User talk:Spazalicious Chaos/Static Hit Points (3.5e Variant Rule)

Turns Wizards Upside Down

So in the early levels, Save-or-die effects are the only relevant attacks, because people with greatswords can trade hits all day, but in the late levels, characters with even a smidgen of damage, like Warmages, can kill the entire adventuring party with a single Fireball. --Foxwarrior 23:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeah... At low levels people trade blows for a while and then fall over tired out, and both people are likely hurting at this point. But at high levels whoever goes first explodes the other(s) fist of the north star style. It's kind of bizarre in that respect.

Also, your example warrior hit points are off Spaz. The average on a d8 is 4.5, and 7 of those would average 31.5, plus 10 for their con gives you 41. - Tarkisflux 23:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, that is very much what I'm going for. Take the following three samples: newb v newb, expert v newb, expert v expert. What happens? This is my experiance in real life as well as most WOD games:

• NvN= a long, drawn out fight ensues. Tactics, effects (like spells), and attacks are largely hit and miss, and it becomes a "who is the bigger monkey" fight. Both are weak, but they are trying to establish who is weaker. Examples include school yard fights, bar room brawls, stranger confrontations, and duels.
• EvN= Bam, it's over in one move. The newb may get a lucky hit, but he is toast after that because his offenses and defenses are largely ineffective, while the expert is just that: an expert. He has mastered techniques to end things and end them quickly. Examples include muggings, kidnapings, rapes, and home invasions.
• EvE= Bam, it is over in one move, but in this case both combatants are experts, thus they have to plan harder. A lot harder, often with metagame thinking (the master planning type, not the "cheating type"), careful note taking, gathering intelligence, and so on. Put simply, the battle often begins months before the bullets fly. Examples include assassinations, seiges, trap setting, and ambushes.

This is the kind of play I encourage, thus I love WOD, both OWOD and NWOD, but it often has less of the "flash, bang, spadazzle" of D&D, which is where this adaption comes in.--Change=Chaos. Period. SC 19:49, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

So at low levels you want fights to take longer and not be particularly decisive, which decreases the number of foes you can fight because you don't have sufficient healing and it takes so much time to chew through people. And at higher levels you want to increase the frequency of teleport ambushes, which decreases the number of foes you can fight as soon as you walk into one because you're dead. Got it. Thing is, the sort of play that you're trying to encourage here (the actions taken, not the hit point thing) is the sort of play that people who aren't trying to re-live the first 5 levels of play endlessly actually do in a game. Anyway, good luck with that. - Tarkisflux 20:19, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I can't agree more with you on that point, and this variant is more for the kind of people who enjoy things like E6 and WOD. I do not condone this variant for anyone who does not enjoy real strategy role play, by which I refer to very realistic violence and conditions overcome by masterful planning and quick thinking.--Change=Chaos. Period. SC 22:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

If you think this is a good match for E6, I think you don't understand E6. E6 doesn't play in the sorts of ways that you think you're promoting with this. E6 is a game where people re-play the first 5 levels of the game endlessly. They get a little stronger, die a little slower, and run around doing heroic stuff for a long long time. The sort of play you think you're promoting with this happens in regular games where people aren't playing at fighter level near level 10 without this addition. And since this addition makes people more likely to die against equal leveled opposition at level 6 than at level 1, it's rather counter to the basic E6 playstyle.

I don't get the OWoD connection other than the fixed starting hit points. Active defenses scaled there, so attacks would deal less damage from lower power guys and you didn't die any faster against higher level guys unless you were an idiot and actively screwed up. The lack of active defenses (DR or whatever) here breaks the similarity for me.

And this doesn't look overcome by quick thinking. It looks overcome by paranoia and luck. You don't survive surprise rounds at higher level. You don't survive going second. Yeah, there's planning associated with avoiding these things, but not a kind I think is particularly interesting.

tl;dr - I have played E6 and OWoD and enjoyed them. This doesn't suggest either of them. It makes the game even more random than it already is and DMs who use it can't play NPCs seriously without wiping out their players. I don't see any compelling reason to use this, don't think it promotes what you want it to, and would actively recommend against its adoption even for people who wanted "real strategy roleplay". - Tarkisflux 23:51, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I apollogize if I gave the impression I compare this to E6, as that is not the case. This and E6 have entirely separate goals, though they might both be enjoyed by the same people, kinda like HERO and Warhammer- completely separate games, but draw similar crowds.

As for OWOD, no intended connection. This is closer to NWOD in intention, but it's own system in execution.

Finally, quick thinking and planning are hugely rewarded in this system. Randomness is always a factor in anything, but planning can seriously cut it down. This variant makes clear the risk difference between charging through a door, listening at a door before charging, and having your wizard buddy do a bit of recon-by-fireball while the rogue and fighter both wait to decapitate whatever lives long enough to rush out of the room.--Change=Chaos. Period. SC 02:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Ratings

	Ghostwheel opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	This. It is dumb. 'Nuff said.

	Eiji-kun opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	How did I miss this gem from Spaz? I tried reading this several times, but each time I passed out and there was blood all over the walls. I don't know if its mine, but I think I should stop trying to figure out what's being said here. It... hurts.

	Fluffykittens opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	I will assume for the sake of charity that this is a trolling attempt, and not a genuine failure.

	Ubergeek63 opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	one scoop of vanilla ice cream in a cake cone, EVERY TIME!!! an orc is a medium opponent with a sword and a hill giant is a large opponent with a stone club. no need to distinguish types or races since none of that matters anymore!

DanielDraco opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.

TK's right. It does nothing but completely equalize combat once you've gotten a few levels into the game. But it does that by making the entire combat system irrelevant. Literally every single aspect of D&D combat -- that is to say, 95% of all D&D mechanics -- become meaningless in the face of initiative, the new One True God in combat. With a single simple variant, you've thrown out the whole game and turned it into a slightly modified coin flip.

Blocked Rating

TK-Squared is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.

Block Reason: This is a legacy rating from before our current ratings scale. While the reasons should be valid, it is not counted in the ratings on the article page because of the inaccurate scale.While others have gone so far as to describe the majority of problems with the actual variant rule, the most important thing to reiterate is that this does not really do anything but prolong early combat and shorten high level combat, unless you're a spellcaster. If you're a spellcaster, you suddenly become even more of a Combat King with a drawback of you have bugger all for hit points, which isn't bad because you can still nova anyone that comes near you. Looking at this objectively, it does nothing for the game except to put everyone on the same boring level regarding hit points and just skews all level of gameplay