Other effects of lost hit points?

[waysoftheearth]

On page 18 of Men & Magic, under Dice for Accumulative Hits (Hit Dice), it says: "Whether sustaining accumulative hits will otherwise affect a character is left to the discretion of the referee." though this suggestion seems to have vanished from later versions.

I'm almost certain that I recall reading something to the effect that... "so long as a PC has 1 or more hit points, he fights on valiantly." ...but I can't find it anywhere now. However, the combat examples given in both the Holmes and Moldvay editions certainly imply it.

I wonder what ingenious interpretations of the original version people have used?

[dwayanu]

For first level characters, not being dead after the first hit typically means being dead after the second. High-level characters can have a lot of HP. What works well at one level might not feel right at another. One variation was to check for passing out or other disability upon losing half or more of one's remaining HP in one hit.

Although I remember there having been various experiments, I don't think direct association of HP loss with disability tends to work very well in D&D.

On the other hand, special cases could have notable effects. The "special attacks" rules from Villains & Vigilantes illustrate one approach. Traps, poisons and curses also could cripple without killing. Then of course there were the outrageously gory "critical hits" of The Arduin Grimoire (and later of Arms Law).

If one sets some minimum on "full strength" HP, then one can have particular numbers remaining represent degrees of injury. Since standard D&D sets the minimum at 1, that would mean 0 and negative values (with some negative value indicating death).

[Finarvyn]

If a person takes a more "Chainmail" approach, where Fighting Capability closely (but not exactly) mirrors Hit Dice, one can let FC drop as characters get injured. I think that Radagast the Brown posted a Chainmail type variant on K&K where he morphed hit dice into hits (also damage dice became hits) in order to simplify the numbers. What you can do, therefore, is allow the character a lesser attack as they take hits.

[snorri]

As far as I can understand, from my reading of Od&d as layers (in the Biblical Documentary theory style), this comment 'Whether sustaining' is a glose incorporated into the core text. It could answer to the practice of a group of players (I do'nt know in which printings it appears, but it seems a lot of comments have been made to precse things linked to qestions asked by the first players).

The double combat system of od&d (and the triple system of Chainmail), suggests a first 'layer' without the 'alternative system' - and this layer is grounded on the basis of Chainmail (ie. not the man-to-man, nor the jousting system). In this version, retiring Hit dices to wounded characters, as it could be done in a wargame for wounded units, makes sense. Doing this, the wounds have an effect in game.

I do'nt know if this was that kind of system Radagast proposed, but I guess so. It could function well (and I got a project using such a method), but it don't works if you use Hit points and Damage dice - or it will need some tinkering.

Combining the idea of wounds effects' and Sup. II localisation could works well too, but eeds tinkering and balance: od&d characters are frails, so the ad&dism of 'no effect until you recah 0hp' is probably the most easy to use.

[Lord Kilgore]

We've tried a few things along these lines at various times, but even a simple "-1 to hit at less than half hit points" ends up being too much to track if applied for everyone and everything (which I would say should be the case) so we always dumped it.

The "up and fine" at 1hp and "dead" (or at least out cold) at 0hp is kinda video gamey, but we've pretty much stuck with it.

[dwayanu]

The Holy Sword of Sharpness (in Supplement I) could lop off limbs.

As it took about a week for an average normal man to regain all HP, and two weeks of recovery were required after getting raised from the dead, a week or two might be a fairly consistent (if unrealistic) period to suffer from a temporary disability.

[Zulgyan]

I for one, prefer to avoid the bookkeeping that comes with tiering hit points in a way that wounds have certain game penalties on attacks and such.

Anyway, being wounded is something visible: monsters are more prone to attack wounded adventurers, a lord will see a battered adventurer come up to it's court, a guard will notice that someone has participated in a fight is wounds are considerable, etc.

So the effects are less precisely measured in the sense that they don't reflect themselves in numbers and numeric modifiers, but certainly influence the conducts of the NPCs and monsters. The use of "DM discretion" is used here in it's purest form!

[aldarron]

This thread needs more love.

Seems to me the responses are looking to ideas of modifying the amount of damage a wounded character can inflict - kinda in line with the strength bonus to damage idea, meaning a weakened character causes less damage.

But, I'm thinking that's not really the way to go (extra bookeeping arguments aside for the moment.) Seems to me, wounded individuals are at least as deadly as ever, but become more vulnerable defensively.

Think how many times in movies the dying bad guy deals a last breath mortl wound to the protagonist (or vice versa).

I can see two ways to model this. Maybe the simplest thing is an AC penalty. Drop below a certain point (maybe 1/3?) of your HP's and you suffer a -1 to AC. Maybe -2 at 1HP.

There's also the Supplement II Hit Location route wherein damage causes a penalty to dexterity and movement rate. So you could have something like loss of 1/2 hp or more causes temporary loss of 2 points of dex and movement is reduced by 1/2.

Actually, both penalties could be made to apply together.

Loss of dex and movement are interesting because they only really matter in some specific situations - like trying to run from a fight.

[coffee]

Funny, I always interpreted that passage to mean lasting injuries, such as a limp or a bum arm. The kind of thing that would affect the character afterward, if he survived that fight. Don't know why I thought that, I just did.

I, too, don't like the additional bookkeeping that reduced effectiveness requires. I more favor the fighter who went into a fight with only one hit point. His comrades were alarmed, but he cried out "I only need one!" (I forget where I got that story, but it's a good one.)

[aldarron]

Well, I do appreciate the less bookeeping sentimate myself, but subtracting one from somebody's AC and/or saying to a player "your movement is cut in half" doesn't seem like a big deal to me, no more than adding +1 to a hit etc. and its easy enough to ask a player if thier hp's are down by half or a quarte or whatever. <shrug>

[waysoftheearth]

Nov 17, 2010 14:17:25 GMT -6 coffee said:

I more favor the fighter who went into a fight with only one hit point. His comrades were alarmed, but he cried out "I only need one!" (I forget where I got that story, but it's a good one.)

I seem to remember Dieter doing exactly that in one of the early combats in my Hinterlands game. That guy is a hard case for sure

[talysman]

Apr 17, 2009 7:16:26 GMT -6 Zulgyan said:

I for one, prefer to avoid the bookkeeping that comes with tiering hit points in a way that wounds have certain game penalties on attacks and such.

Anyway, being wounded is something visible: monsters are more prone to attack wounded adventurers, a lord will see a battered adventurer come up to it's court, a guard will notice that someone has participated in a fight is wounds are considerable, etc.

So the effects are less precisely measured in the sense that they don't reflect themselves in numbers and numeric modifiers, but certainly influence the conducts of the NPCs and monsters. The use of "DM discretion" is used here in it's purest form!

Personally, I think that's the main intention of the rule, along with alternative meanings of hit point loss. The DM can decide that massive amounts of damage in a single attack might mean an additional effect, based on the attack type... or the DM could track different kinds of damage, and rule that total damage equal to hit points mean something other than death.

In fact, there's one example of the latter in the rules: subduing dragons. Attacks to subdue do damage that is tracked separately and has an increasing chance of subduing the dragon. A dragon reduced to 0 by attacks to subdue isn't killed, but subdued.

[coffee]

Nov 17, 2010 16:19:59 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

Nov 17, 2010 14:17:25 GMT -6 coffee said:

I more favor the fighter who went into a fight with only one hit point. His comrades were alarmed, but he cried out "I only need one!" (I forget where I got that story, but it's a good one.)

I seem to remember Dieter doing exactly that in one of the early combats in my Hinterlands game. That guy is a hard case for sure

That's where I got the idea.

;D

[cooper]

Sorry guys. I think the initial quote is referring to the fact that heroes had to take simultaneous attacks equal to their level in one round (in man to man combat) in order to be taken down. If a 4th level hero was fighting 6 normal men and 3 men scored a telling blow in a round, there would be no effect to the hero. Most creatures were listed as merely taking "accumulative hits" over multiple rounds in order to be brought low. An ogre for example required, "6 accumlative hits" in man to man combat.

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The quote then is saying, that it is up to the referee wether or not he wants characters to suffer accumulative hit die loss instead of simultaneous hit die loss.

This quote was later removed, because d&d fully adopted the "accumulative hit (die/point) loss" as it progressed.