I’m looking to hack the HP system. I intend removing HP entirely and replace it so that each time a character takes damage suffer a debility of his choice instead.
Although, I’m wondering what I could do with the paladin’s Bloody Aegis which lets him take a debility instead of suffer damage.
Any idea?
How are you scaling damage? Or does getting walloped by a Ancient Black Dragon’s tail force the player to mark a debility, exactly the same as getting stuck with a tiny Goblin dart does?
I don’t worry much about this. I don’t think a dragon tail slap is worse than an arrow in the gut 😛
Armor can mitigate damage though so the goblin will make less damage than a dragon, which can result in no wound for an attack.
I give creatures a flat bonus to damage when it makes sense, which increase the chance of getting a wound in the first place.
Similarly, PC will get flat bonus to damage for certain abilities.
I would caution you in that Debilities are very hard to get rid of- a healing potion, high level magic, or three whole days of rest are the only ways to cure them. I would recommend “fictional” or “situational” debilities or something of the sort. Maybe you don’t give them Shaky but instead say “That Warg gored your leg pretty bad, you won’t be able to move anywhere quickly, and you are at a serious disadvantage when you are moving or otherwise using your leg.”
Legacy has a harm system that works functionally like this.
You have 5 harm boxes. The first two are cosmetic states similar to Masks conditions and vary by playbook (Sacred, Angry, etc), and after that the harm boxes give -1 to various stats, with the 5th box being “dead”.
If you want to port this to DW, you could do variable harm by playbook like this (fighters have more boxes, etc), but I’d also give a roll +Armor on each hit to see if it causes actual harm or not.
You could go old school dnd and have hits per level instead of HP where you can take one hit per your level + 1 till you go down.
So every time you’d take damage you’d lose one hit. And a lvl one character, unless special moves or abilities gave you more, would start with 2 hits.
Moves that increased HP would increase hit count, and hits would go back to full after combat. Debilities would remain the same.
Or take a look at how Fallen Empires does it, rather than using DW and hacking out the D&D parts.
Fictional wound was my first reflex but then I figured better using a mechanic that is already in place instead of making a new one that would be somehow pretty similar.
Agreed on the healing part though. I guess I could make debilities easier to heal though.
Brainstorm ideas :
Allow insta healing of a single debility at the end of the encounter.
Allow a check to heal a single debility
After a rest, characters can make a check under each debilitated stat (with their normal mod, not the -1). Success heals it (partial success could remove the penalty for a day or something like that)
William Nichols care to summarize the gist of it? Is it same Harm system than AP? I don’t like it that much (it’s essentially the same as Harm boxes)
Gerard Snow Interesting idea, although technically still HP (albeit less than RAW DW HPs)
There’s a lot of discussion around this. tl;dr: be careful — talk it over with your group, get buy-in, and be open to revising.
Further reading: https://plus.google.com/+JohnHarper/posts/7dCR7Y1n5Uh
http://www.story-games.com/forums/discussion/19273/a-descriptive-damage-hack-for-dungeon-world-world-of-dungeons
Thx for the references! I’ll check them out!
We’re not actually playing DW so no worries here. I’m just mentally prepping a future campaign (that might never happen lol)
Just to be sure, the -1 replaces your actual MOD right?
Like no matter how big is your bonus, you’d still apply a -1 MOD to any check using this stat, right?
I can’t remember it being explained in the book.
EDIT: Here’s the text from the book:
“Each debility is tied to an ability and gives you -1 to that ability’s modifier.”
To me it’s not clear whether it lowers your MOD by 1 or make it so that your MOD is -1.
Addramyr Palinor as I understand it, it’s -1 from whatever your MOD currently is. That way, if your MOD is already -1, it can drop to -2
You might want to look into the debility system used in Jason Lutes’s Perilous Wilds. Instead of traditional DW debilities – which inflict a -1 STAT and are fictionally difficult to remedy – PW provides the option for ability score damage. This provides more opportunity for “debilities” at perhaps decreased severity, since a single hit is less severe. Interaction with moves like Bloody Aegis… may require more substantial thinking.
Perhaps you also take a look into the Harm moves from Apocalypse World if you’re less interested in HP as resource management and more interested in the implications and interpretation of damage suffered.
I’ve read and possess PW (book AND pdf) and didn’t remember this alternate stat damage rule. I’ll have a (re)look, thanks!
I’m not too fond of Harm from AW, but I still prefer it over HP.
This is how HP and damage works in Fellowship (a DW-like PbtA game). All characters (PCs, NPCs, Monsters) take and deal damage by marking debilities of their stats, and when they’re all marked, they die. I’d suggest taking a look at that, and how the combat system was changed as a result.
Notably, characters can’t really fight hordes of enemies (or particularly mighty foes) particularly well. Which makes sense in Fellowship, but might not be what you’re after in Dungeon World.
You might also look into Blades in The Dark’s system which essentially equates HP and Debility. When characters take harm, they suffer a level 1, 2, 3, or 4 debility that affects the narrative positioning. If you suffer a level 1 harm you essentially do less “damage” when narratively appropriate. If you take level 3 you need help to act in the narratively appropriate way (for example a broken leg might requires you to seek help to run away). Level 4 is instant death.
I believe this is derived from FATE’s harm system.
Whatever you do, it’s going to require some reformatting of moves. Healing spells will work very differently, for example.
I struggled with the HP for a long time, but without playing (or getting injured, haven’t GMed in a while) I find them as a narrative count-down-clock were the player is responsible for describing how a shattered forearm affects their character, possibly promting more Defy Danger-rolls. It’s a countdown to a meeting with DEATH, obviously.
Possibly relevant conversation linked below. You might also want to just search the Powered By the Apocalypse community for “harm”… it’s a recurring conversation.
IMO, the two biggest things to consider when hacking damage are:
1) What is your goal? I.e. what affect are you hoping to have on the game, the way it plays, the way your players interact with damage and violence, etc. Simply saying “I don’t like HP” isn’t enough. You’ve got to identify what you don’t like about them and what you want instead. Otherwise, you’re just smearing crap around and seeing what you like.
2) How much work are you willing to do? The HP system is surprisingly close to the core of DW. Tweak HP, and you’re potentially changing everything: basic moves, special moves, class moves, armor, monster creation, gear, resource management, magic items, etc. Ditch HP entirely, and you can easily find yourself rewriting (or at least re-evaluating) every piece of mechanics in the game.
plus.google.com – *Combat Damage (in post hack-and-slash games) – To roll or not to roll?* Doe…
1. Yep, I asked myself that question over and over 😛
Basically, I don’t like the lack of consequences for taking damage. The way I see it, with HP, you really only have 3 states: I got lot of HP, I need healing and I’m down.
The granularity between 14/20, 11/20 and 8/20 doesn’t bring anything interesting to the table for me.
Plus it creates math bloating and zero-sum (although not so much in DW than in other games) when your HP increase at the same time as monster do more damage.
I like to keep fight short, dangerous and meaningful.
2. I don’t see hacking HP in DW so much of a big change.
# Keep modifiers to damage as is.
# Turn 1d4 to +1, 1d6 to +2, 1d8 to +3 and 1d10 to +4.
# Healing spells would heal debilities instead of a random number.
# Same for rest : make camp, heal 1 debility, Resting heals all.
I don’t see anything else who needs to be adapted?
Addramyr Palinor Perhaps consider hacking in some kind of trigger for certain HP states? For example:
Bloodied: When you are reduced to or below 1/2 your total HP (e.g. 10 of 20), you are Bloodied. When you are Bloodied, mark a debility of your choice for as long as you remain Bloodied.
So I think I’ll go that way:
Roll damage normally – Armor.
If there is at least 1 dmg remaining, instead of loosing HP tick a debility of your choice and explain how it happens.
Bonus to damage
Keep flat bonus as is.
Dice bonus goes as follow:
1d4 = +1
1d6 = +2
1d8 = +3
1d10 = +4
Take a breather
When you rest for a few minute, taking a sip, patching your wounds and maintaining your gear, Roll+nothing.
* On a 10+, you remove two debilities.
* On a 7-9, you remove one debility.
* On a 6-, you remove one debility but you suffer -1 Forward until you Make Camp or Recover.
Make Camp
[…] When you wake from at least a few uninterrupted hours of sleep remove up to 3 debilities.
Recover
When you do nothing but rest in comfort and safety after a day of rest you remove all debilities. […]