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Okay, here's my mindless ramblings.
First hitpoints. HP is, for me, an indication of how injured someone is. full HP equals full health, <0HP is dead, or so injured that they're as good as. I think it's highly unrealistic for a level 50 human warrior to have nigh on 1000HP, where a level 1 human mage has about 6. If you imagine both being executed, they're led to the block and the executioner takes off the head of the mage in one blow of the axe. For the warrior he has to hack away for 30 minutes with frequent rests in the middle to regain his strength. Or perhaps both lieing asleep in cotton PJ's when a rogue creeps in and slips a dagger between their ribs. the mage will expire with barely squeeze, but the warrior is unlikely to fare much better. he might well get his hands round the rogue's throat, but unless the paramedic's are standing by then it's tombstone time. I guess we could grant the executioner and rogue critical hits but even so, with our current system, that level 50 warrior's got time to read a short novel before dieing.
I can honestly see a hardened adventurer being made of stern stuff then a novice, but they're both still human. If a level 1 warrior has 10HP, then perhaps at level 50 he should have maybe 40-50? I can see a half troll being a lot more hardy than a hobbit, but lets not get carried away.
When I think of my guys in the dungeon, mid battle, they're battle scarred and bloody. several cuts, a few deep gashes, maybe a broken rib. they've not got an arm off! their intestines aren't dragging along the ground, we can't see bone sticking out of flesh. but that's what being under 10% HP kind of implies. Also these injuries are not fixed by just pulling out a sleeping bag and taking nap.
also, imagine that level 50 warrior taking off all his armour and standing in front of an ancient dragon. a single flick of a talon would gut him and leave him bleeding to death on the ground. he wouldn't be able to stand there for 5 minutes.
truth is, while our hardened and experienced adventurers are very tough, they're not super-human. most of their ability to survive hand to hand fights with terrible enemies comes from their ability not to get hit. This is perhaps due to armour, or being fast, or very dextrous, or due to magic.
I think I'd be interested in a system where HP only went up very slowly and top HP for a race is only a small multiplier of starting HP. I'd then like to see much more use of AC and dodging attacks. once you get past orc's, then many of the creatures would realistically kill you with only a few landed blows. our guys should only survive because they mostly avoid actually being hit, or only get scratched.
In the system in my head, "light" injuries (less than 50% maybe) would only heal on their own very slowly so without magical intervention, most people will walk round with some injury. more serious injuries would not heal on their own at all and might well impart their own penalties like slowed response, lower DEX, CON or STR. lower SP/higher fail rates due to lack of focus, quite possibly HP drain over time as bad injuries go longer without medical attention. getting these fixed up should either be a trip back to town (medical facilities? cost involved?) or magical healing of some sort.
then fights would more heavily involve AC and DEX vs attackers skill. an attack would either be judged to have:
hit - Here the blow has got though and hit, potential for damage
missed - Here an attack is dodged, blocked or parried. no damage at all
if there is a hit, then we'd need to see how the attack interacts with the armour. a stock whip hitting plate mail is likely to have 100% of damage blocked, a sword thrust into a leather jacket could go straight through and do a lot of damage.
Right, traps! (finally).
I agree with the general view that traps should not scale with character HP. a nasty trap on level 99 would likely kill a level 1 character dead in an instant, not do the same percentage of damage as it would to a level 50 character. I do support traps getting much more nasty with depth. we assume the people down there are much more experienced with making really evil traps that can do a lot more damage. they're also be much better at making them hard to find.
However, much like my diatribe on HP above, I think a large part of surviving traps is around not suffering the full brunt of them. a very deep level poison dart trap that hits should be extremely likely to kill, otherwise leave the character very ill. high level/experienced characters should have multiple methods of avoidance. one would expect rogues to know the signs and have a big boost to perception of traps. magic users should be able to find magic based traps, but not physical traps. all characters would have the ability to use perception to find them, but it should be hard. all traps should have a chance of not being found.
when a trap is tripped however, your high level characters can use their experience to get out. so fast or highly dextrous guys could dodge darts or jump away/catch something before a trap door opens. darts or spikes might well hit armour and not flesh etc.
deep traps should be potentially deadly, but high level characters should have a good opportunity to avoid these traps or the worst of them. Hence divers would be at serious risk of traps, and that, to me is right.
Also, there should be the chance of monsters setting off traps. chances are that low level humans monsters will know about the local traps and know not to set them off, but if a herd of mumaks charges through a trap I'd expect that a number of mumaks would have suffered bad effects and that the trap would be non-functional afterwards.
I'd certainly think that traps could be enhanced to make them more of a risk. perhaps even new and varied types, perhaps including the type that does no damage but changes the dungeon nearby, perhaps closing a corridor off or even dropping impervious rock where the trap is. traps with acid/fire are easily imaginable, so are ones with big spikes or dropping stones etc. these different types of traps could be avoided with certain stats. so weight/size of character might have a bearing on whether one is set off. some could be avoided by speed of DEX checks. a falling roof could be avoided by STR checks for example.
err.. hmm.. I did go on a bit didn't I. sorry. I won't object to any "tl;dr"'s
dave
PS. of course, all this may have/probably has been thought of before. etc.
First hitpoints. HP is, for me, an indication of how injured someone is. full HP equals full health, <0HP is dead, or so injured that they're as good as. I think it's highly unrealistic for a level 50 human warrior to have nigh on 1000HP, where a level 1 human mage has about 6. If you imagine both being executed, they're led to the block and the executioner takes off the head of the mage in one blow of the axe. For the warrior he has to hack away for 30 minutes with frequent rests in the middle to regain his strength. Or perhaps both lieing asleep in cotton PJ's when a rogue creeps in and slips a dagger between their ribs. the mage will expire with barely squeeze, but the warrior is unlikely to fare much better. he might well get his hands round the rogue's throat, but unless the paramedic's are standing by then it's tombstone time. I guess we could grant the executioner and rogue critical hits but even so, with our current system, that level 50 warrior's got time to read a short novel before dieing.
I can honestly see a hardened adventurer being made of stern stuff then a novice, but they're both still human. If a level 1 warrior has 10HP, then perhaps at level 50 he should have maybe 40-50? I can see a half troll being a lot more hardy than a hobbit, but lets not get carried away.
When I think of my guys in the dungeon, mid battle, they're battle scarred and bloody. several cuts, a few deep gashes, maybe a broken rib. they've not got an arm off! their intestines aren't dragging along the ground, we can't see bone sticking out of flesh. but that's what being under 10% HP kind of implies. Also these injuries are not fixed by just pulling out a sleeping bag and taking nap.
also, imagine that level 50 warrior taking off all his armour and standing in front of an ancient dragon. a single flick of a talon would gut him and leave him bleeding to death on the ground. he wouldn't be able to stand there for 5 minutes.
truth is, while our hardened and experienced adventurers are very tough, they're not super-human. most of their ability to survive hand to hand fights with terrible enemies comes from their ability not to get hit. This is perhaps due to armour, or being fast, or very dextrous, or due to magic.
I think I'd be interested in a system where HP only went up very slowly and top HP for a race is only a small multiplier of starting HP. I'd then like to see much more use of AC and dodging attacks. once you get past orc's, then many of the creatures would realistically kill you with only a few landed blows. our guys should only survive because they mostly avoid actually being hit, or only get scratched.
In the system in my head, "light" injuries (less than 50% maybe) would only heal on their own very slowly so without magical intervention, most people will walk round with some injury. more serious injuries would not heal on their own at all and might well impart their own penalties like slowed response, lower DEX, CON or STR. lower SP/higher fail rates due to lack of focus, quite possibly HP drain over time as bad injuries go longer without medical attention. getting these fixed up should either be a trip back to town (medical facilities? cost involved?) or magical healing of some sort.
then fights would more heavily involve AC and DEX vs attackers skill. an attack would either be judged to have:
hit - Here the blow has got though and hit, potential for damage
missed - Here an attack is dodged, blocked or parried. no damage at all
if there is a hit, then we'd need to see how the attack interacts with the armour. a stock whip hitting plate mail is likely to have 100% of damage blocked, a sword thrust into a leather jacket could go straight through and do a lot of damage.
Right, traps! (finally).
I agree with the general view that traps should not scale with character HP. a nasty trap on level 99 would likely kill a level 1 character dead in an instant, not do the same percentage of damage as it would to a level 50 character. I do support traps getting much more nasty with depth. we assume the people down there are much more experienced with making really evil traps that can do a lot more damage. they're also be much better at making them hard to find.
However, much like my diatribe on HP above, I think a large part of surviving traps is around not suffering the full brunt of them. a very deep level poison dart trap that hits should be extremely likely to kill, otherwise leave the character very ill. high level/experienced characters should have multiple methods of avoidance. one would expect rogues to know the signs and have a big boost to perception of traps. magic users should be able to find magic based traps, but not physical traps. all characters would have the ability to use perception to find them, but it should be hard. all traps should have a chance of not being found.
when a trap is tripped however, your high level characters can use their experience to get out. so fast or highly dextrous guys could dodge darts or jump away/catch something before a trap door opens. darts or spikes might well hit armour and not flesh etc.
deep traps should be potentially deadly, but high level characters should have a good opportunity to avoid these traps or the worst of them. Hence divers would be at serious risk of traps, and that, to me is right.
Also, there should be the chance of monsters setting off traps. chances are that low level humans monsters will know about the local traps and know not to set them off, but if a herd of mumaks charges through a trap I'd expect that a number of mumaks would have suffered bad effects and that the trap would be non-functional afterwards.
I'd certainly think that traps could be enhanced to make them more of a risk. perhaps even new and varied types, perhaps including the type that does no damage but changes the dungeon nearby, perhaps closing a corridor off or even dropping impervious rock where the trap is. traps with acid/fire are easily imaginable, so are ones with big spikes or dropping stones etc. these different types of traps could be avoided with certain stats. so weight/size of character might have a bearing on whether one is set off. some could be avoided by speed of DEX checks. a falling roof could be avoided by STR checks for example.
err.. hmm.. I did go on a bit didn't I. sorry. I won't object to any "tl;dr"'s
dave
PS. of course, all this may have/probably has been thought of before. etc.
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