's the political debate equivalent of shouting "But what about the children!!"


I don't feel like trolling back at the moment. If you respond with something well thought out I might respond back. I don't see anything worth my time being posted here at the moment though.

 

Yeah, I want to find a copy of TRS to check it out. It sounds like its combat mechanics encourage actual role-playing, which is something I'd like to see more of in CRPGs.

 

There are still several copies available in various online bookstores from what I've seen.

 

Umm, yeah, we already established your system involves regional HP.

Sure. The head has less HP than the torso. Not sure why you need damage modifiers, a weapon doing 20 damage will by default do more relative damage to the head than to the leg if the head has fewer HP than the leg. So you can take 1, maybe 2 hits to the head before your head is wrecked (which kills you) whereas the leg can take 2-3 hits before you're crippled and hobbling around.

No, it's the flag of victory.

No, I am saying that what you describe is easier represented through a HP system.

My argument was that the differences between the two is cosmetic rather than anything of particular substance, so it'll only show up in the way you display damage. The way they function behind the scenes is essentially the same.

Watch your mouth, the Workshop is sacred, I'd never troll here.

 

Who is we and what system are you referring too. (and how does it avoid the unnecessary complexity I was describing and you seem to be railing against)

The damage system you describe above is meaningless unless you take into account every weapon type and make vast charts of damage modifiers / hp regions / damage absoption etc. The system I describe is a simple damage / slightly damage / heavy damaged thing with no numbers involved on the user end. That makes it simpler for the player in my mind.

Stated even simpler.. Variables (HP) vs States (what I described)

For somebody not trolling you are being really nonspecific on your posts.

 

Life points.

 

I am referring to the system you outlined earlier:

"Implement various strike points on the body and each point can absorb a certain amount of damage based on damage type applied to the area.

Then set fatal conditions based on the amount of damage inflicted to a specific body area or amount of damage inflicted over the entire body (like getting cut a hundred times and bleeding out instead of getting one big kill shot). There would still be "points" of a sort but there wouldn't be any hp bloat with levels. You could modify damage resistance based on armor but that would be about it imo."

You even implicitly admit it's a HP system but throw in a red herring about hp bloat, as if a HP system requires bloat.

 

This is why I avoid systems discussion on the codex

 

Some more systems, while I'm thinking of it. Since you were talking about potentially more difficult systems, here you go.

• This one contains hp, but in a left-field way. A person has not one line of hp, but many - say, three. Each line of hp is ruled by a different aspect of the character, such as one line being Constitution, the next being Will, etc. Then, underneath those three lines, there is a single short line, this one representing bleeding out. When a character gets wounded, the damage comes off of whichever of the upper lines currently has the most hp. Thus, the first wounding might come off the first line, but that damage will lower the current hp of that line, causing the next wounding to potentially come off of a different line. The key thing here is - all lines lead to the bleed-out line. So, if the first wounding a person suffers is enough to completely overwhelm the hp in that one line, the character collapses and begins bleeding out, even though the other lines are still full and well.
• Whenever a character is wounded, they must make saves, for instance - Constitution, Agility, and/or Will depending on the type of wound. Failure indicates being downed. Each additional time being wounded applies a negative to the roll(s), and heavier wounds cause immediate further penalties, while armor, power shields, and what-all cause positives. The trick here is, of course, balancing the system so characters die at the average rate that you want them to die, either by providing enough positives that low-damage, first-time wounds save rolls will automatically succeed, or having a saves system that doesn't have a lot of wild randomness built into it.
  
• Everyone dies in one good hit. (Maybe they have a small pool of hp to prove the hit was "good", maybe not). But in their defense, characters can provide themselves magical/technological/physical protections through various means in order to guard themselves against damage. The game then becomes having the right protections up (and potentially also facing the right direction, if a tactical element is involved) in order to block the damage.

 

You should search for the prior discussions of this. I believe the conclusion was that you can take the game out of the hit points, but you can't take the hit points out of the game.