I've been working on a computerized RPG for several years (not nearly enough spare time :)) and I'm always looking for ways to make it different/unique. Not that it'll ever be released publicly or anything, but it's more of a hobby than anything else. So, with that in mind...

I've seen threads on various EQ boards, and on other game boards as well, about how unrealistic a hit point system is in an RPG. For example: Warrior_Bob can get hit 52 times with a sword just because he is level 10, but Warrior_Bill in the exact same armor can only get hit 3 times with the same sword because he's only level 2 - not very realistic.

But what other alternative is there? Are there any RPGs out there that don't use a HP system? How do they work?

y thoughts on this would be that it would have to be a truly skill-based system (the more you use your dodge skill, the better you get at dodging, etc.). You would have to have an armor skill, probably one that increased the more combats you wore armor in. The higher this skill got, the better armor you could wear (leather, chain, plate, etc.), otherwise you'd have new players wearing full plate right away.

Then when in combat, you would have a chance to be hit or not, based on all your defensive skills compared to the offensive skills of your opponent. Your armor would determine how much of a blow you actually took when you got hit. A direct hit with a large axe would be more harmful to you if you were in leather armor vs. someone in plate armor for instance.

Instead of numeric damage, you would take wounds. For instance, in a standard combat you might take 3 light wounds, 1 moderate wound, and one major wound. Get enough of these wounds and you become incapacitated or die, and of course there's always a random chance of receiving a fatal wound in one shot. After combat you could either bandage or get heal spells (or resurrection if needed :)), etc. to remove these various wounds and prepare yourself for the next combat.

So an inexperienced adventurer with cloth armor and no defensive skills could be killed by an orc pawn, but a seasoned veteran with high defensive skills and magical plate armor could stand his ground against a Balrog.

Would this have any chance of being a workable/playable system? Are there games which use something similar? What drawbacks are there?

Ya, I've often thought of this too.

y basic thought is, first off people and monstors would be tons harder to actually hit. You'd dodge and defend many times better then an current game. Also when defending and blocking your armor, sheild weapons would become dented, less sharp, etc and eventually break or need repair.

Once you were hit the location of where you were hit would be calculated and semi random, and also depending on abilities and weapons of the foe. So for example if you were duel wielding and get hit in the arm you would either loose the ability to duel wield or be degraded at duel wielding. There would also be critical blows (not in the eq sense). A crital blow would be one to the head where you would then be knocked unconsciences in 1 hit. Then the foe has a choice to finish you off or let you live. You can also have critical blows be "stabbed through the heart" and hence death in 1 hit. Naturally critical blows would be extremely hard to do. But with hitting different parts of your foes body and you foe fighting at lessor and lessor ability, eventualy would make the crital blow easier.

rolemaster isn't quite what you are looking for, but its got some features you might like ...

You have to build skill in wearing armor or you take penalties to movement. Different weapons work differently against different types of armor. You can take differing severity criticals that do differening things (like causing bleeding, versus a light scratch). Unfortunately, for your purposes its still based on "concussion hits", but you have to spend skill points when you level to be able to take more damage instead of getting some automatically for just going up a level.

GURPS!

Also, as I recall going *way* back, the spy RPG game Top Secret also was much more realistic. I.e. if you got shot, it doesnt matter what level you were, it still had a good chance of killing you!

The trick was to avoid getting shot in the first place.

Hit points however are in essence a combination of being healthy, knowledge of how to withstand the pain of wounds, and avoiding or softening a deadly blow. At least that's how hit points are described in D&D.

The level 10 fighter with 90 hitpoints is harder kill because the orc that does 10 points of damage to him failed to strike the warrior soundly while the orc that does 10 points of damage to the level 1 fighter with 10 hitpoints dealth a mortal blow.

I guess you could give everyone a set amount of hitpoints at character creation, and then as they increase in levels, have some kind of mitigation value. Say a 10th level fighter wearing heavy armor would have a mitigation value of 80%. It'd require lots more math and some rounding rules... which is why most systems just use an ever increasing hit point system.

/echo Tiane

Definitely check out GURPS.

There is even a free, downloadable mini-version of the rules (GURPS Lite) with the basic character generation and combat rules on the Steve Jackson Games website (www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite) in a 32 page PDF.

Thanks for the discussion guys, I'll look at GURPS :)

They are also the RPG Amber that don't have hp, and he is also a diceless rpg.

Being a very good storyteller is a must.

Eridalafar

I know in one game I played it really tracked hits to a part of your body, but I think GURPS might do that too. We played in a Dune based world wtih GURPS, it was pretty realistic.

The one problem I had with GURPS was that when you created your character you could take on disadvantages to increase your character points in other areas. And you also could pick a career. So I decided my disadvantage could also be my career path.

As a disadvantage I picked pyromania and sadism. Then as a career my character, Caora, was a courtesan catering to people with special needs to be humiliated and ... brandings!

LOL! She was fun.

But anyway, people would load up on these disadvantages to get extra character points and so we had this band of crazy psychos running around doing random things. One guy had a perfect memory, but had delusions. Another person was so shy she was crippled socially.

As a disadvantage I picked pyromania and sadism. Then as a career my character, Caora, was a courtesan catering to people with special needs to be humiliated and ... brandings!

You're scary. Remind me to never sit near a hot fire with you. Or anywhere near untensils of a sharp nature...

As a disadvantage I picked pyromania and sadism. Then as a career my character, Caora, was a courtesan catering to people with special needs to be humiliated and ... brandings!

I knew it....

That's all....

/em drags the thread back on track :)

I checked out the GURPS system. Well, the LITE version anyway. They are using hit points in that one. Is the full version different?

Yes, GURPS does have Hit points, but it isn't an ever-increasing pool. And that ever-increasing pool is the problem, not the very existance of HP themselves.

A GURPS character who is a master swordsman still doesn't survive any better from having a sword run through his gut than Joe Random Bystander does - he is just better at keeping the 3 feet of steel out of his intestines in the first place.

I have seen several attempts at having games without HPs. They have all fallen into 2 categories :

1)HP by another name - such as Wounds applied to body parts, as you desribed. Earn X number of Wounds and the body part is non functional and/or you die. Extensive mechanics are generally created to justify the claim that they aren't HP, but what is meant is "These aren't AD&D Hit Points". The thing is, when you really get down to it they are hit points by another name. Not asigning a number just makes them annoying to deal with. What condition are you in, exactly, if you have taken 2 Light Wounds and 1 Moderate Wound in a system that considers 3 LWs=1MW, 2 MW = 1 Incapacitating Wound, and 1 Incap + 1 MW = Death (or crippled limb, depending on location)? If you just bite the bullet and accept the fact that 1 LW = 1HP, 1 MW = 3HP, and 1 Incap = 6HP, then it is obvious - you have taken 5 HP out of 9 available. [BTW, that wound progression is from a real, published (but no longer in print because it's mechanics sucked ass so badly it was unplayable) game from the late 80s/early 90s]


2)All non-fatal damage is ignored. The chance to hit is essentially the chance to kill. Pretty much zero granularity in it. You generally only find this in RP rules which are meant to be little more than an adjunct to a set of Wargame rules.


Summary : Hit Points or some variation on them are required if your game involves combat. You may try to hide them under some other name and some overly complicated mechanic but in the end, they are still Hit Points.


GURPS fixes the complaint you make regarding HPs - highly experience people shouldn't be able to take half a dozen sword thrusts to the chest and laugh about it, they should just be better at avoiding them in the first place.

What it doesn't do is hide them behind useless BS and flavor text.

Originally posted by Zyphyr
Yes, GURPS does have Hit points, but it isn't an ever-increasing pool. And that ever-increasing pool is the problem, not the very existance of HP themselves.

A GURPS character who is a master swordsman still doesn't survive any better from having a sword run through his gut than Joe Random Bystander does - he is just better at keeping the 3 feet of steel out of his intestines in the first place.


Ah, ok. I wasn't seeing that distinction in the LITE rules. I admit I did skim them over lunch though :)

That doesn't sound so bad the way you explain it. You're right, it's the inflating number that bothers me more than the hit points themselves.

I've always liked the way Shadowrun does its hitpoints. You always have 10 hitpoints, no matter how powerful you are. Actually you have 20 hitpoints, 10 mental and 10 physical. But you always have the same hitpoints; as you grow stronger you are more able to resist damage.

The DnD system my friend made you always have the same # of hitpoints, but you get a lot harder to hit the bigger the difference between you and the thing you're fighting.

I love the way the Star Wars: d20 system was done. You have Vitality (HP) and Wound Points. Your wound points are equal to your constitution and your vitality is rolled as normal based upon your class.

What makes the system cool, is that critical hits automatically deal Wound damage. So there's always a chance the someone might die from a lucky strike. Amor does damage reduction in that system instead of making the PC harder to hit.