I freaking Love this idea.

You may have a magic carpet, and you may cast fireballs; but you still have no more than 10HP, or 20HP, etc.

Everything in the game progresses, except for your mortality.  Your character will eventually die.  You might want to write up a will.

I believe that a Critical Hit from a Greatsword, should be a felling blow for any PC.

Quote from: Razor 007;1098008I freaking Love this idea.

You may have a magic carpet, and you may cast fireballs; but you still have no more than 10HP, or 20HP, etc.

Everything in the game progresses, except for your mortality.  Your character will eventually die.  You might want to write up a will.

In a point buy system if you want to keep it "realistic" this is the best way to go about it, you only need a table for different levels of game.

[table=width: 500]
[tr]
   [td]Difficulty Levels & Target Numbers[/td] [/tr]
[tr]
[td]Description[/td][td]TN[/td] [td]Hit Points[/td][/tr]
[tr]
[td]Average/Easy[/td][td]5[/td] [td]10[/td][/tr]
[tr]
[td]Tricky[/td][td]10[/td] [td]15[/td][/tr]
[tr]
[td]Challenging[/td][td]15[/td] [td]15[/td][/tr]
[tr]
[td]Difficult[/td][td]20[/td] [td]20[/td][/tr]
[tr]
[td]Demanding[/td][td]25[/td] [td]20[/td][/tr]
[tr]
[td]Extreme[/td][td]30[/td] [td]25[/td][/tr]
[tr]
[td]Legendary[/td][td]35[/td] [td]30[/td][/tr]

[/table]

For instance

I like low HP,  but I prefer an E6 approach. Doesn't this make the LFQW problem worse? You're taking away high HP from the fighter classes,  which is one of their advantages over the casters. I'd expect everyone would go Codzilla with this.

Quote from: Aglondir;1098022I like low HP,  but I prefer an E6 approach. Doesn't this make the LFQW problem worse? You're taking away high HP from the fighter classes,  which is one of their advantages over the casters. I'd expect everyone would go Codzilla with this.

Pretty much. You'd need to scale up something else to replace the lost hit points or battles against high level opponents become a contest of who wins initiative and one-shots the other guy. If you want to play hit points as meat points you're going to need to also cap damage and scale defenses to match attack modifiers or the entire thing is going to grind to a crashing halt.

For example... Hit points are capped at 10. A fireball for 6d6 (save for half) will typically kill you even if you make your saving throw (21 damage if failed, 10 if you succeed).

Basically, if you want capped hit points (particularly at an extremely low level) you're going to have to essentially rebuild any D&D game to the point it's no longer D&D.

I'd recommend looking at Mutants & Masterminds or Tru20 as a starting point if you want  characters who can potentially be dropped by a single hit regardless of level like the OP seems to be seeking.

Quote from: Chris24601;1098024Pretty much. You'd need to scale up something else to replace the lost hit points or battles against high level opponents become a contest of who wins initiative and one-shots the other guy. If you want to play hit points as meat points you're going to need to also cap damage and scale defenses to match attack modifiers or the entire thing is going to grind to a crashing halt.

For example... Hit points are capped at 10. A fireball for 6d6 (save for half) will typically kill you even if you make your saving throw (21 damage if failed, 10 if you succeed).

Basically, if you want capped hit points (particularly at an extremely low level) you're going to have to essentially rebuild any D&D game to the point it's no longer D&D.

I'd recommend looking at Mutants & Masterminds or Tru20 as a starting point if you want  characters who can potentially be dropped by a single hit regardless of level like the OP seems to be seeking.

No, a Fireball would do perhaps 1d6 per caster level.  I wouldn't require a caster to be 5th level, before casting the spell.  A 1st level caster, "if" they learned the Fireball spell, would do the same damage as a shortbow.

Of course, damage would increase with level for all classes.  A martial character would never run out of, I swing with the sword; but a spellcaster would quickly run out of, I cast fireball.

Regarding hit points, one of the best iterations of D20 and dangerous was I thought the atlantean edition of Mongoose's Conan.  There was a massive damage threshold that became harder and harder to make according to the amount of damage dealt, and given the sort of damage some of the warriors could lay down on a crit hit, it made combat pretty deadly, and crits could and did end fights in one shot.

Quote from: Aglondir;1098022I like low HP,  but I prefer an E6 approach. Doesn't this make the LFQW problem worse? You're taking away high HP from the fighter classes,  which is one of their advantages over the casters. I'd expect everyone would go Codzilla with this.

Not if you also include exhaustion points, the caster grows weaker with each spell cast.

Quote from: Razor 007;1098009I believe that a Critical Hit from a Greatsword, should be a felling blow for any PC.

Then you are a moron who has never stepped out into the real world? People have survived far worse.

And again we come back to this persistant absolute brain numbingly moron notion that , "boo hoo hoo! dem meal ol HP is all meats and it makes no sense characters live!"

For fucks sake people take out several loans and buy a clue.

Stormbringer (or Magic World) is what you want when you're hankering for Low HP and High Skills / High Magic.

The problem of "one bad roll kills you" is that roll will come up. The GM just rolls lots more dice than a PC.

But if you're crew is cool with that, rock on. I can't recommend Stormbringer enough (the early editions).

Quote from: Omega;1098047Then you are a moron who has never stepped out into the real world? People have survived far worse.

And again we come back to this persistant absolute brain numbingly moron notion that , "boo hoo hoo! dem meal ol HP is all meats and it makes no sense characters live!"

For fucks sake people take out several loans and buy a clue.

Hey, Piss On You.  Twice Even.

A Greatsword is an embodiment of something well beyond a Katana, or Longsword.  A Greatsword isn't just "a" sword; it's "the" sword.  And I said a Critical Hit. Have a nice day.

You could rule that your HP never increases beyond CONx2.

In BRP, your HP is (CON + SIZ)/2. So even if your Dodge and Parry are 90%, there's that terrible moment when you roll like crap and you take 12 points of damage that cleaves your brain.

Quote from: Razor 007;1098025No, a Fireball would do 1d6 per caster level.  I wouldn't require a caster to be 5th level, before casting the spell.  A 1st level caster, "if" they learned the Fireball spell, would do the same damage as a shortbow.

Of course, damage would increase with level for all classes.  A martial character would never run out of, I swing with the sword; but a spellcaster would quickly run out of, I cast fireball.

Regardless, a 6th level caster auto-kills the entire party with one fireball spell if the hp cap is 10 and there are no other mitigating rules. Just using normal D&D rules with a 10 hp cap, but otherwise unchanged is just about the dumbest rule I've heard in a long time. It's like the "Pile of dead bards" from The Gamers 2, only you're trying to take that approach to PC mortality seriously.

Quote from: Omega;1098047And again we come back to this persistant absolute brain numbingly moron notion that , "boo hoo hoo! dem meal ol HP is all meats and it makes no sense characters live!"

The OPs arguments are the poster child for why I had to call the resource spent to avoid lethal damage in my system Edge instead of hit points... because meat heads (pun intended) like him can't ever see hit points as anything other than meat and I got sick and tired of having to fight the meat head presumptions. I rewrote my falling rules so that they function consistently with spending Edge points to turn lethal situations into near misses just so there'd be no confusion that only the last Edge point is anything more than a bruise or trivial flesh wound.

There's just so much baggage attached to certain terms that you're almost better off using different terms instead of trying to fix people's perceptions of the original term. Hit points is definitely one of those terms.

There is no requirement that PCs live on until 20th level, and build their own Nirvana.  Why do modern gamers become so attached to their imaginary characters?

DCC has got it right.  The DM / GM shouldn't feel obligated to help the PC's win every battle.  Let them cry about it.  Haha!!!

Quote from: Razor 007;1098113There is no requirement that PCs live on until 20th level, and build their own Nirvana.  Why do modern gamers become so attached to their imaginary characters?

DCC has got it right.  The DM / GM shouldn't feel obligated to help the PC's win every battle.  Let them cry about it.  Haha!!!

There's no requirement your game ever has to have players either or that we should be obliged to call a dumb idea brilliant.

The best part is that, that by not playing your game, we're actually winning the game... our characters aren't doing stupid things in a system designed to kill them... they've decided to remain a blacksmith's apprentice and eventually become a journeyman and start their own shop where they can earn a living without ever having to risk death due to hp-loss.

You wanted feedback. Now you're complaining because it wasn't what you wanted to hear.

Go back to the drawing board and try again.