Quote from: RPGPundit;843975The longer I game, the more convinced I am that there's no really great alternative to hit points.

Yeah but you haven't gamed that long. ��

Quote from: Matt;844471Yeah but you haven't gamed that long. ��

Yeah... just closing on 30 years...

Quote from: RPGPundit;844863Yeah... just closing on 30 years...

Well, obviously you need more time before you truly appreciate the superiority of non-HP mechanics...
But don't worry! I'm deducing, based on your drinking and smoking habits, which you share in your posts, that you'd have enough time;).

Yes. You can get exhausted (from very heavy work) so badly that you get hospitalized (I've done that twice) but I got out after a night i bed in both times. One time I also got back to my feet after few hours of sleep in a pool of gasoline in back of a truck...

My current "ideal wounding system" is that if character is hit, a fate roll is made. 1-2 of 1D6 from any bullet, 1 of 1D6 in any shell and 1 in 1D20 from fragmentation means death...

Like I said, I've tried lots of non-HP damage mechanics, and none has convinced me of being superior to HP.

Quote from: RPGPundit;845219Like I said, I've tried lots of non-HP damage mechanics, and none has convinced me of being superior to HP.

The system I put above is very fast if you divide end states into dead, seriously injured (need transport) and lightly injured (can move on her own). Thus it works well if you wish to have "real weapons" in your game. Making the system roll 1D20 or 1D100 with real numbers for different modern weapons is trivial (I use WW2 German army statistics quote in Textbook of Military Medicine, Part I, Volume 5, Table 2-4 and others). It works well if you wish to have a "realistic damage" for people who get hit by "realistic weapons".

However, the real question of any table top RPG combat system really is: "how fragile you wish your player characters to be within the game?" Answering that gives you the combat system you want (and thus should) have in your game.

Quote from: RPGPundit;845219Like I said, I've tried lots of non-HP damage mechanics, and none has convinced me of being superior to HP.

Are we supposed to be surprised?

Reminds me of miniature gamers who self fulfill their own preconceived notion of the worthiness of a unit.

Quote from: RPGPundit;845219Like I said, I've tried lots of non-HP damage mechanics, and none has convinced me of being superior to HP.

Worse yet. Many of the so-called non-HP "fixes" in games are just more complex book-keeping systems and/or pretentious re-namings of HP.

The best I have seen so far is the one in the new Metamorphosis Alpha. The Fatigue/Wounds/Trauma aspect. A successful hit does at least fatigue damage + the weapons damage. So 3 successes with a club does 3 fatigue + 1 more from the club. But 5 successes would do 5 fatigue + 2 wound + 1 fatigue from the club. Whereas a hand axe does 1 wound instead.

You could probably mirror that in 5e with the fatigue condition.

Quote from: Omega;845584The best I have seen so far is the one in the new Metamorphosis Alpha. The Fatigue/Wounds/Trauma aspect. A successful hit does at least fatigue damage + the weapons damage. So 3 successes with a club does 3 fatigue + 1 more from the club. But 5 successes would do 5 fatigue + 2 wound + 1 fatigue from the club. Whereas a hand axe does 1 wound instead.

I'm trying to deduce a formula (since anything that isn't complex should have a simple formula).

   Club: S+1 fatigue and [S-3] wounds where S is the number of successes.
   Hand axe: the formula is undeterminable as the meaning of "a hand axe does 1 wound instead" is unclear; maybe S fatigue and 1 wound or S fatigue and [S-4] wounds?
I assume in the formula [S-3] that wounds inflicted cannot be negative.

Quote from: Bren;845612I'm trying to deduce a formula (since anything that isn't complex should have a simple formula).

   Club: S+1 fatigue and [S-3] wounds where S is the number of successes.
   Hand axe: the formula is undeterminable as the meaning of "a hand axe does 1 wound instead" is unclear; maybe S fatigue and 1 wound or S fatigue and [S-4] wounds?
I assume in the formula [S-3] that wounds inflicted cannot be negative.

Damage type. The club does 1F, the handaxe does 1W. This on top of whatever else you get from the attack.

Say Im wearing cloth armor and have a melee skill of 4 and am using a sword. (2W) The other guy has leather, melee 5 and a axe(1W). I attack, get 4 successes. That would be 4 fatigue and 1 wound + 2 more wounds from the sword. But leather reduces the damage down to 2F and the +2W from the sword. (actually an additional 2 more wounds as I got an enhancement due to extra successes.) The other guy attacks me with the handaxe. gets 1 success only, my cloth armour reduces the damage to nothing because he could not get more successes than the armour.  

Base Fatigue and Wounds is 10 each. Plus for having any die in two stats.

Basically skill is the main factor of combat. More skill = more potential damage, or if you are a dodgy sort, less potential damage taken. But the two step damage system works pretty well. Either deplete their fatigue to KO them, or whittle down their wounds to kill them.

Quote from: Omega;845788Damage type.

Thanks, that's more clear. Though as a system it doesn't sound any simpler than splitting hit points into fatigue and body as done by some alternate versions of level based play.

Is simpler actually better though?

What is the purpose of Critical Hit systems besides trying to add back some of the complexity and depth behind the idea of Hit Locations?

HERO is a seemingly complex system that tracks 3 meaningful stats during combat: Stun, Body and Endurance.  

Endurance can be used to Push an ability (ex: Strength, Running, casting a 'spell', firing an 'energy blast') to be more powerful than it normally is.  This usually burns a LOT of Endurance.  There are also optional rules for tracking Long Term Endurance which basically reduces the character's maximum END total after continuous heavy exertion over time.  

A character who has used all of their Endurance begins to burn Stun in its place. At that point every action they take is literally painful.  

A character who is out of Stun is Knocked out and at the mercy of any Coup de grâce moves (ex: a blade to the throat) which can do lethal Body Damage with ease.  It is also possible to have a death by a thousand cuts by taking many smaller Body wounds during a battle (especially if the optional Bleeding Rules are used).

Note that HERO is very customizable.  Some HERO GM's opt for simpler as well and don't even use Endurance in their games.

Quote from: Bren;845804Thanks, that's more clear. Though as a system it doesn't sound any simpler than splitting hit points into fatigue and body as done by some alternate versions of level based play.

It is probably the easiest to go yes. Ive seen one or two others that do that as well in non-level based RPGs. It is what I used in mine and that was essentially a level-less system. There were levels. But they did not actually do anything. It was only a gauge of how much skill a character had accumulated.
In retrospect I realized the level system was redundant.

Fatigue and Wounds, or however you want to name it, works.

Quote from: Hyper-Man;845863Is simpler actually better though?

What is the purpose of Critical Hit systems besides trying to add back some of the complexity and depth behind the idea of Hit Locations?

With an abstract life system like D&D, simpler is the best.

Criticals as we currently know them did not appear till what? 2nd or 3rd ed? They were not in O, A or BX. A 20 was just an automatic hit. And even in its current form criticals are a damage boost mechanic. Not a HP or alternative HP one. Irrelevant to this discussion. A 10 damage crit is no different from a 5 damage regular hit other than the amount. Other games though turned crits into all sorts of weird things.

Quote from: Omega;845894Criticals as we currently know them did not appear till what? 2nd or 3rd ed?

Round about Grayhawk or Blackmoor D&D added Thief and Assassin classes. The Assassins had kill attacks and I think they both had an ability to do extra damage when back stabbing. Those are each a kind of critical.