Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Merlin_Sylver]

Firstly I want to make it clear that I am not trying to present actual potential rules changes, or even that I intend to use the following concept in any of my games, so please keep the arguments that I am trying to change the game to a dull roar.

Essentially, this is a thread for those that love to tinker, splice and combine things. Think of it as game alchemy. I have a few ideas for GM challenges, but the first one I wanted to present is this: Savage Hit Points.

How would you introduce a hit point system to Savage Worlds? I know all the arguments against hit points, and as I said, I'm not proposing actually using anything presented here. I'm mostly curious about how you other game alchemists would do this.

Personally, I think I'd have HP be a derived score calculated as
(4 + 1/2 Str + 1/2 Vig).

There could be edges that allow for the use of Spirit instead of the standard Attributes, or give you additional hit points. I see the Hit Points edge being one of those once per ranks situations, giving you an additional 4 HP each time. Your Toughness score would still be important, as this is how much damage you can take before your HP starts getting knocked away. So, if you have a Toughness of 5 and take 9 points of damage, then you lose 4 Hit Points. When you run out of HP, you fall prone, unconscious, and start to bleed out losing one HP per round. When your HP reaches negative Vigor, you die.

Any effect that would restore a wound to the character would instead heal 4 points of damage.

So, there's how I'd do HP if for some gods-forsaken reason I wanted to do that... feel free to add your own ideas, or poke holes in my own.
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[kreider204]

I love all the framing and caveats.

How about Size? Would you just take that into account via its effect on Toughness, or treat it as a separate modifier?
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"It only takes an extra second to be courteous."
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[ogbendog]

a standard character can take 3 wounds before being incapacitated.

your rules gives an average character. 10 hp. which is 2.5 wounds by your 4 hp = 1 wound math.

plus, a PC can take 3 over toughness and it's not a wound. Bascailly, on average, a PC takes 0, 1, 2, or 3 over toughness and has it not matter.

so, typcially, each hit does 1.5 of your HP plus whatever wounds delivered. Do i'd go with whatever gives me an average of 12 + 4.5, say 16 hp.

Vigor is already in the equasion, as toughness is based on it. I'd do st die size + spirit die size +4

[Clint]

[Merlin_Sylver]

[UmbraLux]

From a purely functional point of view SW characters already have hit points. Extras have 1 and wild cards have 3.

If you want to base it on an attribute, I'd consider using 1+Vigor/4 for wild cards. That'd give you a range of 2 to 4 wounds / hit points. Maybe throw in an edge to increase it...but maybe not, I'd worry about it becoming a "must have" edge.

If you want more granular damage than stepping by 4s, use 4+Vigor and subtract all damage above toughness & armor.

[Clint]

[Merlin_Sylver]

[Old One Eye]

Clint's method looks good.

One thing to keep in mind. In standard Savage Worlds, if a character has toughness 5, there is no difference between taking 9 points of damage or taking 12 points of damage. With the hit point model, however, taking 12 points of damage will be significantly worse than taking 9.

As such, Wild Cards will be weaker in relation to damage taken with the hit point model than in standard rules. So I would suggest giving more hit points than 3 wounds would imply.

[marshal kt]

lack of hit points is 1 of the reasons why I like SW. I've never liked games whee as the characters progress, they get tougher, to the point they can fall from a 5 or 10 story building and live.

Better fighters are harder to hit, and hard harder to land a square hit against.

anyone who says otherwise has never fought; with or without weapons.
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"I'm Hotep"

[Merlin_Sylver]

[77IM]

http://www.peginc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=295313

My group tried these rules during a zombie two-shot, but I missed it! They reported liking it, especially that being unable to soak frees up your bennies for use in making attacks. The variant they tried called them "bruises" and required 8 hours to heal, to be a tad more realistic. I haven't tried these rules yet because they don't suit the type of game I'm presently running.

-- 77IM
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Stuff I made: Arcane Abilities · Talent Edge · Savage Fading Suns · Savage Wuxia!

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