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Post by aldarron on Dec 2, 2022 19:59:22 GMT -6
Hit Locations rules were just another rule which added to the idea that HP damage is actually injuries. Since HP damage originally was supposed to be minor bruises, exhaustion from evading a blow, luck running out etc.... Ooof I totally missed this the first time around. So NO. Well, okay, maybe it depends on what you mean by originally, but the idea that HP somehow equates to "luck" exhaustion or bruises was entirely invented by Gygax in response to criticism he received for the ever progressing HP system. If by original, you mean the original concept of HP brought into D&D from Arneson and Blackmoor then you are looking at "Hits to Kill" points. HP scaled with the creature or PC so that essentially the same blow would damage a hero or a big monster a lot less than a flunky but it was still seen as physical damage. So you are totally right that the "luck/exhaustion" explanation Gygax came up with is incompatible with Hit Location, but that wasn't how HP in OD&D were originally conceived. I have a blog post on the topic if you like, LINK
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Post by Starbeard on Dec 2, 2022 22:26:13 GMT -6
Well, in fairness, weren't Arneson's hit points supposed to be static? I thought it was Gygax who brought increased HP by level to the game, right? I could be misremembering about that.
If that's accurate, then in some sense we certainly can take Gary's word on how D&D hit points worked, since they don't reflect HP as Arneson envisioned them.
That being said, if we take static HP as a baseline, not only does Arneson's hit location system fit more snugly into Arneson's hit point system, but the whole kaboodle suddenly looks a lot like RuneQuest.
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Post by hamurai on Dec 3, 2022 0:41:02 GMT -6
Hit Locations rules were just another rule which added to the idea that HP damage is actually injuries. Since HP damage originally was supposed to be minor bruises, exhaustion from evading a blow, luck running out etc.... Ooof I totally missed this the first time around. So NO. Well, okay, maybe it depends on what you mean by originally, but the idea that HP somehow equates to "luck" exhaustion or bruises was entirely invented by Gygax in response to criticism he received for the ever progressing HP system. If by original, you mean the original concept of HP brought into D&D from Arneson and Blackmoor then you are looking at "Hits to Kill" points. HP scaled with the creature or PC so that essentially the same blow would damage a hero or a big monster a lot less than a flunky but it was still seen as physical damage. So you are totally right that the "luck/exhaustion" explanation Gygax came up with is incompatible with Hit Location, but that wasn't how HP in OD&D were originally conceived. I have a blog post on the topic if you like, LINKQuoting from your blog: That's pretty much what I say, isn't it? Call it scratches or bruises, but "mitigating damage" can't really be done by growing harder skin and bone (as you point out), so how is it done? Rolling with the blows, dodging... which creates exhaustion, and probably needs luck, too. HP are abstract. D&D's combat system is abstract. Armour Class is a strange concept, too, in my opinion. It's not (necessarily) a system to measure how hard it is to hit someone, but how hard it is to damage someone. So, technically, if I need a 12 to hit someone in chainmail, for example, and I roll a 10, then I still hit but the armour takes the blow.
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Post by aldarron on Dec 16, 2022 11:34:57 GMT -6
Well, in fairness, weren't Arneson's hit points supposed to be static? I thought it was Gygax who brought increased HP by level to the game, right? I could be misremembering about that. If that's accurate, then in some sense we certainly can take Gary's word on how D&D hit points worked, since they don't reflect HP as Arneson envisioned them. Yeah, not accurate. Arneson's HP were anything but static. I think the confusion comes in due to a letter Arneson wrote that was published in Jim Lurvey's zine. In the letter he says he suggested to GYgax during the 8 months or so of the D&D playtest the idea that character HP should be a fixed number that does not increase with level, but rather characters get harder to hit. This was a development from how HP operated in Blackmoor where HP increased between levels from 7 (flunkies) to 14 (heroes) to 28 (superheroes). HP could also fluctuate based on things like rage (double value) or strength. The whole luck/fatigue argument was really a backlash against the crazy high totals possible at high levels where a twentieth level character could survive a fall off a cliff. The luck idea just wasn't in the DNA of the 3lbb's.
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Post by aldarron on Dec 16, 2022 11:56:48 GMT -6
Quoting from your blog: That's pretty much what I say, isn't it? Call it scratches or bruises, but "mitigating damage" can't really be done by growing harder skin and bone (as you point out), so how is it done? Rolling with the blows, dodging... which creates exhaustion, and probably needs luck, too. The first "Rolling with the blows, dodging.." Yes, exactly right. You can swing a machette and chop through a 2 inch bamboo stalk, but if the bamboo is blowing around in a windstorm it may cause a glancing blow instead of a clean cut. To borrow from the Lynch Dune movie, characters learn to "bend like a reed in the wind." The target gets tougher to damage so the HP goes up. The second "...which creates exhaustion, and probably needs luck, too." No, not part of the Hits to Kill concept. Arneson had a different way of handling fatigue, and luck, well, that was all in the dice. HP are abstract. D&D's combat system is abstract. Sure, abstract physical damage. This is why you only heal 1hp per day and only if you are resting all day. Your game is your game, of course so please don't feel as though I'm telling you how you should play, I'm explaining the historical concept at it's root.
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Post by talysman on Dec 16, 2022 15:08:46 GMT -6
The debate between "HP is physical damage" and "HP is luck/stamina/dodging" is kind of misguided. HP is really just a pacing mechanism. Fights with high HP creatures or opponents take longer, so more important opponents should have more HP.
Gygax always used the example of Erol Flynn vs. Basil Rathbone in the climactic staircase fight of "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938). Several nameless fighters leap in to fight Robin Hood but are dispatched pretty quickly, but the Sheriff of Nottingham takes longer to kill because he's more important than the nameless minions. It has nothing to do with the Sheriff being bigger than the minions, having thicker skin, being luckier, being able to fight longer without tiring, or being better at dodging and parrying, although DMs can use one or more of those as part of the description of a battle. HP is just plot armor.
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Post by Starbeard on Dec 16, 2022 16:39:40 GMT -6
Well, in fairness, weren't Arneson's hit points supposed to be static? I thought it was Gygax who brought increased HP by level to the game, right? I could be misremembering about that. If that's accurate, then in some sense we certainly can take Gary's word on how D&D hit points worked, since they don't reflect HP as Arneson envisioned them. Yeah, not accurate. Arneson's HP were anything but static. I think the confusion comes in due to a letter Arneson wrote that was published in Jim Lurvey's zine. In the letter he says he suggested to GYgax during the 8 months or so of the D&D playtest the idea that character HP should be a fixed number that does not increase with level, but rather characters get harder to hit. This was a development from how HP operated in Blackmoor where HP increased between levels from 7 (flunkies) to 14 (heroes) to 28 (superheroes). HP could also fluctuate based on things like rage (double value) or strength. The whole luck/fatigue argument was really a backlash against the crazy high totals possible at high levels where a twentieth level character could survive a fall off a cliff. The luck idea just wasn't in the DNA of the 3lbb's. Thanks, aldarron, I had a feeling you'd come through. That letter is exactly what I was thinking of, forgetting that it was a preference for the published system and not a description of his home system.
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Post by Mordorandor on Dec 16, 2022 16:40:22 GMT -6
.... HP is just plot armor. In a similar vein, from Dragon Magazine #15, article Ground and Area Spell Scales (entire paragraph cited, with relevant sentence bolded): Since the D&D game grew out of Chainmail, it was based on the same scale assumptions. Changes had to be made, however, in order to meet the 1:1 figure ratio and the underground setting. Movement was adjusted to a period ten times longer than a Chainmail turn of 1 minute, since exploring and mapping in an underground dungeon is slow work. Combat, however, stayed at the Chainmail! norm and was renamed a "melee round" or simply "round." As the object of the game was to provide a continuing campaign where players created and developed game personae, the chance for death (of either character or monster) was reduced from that in Chainmail, so that players could withdraw their characters from unfavorable combat situations. Missile ranges were reduced by one-third (from scale yards to scale feet) because of the confined area of play and the conditions prevailing, viz. low ceilings, darkness, narrow passages, etc. In the spirit of that famed adage, "form follows function:" satisfaction subordinates sensibility. That's to say, the satisfaction of having a drawn out conflict and the delay of quick death takes precedence over any rationale as to why battles take extended lengths of time. Until a party of 10 PCs and NPCs of 8-10th level encounter two Adult Dragons and their assorted Orc and Troll grunts. Then hex on that HP system!
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Post by derv on Dec 20, 2022 17:28:53 GMT -6
As a way of returning to the subject of hit location consider that the original players did not likely know what their characters hit points were. Tracking of such was the purview of the referee. That means injuries were not expressed in terms of points during play. The player had to rely on the referee's descriptive ability to conclude how grave their injuries were. Likewise, they would rely on the referee to tell them how long it would take to recover from said wounds. Understanding this dynamic in campaign play should put hit location in a different light. It doesn't have to be looked at as a hit tracking method or even a critical hit system really. Instead, it could be understood as a tool that helped the referee describe the impact of combat.
It might even have utility for your first level fighter with an average of 4 hp's fighting an Ogre armed with a club. Your fighter could be broken down as: head (1 hp), torso (3 hp), rarm (1 hp), larm (1 hp), rleg (1 hp), lleg (1 hp).
Let's say the Ogre has scored a hit and the ref rolled 3 points of damage. You can roll for hit location if you like, knowing a shot to the head or torso will mean immediate death for the fighter and hits anywhere else would mean permanent crippling damage. You would then describe it as such to the player.
Another option is to not bother rolling for exact hit location though recognize the severity of the blow in relation to the break down above. The referee would record that the characters hit points have been reduced to one followed by, "The Ogre has landed a crushing blow that has caused your knees to buckle and blood to ooze from your ears. You audibly hear your bones crack as most of your energy is instantly sapped. Feebly you still grip your sword recognizing you are in a bad way."
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Post by howandwhy99 on Dec 21, 2022 5:29:10 GMT -6
If a portion of the body was lost, like a limb, due to called shots or hit location rules, would the character's total maximum HP be permanently lowered?
If not, I suggest body part HP for hit locations are not the same as hit points overall. So maximum character hit points are less than the sum of their parts.
Individual locations can have smaller totals but much higher AC scores. And effects other than death, which result from going to zero in them.
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Post by Zenopus on Dec 22, 2022 13:24:15 GMT -6
As all of the posts about Healing Wounds were overwhelming this thread, I've split them off into their own thread. I've also moved it to the Vol 3 subforum because that's where the rule is located. Find the new thread here: odd74.proboards.com/thread/15737/Please keep this thread for discussion of Hit Locations.
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Post by dwayanu on Feb 12, 2023 11:32:58 GMT -6
I gather that Arneson’s system evolved over time. I’m certainly no scholar of that history.
However, in relation to what’s presented in D&D Supplement II, something similar — but with high and fixed HP, and ‘saves’ against damage that improve with level instead of more HP — is mentioned by Arneson in The First Fantasy Campaign. Therein he also mentions that the grisly effects were not applied to player-characters.
(If memory serves, details are not clear; hit locations may have had some relevance to PCs, but not permanently crippling or instantly deadly “critical hit” results.)
Also, a hit locations system was included in Adventures in Fantasy by Arneson and Snyder (the details of which I’ve forgotten, as I scarcely used it before giving it away). That may also have used basically fixed HP and improving saves, but I can’t trust my memory on that.
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Post by dwayanu on Feb 12, 2023 16:53:48 GMT -6
A variation on the theme that I used for a while was derived from the Champions spin-off Espionage!. Instead of HP by location, that used damage multiples by location.
With D&D, this was in a context of the HP system from Arduin Grimoire III: The Runes of Doom. That reduces the importance of level differences by front-loading more points and reducing the additions for class levels. It was attractive in a group that had players going off for military service or other breaks from play in the campaign.
As monsters remained the same, the initial boost also changed low-level dynamics. Arduin critical hits already presented cases in which HP were effectively superfluous, and this hit-location system added another bit of chance-based vulnerability. This is rather contrary to the “plot armor” effect in standard D&D, but hacking the game to suit different styles was a common thing in our circles.
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Post by tdenmark on Feb 17, 2023 19:18:21 GMT -6
Not relevant to mechanics of the system described in sup. ii blackmoor, but a very easy d6 hit location system would be: LARM, RARM, LLEG, RLEG, BODY, HEAD I'm not sure how this would map to 1-6. I have a similar hit location that assumes the d6 roll maps roughly to height in feet, for an imaginary six-foot tall man: - Feet
- Legs
- Lower Torso
- Chest
- Arms
- Head
Since I use d6 damage, when I need a hit location, I can just use the damage result, thus eliminating the need for an extra roll. Most of the time, I don't need a hit location, but I might use it on a critical hit, for example. Or, when rolling damage from a fall, I look for matches and treat those results as specific areas damaged, with more matches meaning severe wound vs. crippling wound, triggering special effects. I might swap chest and arms (chest being a more lethal target, thus a higher number). The elegance and simplicity of this is compelling. I'm going to try it out.
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Post by Desparil on Feb 17, 2023 21:45:06 GMT -6
In BattleTech, the hit locations table for punching are a d6 table as well. It has 3 in 6 hitting torso locations, 2 in 6 for arms, and 1 in 6 head hits* Shooting has a separate 2d6 table that's more weighted toward torso hits, and kicking has its own table that's weighted toward hitting them in the legs.
* Exact hit location varies according to whether you're attacking from the front/rear, left, or right side since that's a system where you need to deplete armor points on a location before hitting the hull underneath, but the overall odds remain the same; whereas from the front you have a 1 in 6 chance of hitting each of the Left Arm, Left Torso, Center Torso, Right Torso, Right Arm, and Head, for example, a strike from the left doubles up your chances of hitting the Left Arm and Left Torso but cannot hit either of their right-side counterparts. Just including that extra detail for completeness/curiosity, though, not really relevant for D&D purposes.
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