Savage Worlds does this right with wounds. Anything under a great success leaves the character shaken, so that they must save of lose their turn. Every wound is a cumulative -1 on all rolls. 4 wounds and you’re out of the fight.
Fun fact about going below 0 HP: Third Edition D&D tracked that. At 0 you were staggered, below that unconscious, and at -Con Score negative HP you died.
This being D&D 3.x (3.0/3.5/Pathfinder 1e), there were abilities that extended that limit, abilities that let you stay conscious below 0 HP. I’ve seen someone play a build that was always at negative HP, with a limit of something like -300 before dying, and got bonuses for being in the negatives.
I’ve seen someone play a build that was always at negative HP, with a limit of something like -300 before dying, and got bonuses for being in the negatives.
Lmao that’s fucking wild
Totally. Third edition D&D (and its continuation Pathfinder 1e) is amazing for doing the most insane things you can come up with. So many janky combos to be had, with an utterly absurd amount of choices, and characters tend to make more build choices each level than a 5e character does in their entire career. Downside, it’s less newbie-friendly because that many options can be overwhelming. But it’s perfect for those that tried 5e and found it too shallow.
It is worth noting that the -Con score was a 3.X house rule but Pathfinder 1e raw. It was just -10 otherwise, which could get pretty punishing if you were dropped by bad luck.
5e’s up-and-down approach to unconsciousness isn’t really an ideal resolution, although making them gain levels of fatigue almost makes it functional.
This but unironically. In medieval total war 2 everythinh except for things like elephants had 1 hitpoint. And a certain chance to recive damage based on atack and defence values. So if the model was hit it died. And it looked much cooler. Contrast that with modern total war games like warhammer where there are health bars. a cavalary charge would send some dudes flying 20mm into the air and after bouncing several times they get up and walk back. Arrows and misiles also work in wierd ways. With the unit loosing sometimes half of its health before anybody dies.
I really like the way it’s handled in Matryoshka (a homebrew variant of Powered By The Apocalypse). There is a harm mechanic and there is a lot of leeway in how the DM dishes it out both to NPCs and PCs.
I generally prefer its focus on collaborative storytelling over straight up tactics and minutia of stats and attack ranges etc.
Check out the Red Game Table podcast if you’re interested in a ttrpg that is basically cosmic horror x-files in the eastern bloc during the cold war.
I like Fate. You have a small quickly restoring pool of stress to soak up harm, but anything more becomes a Consequence. Players agree on what an appropriate consequence is and the narrative follows. You don’t really have the “he’s at 1/483 HP but still fighting strong!” thing.
That sounds really similar to the harm system in Matryoshka actually.
Like there are 7 points of harm anyone can take and as they pass certain thresholds they can receive wounds both physical and otherwise that may cause negative modifiers to subsequent rolls on certain stats or even just in general.
Like in the campaign I am in my character almost got themselves killed in a monomaniacal attempt to communicate and study a psychic entity and wound up just letting them literally live rent free in his head.
Genuinely, I like how Ironclaw (Squaring the Circle) does it; attacks and dodges are skill checks, like anything else, how well an attacker succeeds determines which status the victim receives. Low successes only make them Hurt (with its status ailments) which a high enough roll makes them Dying or Dead (again, just statusses you inflict)
I think it’s a cinematic, intuitive, yet powerful and scalable mechanic!
