Negative Hit Points and Impairments...

Luther · Post by **Luther** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 10:24 pm

So, there's been this back and forth discussion about lethality in old school games, most of which is going back and forth between those who think it's fine, those who think even Negative HPs are sissifed, and others who think you need to do like 4e and add 10 hit points to the average PC at first level.

One interesting point brought up, however, is that the problem isn't really with lethality, but low HP characters being knocked out of the battle before a round or two passes, with nothing better to do than lie on the ground bleeding out while crying pitifully for help and hoping desperately that someone will get away long enough to heal you.

Me personally, I use negative HPs, because I don't like the whole concept of binary health i.e. you're either hale and hearty or dead. I like it when there are characters crying for help and slowly dying, distracting the other charactres who now have yet another thing to worry about. I like that there is a state where a PCs life is flashing before his eyes and he is desperately praying that the enemy isn't victorious.

That being said, it isn't a whole lot of fun for someone to be continually knocked out in the first round of combat before they can do anything just because they were cursed with a low hp total. So, I have come up with a solution I plan to try Sunday.
1. Every character has negative HP equal to their max HP or 9, whichever is less. After all, frail is frail and we shouldn't encourage 3hp wizards to 'jump into the thick of it.'

2. When a hit takes you to 0hp or less, the PC must make a CON save to stay active, at a minus equal to the amount under 0 they currently are at with the new damage. If they fail, they go unconcious or fall to the ground, unable to do anything but moan and cry pitifully for help. If they pass they can keep on being active, but all rolls are at a negative modifier equal to the amount they have taken below 0.

3. Once you go beyond your HP in negative HP, you're dead.

To describe the -mod to the player the CK should make something up like 'that last blow broke your arm.' Also, he might impose bleeding or some other severe effect depending on how bad the hit was and what did the damage.
EX. Melf the Wizard has 3hp when the party is ambushd by kobolds leaping from the trees. Before he can utter a spell, a kobold bashes him with a mace for 4 points of damage, taking Melf to -1hp.

Melf makes his CON roll at a -1 and miraculously makes it, so he is still concious and can act at a -1 to all his rolls, due to his shoulder being knocked out of it's socket, or so the CK tells him.

He zaps the kobold with a magic missle, but in his rage and pain fails to notice another kobold who sneaks up and stabs him for 2 points of damage, which takes him to -3. This time when he tries a CON save at -3, he fails and goes down. The GM declares that the kobold stuck him in the kidney and he will bleed out 1 hit per turn.

Melf moans and cries out for aid, but no one is able to get to him before the next turn when he bleeds out to -4 hits, which is beyond his capacity to take. Melf's eyes open wide and he exclaims something about hellfire and then says no more as his corpse stares lifelessly at the ceiling.

So, the character's still die easily, but they're allowed to be a little more active before they go and all without adding HP or coming up with some convoluted system to take into account all the deadly things that can happen to the character. Also, the CK can hand out broken arms, scars and other sorts of things that character's normally don't suffer from. That's the theory, I'll let you know how well it works in practice...

EDIT: Barbarians suffer no penalties to their rolls if they make their CON roll, although failing the roll still knocks them out.
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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 10:47 pm

I like it. I would do things a bit differently about how negative they can go before dying, since I like minimizing how often PC's die in the first place, but I like the mechanics aspect of your idea.
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moriarty777 · Post by **moriarty777** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:10 pm

The yellow.... it burns my eyes! AAIIIEEEE !!

(I'm still using the older look for the boards)

M
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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:15 pm

moriarty777 wrote:
The yellow.... it burns my eyes! AAIIIEEEE !!

(I'm still using the older look for the boards)

M

Just highlight the yellow and it becomes very readable. Think of it as revealing a secret message.
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Maliki · Post by **Maliki** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:25 pm

Treebore wrote:
Just highlight the yellow and it becomes very readable. Think of it as revealing a secret message.

Thanks for the tip, I was having trouble reading it as well.

As to the houserule, I like it.
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moriarty777 · Post by **moriarty777** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:37 pm

Treebore wrote:
Just highlight the yellow and it becomes very readable. Think of it as revealing a secret message.

Hehehe... I did that to check it out when my my vision restored.
Seriously though... the concept is interesting but I'm not sure about the limits.

The wizard ends up becoming even more frail than before. If you grant -10 is death and assume a wizard has 4 hitpoints, that's 14 as opposed to 8 using this same wizard and your guidelines. We also have to assume that, unless a Wizard has a prime in Constitution, the law of averages will say they will go down anyway.

Using the same wizard, the other thing you need to consider, what if the creature dishes out an attack that does d8 damage and does max? Instant kill or are you really going for gritty here?

Lastly, why limit to -9 ... Aside from the Barbarian, the Monk also uses the d12?

Don't get me wrong, I like the general concept but I think the weaker classes become a bit weaker in terms of survivability and arguably, the strong a bit stronger.

M
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Luther · Post by **Luther** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 12:00 am

Well, a lot of you are hitting on the one bit that is really a preferential issue inside the greater ruling, but I'll try and explain.

I chose -9 because I like the number. I don't go to -hp because that can be a really large amount in some cases and the minuses accrued would be so fantastic as to make you useless anyway.

For example a Monk with a CON 18 prime would have -15 as his limit, but would be unlikely to be able to hit anything with even half that modifier. A monk effectively becomes useless at -10 so why go there. Plus, where's the fear of bleeding out if you know you'll have up to 15 rounds to do it? In the case of the Barbarian who can avoid penalties with a successful CON roll (his strongest suit), it just becomes a defacto doubling of hit points.

In the end, I'm thinking that no matter how muscular or tough you are, a vital blow to the lung has about the same effect on everyone unless they're particulalry frail (as the Wizard with the 8 CON in the example would be). So a -9 covers pretty much the toughest human out there without making them ridiculously tough, while poor Melf, the sickly wizard, is much less likely to take the shock of having his innards pricked so well.

But, as it says in my sig, YMMV, so set the limit wherever you like. The important thing is that the PC can make a roll to stay active and takes modifiers from the Damage to represent the hinderance of serious injuries.

Alternately, you could get rid of the limit on negative hp and say that once you have fallen to the ground, you have to save vs. death each round with a -mod equal to the number of -HP you've suffered so far. So Melf at -4 and on the ground would be taking a Save -4 every round to stay alive after he goes down. If he's lucky, he might live a few rounds before snuffing it. This also puts more uncertainty into your fate, which actually sounds very appealing....
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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:52 am

My problem is at higher levels. I almost always run high level games, eventually. My online game is around level 9/10, and my home game is levels 12 to 16. The damage dealt out can easily take someone to beyond -9 with ease.

If I typically ran games no higher than 6th level, I think the -9 would work for me.

It may work for me if I further alter your rule by saying "+ level" to HP they can go negative before dying. That way it will work OK for the lower level, allow the weak HD classes to get tougher, and also make it a little easier for the high level PC's to survive.

I think I may cap it at -25, maybe -30, though.
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Luther · Post by **Luther** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:31 am

Treebore wrote:
My problem is at higher levels. I almost always run high level games, eventually. My online game is around level 9/10, and my home game is levels 12 to 16. The damage dealt out can easily take someone to beyond -9 with ease.

If I typically ran games no higher than 6th level, I think the -9 would work for me.

It may work for me if I further alter your rule by saying "+ level" to HP they can go negative before dying. That way it will work OK for the lower level, allow the weak HD classes to get tougher, and also make it a little easier for the high level PC's to survive.

I think I may cap it at -25, maybe -30, though.

In this case, I think it best to just have no limit and have the PC make Save vs. Death rolls modified by the amount below 0, as I mentioned above. Actually, I'm thinking that's the way to go now, considering your point.

So the new setup would be :
1. When a hit takes you to 0hp or less, the PC must make a CON save to stay active, at a minus equal to the amount under 0 they currently are at with the new damage. If they fail, they go unconcious or fall to the ground, unable to do anything but moan and cry pitifully for help. If they pass they can keep on being active, but all rolls are at a negative modifier equal to the amount they have taken below 0.

2. Once you go 'down' (whether unconscious or wriggling in impotent agony), you must make a save vs. death roll every following round afterwards or die. Modifiers to this roll apply as normal, so if you're at -10, you suffer a -10 to the Save or Die roll.

3. Healing that brings the amount of negative damage under your CON score stops you from dying for the moment. No more saves are necessary until you take more damage. So if you have a CON of 10 and your negative HP are healed to somewhere between -10 and 0, you stop dying.

How's that work out for you?
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Lord Dynel · Post by **Lord Dynel** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 3:08 am

The yellow hurt, bro.
I was actually thinking about this earlier today. Well, the subject of dying and negative hit points, that is. I'm not sure I'm thrilled the btb rules, especially for -1 to -6. Your way would work pretty good, I think. I don't see any problem with it. Let me throw out some of my musings real quick to see if they give you any ideas.

I was thinking of making death threshold = -Con. So someone with a Con of 14 won't die until -14. Now, from 0 to -1/2 Con, they may perform one action a round (a move, an attack, cast a spell, use an item - but only one of these). If an action is performed, one hit point is lost, if no action is performed then no hit points are lost. This continues until the character gets healing. Once a character drops in the range of -1/2 Con to -Con a hit point is lost regardless of whether an action is taken. These lost hit points are in addition to any points lost because the PC is subject to an attack or spell that causes damage. This doesn't really make the PC's survive longer, but it does let them perform what I call "dying actions" before they kick the can.

An example would be the 14 Con fighter has a threshold of -14. He gets whittled down and eventually falls to -4. Now he can do one "action" a round, but if he does he'll lose a hit point - and that's in addition to any he might lose from being in combat. Say he attacks, since he was in melee, and drops to -5. He gets hit the next round for 3 points and now hes down to -8. Now he's going to lose a hit point every round, regardless if he gets hit anymore or not and in 6 rounds, he'll die if not attended to. Any healing will bring him to 0 and he'd free to keep fighting, but remember that 0 is still in the range of "dying" so he can only make one action a round and if he acts he'll lose a hit point all over again.

If I am to use this I would have to change the barbarian's Primal Might ability to say that a barbarian can act from 0 to -Con without losing a hit point for performing an action. Once -Con is reached, the barbarian dies.

It's kind of rough, and not too spectacular, but it's something to think about.

Luther · Post by **Luther** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 5:01 pm

Lord Dynel wrote:
The yellow hurt, bro.

Sorry, but on my screen, the background is black and it shows up the best and has the highest level of contrast with the other text. I'm not even sure what you guys are seeing

Quote:
I was actually thinking about this earlier today. Well, the subject of dying and negative hit points, that is. I'm not sure I'm thrilled the btb rules, especially for -1 to -6. Your way would work pretty good, I think. I don't see any problem with it. Let me throw out some of my musings real quick to see if they give you any ideas.

I was thinking of making death threshold = -Con. So someone with a Con of 14 won't die until -14. Now, from 0 to -1/2 Con, they may perform one action a round (a move, an attack, cast a spell, use an item - but only one of these). If an action is performed, one hit point is lost, if no action is performed then no hit points are lost. This continues until the character gets healing. Once a character drops in the range of -1/2 Con to -Con a hit point is lost regardless of whether an action is taken. These lost hit points are in addition to any points lost because the PC is subject to an attack or spell that causes damage. This doesn't really make the PC's survive longer, but it does let them perform what I call "dying actions" before they kick the can.

An example would be the 14 Con fighter has a threshold of -14. He gets whittled down and eventually falls to -4. Now he can do one "action" a round, but if he does he'll lose a hit point - and that's in addition to any he might lose from being in combat. Say he attacks, since he was in melee, and drops to -5. He gets hit the next round for 3 points and now hes down to -8. Now he's going to lose a hit point every round, regardless if he gets hit anymore or not and in 6 rounds, he'll die if not attended to. Any healing will bring him to 0 and he'd free to keep fighting, but remember that 0 is still in the range of "dying" so he can only make one action a round and if he acts he'll lose a hit point all over again.

If I am to use this I would have to change the barbarian's Primal Might ability to say that a barbarian can act from 0 to -Con without losing a hit point for performing an action. Once -Con is reached, the barbarian dies.

It's kind of rough, and not too spectacular, but it's something to think about.

Too rough and too much math for me. My watchword since reading the 4e books has been 'KISS' and one of the things I really hated about that edition is the ton of 'statuses' that you have to keep track of in combat. In my rule, you only have to keep track of one thing: negative hit points. And you'd be keeping track of hits anyways, so it isn't really anything extra. The Save Vs. Death update Treebore inspired actually takes another thing out of the equation, the 'limit' on negatives, so it gets even simpler. You're up with a negative mod or you're down and dying...
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anonymous · Post by **anonymous** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 2:27 am

Luther wrote:
Sorry, but on my screen, the background is black and it shows up the best and has the highest level of contrast with the other text. I'm not even sure what you guys are seeing

If I read the boards without logging in, the background is black, but it turns white once I log in. Wonder why that doesn't happen for you...

Tadhg · Post by **Tadhg** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 2:33 am

Tenser's Floating Disk wrote:
If I read the boards without logging in, the background is black, but it turns white once I log in. Wonder why that doesn't happen for you...

You can set/change your individual forum "skin" as it were.

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anonymous · Post by **anonymous** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 11:37 am

I tend not to go in for systems like these, partly because there are two things I don't like much in any RPG (actually, there are probably a lot more than two...) and they are characters bleeding to death in a few seconds and characters swooning like Victorian maidens. I tend to hold that if your HP go negative you're DEAD.

Rhuvein wrote:
You can set/change your individual forum "skin" as it were.

Thought it must be something like that.

Lord Dynel · Post by **Lord Dynel** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 1:06 pm

Luther wrote:
Too rough and too much math for me. My watchword since reading the 4e books has been 'KISS' and one of the things I really hated about that edition is the ton of 'statuses' that you have to keep track of in combat. In my rule, you only have to keep track of one thing: negative hit points. And you'd be keeping track of hits anyways, so it isn't really anything extra. The Save Vs. Death update Treebore inspired actually takes another thing out of the equation, the 'limit' on negatives, so it gets even simpler. You're up with a negative mod or you're down and dying...

No worries about the yellow, as I was just giving you a little ribbing.
That little system was something I was thinking about the other morning, on the drive to work. Yeah, it's a little rough but I thought the math wasn't too hard. But maybe that's me.
I'm playing the game as is, right now. As I said, I'm not too sure I like the -1 to -6 rules, and it's something I'm looking at changing. At least I already told my players that this change might happen at some point.