@james Deer nothing in this video was about called shots to vulnerable organs or insta kills. It was just about how to simplify the behind the screen work for the dm. You don't have to take his advice, but you should critique what he actually says instead of making up problems.
Love the idea. Less math behind the screen, especially when running a fight with multiple monsters like Orcs, goblins, and such. Just use tally marks. Saves time and speeds up combat. Thanks for sharing your years of experience with us professor.
One of my favorite systems, Star Wars D6, is a lot like what you’re describing. No hitpoints, most minions go down in one hit. When you get hit (based on the severity of that hit) you incur one of statuses: stunned, wounded, mortally wounded, or killed. If you’re stunned twice you’re wounded, if you’re wounded twice you’re mortally wounded... and so on. Makes for quick deadly combat.
I wish D&d was like that, I’ve always hated hit points, love 5e but all the math is so bloated, plus this, minus that, subtract and roll 30d10’s for some OP spells. We try to just strip it all back to basics. Love ICRPG for some great ideas on how to do that.
I think the best combination employs both hit points and a table of wound percentages. Anything that takes 50% of your hit points or life pool or whatever means a Constitution roll. Like call of Cthulhu
Reason why this is so valuable is that the monsters don't have emotions if the DM doesn't have emotions for them. And if the DM is being a referee not a antagonistic DM; this has a aim to entertain and be a good host. Rather, this makes semi complex subtraction and addition much quicker and simpler with the illusion of grandeur all in the aim of making the story and Adventures even more exciting
Amazing idea for small hordes or minions that assist the BBEG. You don't want the minions to bog down combat but at the same time you want to them to soak damage and slow down the party's action economy so its not all focused on the BBEG.
This is exactly why people who want exciting roleplay - not tactical miniatures combat - should play more elegantly designed systems like those built with the Powered by the Apocalypse ruleset. I played D&D for 25 years, played Apocalypse World once, and never looked back.
I agree, almost all the problems with D&D could be solved by simply playing another system. I almost always play Savage Worlds, its like all the good stuff about D&D with all superfluous crap scraped off.
Like the old Star Wars D6 system? It’s probably the best known system that doesn’t use hit points. My favorite version is Mini-6 Bare Bones. It helps that it is free.
@@weirdguy564 It's different than the Star Wars system. You can look up the "powered by the apocalypse" system, but basically it works like this: 1. The GM never rolls. The GM moves the fiction forward in response to player rolls. All rolls have consequences. 2. Roll 2d6 and add modifiers. There are three results bands: Full success, partial success, and failure 10+ = Full success: player does what they attempted and gets a bonus (for an attack that might be "do extra damage," "Frighten your enemies," "take control of the situation," or "avoid taking damage," among others. ~6 = Failure: The GM chooses from a list of options, usually including "GM's choice," and a list of possible consequences, including but not limited to doing more damage, putting the player in a bad spot, setting up a future event (in a fantasy setting this might be something like cracking open a portal to another plane after failing a casting role), etc. 7-9 = Partial success: This is where it gets really interesting. The player succeeds (for example does damage if they are attacking or steals something if they are pickpocketing), but they have to choose a consequence as well, such as making another player vulnerable, losing something, taking damage, or opening themselves up to vulnerability. For some "moves" (the term for actions), the GM chooses the negative consequence. The consequences are determined by the fiction (you do what the story is telling you would be cool). There are a number of game changing effects. First, every. single. roll. is dramatic. None of the BS of D&D where you have 10 rounds of plinking away at some boss monster. Even swinging a sword every round can have different outcomes. The game is in the players' hands. Every roll is setting up a roleplay because the players are determining the consequences, and thus driving the story. There are no "I swing, I miss, next" rolls. There are no "Double damage... but I rolled two 1s, so actually that sucks." When players act dramatic things happens. And instead of the focus being on numbers, the focus is on the story. Finally, the system elegantly accommodates for "real world" actions. In D&D cool cinematic actions like tripping, tackling, disarming, swinging from ropes, smashing someone with a chair, etc. are locked behind a byzantine rule set and have underpowered effects on the story. In the Powered by the Apocalypse setting, pretty much anything you can imagine slots seamlessly into play.
How does anyone take so long??? Played D&D for one year found Merp/Rolemaster, never played D&D again. Now this is enriched by Forbidden Lands (year zero engine of Mørk Borg fame) as of late. Both are great and I only watch D&D vids for Gm-ing ideas.
When I flicked my eyes over the title, I thought it said "Get Rid of Hip Joints" But I am just a poor old man… My legs are grey. My ears are gnarled. My eyes are old and bent.
I don’t normally watch TH-cam channels that give rules advice, I’m an old Grognard of 37 years gaming, and prefer to work out my own homebrew rules or am stuck in the mud over certain rules. But the Legolas argument is very compelling. The only argument I have with the video, is I find it’s the other way around for me. In the 2E game I play in, the swagger from some of the players, who walk into the local bar and cause bar fights knowing the whole bar combined can’t harm them, is just ridiculous. I have the same issue in the 5E and 3.5 games I run. The players have so many hit points, that there’s just no element of fear. I love the idea of hit point nerfing but don’t really know how I would implement it, one idea I had was the old 2E rule but from 1st level (once you hit 9th as a fighter you got 3 hp, clerics druids etc got 2, wizards 1, but I would add con bonus). It’s one of the reasons I’m really enjoying Forbidden Lands, it’s also one of the reasons M.e.r.p will always be my favourite system. When I ran it for my friends in the army they loved the element of danger involved. Anyway, I’m really glad I found your channel, wether I agree with you on something or not, I find you completely engaging.
I laughed out loud (a few times) during this video - the Frazetta paintings followed by the Algebra book was genius - thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and ideas!
I thought PDM had finally gone too far, even for me. But nope. 2 minutes out I've got my DM notebook out and I'm writing this down. Also, I just want to say (again) how much I love the D&D nerds who flip out about anyone playing D&D with house rules. Their tears feed my soul.
" Now, now, please no more tears for the moment. It is such a wast. You should save them later for true sweet suffering." Over 20 years of play, I found D&D or any RPG nerds just hide behind the rules so they can put and keep down other players that are " outside " of their main playing group.
@@krispalermo8133 Yeah I have had this experience as well. Some players like the hobby to be exclusive. Unfortunately for them and fortunately for everyone else, it's not an exclusive hobby
@@Billchu13 I had a lot of problems dealing with " exclusive " players. A lot of them 20 years ago before AD&D2e switch to 3e. I love 3.5e for the math and multi-class ability. AD&D core books state, " If you don't like a rule, don't use it." After that, I am a Power Gamer Rule Lawyer. If it is a FUN ideal, I want to see if I can make it work. Like a new player that is nine years old, asking if they could play a gnome spell caster and have a copper dragon mount. The owner of the game shop look at me, and told me to get it done. D&D is meant as classic folk story telling with dice rolls to influence the out come off the story. Didn't your grandpa ever tell you stories about fairies and giants when were a five year old.? Funny that snowflake murder hobo tell people they can't play dragons cause it is childish.
As a DM your stance on capping player hitpoints makes me uncomfortable... BUT your stance on throwing monster HP out the window for a hit system, has me inspired!
Personally, I like down-scaled HP far better than hard cap (Of course, with damage down-scaled as well). Like the alternative where you add your HD to your constitution score (sorcerer with 14 con = 6+14 = 20HP) where you can actually increase your HP by putting points in constitution, but you don't get that absolutely ridiculous gap of like ~10 HP at lvl 1 and ~100 HP at lvl 10 and counting. I find it absolutely ridiculous that the same person at the begging of an adventure can die after 2 goblin hits, and later he can brave 16 goblin blades without even breaking a sweat. I don't care that they are now "more experienced adventurers". If they have so much experience, they should use it to figure out how to avoid getting surrounded by 16 goblins, not to magically absorb all their hits.
Yeah capping player HP will produce a bunch of irate players. Really I feel like you can only get away with something like that if your players really trust you, otherwise they'll probably end up rebelling. Nowadays so many people care a bit too much about following the rulebooks blindly. Honestly though I'd probably recommend just trying to switch them to Dungeon World or Savage Worlds and away from D&D, you'll get the same effect without having to break so many D&D rules.
The thing is though, short of sci-fi augmentation or magic enchantment, the human body and mind are only capable of so much. Look at Arnold or Bruce Lee, or in the case of skill Bob Munden and Olympic athletes; even with years of entire days dedicated to you will plateau and with age and injury, backslide. That's no like discipline, let alone the adventurer who doesn't always have time to train and sometimes has stresses like skiping meals or sleep, and getting injured.
This video made me feel like boomerang. You were losing me but once you explained it, it made sense and fun, I was back. Definitely going to try it next time I run a game
Started using this a while back...not on anyone's suggestion, but out of pure laziness and desire for battles to seem more action focused. I actually switch between counting hit points and counting hits...hitting DCs and lying to PCs about Target numbers, simply to keep the ball rolling. Players feel like superheroes, but also feel like they narrowly avoided a character death...sometimes it seems so damn tense and even difficult, but really, the PC was destined to be victorious... it is all about how the game feels. Great presentation here.
@@Oboro86 Honestly, I don't understand all the dislike of 4th edition at all. I started with AD&D, played through 3rd and 3.5 and welcomed the fresh breeze that 4th edition provided, after the complexity and imbalance of 3rd edition had driven me and my players away from the hobby, seemingly for good. I'm still playing 4th, with some houserules borrowed from 5th edition. And it's still massive fun. The good thing about 4th edition adventures, for instance, was that almost every single encounter was mapped out using templates that could be built with the official D&D Dungeon Tiles, and prepared ready-to-play in the adventure book, especially useful if one was intending to use miniatures (as I happen to love). And for those who did not like collecting miniatures, one simple token box such as the Monster Vault was enough to have plenty of play chips to represent monsters, npcs and heroes on a grid. It was very player- and DM-friendly in its own way.
This is a classic discussion and argument. Hit points represent fighting prowess not every blow is a piercing sword blow. The concept is the opponent slips the blow at the last second but they tire and get small wounds that make them a little slower etc. the last few hit points are the actual structural damage. Of course I applaud DMs running the game the way they want so go for broke Professor!
The problem witg treating it that way is that you eventually end up with a Kung Fu movie in which nobody can touch the one guy (or often slight woman) who wades through a horde of enemies who have arguably have some experience. In real life, even Musashi who trained his whole life would only risk fighting one -maybe 2 at a time (though many over the course of the same encounter). "Two dogs can kill a lion," and all that.
I honestly feel like when combining all of these ideas and rules together we get what amounts to a brand new system. Not a bad thing, mind you, just an observation. Interesting take, thanks!
Only tracking hits is how it is done in "Old School Hack", which is my favourite D&D variant. Heros have 5 hits and that is all they get, ever. Fighters have an upgrade "Scars as armour" to increase this to 7 hits. Monsters fall into categories of toughness. 1 hit Minions and vermin. 2 hit Guards and creatures. 5-10 hit Bad guys, monsters and evil villains. 11-15 hit Freaky big monsters. Weapons do 1 hit, heavy weapons do 2 and a critical hit does +1 hit. Unfortunately, Old School Hack has been abandoned since it was first published in 2011.
Brilliant video, as always. My closest friends and I who DM for our collective do this and have often discussed it, but have never seen anyone else explain it so effectively. My hat's off, professor. Nat 20 rolls on Wis, Int, and Cha.
I incorporated some of these elements into the homebrew system I wrote years back. The bulk of the combatant enemies are "mooks" that take 1, 2, or 3 hits to knock out (or kill if you're a murder-hobo). For major-mooks (bigger enemies) they used the same wound system that the players used. Flesh wounds go first, then serious wounds, then you're dead. You could trade-out serious wounds for negative effects to avoid death. So, rather than taking your last serious wound, you could choose to have your arm mangled instead. You lived, but you had to deal with a penalty for a time. Wounds kill, injuries make you suffer. Combat was super fast in my system.
I know this is an old video, but if you're like me and don't want to have all hits be equal but want to make combat quicker: calculate damage in fixed increments. Monsters you use this for have a certain number of hit boxes that each represent some fixed number of hit points (say 5 for ease of calculation). Now when your players say "I deal 7 damage", just tick one box of (or make a mark or whatever). 12 damage does two boxes of damage and so on. You could also round up, if you like. The goal for this is to be quicker than subtracting or adding damage while trying to get as close as possible to the actual damage differences of attacks. Optionally, you could also let small hits "damage" hit boxes, which just means that another small hit would destroy it. You could also let "overflow" damage (as in 8=5+3) damage the next hit box.
D&D 4e did this with minions. Anything labeled a "minion" dies in one hit no matter what, and you could call anything a minion. Another game (forgot the name of it) had NPCs that they labeled "mooks", which also went down with one hit
-No Hit Points? THIS IS MADNESS!!! No... this is Dungeon Craft!!! -Give them nothing and take from the EVERYTHING!!! :ppp That episode's title brought to my mind those two lines from the movie 300 Keep up the good work Professor!!
This is why I use Minions in my 5e games. This is a rule from 4th Edition that I really enjoyed that they unfortunately left to rot in 4th. The concept is, any throw away mobs die in one hit. And I have Elites that take two hits. The boss or leader I keep normal.
I will be using this in my next game. I’ve been slowly preparing my players for the idea of a hit point cap. They are not completely on board yet but are willing to give it a shot. I too remember the good old days of 1d4 HD Thieves and M-U’s... as always great video and thank you for sharing. Looking forward to more. Thursday’s are one of my favorite days because of Dungeon Craft. Thanks again
I like the reference to the classic 1981 Dragonslayer, and the idea of counting hits rather than hit points is one that I have adopted for my games. Thanks!
I have sort of adapted a similar method without getting rid of hitpoints entirely. Before a game, I draw out some health bars for the monsters that my adventure will probably include on graph paper. One square on the graph paper amounts to five hit points. I also round up or down the hp total of the monster I am using. So if the monster manual says this monster has 37 hp, I round it down to 35, and its health bar is seven squares. During the combat round, I won't do any math, just cross out as many squares as the PCs have dealt damage. So my 35 hp orc chief takes 13 damage from the fighter? I cross out 2 squares and mark three short lines in the third square. Next hit he takes 12 hp? I fill up the square with the three marks and mark two little notches again, and so on, until the health bar is full or the next hit would fill it up, then the monster expires.
I've ignored HP since my second DM session, I've always let them believe their attacks do more or less by flavoring their hit based off of damage. I've never looked at it from a pure hit perspective like you said, I just use the moments to base what the end will be. I do like this idea of hit tracking though.
Really wasnt into this until you said dont use it for pcs and the main villians. Also... when you said lie to your players - im sold..always a good idea
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 your attitude about streamlining and making everything faster is the best change ppl can make for table top gaming. More roleplaying more dice rolling more story more killing. Less math and reading.!
Professor DC, this is a great idea. I have seen it used for minions. A minion just needs one hit to be killed. This allows each player to feel like they are part of an epic battle. When they meet the big boss, they play it out hp by hp. I like how you keep it in the background. The players need to see their own hp going down to increase the drama. They will soon realize they need some healing or retreat to fight another day.
Update: It worked out VERY well! I think too often I want those bandits to be a lot harder, but having my party just roll over them was just as exciting. Each thug took 2 hits (unless they did only 2 damage. I counted that as a half hit), and the battles went much faster! I really like this now!
1:57 "How do you want your game to feel?" So glad you said that -- D&D, like any art, should create an emotional effect that transmits a message -- hopefully a positive one, not a selfish of fascist one. This is a critical question that too many DMs do not ask themselves. I am 100% on-board with the "feel heroic" (as opposed to murder hoboism, including selfish looting of treasure and other criminal PC behavior). I remember what it felt like when in early 1982, I went through the original "Tomb of Horrors" module. I felt a sense of wonder, awe, and fear. The reason i felt that is because I was in a strange environment trying to solve terrifying problems that kept emerging. I think when you add these elements and, it can create an effect that makes the players actually feel something, maybe even feel heroic if they are experiencing them while their PCs are in the act of service to others (which is what heroes do). Heroicism requires both a motive to serve and the ability to do so while overcoming peril.
Interestingly, when I run campaigns, I didn't know if anyone else did this. Often, when my party is facing multiple lesser enemies, I would use the exact method you described. Being very adept and quick with mathematical computations in my head (a necessary function for my regular job, and just being a math nerd overall), this method came to me as I was just utilizing ratio and percentage functions. You absolutely correct, this does reduce interruptions in combat encounters. Another thing I do with some critical damage situations is to use percentage of full health rather than just rolling dice and multiplying the result; it's quicker to indicate that the PC just suffered a 25% HP loss and reduced movement speed (or whatever other malady) from a critical hit than to compute die rolls from the same.
Yeah I agree with this guy. I like to think of RPGs back when we were playing Link/Zelda where you have hearts, and how when you got another heart, it didn't mean you could get lazy, but it made you feel more powerful and you could take on bigger challenges and risks. And you knew how many hits that you could take. In games nowadays, you don't know how to feel about what your chances are against a foe because the numbers are so abstracted from how you could think how many more hits you can take. And in the games that I play, even with health bars, a hit could take away your entire healthbar, or more than half your healthbar, or barely dent your healthbar. But in zelda/link you learned how many hearts an attack can deal to you, and you can visualize it.
I like your core concept: namely, reduce the amount of stuff that isn't focused on the PCs. _However_ I feel this method may remove much of the challenge. Here's my reasoning. Every action the players perform needs to be noticeably impactful. That goes right along with your philosophy. Now consider buffs: I'll be giving a 3.5 example just since that's what I'm most familiar with. Your party is facing a moderately tough encounter. So things take multiple "hits". The party bard gives a battle cry, and Inspires Courage. Depending on the level, this is giving +1,2,3,4,5 to hit and damage. It's definitely impactful. But to have it be impactful in the "hit" system... it has to add a full hit! That's doubling the player's damage output. That's far more than buffs normally do. And any damage buff would have the same inflated effect. It also has the effect of either buffing everybody to the damage output of a DPS, or nerfing the DPS. While a orc sergeant might be 3 hits for the fighter, he might be 5 hits for the healer. I have no issue with the "1 shot 1 kill" method for weenie encounters. But trying to scale that up while maintaining challenge seems tough.
Professor, thank you for opening my eyes. I wondered for a long time what was wrong with this system before it ended up here on your channel. I have been campaigning for several years. Heroes with 5 or even 7 attacks have become the torment of this game. Ultimately, I said I didn't want to continue this. Now I know everything. Thanks.
With all the brilliance in everything Professor Dungeon Master puts out, (And) others, That is usually the feeling I get. So as I usually comment, its called Homebrew and you can do whatever you want. Its either RAW,RAI, or Homebrew.
I am glued to your videos since I discovered them. Honestly videos like this one blow my mind. Its so obvious so why did it take me 40 years to learn this information? For shame :(. This and the no initiative system are a must if you're bored with doing paper work and want to play a fast paced action adventure. Professor Dungeon Master you're a genius.
Dude!! This is genius!!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t believe I never considered this. Thank you so much. In one video you became one of my favorite posters on TH-cam
I love the idea and I'm looking forward to seeing how you handle it. I've found that counting up from zero rather than down from the maximum can help because adding is easier than subtracting. I'd like to move to a system of rounding damage to the nearest multiple of 5 or 10 and using hash marks to track damage, but I haven't gotten there yet. I find that changes need to be introduced incrementally to give both players and the GM a chance to get used to them.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Inspired by your video, I tried the following method in my last D&D session: for each player's damage total, I immediately round up to the near increment of 5 HP and track the damage dealt by marking down an X for each increment of 10HP and a / or \ for each increment of 5 HP, combining two slashes to form an X when I can. Then, when I need to tally the damage received I simply count up the Xes. Players like hearing that their damage is being rounded up and I don't overload my brain with simple math while simultaneously trying to extemporize exciting narration. It's not exactly what you describe, but seems to hew pretty close to the spirit of your idea while also being usable for major villains without the players feeling like their success is coming down to DM fiat.
My players keep track of their individual hit points because "muh rulezbook". But instead of keeping track of hit points for my monsters/villains, I just set a number for how many times players successfully hit them before they go down. Goblins=1 Orcs/Bandits=2 Dragons=12. Dividing the Monster Manual Hit Points by 7 is a good rule of thumb for simple hit tracking. The players still roll damage with their attack rolls because it makes them feel good and gives intensity to the narrative, but I'm not wasting anytime calculating remaining hit points on monsters.
that's very interesting, what abt like really good weapons or spells? like why should a character buy a nice new weapon with extra dmg when their crap sword does the same thing? or is it all for the feel of it?
Kevin Crawford did something like this for the heroic rules of his OSR games - instead of having hit points, you'd simply treat the number of hit dice the enemy had as the number of times they could be hit before they died.
Love hit points, but also make great use of soak, so armour really helps players and others survive and ward off light hits. Like you I've tried to keep hp low, and numbers overall quite low. I remember simpler times. The starting hp is usually 7. They won't get to the 10s until later. Tracking by hits is a great idea, and I've used it especially for large combats. These fall in 2, they fall in 3 and so on. My system uses for damage, light, medium, heavy, crits, and insta-kill hits to resolve injury with opposed rolls for attack and defence. Lastly, I was playing kingmaker recently and kobolds and goblins were taking two hits to kill for a party of level 2s. I laughed at that. Now at a party of 5th level they die in one hit (finally).
This is sound advice and I may well use it on my next session! The last point was important - I was just wondering how my players would react to this when you addressed my worries.
Thanks for this video. I really like this idea, I have a group of 7 kids under the age of 12 and they are so OP’d now even combat takes forever. Our games go for about 5-7hours a session. We started adding more and more players and to make them feel like they contribute I put their XP very close to the more experienced players and now a round of combat takes like 12min per round. I’ll try this out at my next game. Thanks!
This is all stuff I used to do in high school when I would run games. I always felt like I was a cheatin' cheap DM (though my players and friends always enjoyed the game). Rules lawyers would ultimately beat me down and tell me I was ruining the experience... For them. It's nice to find a channel and a DM that subscribes and promotes ideas that I thought were heresy (and they are, in a very good way). I look forward to more!
I've actually been doing this for the past 3 years it's much easier and it lets you direct the flow of combat and story. 5th edition has been streamlined to help cut down combat time and this helps even more
This is fairly close to wounds in Savage Worlds: you got a toughness that you have to exceed to wound a character; you exceed by a certain amount and you gain additional wounds. Named characters (pc's, bosses, major threats) have 3, mooks only have 1 wound before they bite it. Damage under toughness is ignored as a graze or scratch.
I was thinking the same thing. Though the one time I tried SW for a fantasy setting, it didn't quite feel right. I feel like HP actually work well ONLY for Fantasy because they let you survive those big, ridiculous hits that make NO SENSE to survive... like in Fantasy settings
@@tsmcgu I think the Bennie and magic healing gives you that high fantasy feel in SW; it just does not feel like d&d because of the swingy dice and dramatic ups and downs. D&D is its own fantasy sub genre where it is a reasonable thought to go toe to toe with a 12 ton giant or a frontal assault on a dragon is tactically valid. That is quite rare in most of the fantasy genre, by in large. Generally, not all fantasy stories are high action with Die Hard levels of plot armor; ie Lord of the Rings has Frodo almost die from the first wound he receives from essentially a poisoned blade and he has to be carried the rest of the way to get healing. They also run from giants and do not even think of fighting the dragon when they find out he still is there.
Fantastic video, and greetings from Italy! When i'll DM d&d or Pathfinder, i'll use this method! This "Hits" system it's very similar to Savage Worlds's: PC and Main Antagonist can be Shaken (stunned, surprise, etc.) and sustain 3 wounds before getting Out of Combat. Non-Important npc's and enemies have only 1 Wound, so that's means: Healthy > Shaken (or directly OOC) > Out of combat. Combined with class-less characters and the "no need" to balance 70% of encounters, it makes Savage Worlds my main system!
Just remember that when d20 Star Wars come out with 3e rules. S.W. crit rules were stated that crit hits go to the player's Constitution score, so in a nut shell players have 10 to 18 Wound Point/hp, their normal hp are just their ability to dodge, side set and roll with the punch." near misses." We were always coming up with way to do Crit damage. Make Fort save DC: 10 +dmg or die, if save is made then lose that number of Temp Con points. And gain penalities to dice rolls. It just depends on how Gritty a game your groups want to play. I am use to playing White Wolf/ World of Darkness: Vampire. I played a few game system were they had Instant Kill rules. In one game we had six 1st-level characters dog pack a 12th-level fighter, tripping him out a fifth story window. Everyone more or less took 5d6 falling dmg. Plate Armor doesn't spot a tackle.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Ideals of running combat. 1st.) I did foam padded and broom stick weapons, card board/ ducktape armor. Most "injuries" was cause by foot slipping when engaging the opponent and falling down/ in a wrong way. Which lend to my game shop having interests house rules. a.) flat padded blade hits behind the knee causes foot numbness and you can't jog or run away. " Girls/ Women" never pull their hits against male opponents. And up close shoulder to shoulder, females will out right cheat and hard kick you behind the knee and you go down Hard. Had one guy were full " real " chain mail, and another using modern police riot gear armor. Both of then said it was, " non legal hits, the 14 year old girls were cheating and their armor has been tested against " real " machetes . So their leg would not had took any real damage. i.) Both of them were " Kicked," behind the leg and they fell down, and Dog Packed! By six 14 year old teenage girls. Chain mail may stop slicing cuts, but not clubing/ kicking to the back of one's legs. ii.) Flanking hits to the back lower ribs cause " Stunning " do to have the wind knock out of you, and you lose the speed initiative to block or do a standing dodge. iii.) Do to safety reasons, shoe spikes are not used to keep from slipping on grass and dirt cause tripping and foot stomps can lend to broken bones. 2.) TTRPG combat rules.Or list of actions. a.) engaging combat opponent, full movement requires a Dex check. Any "1's" rolled on d20 means slipping and falling prone, atk opponent gain +4 to hit. If charging take a -4 dex check. " ever watch Foot Ball ?" a lot of things go wrong. b.) roll initiative on who attacks first. c.) make attack and defense reflex rolls. Near hits that miss target by 1 or 2, Strength checks on blocking, Dex/ Reflex checks on dodging. Target player take 1/4th damage as " fatigue " and endurance checks are made. d.) If the character runs out of Endurance( stander Hp) , they can not run or defend themselves from attacks. Then they take Constitution Wound point damage. i.) Any failed Endurance checks, the fatigue dmg goes to their Con score. ii.) Like any sports game/ mass combat, the athletes have to break ranks to let the Stress ease off, cool down, and get water. Catch their breath. Or their reflexes slow down. e.) The character may have " full " hit points but they have been Exhaustion. i.) the character/ pc or npc then has to make Fort save DC"10+dmg dealt as Coup De Gras " death blow " as stated in the rule book or suffer that amount of dmg to their Con score. ii.) Dismemberment variant rule : Make Reflex Roll vs opponent atk roll to call shot location, if saved the atk misses . If Ref roll has failed, the victim hit must make a Fort save DC:10+ dmg deal or lose that limb and suffer 1d4 permanent Con dmg and weapon damage roll as temporary Con dmg. " The body has to deal with system shock at losing a limb and infection. But over all I think they still can handle the common cold." Please watch a few videos on History Chanel " Knight Fight." Melee combat with bunted weapons at it's best. Bad news, I have been told that I have a problem with reducing combat in D&D down to Fortitude & Reflex saves instead of stander Hp combat. " Right now I am watching Princess's Bride on tv." Is the Stable Boy/ the Dread Pirate in AD&D a rogue, a fighter, or a multi-class rogue/ fighter ? But humans could only DouClass and not multiclass.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Sorry I stated this before on other threads, I only have AD&D and 3.5e rule books. And I don't have dice on me at the moment, so I am just going off the top of my head at the moment. Movie Conan the Barbarian was more like the classic novels, and Conan the Destroyer was base more on the comics. At the start of CtB , Conan started off as a unlearned Pit Fighter, living on rage and dirty fighting. Multiclass barbarian/rogue, then he was train to read & write and study greater sword knowledge. He may or may not had Ancestor Spirits looking after him, and he has a knack of throwing his sword like no other. b.) Write up of Conan after he has been freed.Str:16+3, Con:14+2 i.) soft/ barbarian2nd/rogue2nd/fighter2nd. CR:6 ; BAB+5 feats: 1st-level Endurance, Greater Fortitude +2Con saves, 3rd-level: Improve Unarmed Strike: punch 1d6dmg. 6th-level & two bonus fighter feats: Improve Initiative , weapon focus:long/broad sword, Power Attack. Known Skill: rogue " preform: Strut in the Ring, Weapon Kata/ Pose" 5ranks intimidate:5ranks, bluff: 5ranks. Combat Tactic: cheat shot to the ribs punch 1d6 +1d6 sneak atk/ +2 flank atk. done by a Dodging Bluff skill check. x.) Pit Fight, 1st. round) The swords clash together, 2nd round) Conan steps into an elbow hit on the other fighter's lower left ribs. Neither one of them are wearing armor, so AC10 and Conan is up under the opponent's sword guard, I call this a Flanked Atk with a +2 to hit. So Conan Power Attacks his full BAB into the elbow strike rolls 1d20 +2 vs AC:10. anything 8 or higher lands the hit. The hits lands and Conan's opponent takes 2d6 +8 dmg to the ribs. " Call Shot to Stun ?" The opponent rolls and fails Con check DC:10+2d6 dmg to keep from being Stun. The opponent is now gasping for air with a +2 to hit/--2ac 3rd round.) Conan's next round of action, he makes a Str check to push the clashed swords up out of the way and brings his blade back down into his opponent's elbow. This is a Call Shot to a Limb giving the action a --4 to hit. But his target is Stun with a +2 to hit, he's has +3 to hit from Str and +1 from wpn focus(+6) so all he has to roll is a 8 or higher on d20. Sword damage 1d8 +1d6sneak/flaking dmg,+9dmg (+5 BAB power atk, +4str mod.) The target opponent has to make a Reflex saving roll with a --2 penailty do to being Stun to avoid Conan's down cut to his left elbow. If the attack lands, then Conan's opponent has to make a Fort save vs damage dealt or lose the limb Fort DC:10+ 1d8 sword+1d6 flank,+ 9 str/PA. " base save DC: 23 or lose limb." Do to plot of this combat encounter, Conan's opponent fails All of their Saving Roll. 4th round Recap.) Conan clash swords, steps into a elbow hit to the lower ribs knocking the wind out of his opponent. He knocks his foes sword arms up into the air and brings his blade back down onto this opponent's left elbow, cutting it clean through. Conan's defeated opponent drops down to his left knee and stares in shock of his server left arm still hanging onto his sword's grip as he holds both his sword and his left arm up with his right arm. Conan now makes a Perform skill check as he poses for the crowd. 5ranks +d20 DC: ? " a great kill or do they feel they didn't get their money's worth from gambling on the fight.?" 3.) A Heroic larger than life Conan Str16+3,Con14+2,Dex13+1, Int14+2,Wis13+1,Cha12+1 Multiclass BAB HD Skill Fort/Ref/Will Barbarian3rd +3 3d12 +3 +1 +1 Rogue3rd +2 3d6 +1 +3 +1 Fighter4th +4 4d10 +4 +1 +1 Sorcerer2nd +1 2d4 +0 +0 +3 Cleric2nd +1 2d8 +3 +0 +3 Total: +11 alot +11/ +4/ +9 14th-level character CR:14 main equipment: Atlantis broad/long sword found in the tomb of whom ever from the first movie. 1d8+2, +1/+3 vs magic users. with weapon specialization. Sorcerer spells: True Strike "+20 insight bonus to hit on next attack roll" to represent his unbelieveable sword throws. Shield : no magic glowing disk to protect the user, the Shield spell give an Insight bonus to side step attacks and to block in coming attacks. Cleric spells: they do not create food or water, they make finding food and water easier to do. As for healing spells, they just speed up natural healing, they don't make people heal up as if they are Marvel Xmen Wolverine. I would argue the reason Conan manage to grow as strong as he did in his force labor childhood is cause, he was a cleric class character and not a barbarian class. Praying to your ancestors and they blessing your food with Good Berry and Protection From Elements/ Cold kept him from dropping dead like so many others had done.
It’s an interesting idea but What’s the point of being a fighter, as opposed to being say, a cleric if the cleric gets spells but the fighter is not really any better at cutting monsters down than the other classes in melee? HP and damage dealing does enable some granularity between different classes. One alternative approach might be to halve all PC and monster HP?
That IS a good idea. you are correct--hit points add granularity. I have a video called "Captain Crunch" in 2 weeks that examines this concept. Stay tuned!
What about throwing out damage rolls entirely? Instead, if players make their to-hit roll vs. their opponent's AC, they inflict one hit. More lethal weapons would get a to-hit bonus. You could also rule that modified rolls of 20+ inflict two hits.
Thought about a system where your bonuses and their AC cancel each other out until there's a remainder. If you roll over that remainder it's a hit of course, but if your bonuses cancel out their AC entirely, you automatically hit. Basically your just adding the bonus before instead of after the roll.
Not my idea: Hit Points are a way for players to measure RISK. You can sort of manage how long you want to take this RISK. You know when you should run away. Or perhaps not. You could also add a crit table, for rolling a nat 20. The crits shouldn't be fatal, unless you happen to crit twice (just an idea). This means a peasant might kill you with a lucky hit, but it's highly unlikely to happen regularly.
I guess it'd be comparable to a video game, where you have a health meter and you can only be hit so many times before you're KO'd like Golden Axe or Double Dragon or TMNT. Those games didn't need specific numbers for HP either.
Interesting, that reminds me of the 'minion' mechanic from 4th ed. Anything with the 'minion' tag had just one hit point and was meant to act as just a speed bump for the PC's before they got to the big bad. I kind of like it.
Holy shit! As a newbie dnd DM who also hates maths (I know, wth am I doing being a DM then lol ?!) your hit point system is hella convincing! Especially since it's only applicable to low and mid-tier enemies, excluding heroes and high-tier/legendary enemies! You've convinced a future dnd DM!
I used a system like this 2 weeks ago, it worked great because the players rolled very poorly. The War Band they were fighting was comprised of 6 orcs, 5 with 1 hp and the captain with 6. The combat still took longer than I had hoped due to bad rolls. As you suggested they rolled for hits and damage, they didn't need to know that a hit would be a kill. Everyone had fun and what could have been an hour of combat was over in 15 minutes.
I’m interested to hear this... I’ve had many ideas on how to do this going back to my simple days of even playing hero quest. A hits a hit!! You sir also have a hit with your channel wish you could do more than once a week!
Been doing this, it works like a charm. The players faces light up when they take minions down. Agreed to keep counting on the part of the players and the big bad.
I tested out Amber diceless rules on my game (I asked you about it last week). The game worked out smoothly except for one player getting taken down, even with a lot of foreshadowing and pc making a foolish move. They dont seem to mind if theyre succeeding 95/100. I guess thats where the dice comes in.
I would imagine that he would, instead of halfing damage for resistances, just add an additional hit. If you've got a Chain Devil (who is just full of resistances) he'd just take more hits to kill instead of doing the math on each hit. Or, hits of that type of damage count for half a hit. Vice versa with vulnerabilities. Each hit by the PC could be worth 1.5 hits of the total.
Would like your opinion on the following idea (e.g. your initial thoughts and if you think it would be worth playtesting): Instead of doing Hit Points as per PHB, have Wounds. The PCs can take 1+ Con-Modifier of wounds, before the situation becomes serious or they go down, queue Death Saves. If you want more Wounds: Artifacts and Armors (Soaking mechanism). Or you could go: Your Level + Con Modifier. A critical Hit does a critical wound, which is 2 wounds. Now if you want to go more heroic, you could have the PC make a Con-Save to "grit your teeth" (maybe by spending a hit die) and move on/ignore the wound. Resistances against certain Damage types could then also allow to "grit your teeth" and brave on while Immunity straight out negate such wounds. One of the more interesting aspects of low-level DnD is that most things can still kill you in potentially one-shot, even a lowly Goblin. At higher level, even with a Crit, that would remain an impossibility, since even a Wizard can soak up the damage. You also mentioned in one of your other videos, that the simpler, the better, so I wouldn't want to over-complicate the rules even further. You could allow for certain Armor types to soak up wounds as well or give resistance to certain Damage types. And if it's a magical armor, give additional Bonuses/resistances. If it's a magical weapon (or a +1/2/3), it overrides the Con-Save (I would guess DC 10 for normal and DC 15 for Critical, increases 1 difficulty to DC 15 for normal and DC 20 for Crits). That would be for play-testing to determine, however.
The danger is there is no real incentive for damage optimization and players will build characters based purely on hit. For example Dex based fighters since there is no reason for strength. It’s just a bad idea all around
That's kind of how sword fighting is described. Look at Skallagrim or Matt Easton of Scholadiatoria describe it. Strength will help up to a point unless you're talking unarmed combat or there is a significant difference between opponents. Humans are also only capable of so much.
On the Facebook page, I thought "blasphemy", but hearing this out loud and seeing how it's done; I'm sold. I absolutely love it. This Saturday's game is going to be much easier on me.
I love this idea. I'm going to make a dual dice tower, where the players drop their damage dice in one side, and they roll out on my side (The DM side) and I drop my monster damage dice into the other side, which rolls out on THEIR side, so they can subtract it from their PC's hit points. It'll create the illusion of reciprocal damage rolls, but I can just ignore their dice rolls and decide if their hit killed the goblin/orc/troll/owlbear/dragon, etc... GREAT VIDEO, Professor Dungeon Master, PhD of Fast Combat!!
I appreciate the argument here and I might even try it out. I agree the math bogs down the game and going for the cinematic flare is my goal as well. I think my only critique is your examples; Legolas and Conan are not low level PCs if we were watching a movie, Conan for example where we see them just starting and beginning to hone their skills you would see them miss or only wound their opponents. If memory serves Conan, the good one with Arnold, is taken prisoner and enslaved as a level zero or one character (the opening of Conan the Barbarian) and only later (rapidly due to movie running times) becomes the epic hero we all love.
I respectfully am not on board with this.... as I’m old school and still have different dice and numbers for all weapons. To me this gives the players some extra Emerson as they try to decide which weapons they will put their proficiencies into. As well your system nullifies some of the best reason for being a fighter as they progress in damage as they level up. Also, using hit points means the players can see their abilities or lack of them in the effectiveness of their particular weapon, be it a normal one or a magically endowed one. Seeing a fighter do 3d6 + 6 for modifiers and their eagerness to add up the size of their massive blow make the tiny amount of subtraction I do behind the screen well worth the effort. 😀
As a DM I only roll initiative and skill checks for NPCs. PCs roll everything else. When they get attacked, they make a defense roll. When they cast a spell that grants an NPC a saving throw, they roll to overcome the NPC's resistance. I find it keeps them more engaged. I say this because the ultimate goal of removing HPs is to help keep the players engaged. I find that the players rolling everything does that.
I can tell you are a fan of Robert E. Howard. I am too. I recently started collecting two Marvel comic book titles: Savage Sword of Conan and Conan the Barbarian. The art was what drew me to them and the stories are really good too. I highly recommend them if you’re a fan of Conan.
Hit points only really serve 2 purposes: add tension to death, and an agreed upon moment when combat ends. When I was GMing for a larger group (8 people) combat was terrible. A round of combat took so long, it made missing in combat feel like capital punishment. I too threw out monster hit points and just counted rounds of combat/time instead. A simple combat went from an hour to half an hour, and deciding who got the kill based on "rule of cool" or who hasn't killed anything in a while or was having a particularly shitty night of rolling. Getting the finishing blow became a reward for roleplay and engaging with the environment. I'm not sure how one could codify that in a rulebook, but being a GM that is open to player chaos and working on the same side as them, I didn't have issues with railroading the combat.
Love this video from Professor dungeon master. I use similar alternate rules because it realy accelerate combat. Nobody at my table love combat that drag for hours. I just know hardcore strategist like having combats for hours.
I love this idea! I'm going a step further and using the player's to-hit bonus to subtract from the total number of hits needed instead of giving them a better chance to hit thus making them heroier heroes! I will make it so that the total hits needed cannot go lower than 1 though. I don't want to encourage "that guy" who decides that his seductress really has looks that kill. Anywho. THANK YOU for once again improving my game!
Professor dungeon master here, throwing out rules like they were his family China.
Made me laugh out loud. Showed it to my wife. She laughed too. Well done, sir!
Ep. #200: Get rid of Dice?!
@james Deer nothing in this video was about called shots to vulnerable organs or insta kills. It was just about how to simplify the behind the screen work for the dm. You don't have to take his advice, but you should critique what he actually says instead of making up problems.
Love the idea. Less math behind the screen, especially when running a fight with multiple monsters like Orcs, goblins, and such. Just use tally marks. Saves time and speeds up combat. Thanks for sharing your years of experience with us professor.
One of my favorite systems, Star Wars D6, is a lot like what you’re describing. No hitpoints, most minions go down in one hit. When you get hit (based on the severity of that hit) you incur one of statuses: stunned, wounded, mortally wounded, or killed. If you’re stunned twice you’re wounded, if you’re wounded twice you’re mortally wounded... and so on. Makes for quick deadly combat.
I wish D&d was like that, I’ve always hated hit points, love 5e but all the math is so bloated, plus this, minus that, subtract and roll 30d10’s for some OP spells. We try to just strip it all back to basics. Love ICRPG for some great ideas on how to do that.
I think the best combination employs both hit points and a table of wound percentages. Anything that takes 50% of your hit points or life pool or whatever means a Constitution roll. Like call of Cthulhu
Reason why this is so valuable is that the monsters don't have emotions if the DM doesn't have emotions for them. And if the DM is being a referee not a antagonistic DM; this has a aim to entertain and be a good host. Rather, this makes semi complex subtraction and addition much quicker and simpler with the illusion of grandeur all in the aim of making the story and Adventures even more exciting
Absolutely.
Only Reads Title: “Okay guys, you all start incapacitated and bleeding out on the floor”
Amazing idea for small hordes or minions that assist the BBEG. You don't want the minions to bog down combat but at the same time you want to them to soak damage and slow down the party's action economy so its not all focused on the BBEG.
This is exactly why people who want exciting roleplay - not tactical miniatures combat - should play more elegantly designed systems like those built with the Powered by the Apocalypse ruleset. I played D&D for 25 years, played Apocalypse World once, and never looked back.
I agree, almost all the problems with D&D could be solved by simply playing another system. I almost always play Savage Worlds, its like all the good stuff about D&D with all superfluous crap scraped off.
Dungeonworld for me. Moves are so much nicer and the spectrum of success and failure instead of being so binary. Love it
Like the old Star Wars D6 system? It’s probably the best known system that doesn’t use hit points. My favorite version is Mini-6 Bare Bones. It helps that it is free.
@@weirdguy564 It's different than the Star Wars system. You can look up the "powered by the apocalypse" system, but basically it works like this:
1. The GM never rolls. The GM moves the fiction forward in response to player rolls. All rolls have consequences.
2. Roll 2d6 and add modifiers. There are three results bands: Full success, partial success, and failure
10+ = Full success: player does what they attempted and gets a bonus (for an attack that might be "do extra damage," "Frighten your enemies," "take control of the situation," or "avoid taking damage," among others.
~6 = Failure: The GM chooses from a list of options, usually including "GM's choice," and a list of possible consequences, including but not limited to doing more damage, putting the player in a bad spot, setting up a future event (in a fantasy setting this might be something like cracking open a portal to another plane after failing a casting role), etc.
7-9 = Partial success: This is where it gets really interesting. The player succeeds (for example does damage if they are attacking or steals something if they are pickpocketing), but they have to choose a consequence as well, such as making another player vulnerable, losing something, taking damage, or opening themselves up to vulnerability. For some "moves" (the term for actions), the GM chooses the negative consequence. The consequences are determined by the fiction (you do what the story is telling you would be cool).
There are a number of game changing effects. First, every. single. roll. is dramatic. None of the BS of D&D where you have 10 rounds of plinking away at some boss monster. Even swinging a sword every round can have different outcomes.
The game is in the players' hands. Every roll is setting up a roleplay because the players are determining the consequences, and thus driving the story. There are no "I swing, I miss, next" rolls. There are no "Double damage... but I rolled two 1s, so actually that sucks." When players act dramatic things happens. And instead of the focus being on numbers, the focus is on the story.
Finally, the system elegantly accommodates for "real world" actions. In D&D cool cinematic actions like tripping, tackling, disarming, swinging from ropes, smashing someone with a chair, etc. are locked behind a byzantine rule set and have underpowered effects on the story. In the Powered by the Apocalypse setting, pretty much anything you can imagine slots seamlessly into play.
How does anyone take so long??? Played D&D for one year found Merp/Rolemaster, never played D&D again. Now this is enriched by Forbidden Lands (year zero engine of Mørk Borg fame) as of late. Both are great and I only watch D&D vids for Gm-ing ideas.
When I flicked my eyes over the title, I thought it said "Get Rid of Hip Joints"
But I am just a poor old man… My legs are grey. My ears are gnarled. My eyes are old and bent.
I understood that reference
I don’t normally watch TH-cam channels that give rules advice, I’m an old Grognard of 37 years gaming, and prefer to work out my own homebrew rules or am stuck in the mud over certain rules. But the Legolas argument is very compelling. The only argument I have with the video, is I find it’s the other way around for me. In the 2E game I play in, the swagger from some of the players, who walk into the local bar and cause bar fights knowing the whole bar combined can’t harm them, is just ridiculous. I have the same issue in the 5E and 3.5 games I run. The players have so many hit points, that there’s just no element of fear. I love the idea of hit point nerfing but don’t really know how I would implement it, one idea I had was the old 2E rule but from 1st level (once you hit 9th as a fighter you got 3 hp, clerics druids etc got 2, wizards 1, but I would add con bonus). It’s one of the reasons I’m really enjoying Forbidden Lands, it’s also one of the reasons M.e.r.p will always be my favourite system. When I ran it for my friends in the army they loved the element of danger involved. Anyway, I’m really glad I found your channel, wether I agree with you on something or not, I find you completely engaging.
I laughed out loud (a few times) during this video - the Frazetta paintings followed by the Algebra book was genius - thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and ideas!
I thought PDM had finally gone too far, even for me. But nope. 2 minutes out I've got my DM notebook out and I'm writing this down.
Also, I just want to say (again) how much I love the D&D nerds who flip out about anyone playing D&D with house rules. Their tears feed my soul.
" Now, now, please no more tears for the moment. It is such a wast. You should save them later for true sweet suffering."
Over 20 years of play, I found D&D or any RPG nerds just hide behind the rules so they can put and keep down other players that are " outside " of their main playing group.
@@krispalermo8133 Yeah I have had this experience as well. Some players like the hobby to be exclusive. Unfortunately for them and fortunately for everyone else, it's not an exclusive hobby
@@Billchu13 I had a lot of problems dealing with " exclusive " players. A lot of them 20 years ago before AD&D2e switch to 3e. I love 3.5e for the math and multi-class ability.
AD&D core books state, " If you don't like a rule, don't use it."
After that, I am a Power Gamer Rule Lawyer.
If it is a FUN ideal, I want to see if I can make it work.
Like a new player that is nine years old, asking if they could play a gnome spell caster and have a copper dragon mount. The owner of the game shop look at me, and told me to get it done.
D&D is meant as classic folk story telling with dice rolls to influence the out come off the story.
Didn't your grandpa ever tell you stories about fairies and giants when were a five year old.?
Funny that snowflake murder hobo tell people they can't play dragons cause it is childish.
Gary Gygax invented the Hit Point as an optional rule for "fantasy" figures like Orcs etc. in his original game rules, Chainmail,
As a DM your stance on capping player hitpoints makes me uncomfortable... BUT your stance on throwing monster HP out the window for a hit system, has me inspired!
Personally, I like down-scaled HP far better than hard cap (Of course, with damage down-scaled as well). Like the alternative where you add your HD to your constitution score (sorcerer with 14 con = 6+14 = 20HP) where you can actually increase your HP by putting points in constitution, but you don't get that absolutely ridiculous gap of like ~10 HP at lvl 1 and ~100 HP at lvl 10 and counting. I find it absolutely ridiculous that the same person at the begging of an adventure can die after 2 goblin hits, and later he can brave 16 goblin blades without even breaking a sweat. I don't care that they are now "more experienced adventurers". If they have so much experience, they should use it to figure out how to avoid getting surrounded by 16 goblins, not to magically absorb all their hits.
DungeonCraft is like a salad bar. Take what you want. Leave the rest.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 You can keep those cherry tomatoes xD
Yeah capping player HP will produce a bunch of irate players. Really I feel like you can only get away with something like that if your players really trust you, otherwise they'll probably end up rebelling. Nowadays so many people care a bit too much about following the rulebooks blindly. Honestly though I'd probably recommend just trying to switch them to Dungeon World or Savage Worlds and away from D&D, you'll get the same effect without having to break so many D&D rules.
The thing is though, short of sci-fi augmentation or magic enchantment, the human body and mind are only capable of so much. Look at Arnold or Bruce Lee, or in the case of skill Bob Munden and Olympic athletes; even with years of entire days dedicated to you will plateau and with age and injury, backslide. That's no like discipline, let alone the adventurer who doesn't always have time to train and sometimes has stresses like skiping meals or sleep, and getting injured.
This video made me feel like boomerang. You were losing me but once you explained it, it made sense and fun, I was back. Definitely going to try it next time I run a game
Started using this a while back...not on anyone's suggestion, but out of pure laziness and desire for battles to seem more action focused. I actually switch between counting hit points and counting hits...hitting DCs and lying to PCs about Target numbers, simply to keep the ball rolling. Players feel like superheroes, but also feel like they narrowly avoided a character death...sometimes it seems so damn tense and even difficult, but really, the PC was destined to be victorious... it is all about how the game feels. Great presentation here.
Basically Minions from 4th ed. Funny how that edition keeps cropping up when fellas try adding new engaging mechanics to their games.
4th edition to 5th edition is the posterchild for baby-with-the-bathwater
Because that's what that edition did.
the only problem with 4e is that it was called D&D, if it had been given a new name, I guarantee it would still be around and folks would love it
It makes a better battlefield or warfare game than a traditional adventure game like D&D is normally seen as
@@Oboro86 Honestly, I don't understand all the dislike of 4th edition at all. I started with AD&D, played through 3rd and 3.5 and welcomed the fresh breeze that 4th edition provided, after the complexity and imbalance of 3rd edition had driven me and my players away from the hobby, seemingly for good. I'm still playing 4th, with some houserules borrowed from 5th edition. And it's still massive fun. The good thing about 4th edition adventures, for instance, was that almost every single encounter was mapped out using templates that could be built with the official D&D Dungeon Tiles, and prepared ready-to-play in the adventure book, especially useful if one was intending to use miniatures (as I happen to love). And for those who did not like collecting miniatures, one simple token box such as the Monster Vault was enough to have plenty of play chips to represent monsters, npcs and heroes on a grid. It was very player- and DM-friendly in its own way.
This is a classic discussion and argument. Hit points represent fighting prowess not every blow is a piercing sword blow. The concept is the opponent slips the blow at the last second but they tire and get small wounds that make them a little slower etc. the last few hit points are the actual structural damage. Of course I applaud DMs running the game the way they want so go for broke Professor!
The problem witg treating it that way is that you eventually end up with a Kung Fu movie in which nobody can touch the one guy (or often slight woman) who wades through a horde of enemies who have arguably have some experience. In real life, even Musashi who trained his whole life would only risk fighting one -maybe 2 at a time (though many over the course of the same encounter). "Two dogs can kill a lion," and all that.
A combination of lowered HP for Players and Monsters who have 1 or 2 Hits (instead of HP) is exactly the system used by the D&D Board Games.
Cool--and to think I just buy those games for the minis. I should have been reading the rules instead of tossing them out!
...also ICRPG, where pcs have 1 or 2 hearts worth of HP, and each heart is worth 10 HP
I honestly feel like when combining all of these ideas and rules together we get what amounts to a brand new system. Not a bad thing, mind you, just an observation.
Interesting take, thanks!
I think a game that has STR,INT,WIS,DEX,CON,CHA/AC/HP is D&D. Check out the video "The Rules I Use." Thanks for taking the time to comment!
"The more combat can drag on."
I find that more amusing than I should.
In retrospect I might change that phrase. I love combat. I'm just done with it after 25 minutes.
Only tracking hits is how it is done in "Old School Hack", which is my favourite D&D variant.
Heros have 5 hits and that is all they get, ever. Fighters have an upgrade "Scars as armour" to increase this to 7 hits.
Monsters fall into categories of toughness.
1 hit Minions and vermin.
2 hit Guards and creatures.
5-10 hit Bad guys, monsters and evil villains.
11-15 hit Freaky big monsters.
Weapons do 1 hit, heavy weapons do 2 and a critical hit does +1 hit.
Unfortunately, Old School Hack has been abandoned since it was first published in 2011.
I have to check it out. Sound cool!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 www.oldschoolhack.net
Brilliant video, as always. My closest friends and I who DM for our collective do this and have often discussed it, but have never seen anyone else explain it so effectively. My hat's off, professor. Nat 20 rolls on Wis, Int, and Cha.
Thanks!
I incorporated some of these elements into the homebrew system I wrote years back. The bulk of the combatant enemies are "mooks" that take 1, 2, or 3 hits to knock out (or kill if you're a murder-hobo). For major-mooks (bigger enemies) they used the same wound system that the players used. Flesh wounds go first, then serious wounds, then you're dead. You could trade-out serious wounds for negative effects to avoid death. So, rather than taking your last serious wound, you could choose to have your arm mangled instead. You lived, but you had to deal with a penalty for a time. Wounds kill, injuries make you suffer. Combat was super fast in my system.
I know this is an old video, but if you're like me and don't want to have all hits be equal but want to make combat quicker: calculate damage in fixed increments. Monsters you use this for have a certain number of hit boxes that each represent some fixed number of hit points (say 5 for ease of calculation). Now when your players say "I deal 7 damage", just tick one box of (or make a mark or whatever). 12 damage does two boxes of damage and so on. You could also round up, if you like. The goal for this is to be quicker than subtracting or adding damage while trying to get as close as possible to the actual damage differences of attacks.
Optionally, you could also let small hits "damage" hit boxes, which just means that another small hit would destroy it. You could also let "overflow" damage (as in 8=5+3) damage the next hit box.
D&D 4e did this with minions. Anything labeled a "minion" dies in one hit no matter what, and you could call anything a minion. Another game (forgot the name of it) had NPCs that they labeled "mooks", which also went down with one hit
13th Age uses "books." Both systems have the right idea.
Even World of Darkness had reduced health levels for henchmen and other minion types.
Great point about keeping the cinematic focus on the game. You really should write a book on these ideas. I think it would do really well!
-No Hit Points? THIS IS MADNESS!!!
No... this is Dungeon Craft!!!
-Give them nothing and take from the EVERYTHING!!! :ppp
That episode's title brought to my mind those two lines from the movie 300
Keep up the good work Professor!!
Love the 300 allusion. And allusion in general!
This is why I use Minions in my 5e games. This is a rule from 4th Edition that I really enjoyed that they unfortunately left to rot in 4th. The concept is, any throw away mobs die in one hit. And I have Elites that take two hits. The boss or leader I keep normal.
That was the best part of 4th edition!
I agree, I had stolen some henchman rules from another game before I played 4th but seeing it in DnD was a pleasure.
I will be using this in my next game. I’ve been slowly preparing my players for the idea of a hit point cap. They are not completely on board yet but are willing to give it a shot. I too remember the good old days of 1d4 HD Thieves and M-U’s... as always great video and thank you for sharing. Looking forward to more. Thursday’s are one of my favorite days because of Dungeon Craft. Thanks again
I like the reference to the classic 1981 Dragonslayer, and the idea of counting hits rather than hit points is one that I have adopted for my games. Thanks!
Dragonslayer looks incredible. Very dark and I don't like the ending, but the dragon is better than any CGI crap.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 100% agreed!
I have sort of adapted a similar method without getting rid of hitpoints entirely. Before a game, I draw out some health bars for the monsters that my adventure will probably include on graph paper. One square on the graph paper amounts to five hit points. I also round up or down the hp total of the monster I am using. So if the monster manual says this monster has 37 hp, I round it down to 35, and its health bar is seven squares. During the combat round, I won't do any math, just cross out as many squares as the PCs have dealt damage. So my 35 hp orc chief takes 13 damage from the fighter? I cross out 2 squares and mark three short lines in the third square. Next hit he takes 12 hp? I fill up the square with the three marks and mark two little notches again, and so on, until the health bar is full or the next hit would fill it up, then the monster expires.
Brilliant idea: you've cut out the difficult parts without having to sacrifice the mechanics.
I've ignored HP since my second DM session, I've always let them believe their attacks do more or less by flavoring their hit based off of damage. I've never looked at it from a pure hit perspective like you said, I just use the moments to base what the end will be. I do like this idea of hit tracking though.
Really wasnt into this until you said dont use it for pcs and the main villians. Also... when you said lie to your players - im sold..always a good idea
LOL. They can't handle the truth!
They way I see it--the entire game is a lie! Certainly DMs can lie about arithmetic. Cheers!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 your attitude about streamlining and making everything faster is the best change ppl can make for table top gaming. More roleplaying more dice rolling more story more killing. Less math and reading.!
I actually love this idea. Quick and simple. Great tip.
Professor DC, this is a great idea. I have seen it used for minions. A minion just needs one hit to be killed. This allows each player to feel like they are part of an epic battle. When they meet the big boss, they play it out hp by hp. I like how you keep it in the background. The players need to see their own hp going down to increase the drama. They will soon realize they need some healing or retreat to fight another day.
Merry Christmas!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Yes, Merry Christmas Professor!
Update: It worked out VERY well!
I think too often I want those bandits to be a lot harder, but having my party just roll over them was just as exciting. Each thug took 2 hits (unless they did only 2 damage. I counted that as a half hit), and the battles went much faster!
I really like this now!
1:57 "How do you want your game to feel?" So glad you said that -- D&D, like any art, should create an emotional effect that transmits a message -- hopefully a positive one, not a selfish of fascist one. This is a critical question that too many DMs do not ask themselves. I am 100% on-board with the "feel heroic" (as opposed to murder hoboism, including selfish looting of treasure and other criminal PC behavior). I remember what it felt like when in early 1982, I went through the original "Tomb of Horrors" module. I felt a sense of wonder, awe, and fear. The reason i felt that is because I was in a strange environment trying to solve terrifying problems that kept emerging. I think when you add these elements and, it can create an effect that makes the players actually feel something, maybe even feel heroic if they are experiencing them while their PCs are in the act of service to others (which is what heroes do). Heroicism requires both a motive to serve and the ability to do so while overcoming peril.
Interestingly, when I run campaigns, I didn't know if anyone else did this. Often, when my party is facing multiple lesser enemies, I would use the exact method you described. Being very adept and quick with mathematical computations in my head (a necessary function for my regular job, and just being a math nerd overall), this method came to me as I was just utilizing ratio and percentage functions. You absolutely correct, this does reduce interruptions in combat encounters. Another thing I do with some critical damage situations is to use percentage of full health rather than just rolling dice and multiplying the result; it's quicker to indicate that the PC just suffered a 25% HP loss and reduced movement speed (or whatever other malady) from a critical hit than to compute die rolls from the same.
YES! That's what Tracy Hickman does--use percentages. Check out XDM 2nd Ed.
Yeah I agree with this guy. I like to think of RPGs back when we were playing Link/Zelda where you have hearts, and how when you got another heart, it didn't mean you could get lazy, but it made you feel more powerful and you could take on bigger challenges and risks. And you knew how many hits that you could take.
In games nowadays, you don't know how to feel about what your chances are against a foe because the numbers are so abstracted from how you could think how many more hits you can take.
And in the games that I play, even with health bars, a hit could take away your entire healthbar, or more than half your healthbar, or barely dent your healthbar.
But in zelda/link you learned how many hearts an attack can deal to you, and you can visualize it.
Check out Index Card RPG. It has monster HP in hearts. Each heart equals 10hp.
I like your core concept: namely, reduce the amount of stuff that isn't focused on the PCs. _However_ I feel this method may remove much of the challenge. Here's my reasoning. Every action the players perform needs to be noticeably impactful. That goes right along with your philosophy. Now consider buffs:
I'll be giving a 3.5 example just since that's what I'm most familiar with. Your party is facing a moderately tough encounter. So things take multiple "hits". The party bard gives a battle cry, and Inspires Courage. Depending on the level, this is giving +1,2,3,4,5 to hit and damage. It's definitely impactful. But to have it be impactful in the "hit" system... it has to add a full hit! That's doubling the player's damage output. That's far more than buffs normally do. And any damage buff would have the same inflated effect.
It also has the effect of either buffing everybody to the damage output of a DPS, or nerfing the DPS. While a orc sergeant might be 3 hits for the fighter, he might be 5 hits for the healer.
I have no issue with the "1 shot 1 kill" method for weenie encounters. But trying to scale that up while maintaining challenge seems tough.
Professor, thank you for opening my eyes. I wondered for a long time what was wrong with this system before it ended up here on your channel. I have been campaigning for several years. Heroes with 5 or even 7 attacks have become the torment of this game. Ultimately, I said I didn't want to continue this. Now I know everything. Thanks.
As always, your videos are well made, straight to the point and educational. Thanks Professor DM, I'm gonna start trying this.
Preach Professor! I've been doing it this way for a few years now and my players don't even realize it. So much faster and easier.
I'm waiting for dungeon craft...the book! I truly enjoy the video's. Ty.
Icrpg does this mechanic
You'll be waiting a long, LONG time. I'd never say never, though.
Dungeon craft book?
Uh, hell yea!
Of not a book....... maybe a podcast?
i want to write my own game and pretend i'm playing D&D... next on DungeonCradt
With all the brilliance in everything Professor Dungeon Master puts out, (And) others, That is usually the feeling I get. So as I usually comment, its called Homebrew and you can do whatever you want. Its either RAW,RAI, or Homebrew.
We started using the "Hit Method" in our D&D group a few weeks ago. Combat is SOOOOO much faster!!! Thank You!!
I like your alliteration of d&d vs algebra.
Thanks, Adam!
Lol everyone gotta hate on THAC0.
All any game RP game is is math. Unfortunately that is why we have the term META in games. Heck, Dungeon Craft was using it the whole video.
I am glued to your videos since I discovered them. Honestly videos like this one blow my mind. Its so obvious so why did it take me 40 years to learn this information? For shame :(. This and the no initiative system are a must if you're bored with doing paper work and want to play a fast paced action adventure. Professor Dungeon Master you're a genius.
Dude!! This is genius!!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t believe I never considered this. Thank you so much. In one video you became one of my favorite posters on TH-cam
I love the idea and I'm looking forward to seeing how you handle it. I've found that counting up from zero rather than down from the maximum can help because adding is easier than subtracting. I'd like to move to a system of rounding damage to the nearest multiple of 5 or 10 and using hash marks to track damage, but I haven't gotten there yet. I find that changes need to be introduced incrementally to give both players and the GM a chance to get used to them.
It's a little like that. Only 6 more hours!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 The suspense is figuratively killing me.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Inspired by your video, I tried the following method in my last D&D session: for each player's damage total, I immediately round up to the near increment of 5 HP and track the damage dealt by marking down an X for each increment of 10HP and a / or \ for each increment of 5 HP, combining two slashes to form an X when I can. Then, when I need to tally the damage received I simply count up the Xes. Players like hearing that their damage is being rounded up and I don't overload my brain with simple math while simultaneously trying to extemporize exciting narration. It's not exactly what you describe, but seems to hew pretty close to the spirit of your idea while also being usable for major villains without the players feeling like their success is coming down to DM fiat.
@@JaredHayter That's such a good idea I would have stolen it. Bravo, sir!
My players keep track of their individual hit points because "muh rulezbook". But instead of keeping track of hit points for my monsters/villains, I just set a number for how many times players successfully hit them before they go down. Goblins=1 Orcs/Bandits=2 Dragons=12. Dividing the Monster Manual Hit Points by 7 is a good rule of thumb for simple hit tracking. The players still roll damage with their attack rolls because it makes them feel good and gives intensity to the narrative, but I'm not wasting anytime calculating remaining hit points on monsters.
that's very interesting, what abt like really good weapons or spells? like why should a character buy a nice new weapon with extra dmg when their crap sword does the same thing? or is it all for the feel of it?
Kevin Crawford did something like this for the heroic rules of his OSR games - instead of having hit points, you'd simply treat the number of hit dice the enemy had as the number of times they could be hit before they died.
Love hit points, but also make great use of soak, so armour really helps players and others survive and ward off light hits.
Like you I've tried to keep hp low, and numbers overall quite low. I remember simpler times. The starting hp is usually 7. They won't get to the 10s until later.
Tracking by hits is a great idea, and I've used it especially for large combats. These fall in 2, they fall in 3 and so on. My system uses for damage, light, medium, heavy, crits, and insta-kill hits to resolve injury with opposed rolls for attack and defence.
Lastly, I was playing kingmaker recently and kobolds and goblins were taking two hits to kill for a party of level 2s. I laughed at that. Now at a party of 5th level they die in one hit (finally).
This is the concept behind my homebrew system where characters have 3-5 HP and most all hits do 1 damage.
Nice. In my home-brew they start with 7 hp and most hits do 3 damage. Note the odd numbers.
This is sound advice and I may well use it on my next session! The last point was important - I was just wondering how my players would react to this when you addressed my worries.
Heresy! Such arrogance! Harrumph! (Actually, yet another great idea! Keep up the good fight, Professor!)
Will do!
Art of the Genre does this with swarms of goblins and such. 1 hit 1 death.
Thanks for this video. I really like this idea, I have a group of 7 kids under the age of 12 and they are so OP’d now even combat takes forever. Our games go for about 5-7hours a session. We started adding more and more players and to make them feel like they contribute I put their XP very close to the more experienced players and now a round of combat takes like 12min per round. I’ll try this out at my next game. Thanks!
This is all stuff I used to do in high school when I would run games. I always felt like I was a cheatin' cheap DM (though my players and friends always enjoyed the game). Rules lawyers would ultimately beat me down and tell me I was ruining the experience... For them.
It's nice to find a channel and a DM that subscribes and promotes ideas that I thought were heresy (and they are, in a very good way). I look forward to more!
I've actually been doing this for the past 3 years it's much easier and it lets you direct the flow of combat and story. 5th edition has been streamlined to help cut down combat time and this helps even more
Cool!
0:19 Wearing his +1 Vest of Protection! Hell yeah!
This is fairly close to wounds in Savage Worlds: you got a toughness that you have to exceed to wound a character; you exceed by a certain amount and you gain additional wounds. Named characters (pc's, bosses, major threats) have 3, mooks only have 1 wound before they bite it. Damage under toughness is ignored as a graze or scratch.
I was thinking the same thing. Though the one time I tried SW for a fantasy setting, it didn't quite feel right. I feel like HP actually work well ONLY for Fantasy because they let you survive those big, ridiculous hits that make NO SENSE to survive... like in Fantasy settings
@@tsmcgu I think the Bennie and magic healing gives you that high fantasy feel in SW; it just does not feel like d&d because of the swingy dice and dramatic ups and downs.
D&D is its own fantasy sub genre where it is a reasonable thought to go toe to toe with a 12 ton giant or a frontal assault on a dragon is tactically valid. That is quite rare in most of the fantasy genre, by in large.
Generally, not all fantasy stories are high action with Die Hard levels of plot armor; ie Lord of the Rings has Frodo almost die from the first wound he receives from essentially a poisoned blade and he has to be carried the rest of the way to get healing. They also run from giants and do not even think of fighting the dragon when they find out he still is there.
Fantastic video, and greetings from Italy! When i'll DM d&d or Pathfinder, i'll use this method!
This "Hits" system it's very similar to Savage Worlds's: PC and Main Antagonist can be Shaken (stunned, surprise, etc.) and sustain 3 wounds before getting Out of Combat. Non-Important npc's and enemies have only 1 Wound, so that's means: Healthy > Shaken (or directly OOC) > Out of combat.
Combined with class-less characters and the "no need" to balance 70% of encounters, it makes Savage Worlds my main system!
I actually just got Savage Worlds. The lead designer is a fan of this channel. Thanks for watching!
Just remember that when d20 Star Wars come out with 3e rules.
S.W. crit rules were stated that crit hits go to the player's Constitution score, so in a nut shell players have 10 to 18 Wound Point/hp, their normal hp are just their ability to dodge, side set and roll with the punch." near misses."
We were always coming up with way to do Crit damage.
Make Fort save DC: 10 +dmg or die, if save is made then lose that number of Temp Con points. And gain penalities to dice rolls.
It just depends on how Gritty a game your groups want to play.
I am use to playing White Wolf/ World of Darkness: Vampire.
I played a few game system were they had Instant Kill rules.
In one game we had six 1st-level characters dog pack a 12th-level fighter, tripping him out a fifth story window. Everyone more or less took 5d6 falling dmg.
Plate Armor doesn't spot a tackle.
That's actually a cool rule and I'm going to mention it in an upcoming video. Thanks for sharing!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Ideals of running combat.
1st.) I did foam padded and broom stick weapons, card board/ ducktape armor.
Most "injuries" was cause by foot slipping when engaging the opponent and falling down/ in a wrong way. Which lend to my game shop having interests house rules.
a.) flat padded blade hits behind the knee causes foot numbness and you can't jog or run away. " Girls/ Women" never pull their hits against male opponents. And up close shoulder to shoulder, females will out right cheat and hard kick you behind the knee and you go down Hard.
Had one guy were full " real " chain mail, and another using modern police riot gear armor. Both of then said it was, " non legal hits, the 14 year old girls were cheating and their armor has been tested against " real " machetes . So their leg would not had took any real damage.
i.) Both of them were " Kicked," behind the leg and they fell down, and Dog Packed! By six 14 year old teenage girls. Chain mail may stop slicing cuts, but not clubing/ kicking to the back of one's legs.
ii.) Flanking hits to the back lower ribs cause " Stunning " do to have the wind knock out of you, and you lose the speed initiative to block or do a standing dodge.
iii.) Do to safety reasons, shoe spikes are not used to keep from slipping on grass and dirt cause tripping and foot stomps can lend to broken bones.
2.) TTRPG combat rules.Or list of actions.
a.) engaging combat opponent, full movement requires a Dex check. Any "1's" rolled on d20 means slipping and falling prone, atk opponent gain +4 to hit.
If charging take a -4 dex check. " ever watch Foot Ball ?" a lot of things go wrong.
b.) roll initiative on who attacks first.
c.) make attack and defense reflex rolls.
Near hits that miss target by 1 or 2,
Strength checks on blocking, Dex/ Reflex checks on dodging.
Target player take 1/4th damage as " fatigue " and endurance checks are made.
d.) If the character runs out of Endurance( stander Hp) , they can not run or defend themselves from attacks. Then they take Constitution Wound point damage.
i.) Any failed Endurance checks, the fatigue dmg goes to their Con score.
ii.) Like any sports game/ mass combat, the athletes have to break ranks to let the Stress ease off, cool down, and get water. Catch their breath. Or their reflexes slow down.
e.) The character may have " full " hit points but they have been Exhaustion.
i.) the character/ pc or npc then has to make Fort save DC"10+dmg dealt
as Coup De Gras " death blow " as stated in the rule book or suffer that amount of dmg to their Con score.
ii.) Dismemberment variant rule :
Make Reflex Roll vs opponent atk roll to call shot location, if saved the atk misses . If Ref roll has failed, the victim hit must make a Fort save DC:10+ dmg deal or lose that limb and suffer 1d4 permanent Con dmg and weapon damage roll as temporary Con dmg.
" The body has to deal with system shock at losing a limb and infection. But over all I think they still can handle the common cold."
Please watch a few videos on History Chanel " Knight Fight."
Melee combat with bunted weapons at it's best.
Bad news, I have been told that I have a problem with reducing combat in D&D down to Fortitude & Reflex saves instead of stander Hp combat.
" Right now I am watching Princess's Bride on tv."
Is the Stable Boy/ the Dread Pirate in AD&D a rogue, a fighter, or a multi-class rogue/ fighter ? But humans could only DouClass and not multiclass.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Sorry I stated this before on other threads, I only have AD&D and 3.5e rule books. And I don't have dice on me at the moment, so I am just going off the top of my head at the moment.
Movie Conan the Barbarian was more like the classic novels, and Conan the Destroyer was base more on the comics.
At the start of CtB , Conan started off as a unlearned Pit Fighter, living on rage and dirty fighting. Multiclass barbarian/rogue, then he was train to read & write and study greater sword knowledge. He may or may not had Ancestor Spirits looking after him, and he has a knack of throwing his sword like no other.
b.) Write up of Conan after he has been freed.Str:16+3, Con:14+2
i.) soft/ barbarian2nd/rogue2nd/fighter2nd. CR:6 ; BAB+5
feats: 1st-level Endurance, Greater Fortitude +2Con saves,
3rd-level: Improve Unarmed Strike: punch 1d6dmg.
6th-level & two bonus fighter feats: Improve Initiative , weapon focus:long/broad sword, Power Attack.
Known Skill: rogue " preform: Strut in the Ring, Weapon Kata/ Pose" 5ranks
intimidate:5ranks, bluff: 5ranks.
Combat Tactic: cheat shot to the ribs punch 1d6 +1d6 sneak atk/ +2 flank atk. done by a Dodging Bluff skill check.
x.) Pit Fight,
1st. round) The swords clash together,
2nd round) Conan steps into an elbow hit on the other fighter's lower left ribs. Neither one of them are wearing armor, so AC10
and Conan is up under the opponent's sword guard, I call this a Flanked Atk with a +2 to hit. So Conan Power Attacks his full BAB into the elbow strike rolls 1d20 +2 vs AC:10. anything 8 or higher lands the hit.
The hits lands and Conan's opponent takes 2d6 +8 dmg to the ribs.
" Call Shot to Stun ?" The opponent rolls and fails Con check DC:10+2d6 dmg to keep from being Stun. The opponent is now gasping for air with a +2 to hit/--2ac
3rd round.) Conan's next round of action, he makes a Str check to push the clashed swords up out of the way and brings his blade back down into his opponent's elbow. This is a Call Shot to a Limb giving the action a --4 to hit. But his target is Stun with a +2 to hit, he's has +3 to hit from Str and +1 from wpn focus(+6) so all he has to roll is a 8 or higher on d20.
Sword damage 1d8 +1d6sneak/flaking dmg,+9dmg (+5 BAB power atk, +4str mod.)
The target opponent has to make a Reflex saving roll with a --2 penailty do to being Stun to avoid Conan's down cut to his left elbow. If the attack lands, then Conan's opponent has to make a Fort save vs damage dealt or lose the limb
Fort DC:10+ 1d8 sword+1d6 flank,+ 9 str/PA.
" base save DC: 23 or lose limb."
Do to plot of this combat encounter, Conan's opponent fails All of their Saving Roll.
4th round Recap.) Conan clash swords, steps into a elbow hit to the lower ribs knocking the wind out of his opponent. He knocks his foes sword arms up into the air and brings his blade back down onto this opponent's left elbow, cutting it clean through.
Conan's defeated opponent drops down to his left knee and stares in shock of his server left arm still hanging onto his sword's grip as he holds both his sword and his left arm up with his right arm.
Conan now makes a Perform skill check as he poses for the crowd.
5ranks +d20 DC: ?
" a great kill or do they feel they didn't get their money's worth from gambling on the fight.?"
3.) A Heroic larger than life Conan
Str16+3,Con14+2,Dex13+1, Int14+2,Wis13+1,Cha12+1
Multiclass BAB HD Skill Fort/Ref/Will
Barbarian3rd +3 3d12 +3 +1 +1
Rogue3rd +2 3d6 +1 +3 +1
Fighter4th +4 4d10 +4 +1 +1
Sorcerer2nd +1 2d4 +0 +0 +3
Cleric2nd +1 2d8 +3 +0 +3
Total: +11 alot +11/ +4/ +9
14th-level character CR:14
main equipment: Atlantis broad/long sword found in the tomb of whom ever from the first movie. 1d8+2, +1/+3 vs magic users. with weapon specialization.
Sorcerer spells: True Strike "+20 insight bonus to hit on next attack roll" to represent his unbelieveable sword throws.
Shield : no magic glowing disk to protect the user, the Shield spell give an Insight bonus to side step attacks and to block in coming attacks.
Cleric spells: they do not create food or water, they make finding food and water easier to do. As for healing spells, they just speed up natural healing, they don't make people heal up as if they are Marvel Xmen Wolverine.
I would argue the reason Conan manage to grow as strong as he did in his force labor childhood is cause, he was a cleric class character and not a barbarian class. Praying to your ancestors and they blessing your food with Good Berry and Protection From Elements/ Cold kept him from dropping dead like so many others had done.
It’s an interesting idea but What’s the point of being a fighter, as opposed to being say, a cleric if the cleric gets spells but the fighter is not really any better at cutting monsters down than the other classes in melee? HP and damage dealing does enable some granularity between different classes. One alternative approach might be to halve all PC and monster HP?
That IS a good idea. you are correct--hit points add granularity. I have a video called "Captain Crunch" in 2 weeks that examines this concept. Stay tuned!
What about throwing out damage rolls entirely? Instead, if players make their to-hit roll vs. their opponent's AC, they inflict one hit. More lethal weapons would get a to-hit bonus. You could also rule that modified rolls of 20+ inflict two hits.
Thought about a system where your bonuses and their AC cancel each other out until there's a remainder. If you roll over that remainder it's a hit of course, but if your bonuses cancel out their AC entirely, you automatically hit. Basically your just adding the bonus before instead of after the roll.
I came in skeptical with an open mind..... and I left a buyer! You are a goldmine sir!
Not my idea: Hit Points are a way for players to measure RISK. You can sort of manage how long you want to take this RISK. You know when you should run away. Or perhaps not. You could also add a crit table, for rolling a nat 20. The crits shouldn't be fatal, unless you happen to crit twice (just an idea). This means a peasant might kill you with a lucky hit, but it's highly unlikely to happen regularly.
Thanks for commenting. You should check out my campaign update The Reviled Society. I think you'll like it. th-cam.com/video/95zr1mmx4vM/w-d-xo.html
I guess it'd be comparable to a video game, where you have a health meter and you can only be hit so many times before you're KO'd like Golden Axe or Double Dragon or TMNT. Those games didn't need specific numbers for HP either.
Interesting, that reminds me of the 'minion' mechanic from 4th ed. Anything with the 'minion' tag had just one hit point and was meant to act as just a speed bump for the PC's before they got to the big bad. I kind of like it.
Very similar. Best thing to come out of 4th Ed, IMO.
Love it! Honestly, it feels like this is a great role for CR (minimum one) then a goblin - 1hit and so.
Holy shit! As a newbie dnd DM who also hates maths (I know, wth am I doing being a DM then lol ?!) your hit point system is hella convincing!
Especially since it's only applicable to low and mid-tier enemies, excluding heroes and high-tier/legendary enemies!
You've convinced a future dnd DM!
Stay tuned. I just remade this video. It will air sometime next month.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 you've earned a sub!
Alot of things you talk about I disagree with but this one I have used for a long time and completely agree with
I used a system like this 2 weeks ago, it worked great because the players rolled very poorly. The War Band they were fighting was comprised of 6 orcs, 5 with 1 hp and the captain with 6. The combat still took longer than I had hoped due to bad rolls. As you suggested they rolled for hits and damage, they didn't need to know that a hit would be a kill. Everyone had fun and what could have been an hour of combat was over in 15 minutes.
I’m interested to hear this... I’ve had many ideas on how to do this going back to my simple days of even playing hero quest. A hits a hit!! You sir also have a hit with your channel wish you could do more than once a week!
I used to have hero quest as a kid and stupidly sold it at a garage sale a few years later. Now it goes for hundreds on eBay.
J.Sanime that’s unfortunate I have mine still and the expansions .... and wouldn’t dream of selling because it’s amazing!!!!
This info made a huge difference in the games I run, I will never go back. Thank you!
Been doing this, it works like a charm. The players faces light up when they take minions down. Agreed to keep counting on the part of the players and the big bad.
I tested out Amber diceless rules on my game (I asked you about it last week). The game worked out smoothly except for one player getting taken down, even with a lot of foreshadowing and pc making a foolish move. They dont seem to mind if theyre succeeding 95/100. I guess thats where the dice comes in.
I agree!! Great idea!!!
It'll ceertainly make it easier to teach newbies too!
How do you calculate resistances and vulnerabilities with your hit system? Specifically resistances...
I would imagine that he would, instead of halfing damage for resistances, just add an additional hit. If you've got a Chain Devil (who is just full of resistances) he'd just take more hits to kill instead of doing the math on each hit. Or, hits of that type of damage count for half a hit. Vice versa with vulnerabilities. Each hit by the PC could be worth 1.5 hits of the total.
Would like your opinion on the following idea (e.g. your initial thoughts and if you think it would be worth playtesting):
Instead of doing Hit Points as per PHB, have Wounds. The PCs can take 1+ Con-Modifier of wounds, before the situation becomes serious or they go down, queue Death Saves.
If you want more Wounds: Artifacts and Armors (Soaking mechanism). Or you could go: Your Level + Con Modifier.
A critical Hit does a critical wound, which is 2 wounds.
Now if you want to go more heroic, you could have the PC make a Con-Save to "grit your teeth" (maybe by spending a hit die) and move on/ignore the wound. Resistances against certain Damage types could then also allow to "grit your teeth" and brave on while Immunity straight out negate such wounds.
One of the more interesting aspects of low-level DnD is that most things can still kill you in potentially one-shot, even a lowly Goblin. At higher level, even with a Crit, that would remain an impossibility, since even a Wizard can soak up the damage.
You also mentioned in one of your other videos, that the simpler, the better, so I wouldn't want to over-complicate the rules even further. You could allow for certain Armor types to soak up wounds as well or give resistance to certain Damage types. And if it's a magical armor, give additional Bonuses/resistances.
If it's a magical weapon (or a +1/2/3), it overrides the Con-Save (I would guess DC 10 for normal and DC 15 for Critical, increases 1 difficulty to DC 15 for normal and DC 20 for Crits).
That would be for play-testing to determine, however.
I've just tried this approach with my players. It is really fast and very dynamic. Thank you a lot for the idea!
The danger is there is no real incentive for damage optimization and players will build characters based purely on hit. For example Dex based fighters since there is no reason for strength. It’s just a bad idea all around
That's kind of how sword fighting is described. Look at Skallagrim or Matt Easton of Scholadiatoria describe it. Strength will help up to a point unless you're talking unarmed combat or there is a significant difference between opponents. Humans are also only capable of so much.
Fantastic. Subscribed. :)
The improvement in quality and delivery is clear and amazing. Congrats on one more amazing video.
I wasn't sold until you described it in cinematic terms.
Glad we sold you. Thanks for watching and taking the extra time to comment!
Its how I've always done it. I just never told the player's lol.
On the Facebook page, I thought "blasphemy", but hearing this out loud and seeing how it's done; I'm sold. I absolutely love it. This Saturday's game is going to be much easier on me.
I love this idea. I'm going to make a dual dice tower, where the players drop their damage dice in one side, and they roll out on my side (The DM side) and I drop my monster damage dice into the other side, which rolls out on THEIR side, so they can subtract it from their PC's hit points. It'll create the illusion of reciprocal damage rolls, but I can just ignore their dice rolls and decide if their hit killed the goblin/orc/troll/owlbear/dragon, etc...
GREAT VIDEO, Professor Dungeon Master, PhD of Fast Combat!!
I will have to give this a try I like the concept and look forward to testing it out. Thanks for sharing.
I appreciate the argument here and I might even try it out. I agree the math bogs down the game and going for the cinematic flare is my goal as well. I think my only critique is your examples; Legolas and Conan are not low level PCs if we were watching a movie, Conan for example where we see them just starting and beginning to hone their skills you would see them miss or only wound their opponents. If memory serves Conan, the good one with Arnold, is taken prisoner and enslaved as a level zero or one character (the opening of Conan the Barbarian) and only later (rapidly due to movie running times) becomes the epic hero we all love.
Very interested, looking to forward to hearing about the innovation
Looking forward to you looking forward to it!
I’m definitely using this in my games from now on. Funny enough a lot of the problems I’ve been having as a DM, you end up have the right video for.
Cool! Please don't hesitate to suggest video topics. I will make them (it just may take time--DC is scheduled out 8 weeks ahead of time.)
I respectfully am not on board with this.... as I’m old school and still have different dice and numbers for all weapons. To me this gives the players some extra Emerson as they try to decide which weapons they will put their proficiencies into. As well your system nullifies some of the best reason for being a fighter as they progress in damage as they level up. Also, using hit points means the players can see their abilities or lack of them in the effectiveness of their particular weapon, be it a normal one or a magically endowed one.
Seeing a fighter do 3d6 + 6 for modifiers and their eagerness to add up the size of their massive blow make the tiny amount of subtraction I do behind the screen well worth the effort. 😀
As a DM I only roll initiative and skill checks for NPCs. PCs roll everything else. When they get attacked, they make a defense roll. When they cast a spell that grants an NPC a saving throw, they roll to overcome the NPC's resistance. I find it keeps them more engaged. I say this because the ultimate goal of removing HPs is to help keep the players engaged. I find that the players rolling everything does that.
This reminds me of how Minions worked in 4th edition. I really like the idea that most monsters are just one solid hit from death.
I can tell you are a fan of Robert E. Howard. I am too. I recently started collecting two Marvel comic book titles: Savage Sword of Conan and Conan the Barbarian. The art was what drew me to them and the stories are really good too. I highly recommend them if you’re a fan of Conan.
I have a LOT of SSOC in mylar bags from the 1980s. Great stuff!
Still waiting, drinking tea, planning next game session. And of course ....waiting.
Hit points only really serve 2 purposes: add tension to death, and an agreed upon moment when combat ends. When I was GMing for a larger group (8 people) combat was terrible. A round of combat took so long, it made missing in combat feel like capital punishment. I too threw out monster hit points and just counted rounds of combat/time instead.
A simple combat went from an hour to half an hour, and deciding who got the kill based on "rule of cool" or who hasn't killed anything in a while or was having a particularly shitty night of rolling. Getting the finishing blow became a reward for roleplay and engaging with the environment. I'm not sure how one could codify that in a rulebook, but being a GM that is open to player chaos and working on the same side as them, I didn't have issues with railroading the combat.
Love this video from Professor dungeon master. I use similar alternate rules because it realy accelerate combat. Nobody at my table love combat that drag for hours. I just know hardcore strategist like having combats for hours.
I love this idea! I'm going a step further and using the player's to-hit bonus to subtract from the total number of hits needed instead of giving them a better chance to hit thus making them heroier heroes! I will make it so that the total hits needed cannot go lower than 1 though. I don't want to encourage "that guy" who decides that his seductress really has looks that kill.
Anywho. THANK YOU for once again improving my game!