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Old 08-19-2019, 08:43 PM   #31
maximara
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Default Re: Translating the concept of HP from D&D (and the like) to GURPS

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Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1 View Post
Yeah, even though they try to handwave it in the rules, for all intents and purposes, D&D HP does directly increase resistance to injury. High level characters can walk off hundred-foot falls and survive immersion in lava. There's no way to explain that away as luck or skill.
D&D by its very nature has Cinematic Rules as its go to which totally changes things.

I should mention as written D&D HP result in some really silly situations. Some of the ones mentioned in Murphy's Rules: survive a point blank blast from a cannon ("Maybe more if it is loaded"), fall from any height (their heads are made of rubber), take forever to execute (Take that, and that, and...) and several others.

We even did a "Two Monty" campaign (Monty Haul and Monty Python) where we played every AD&D1 rule as actually written. It was, as expected, ridiculous.

Dragon Magazine also pointed out the totally ridiculous situation when you added magic items to this in "History of a game that failed" (Dragon #99) where Lord Arrogo takes on the huge, ancient red dragon Feuerhaugh. Even with the thing gamed in Feuerhaugh's favor (he does maximum damage while Lord Arrogo does the minimum) the dragon is dead in three combat rounds.

"Arrogo forfeits his first attack of the round by trotting up to the dragon, who immediately breathes a fiery holocaust right in his face (...) Arrogo just shrugs and bashes Feuerhaugh with his hammer."
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Old 08-19-2019, 08:46 PM   #32
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Default Re: Translating the concept of HP from D&D (and the like) to GURPS

Does D&D HP let you survive longer while standing in a pool of lava? How would skill or even luck prevent that?
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Old 08-19-2019, 09:00 PM   #33
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Default Re: Translating the concept of HP from D&D (and the like) to GURPS

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Does D&D HP let you survive longer while standing in a pool of lava? How would skill or even luck prevent that?
The character isn’t actually standing in the pool of lava, but instead on some convenient ledge/whatever nearby (he’d still realistically get cooked by convection, but DnD operates under cinematic rules). Just like the fighter didn’t actually get hit by those 3 arrows that depleted his HP. It takes a certain amount of mind-twisting to work out what needed to have really happened in certain situations in games with abstract HP, but there’s usually some way to explain it.

Incidentally, healing in such settings can be interpreted as simply reducing fatigue (so you can continue to keep fighting at full skill), mystically restoring the luck you “used up,” or similar, rather than (or in addition to) physically repairing damaged tissues/organs.
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Old 08-19-2019, 10:00 PM   #34
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Default Re: Translating the concept of HP from D&D (and the like) to GURPS

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
The character isn’t actually standing in the pool of lava, but instead on some convenient ledge/whatever nearby (he’d still realistically get cooked by convection, but DnD operates under cinematic rules). Just like the fighter didn’t actually get hit by those 3 arrows that depleted his HP. It takes a certain amount of mind-twisting to work out what needed to have really happened in certain situations in games with abstract HP, but there’s usually some way to explain it.
I'd say that "how did you survive that?" is often a less mind-twisting question than "why are high level characters so much more likely to survive that?"
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Old 08-19-2019, 11:29 PM   #35
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Default Re: Translating the concept of HP from D&D (and the like) to GURPS

Healing times, healing magic, and healing potions are often tricky to deal with under these rationalisations.

As for the original question, I'd say that the concept of hit points in D&D is a lot less clear and more ambiguous than the mechanics. GURPS offers clear and concrete ways to represent explicitly each of the things that D&D hit points might be, and that creates the opportunity for doing it a different individual way for each character. In GURPS versions a rogue's hit points could be (at least partly) different from a fighter's.
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Old 08-20-2019, 01:31 AM   #36
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Default Re: Translating the concept of HP from D&D (and the like) to GURPS

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Vitality Reserve appears in the FAQ and the GURPS wiki.
The later mentions that Vitality Reserve appeared officially in Pyramid 3/75
I like vitality reserve but it needs a bit of tweaking IMHO. First, 1 hp / day is pretty steep and it isn't scalable at all. On top of having to succeed at HT roll. I would either tie it to the whole number of points and make it regen 20% every day. Or make a specific fast healing advantage for them that would take care of it.
Also need to tweak magical healing. This could be pretty interesting actually. In 4th edition of D&D there were healers whose abilities were not tied to magic. Also in Lord of the Rings Online there is Captain class which iirc do the same thing. So we could have totally separate replenishing abilities that deal with physical HP and VR, and also those that could replenish both in whichever order.
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Old 08-20-2019, 06:59 AM   #37
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Default Re: Translating the concept of HP from D&D (and the like) to GURPS

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Originally Posted by Thamior View Post
I like vitality reserve but it needs a bit of tweaking IMHO. First, 1 hp / day is pretty steep and it isn't scalable at all. On top of having to succeed at HT roll. I would either tie it to the whole number of points and make it regen 20% every day. Or make a specific fast healing advantage for them that would take care of it.
Also need to tweak magical healing. This could be pretty interesting actually. In 4th edition of D&D there were healers whose abilities were not tied to magic. Also in Lord of the Rings Online60 points/ there is Captain class which iirc do the same thing. So we could have totally separate replenishing abilities that deal with physical HP and VR, and also those that could replenish both in whichever order.
Regeneration (on its own or as an enhancement) is what you are looking for not Vitality Reserve or Healing.

Off the cuff way to do it:

Vitality Reserve alternative: Regeneration (Fast) - 50 points to recover 1 HP per minute
Magic Healing alternative: Affliction (Regeneration (Fast), [+500%] , Magical [-10%]) - 59 points/level

The GURPS wiki consolidates the information that is, IMHO, spread out through way too many books. It is now set up along the lines of The Hypertext d20 SRD ie just enough information so you have a reasonable grasp of what you are doing but not enough to where you don't need the books.

Last edited by maximara; 08-20-2019 at 07:07 AM.
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Old 08-20-2019, 07:47 AM   #38
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Default Re: Translating the concept of HP from D&D (and the like) to GURPS

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Originally Posted by RyanW View Post
I'd say that "how did you survive that?" is often a less mind-twisting question than "why are high level characters so much more likely to survive that?"
Levels are inherently bizarre, but in such settings I guess you end up with lucky breaks (landing on a low ledge instead of in the lava, something conveniently helping break your terminal-velocity fall, etc) more often as you become more “powerful.”

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Originally Posted by Thamior View Post
I like vitality reserve but it needs a bit of tweaking IMHO. First, 1 hp / day is pretty steep and it isn't scalable at all. On top of having to succeed at HT roll. I would either tie it to the whole number of points and make it regen 20% every day. Or make a specific fast healing advantage for them that would take care of it.
Also need to tweak magical healing. This could be pretty interesting actually. In 4th edition of D&D there were healers whose abilities were not tied to magic. Also in Lord of the Rings Online there is Captain class which iirc do the same thing. So we could have totally separate replenishing abilities that deal with physical HP and VR, and also those that could replenish both in whichever order.
VR Only should be an available option for Regeneration. Basing the rate on how much VR you have seems fair - treat 1 HP as instead 10% of VR. GURPS is fairly healing-averse (except for RPM), but having normal healing have an increased effect when applied to VR could be an option. Use Vulnerability, based on how common healing is in the campaign, but make it an Advantage rather than a Disadvantage (so [-30] becomes [30]). That would normally apply equally to HP and VR, so probably something like -20% to only work on VR would be appropriate. Abilities that would normally heal VR and HP should probably qualify for VR Only -20% as well. You can adjust other bits as you see fit - VR healing spells probably don’t have the same iteration penalty as HP healing ones, and in RPM healing VR is probably a lesser effect, while healing any HP would be a greater effect.
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Old 08-20-2019, 08:55 AM   #39
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Default Re: Translating the concept of HP from D&D (and the like) to GURPS

Healing is not that difficult. Healing (Reduced FP Cost, -10 FP, +200%; Reliable +10, +50%) [105] allows you to heal up to 20 HP without any FP cost (and allows you to cure cancer without any penalty). It is damage prevention that is difficulty (preventing 20 HP of damage tends to cost more than healing it in does). Of course, a healer of that capacity probably has Regeneration as an Alternate Ability.
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Old 08-20-2019, 08:43 PM   #40
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Default Re: Translating the concept of HP from D&D (and the like) to GURPS

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Levels are inherently bizarre, but in such settings I guess you end up with lucky breaks (landing on a low ledge instead of in the lava, something conveniently helping break your terminal-velocity fall, etc) more often as you become more “powerful.”
Well considering when and where D&D came from levels (and classes) made sense. "First level AD&D1 Magic-user" gives a more complete picture then '50 point GURPS mage' does.
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