Random crazy ideas... hacking damage & hit points

[jenskot]

I hit!

Rolling 2d6 damage...

BAM! 10 damage! Take that!

What if damage isn't damage. What if damage is effect. You can spend it on damage or you can spend it for other effects. Say every 5 points of damage can be exchanged for inflicting a condition.

I roll 10 damage but choose to only inflict 5. The remaining 5 I use to slow you, knock you prone, disarm you, or even give myself a +2 to my next attack.

This will invalidate certain Feats. If you bought a Feat that gives you a +2 to disarm rolls, then you're going to want to make those rolls rather than use this hack. That can easily be solved by changing the feat to work with the hack. Maybe it costs less damage points to disarm if you have the disarm feat.

EDIT: I tried this idea, it didn't work well, but came up with a better idea. Click here for more!

[jenskot]

I have 10 hit points left

Damn! I'm hit! I take 13 damage. I'm down. But wait!

What if I can compromise. Maybe I can ignore 10 damage at the cost of losing a weapon, being captured, suffering a permanent scar, my NPC friend gets hit instead, and much more!

[jenskot]

In 4E, monsters have a lot of hit points but do little damage. So fights are really long. In MM3, they cut monster hit points and increased their damage which I like!

Before MM3, I gave monsters a special feat. They can sacrifice 20 hit points to gain an extra action. This way they can attack more, do more damage AND die faster since they are sacrificing hit points.

It made fights way faster and less predictable!

[jenskot]

Often your percentage chance to hit is between 40-60% depending how an encounter is balanced. But because of the d20s high level of randomness, we've had people miss 6+ times in a row and throw their D20 across the room! And given how slow combat can be, failing often means not doing anything, which means waiting another 10 minutes before you can try to do something again. Fail enough times and you're spending an hour waiting.

Some people replace the d20 with 2d10 or 3d6. Or roll 2d20 and keep the highest (but next time they must keep the lowest).

Other people go the Mouse Guard direction. Failing means you still hit but at a price (losing hit points, suffering a condition).

One thing I've played with is rewarding failure. You miss a roll? I give you a token. The more you fail, the more tokens you get. You can then at anytime exchange tokens for special effects. A re-roll, bonuses to a roll, bonus damage, or cash in a bunch of tokens for an extra action. I've found all of the above options work well but I really like this one. It creates a sense of momentum. Lose now but win big later! It can be rewarding when you cash in your past frustration to do something insanely super heroic right now!

[Wage Mage]

This is great!!

With all these options/hacks, I feel that it comes down to what you type of game you are gunning for.

For a grinding/dungeon crawl game, I would use a simple hack or no hack at all. For the most part, these types of games will have players performing at top level and they should be able to succeed half of the time.

I'm a big fan of the momentum mechanic and have used it for a couple of game hacks that have combat scenes that I want to have shifts in momentum between the opposing forces. If I wanted the battle to skew torwards the PCs, I would use what you listed (giving a token for a player failing). If I wanted a even battle, I would have a attacker give his opposition momentum if the attacker failed/rolled under a certain number.

Or perhaps as a player loses hit points, they gain tokens to stage a comeback...

Giving conditions instead of damage sounds interesting! I actually want to try that now instead of using hit points. It really gives a player a feeling of control.

Something that I've been toying with (that is not HP related, but combat related) is when both sides succeed. I've been using this specifically for a wrestling game to create a instance where both wrestlers are successsful when attacking and both reverse eachothers moves to create a stalemate.

[BaronHelix]

Something that I've been toying with (that is not HP related, but combat related) is when both sides succeed. I've been using this specifically for a wrestling game to create a instance where both wrestlers are successsful when attacking and both reverse eachothers moves to create a stalemate.

Careful. If you invoke innovative system mechanics and wrestling in the same sentence, you run the risk of shorting out jenskot's pleasure centers.

[cawshis]

Our 4E game used a +1 token if you missed by 1 (which is the most frustrating of all misses!)...you could then spend this token later in the game for anything you might need +1 for...or you can save them up to rock multiple pluses on a future roll.

Best part? The DM took advantage of the rule as well! Nothing is more hilarious than me laughing at the DM for missing by 1 and then him going "oh looky here! +1 for cheating!" and turning a miss into a hit. Ouch!

[E.T.Smith]

What if damage isn't damage. What if damage is effect. You can spend it on damage or you can spend it for other effects. Say every 5 points of damage can be exchanged for inflicting a condition.

I roll 10 damage but choose to only inflict 5. The remaining 5 I use to slow you, knock you prone, disarm you, or even give myself a +2 to my next attack.

I've considered something like this for some homebrews. I became ambivalent about it because, in practice, trading in damage for special effects is kind of recursive; most effects are about putting the opponent at a disadvantage ... so the attacker can do more damage later. Unless they get some serious advantages, the attacker who just deals damage as it comes ends the fight no faster than the guy trading it in for pile-drivers and fancy moves.

[BaronHelix]

What if damage isn't damage. What if damage is effect. You can spend it on damage or you can spend it for other effects. Say every 5 points of damage can be exchanged for inflicting a condition.

I roll 10 damage but choose to only inflict 5. The remaining 5 I use to slow you, knock you prone, disarm you, or even give myself a +2 to my next attack.

I've considered something like this for some homebrews. I became ambivalent about it because, in practice, trading in damage for special effects is kind of recursive; most effects are about putting the opponent at a disadvantage ... so the attacker can do more damage later. Unless they get some serious advantages, the attacker who just deals damage as it comes ends the fight no faster than the guy trading it in for pile-drivers and fancy moves.

That's true when the goal is to drive the opponent into the ground. However, for evasion or trying to navigate the beast into a magical containment or whatever, it opens up the field considerably.

[Questionor]

What if damage isn't damage. What if damage is effect. You can spend it on damage or you can spend it for other effects. Say every 5 points of damage can be exchanged for inflicting a condition.

I roll 10 damage but choose to only inflict 5. The remaining 5 I use to slow you, knock you prone, disarm you, or even give myself a +2 to my next attack.

I've considered something like this for some homebrews. I became ambivalent about it because, in practice, trading in damage for special effects is kind of recursive; most effects are about putting the opponent at a disadvantage ... so the attacker can do more damage later. Unless they get some serious advantages, the attacker who just deals damage as it comes ends the fight no faster than the guy trading it in for pile-drivers and fancy moves.

well in many mmos there is often this trade off *but* the disadvantage allows the whole party/raid to do more damage later. So solo it is better to do more damage immediately and with a large group it is better to put the "debuff" and increase everyone's damage. The other effect is how many hitpoints the enemy has. Any effect damage or debuff that acts over time, is a bigger benefit the longer that time is. If you're killing trash quickly then the over time effect doesn't last long enough to break even on just doing direct damage up front, while a mob with lots of hit points will live for the full effect. Lastly there is one more effect on how long the debuff lasts which is how long you will live (or stay instead of running away). If the enemy is doing enough damage (taking into account healing and stuff) that you will die/runaway in time X and the "debuff" doesn't break even until after time X then again it doesn't make sense. Of course this is all about things that increase the damage you do to the mob. There are also "debuffs" that decrease the damage they are doing which will then increase the time X in that last one, which then can allow the other type of "debuff" to now become "profitable". As you might expect though most of the time direct burst damage is best. It is only in the tough/big fights that this stuff comes into play. So it's up to the players to figure out which strategy is best for this fight.

There is another way this stuff comes into play in mmos that I've never seen apply in a normal rpg which is agro management. I really know how most DMs/GMs handle the decision of who monsters attack (as I don't DM/GM) but in mmos there is this hidden agro number and the person with the highest agro is the one being attacked. So a good part of big battles is making sure the tank (guy with best armor/DR/etc and most hitpoints) is the one taking all the damage and using various affects end up allowing you to also control that agro score. A tank may taunt and do no damage but it will up his agro. Direct damage will generally total more agro than a damage over time, same goes for healing. Buffs and Debuffs depending on the skill/spell will have positive or negative effects on agro. I guess this agro stuff probably doesn't really apply to normal rpgs though.