The problem of low hit points on humans

[Cainehill]

B0rsuk said:
Let's face it, HP is a crude, old oversimplification in an old and flawed system like D&D. And if I remember correctly, the way AC works in D&D comes from pen&paper Mechwarrior games. (Just to support the idea that D&D). D&D says futuristic giant walking robots have more in common with ancient/medieval combat than history. That's guilty enough for me. And let's not forget D&D was optimised for humans - that is, GM had to be able to calculate everything quickly without help of computers.

Was wondering if anyone else was _ever_ going to rebut Twan's " I still can't understand how some strategy gamers may be so convinced that the D&D approach is only a weird RPG thing, and the second the best for strategy games, when it's very clearly the contrary IMHO."

D&D's HP system was retarded even for a pen and pencil RPG from day one, and games that came out at roughly the same time handled the issue _far_ better. (Runequest being the main one that came out at roughly the same time, but also AH's Powers and Perils, Hero Systems (ie Champions), etc.)

One of the most blatantly retarded aspects was that HPs supposedly represented luck, fatigue, etc, and yet, HPs recovered at the rate of roughly 1 HP a day, WITH rest and treatment! Under D&D's system, Conan could've fought an army single-handedly one day - and then required 90-some days to recuperate, not to mention weeks before he could've safely gone against a 1st level foe. Imagine the Three Musketeers requiring weeks between battles, instead of simply needing a chance to sit down and quaff a bottle of wine before re-entering the fray.

And of course, the flip side to the retardedness was the AC system, where platemail and agility (dexterity) both made you harder to _hit_, instead of plate armor making you easier to hit, but harder to significantly _hurt_.

Other games separated fatigue-type damage from actual bodily harm, and/or handled armor as reducing the effect of blows. Dominions to a large extent does this also, and contrary to Epaminondas's "If anything, that shows that a lot of people do agree with me in feeling that there is a problem with the base human commander or hero HPs", an awful lot of people have no problem with the base human commanders dying like flies - it's only the fact that heroes (without Turin's mod) are so useless that we have a problem with. (And some people don't even have a problem with that )

[Taqwus]

Hmmm. A weapon that's both a weapon and a shield... makes sense, so long as the engine handles multiple 'shields' reasonably. The use is fairly obvious so long as there's only one shield, but if there are multiple shields with different prot values it becomes important to have a way of deciding which ones get checked for which hit rolls.

[alexti]

Epaminondas said:
Hmmm. I recant. I am not sure if this is a good idea. Most HoF heroic prowess continues to increase, and this attribute could increase to the point where your hero may be unkillable!

Considering that he'd be out of the battle after the first "deadly" hit, the near immortality wouldn't be too overpowering (besides he could die if the army lost). Idea was to make human heroes more useful without using unthematic means.

[Sandman]

For human melee heroes, I'd just add a 'chosen' attribute (with an icon resembling the pretender/prophet icons) which makes them immune to curse, horror mark and serious afflictions. Handy, but not overwhelming.

[PvK]

Turin said:
I don´t think anyone wants humans to be giants. The problem is simply that most human thuggie heroes are practically basic commanders with a trivial stat increase.

Take marius lorca for example:
Unmodded he is an 80gp Emerald lod with +1 hp +1 str +1 att, +1 def, +2 morale, + 2 ap and one less encumbrance.
A recruitable emerald lord with 2 stars of experience is a better fighter than marius, who is supposed to be a living legend.

Shouldn´t a living legend excel the run of the mill recruitables a little bit?

Yes, you're basically right - The way it currently works, many of the randomly-arriving heroes are just above-average and slightly unique. They only live up to their descriptions if they survive to get experience and items and/or heroic abilities or are made prophets or whatever.

I don't really see that as a big problem, though I think they could be several levels better in abilities like fighting skills without breaking balance. On the other hand, if the mundane heroes were to be given boosts so that they arrived much better than average commanders, I'd miss having the kind of heroes we have now - the "hero material" guys. Though those could be added too as regenerating heroes for all nations. Especially now that we can mod two types of those in for every nation...

As for Marius Lorca, just to annoyingly quibble about your example, he may not be much better than an Emerald Lord, but Emerald Lords are some of the best human melee foot commanders in the game, so adding a bunch of +1's to one of them is actually quite good from a mortal human perspective. Vanheim's Vanlade is even less impressive compared to typical Vans (he's about the same), though again, mounted Vans are some of the best mounter human combat commanders (and they have magic too).

PvK

[Twan]

Cainehill said:

One of the most blatantly retarded aspects was that HPs supposedly represented luck, fatigue, etc, and yet, HPs recovered at the rate of roughly 1 HP a day, WITH rest and treatment!

IIRC hp were supposed to be given back by cleric spells and at the level your Conan would have 90hp his cleric friend was supposed to be able to give him back 90hp in a day or two. Of course the fact that these priest spells were called "cure" and "heal" aggravated the confusion about the hp definition, but they could easily be seen as the need to be in good terms with a god to regenerate the hero/luck/fate part of the points.

Anyway dominions has a system which is closer from rolemaster with its open ended dice rolls allowing with extreme critical hits to one shot anybody or give severe afflictions, but rolemaster hadn't a limited by size hp system, it used a light form the D&D hp concept with the possibility to develop them with leveling, so there is no real need of chaosium systems limitations to make heroes mortal.

Note that I don't think there is a problem with humans hp in general (out of heroic characters and eventually very experienced commanders) I was just tired by the nonsense of some D&D-hp-concept* bashing arguements (*I don't remember having defended the way they modeled armor, recuperation or other parts of the mechanics) when it was far more able to model med fan heroes without making them unbalanced than one in which the GM was forced to cheat to avoid to see "Conan" one shoted in each fight (runequest), and when boosting stats like defense or giving luck instead of hp risks to make heroes far more overpowered in case a lucky roll never happen (some suggestions for dominions).

[Endoperez]

PvK said:
As for Marius Lorca, just to annoyingly quibble about your example, he may not be much better than an Emerald Lord, but Emerald Lords are some of the best human melee foot commanders in the game, so adding a bunch of +1's to one of them is actually quite good from a mortal human perspective.

Marius Lorca is one of the few units in Dominions who has base Attack rating over 15. He has 16. Bane Lords, Scorpion Men, the Devourer of Souls, Devata, Dai Oni, one Heliophagus - 14. Firbolgs, Tartarians, at least 3 of the elemental royalty, Arch Devil, Abomination, angelic Seraph - 15. In a quick browse through the manual, I found only Wraith Consuls, Wraith Lords and the Ashen Angels (from Manifestation), and Horrors (from Send Horror). Horrors had attack 18, the three others had attack 16.

Marius Lorca is impossibly skilled - unfortunately, that doesn't help him to survive in battles. Not much. He'd need expensive equipment, and could still easily die. He'd be easy to kill as well, if he did survive to become enough of a threat.

[DrPraetorious]

Well, Marius Lorca is a hero, but lets talk Emerald Lord (who is nearly as bad-***.)

The emerald lord costs *80 gold*.

That's roughly equivalent to a four or five gem summoned monster. The emerald lord, on average, smacks a wyvern like a red-headed stepchild. So, the emerald lord doesn't need more than 15 hit points - if he had 25, he'd beat the wyvern almost every time, which would be unfair.

Now, it's true, the niefel lord is a *way* better chassis than he is. This is why the niefel lord costs six times as much.

So, I'd agree that -
Mantle of Life (Constr 6, NNEE) - Body Prot 13, +20 hp.
Blood Vigor Charm (Constr 4, BB) - +10 hp. That's 1 hit point per blood slave.
Equinox (Constr 8, AAAANNN) - Sword, poisonous, does lightning damage, resist poison and lightning, +30 hit points.
etc. would be fair and reasonable.

[DrPraetorious]

Well, Marius Lorca is a hero, but lets talk Emerald Lord (who is nearly as bad-***.)

The emerald lord costs *80 gold*.

That's roughly equivalent to a four or five gem summoned monster. The emerald lord, on average, smacks a wyvern like a red-headed stepchild. So, the emerald lord doesn't need more than 15 hit points - if he had 25, he'd beat the wyvern almost every time, which would be unfair.

Now, it's true, the niefel jarl is a *way* better chassis than he is - but, without items, six emerald lords chop him at the knees until he dies, and the niefel jarl costs six times as much.

But, if you're really set on letting people use human heroes into the late game, I think it would be reasonable for blood/fire/earth/nature (in various combinations) to add hit points - I notice no-one has requested a "bonus hit points" power for magic items in the modders wishlist.

[curtadams]

Endoperez said:Marius Lorca is one of the few units in Dominions who has base Attack rating over 15. He has 16. Bane Lords, Scorpion Men, the Devourer of Souls, Devata, Dai Oni, one Heliophagus - 14. Firbolgs, Tartarians, at least 3 of the elemental royalty, Arch Devil, Abomination, angelic Seraph - 15. In a quick browse through the manual, I found only Wraith Consuls, Wraith Lords and the Ashen Angels (from Manifestation), and Horrors (from Send Horror). Horrors had attack 18, the three others had attack 16.

That indicates not that Marius Lorca has a fabulous attack skill but that attack skill doesn't vary much in Dominions. He hits about 3-4 times as often as a smuck human. If he had "heroic" skill, akin to fiction, you'd be looking at a 50-100-fold ratio. Absolutely nothing in Dominions fights anything like Bruce Lee or Fafhrd.