Comments on: Hit Points And You

By: Jonathan Drain

Jonathan Drain — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:07:21 +0000

franciolli araujo: Sure, go ahead.

By: franciolli araujo

franciolli araujo — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:29:46 +0000

I like your post a lot!
May I translate to portuguese and post it in my website?
Off course that it will credit this post to you.

By: Jonathan Drain

Jonathan Drain — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 08:02:00 +0000

Jhonen Olain also posted an innovative solution, where critical hits can only be scored by PCs, and opponents with character class levels or a CR not lower than the party level.

I think Wounds and Vitality still works better in Eberron, which has more emphasis on low-level play, than in say Forgotten Realms or Star Wars D20, where high-level play is a bigger component of the setting and you’re more likely to be slain by a peon.

By: Sian

Sian — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 07:18:37 +0000

All the criticism of VP/WP I’ve seen on the critical hits situation can easily be remedied by combining it with an action point system (spend your action point to cancel the critical and count yourself lucky) and cranking down on any sort of expanded critical range, and seriously I don’t know why that reason is given for it falling out of favor when it’s so easy to fix.

My main issue with hit points is in their abstraction. 4th edition actually improves this by making spending a healing surge equally as abstract. Previously, hit points represented so many factors, yet ‘cure light wounds’ would work whether you were actually hurt or not, and it just got weird and sloppy.

By: KNO3

KNO3 — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:39:54 +0000

Let’s say that a 20th level fighter is paralyzed. The evil ones decide to do some entertainment. They decide how many blows it takes to kill you. Coup de grace being way too quick and they are in the mood for entertainment. They strip him naked.

The dude with the dagger dies from exhaustion.

By: Ameron

Ameron — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:58:41 +0000

“Second, it imposes no immediate penalty, until enough damage is accumulated that the character is mortally wounded, killed, or knocked unconscious.”

I’ve been reading that some DMs impose a -1 to all checks and attacks when a character is bloodied. This is a reminder to PCs that they’re down to half their hp and are getting closer to death. If you’re going to use this house rule it’s important to treat monsters in the same way.

By: DarkSchneider

DarkSchneider — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:28:31 +0000

Perhaps, but they’re still rank and file peasant chumps who drop in one hit, generally. They can gain temp HP but they don’t otherwise have it.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:06:47 +0000

Minions can gain temporary hit points.