As I work on my own "fantasy heartbreaker" (as JB terms it), I've been thinking about the balance between deadliness and survivability. The following set of rules is a stab at addressing this. These rules have not been play-tested, and the concept of them is not original to me - I think the d20 version of Star Wars used something similar, though I'm not certain. I'm providing my rough draft here both as a safety in case my hard drive and other storage methods fail, and in the hope that someone else will find it useful.
STAMINA AND HEALTH
Health and Stamina are two separate pools. Most attacks deal damage to Stamina; once Stamina is totally depleted, Health is reduced instead.
A first-level character has zero Stamina; their Health is equal to the maximum possible roll on their Hit Die, adjusted by Constitution. As a character increases in level, their Stamina improves by rolling a new Hit Die for each level, but their Health only increases by the amount of their Constitution bonus (if any); it is not reduced if the character has a Constitution penalty.
Poisons, fire, and other non-weapon types of damage affect Health directly if the saving throw is failed. If the character succeeds on their saving throw, any damage is applied to Stamina instead. Note that spells with no saving throw (such as Magic Missile) will always damage Health directly unless stated otherwise.
Damage from falling is applied directly to Health; it is possible for a fighter with high Constitution to survive a fall of 100', but extremely unlikely!
If critical hits are used, an optional method is to have a critical hit deal no extra damage, but simply affect Health rather than Stamina. As a single such hit can kill or knock out a character instantly, it is recommended only to use this method in systems that have a reduced chance for a critical hit (such as using 2d10 for attack rolls, or needing to confirm a critical hit as in Pathfinder).
Stamina is fully restored after a good night's sleep (at least six hours), provided that food and shelter are available. Health is restored at a rate of 1 Health Point per day, with adequate sleep, shelter, and food; a full week of bed rest will completely restore Health to its maximum.
The first two versions of Star Wars d20 (original and revised, but not saga) used wounds (= Constitution) and vitality (= hit points); and so too, I'm fairly sure, did Spycraft and its cousins (FantasyCraft and Stargate d20). Sure enough, these systems had damage from a critical hit bypass vitality and go directly to wounds (and while it works well enough most of the time, there are some edge cases that make it very wonky - leaving it no wonder at all that SW Saga Edition switched to d20 Modern's "hit points with a low massive damage threshold" gimmick instead).
ReplyDeleteI had thought the old d20 Star Wars games used that, but I didn't remember it from the (very brief) sessions I played of the Saga Edition. Thanks for filling in the gaps in my memory!
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