Damage Reduction vs Hit Point Multiplier

[Mark Skarr]

While most of us are familiar with IT:DR (Injury Tolerance: Damage Reduction), for my Kingdom Hearts game, to reduce on-the-fly maths, I reversed it, and multiplied the characters' Hit Points. This worked much better for the game. It was faster in play, and allowed the players to keep better track of their character’s status.

I made the decision, early on in development, that, like the Computer Games, there would be tiers of healing items, so the healing items didn’t get the “bonus” from the Injury Tolerance. If you use a 2d Healing Potion, you only get back 2d HP, not 2d times your HP multiplier.

(Additionally, my group has long-since thrown out the cumulative healing penalty as being “un-fun.” We have other ways of balancing it that we think work both better and are more fun.)

I’m interested in seeing if anyone has any, additional input. Have you tried this? What short-falls can you see coming up?

To address a simple issue, the character has a base HP value, which is how we base weight when we use that at all. It is not based on the “inflated” HP value.

And, the "price" was kept the same. 50 for x2, 75 for x3, 100 for x4 et cetera.

[Anthony]

The minimum damage 1 rule makes a hit point multiplier significantly better; it you hit someone with 20 HP and IT(DR) 100 20 times for 5 damage they get reduced to zero; with a hit point multiplier they're still at 1,900/2,000 hp.

That could be seen as a feature, but it does change the value of the trait.

[zoncxs]

Do you use the "base HP" For slams?

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The minimum damage 1 rule makes a hit point multiplier significantly better; it you hit someone with 20 HP and IT(DR) 100 20 times for 5 damage they get reduced to zero; with a hit point multiplier they're still at 1,900/2,000 hp.

That could be seen as a feature, but it does change the value of the trait.

I do see it as a feature, as it makes the game "better" in my opinion.

I also think that is an edge case that IT:DR was never designed to deal with. After all, 5 points of DR just solved that for both characters. BUT, we're not talking about DR.

I've always felt the "minimum 1 damage" rule was a kludge to make IT:DR "work." It never felt like a valid solution. It has the issue that a 1-pt attack bypasses IT:DR, and it shouldn't. IT:DR has a greater effect on mid-ranged attacks. Minor attacks are almost not impacted. IT:DR /100 means that a 30d attack and a 1-pt attack are exactly as effective. Where IT:HPM means that the 30d attack is still a better attack. The HPM is still valuable against both of them (it functionally ignores the 1 pt attack) and thus is worth the points invested.

And I don't see that it would change its value by very much as IT:HPM makes a 1-pt attack worth significantly less than a 30d attack, where IT:DR only reduces the value of the 30d attack.

Now, much like high-levels of IT:DR it can quickly get out of hand. I mean, IT:DR /100 is only [300]. And you put Cosmic (Round Down) on that, and it's both more effective and more efficient for just about any level of cost-similar DR.

Originally Posted by zoncxs

Do you use the "base HP" For slams?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: I actually use the slam rules from DFRPG--I like them better. They are more "fun."

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

I've always felt the "minimum 1 damage" rule was a kludge to make IT:DR "work." It never felt like a valid solution.

Whole-heartedly agree, here. This (multiplying HP rather than dividing damage) seems like a really good option to avoid having to apply that kludge. I'm less-thrilled with healing effects (other than natural healing/regeneration, I assume) not benefitting from the multiplier - but then if the bulk of your healing items are in the form of potions, and you have the sort of tier-system you indicated, having minor potions that only heal 1d while there are better ones out there that heal markedly more is certainly a workable option.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Whole-heartedly agree, here. This (multiplying HP rather than dividing damage) seems like a really good option to avoid having to apply that kludge. I'm less-thrilled with healing effects (other than natural healing/regeneration, I assume) not benefitting from the multiplier - but then if the bulk of your healing items are in the form of potions, and you have the sort of tier-system you indicated, having minor potions that only heal 1d while there are better ones out there that heal markedly more is certainly a workable option.

That was a solution for the game I was running. It was the first time I tried using this.

I think that there needs to be a between-abilities fix. If I now have 2,000 virtual HP up from 20 real HP (just using Anthony's example of IT:DR /100), it should be harder to heal those. Maybe not obscenely hard like no boost at all, but paying to heal 1d (2 FP of healing) probably shouldn't get to heal 100d of virtual HP damage.

If we look at the convenient table at the back of Supers, it shows us that IT:DR /100 is the 10th level or IT:DR. If we take that as the multiplier and say that a 1d healing ability would get a 10x multiplier instead of 100x that seems more balanced. So, a 1d Heal would be worth 10d of healing for an HPMx100. I think this also works because a HPMx100 character is more likely to need less general healing than IT:DR. But, I also think the x100 HP is above what I would normally allow. But, these are good things to think about.

I agree that natural healing should not be penalized. But, maybe call regeneration an enhancement on IT:HPM. So, "Slow" ("Multiple" per 12 hours) would be a +10% and "Very Fast" ("Multiple" per second) would be +100%. The more virtual HP you have--the more it costs. I think this might also fix Regeneration.

[edk926]

Honestly still being alive at negative Hit Points is weird if you think about it. Most games put death or at least unconsciousness at exactly 0. As such, Hit Point Multipliers would fit well for certain types of games. You can still apply penalties once people lose a certain amount of health. I've played many computer RPGs with that kind of mechanic.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by edk926

Honestly still being alive at negative Hit Points is weird if you think about it. Most games put death or at least unconsciousness at exactly 0. As such, Hit Point Multipliers would fit well for certain types of games. You can still apply penalties once people lose a certain amount of health. I've played many computer RPGs with that kind of mechanic.

As Hit Points are an abstraction, I think it's just an artifact of such things.

Hmm.

This brings up another issue. IT:DR basically increases your after-0 thresholds, but, it almost seems that HPM shouldn't. I'm not sure. Maybe be a limitation on HPM (no below-zero HP boost) or even an enhancement (Multiply All HP!).

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

While most of us are familiar with IT:DR (Injury Tolerance: Damage Reduction), for my Kingdom Hearts game, to reduce on-the-fly maths, I reversed it, and multiplied the characters' Hit Points. This worked much better for the game. It was faster in play, and allowed the players to keep better track of their character’s status.

It's a reasonable idea, and certainly easier to manage than doing extra math on every single now that lands. But it's definitely a change, e.g. it reduces the effects of direct-injury spells like DeathTouch (or Share Vitality) since they bypass Injury Tolerance but not HP inflation.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by edk926

Honestly still being alive at negative Hit Points is weird if you think about it. Most games put death or at least unconsciousness at exactly 0. As such, Hit Point Multipliers would fit well for certain types of games. You can still apply penalties once people lose a certain amount of health. I've played many computer RPGs with that kind of mechanic.

I would say that the common game rule of 'dead at 0' is the odd one, and it was originally an abstraction inherited from wargames where often for a campaign game you'd roll after a battle to see how many of the 'dead' were actually dead vs merely wounded.