Replace Hearts with Hit Dice

homebrew
#1

In D&D “hit dice represent your character’s potential for health and recovery”. I’m suggesting an idea to ditch hearts and hit points and bring back hit dice instead.

Having mainly run games for my daughter and groups of kids, sometimes math gets in the way and slows down the game, we were looking for an alternative way to track health and damage.

Why?…

  • There’s less math calculations because you’re not having to track hit points.

  • At the table this is more exciting than just scratching numbers off a character sheet.

  • Players are involved outside their turns, so it increases engagement.

  • Players can just have their Hit Dice in front of them, as a physical representation on the table, and DM’s can just plonk a big ol’ d20 next to that immaculately painted dragon mini.

Use the D&D class HD for examples, you can easily convert these if your using the ICRPG paths, so barbarians a d12, fighters get d10, rogues d8, wizards d6, etc. Monster’s HD are straight from your favourite monster manual.

New Combat Sequence
Attacker rolls to hit and then rolls damage/effort dice.

Defender rolls their hit dice trying to meet or beat the damage roll.

Resistance: roll HD save with advantage.
Vulnerable: roll HD save with disadvantage.

If defender is successful, they take the blow but avoid any serious injury.
If unsuccessful, they sustain damage and their HD steps down.

Stepping dice
Step Up means increase class HD rolled, d8 to d10
Step Down, means decrease class HD rolled, d8 to d6

When your hit dice is down to a d4 and you take further damage, then you’re out, as if you had dropped to 0HP.

I’ve seen lots of alternative solutions to hit points but most result in death spirals for the characters, this method doesn’t hinder the character from taking actions and performing tasks, but still has some impact when taking damage, with each blow you are more bloodied and beaten, making it harder to stay in the fight.

#2

Oh, it’s like a vitality usage die. Cool! :sunglasses:

#3

Yeah exactly, but instead of stepping on a 1 or 2, it’s if you can resist the level of damage being dealt.

#4

This sounds like a fun idea, but are you ignoring armor/Def? Seems like you could use armor (loot) as either a modifier to you defensive HD roll or as a base level damage soak?

#5

Do you think a flat bonus to the roll from armor would work? Or is that too good?

#6

Just off the cuff, I would drop the DEF Stat from the character sheet and just run with whatever bonuses the armor loot gives you + your HD DEF roll. At least that way you aren’t making a large portion of the.
You could use the armor loot bonuses as damage soak, but there is something more satisfying about “my armor gives me ‘X’ bonus to DEF rolls.” Vs “my armor takes ‘X’ from your attack roll.”

Just my 2 cents.

#7

Oh yeah, wasn’t thinking about that because we still roll to hit against an AC.

But yeah just roll to hit against the room target and could add any armour bonus to the HD roll, and add attack effort bonus to damage.

I like how it works like an opposed roll, feels more like you’re engaged in the combat.y

#8

Yeah, sounds fun to me. Cool idea!

#9

Do crits drop the die by more than one step? Maybe 2? Maybe 1d4?

#10

I love the flavor of this idea. I love the lack of counting. I love the simplicity of it.

Here’s some thoughts.

#1, This rule is adding another step - and a conditional step at that - to every turn of combat. For each creature that has a hit die healthpool, you must roll to maybe unhit the hit from an enemy. It may be difficult to keep your creatures’ attack rolls and Hit Die saving throws straight at the table. You may also need to keep track of which creature dealt damage to whom and how much for longer than you would with the traditional damage mechanics. In large encounters, it might cause orders of magnitude more work. You would be doing AttackRoll Hit>Damage>HitDieRoll>TradeDiceIfFailed>Next
Compared to
AttackRoll Hit>Damage>Subtract HP>Next
But, I personally think that it’s very possible it might be worth the sacrifice. It might be a non-issue. Testing will reveal all.

#2. You can mitigate the extra time adjudicating this new mechanic requires by moving onto the next player while the one who just got hit rolls their Hit Die.

#3. For monsters that have a Hit Die equal or below the damage output of your players, consider using average values. So if your players are doing D6 in damage, any unimportant creature with a D6 Hit Die becomes a 3. D8>4, D4>2. That way you don’t have to waste time rolling for minions. You can put it right on the creature’s index card. 4(d8 eq.), 3(d6), and 2(d4). Cross them off as the players lay down the slaps.

#4 The Dice can be A-holes sometimes. The Hit Die health system leaves the possibility for a series of bad rolls for your big bad putting him in an early grave. Or worse, one of your players.
To mitigate this, consider allowing a finite number of rerolls for mobs or players. EZD6 and uses the idea of “Luck Dice” which may apply here. The game DeathBringer has DeathBringer dice.
I mean, sucks that it’s a count. But at least it’s counting down, and not math.

Again, I really love your idea. It’s got some serious JAM, man. What’s there to lose in giving it a try?

#11

So what happens when a PC finds a heart stone, or “levels up” in a way that would increase HP? For CIRPG I see it as totally valid to roll multiple dice and add them, thought this weights the value of extra hearts heavily in favor of higher hit die types. For leveled games using HP, I think this scaling question gets a little bit trickier. You could increase the die type (might need DCC Zocchi dice for that), or award a token at each level which allows the PC to ignore one hit that would otherwise lower their HD.

#12

Finding a heart stone is rare, but I would just step up their hit die.

#13

I really like it. I might consider having monsters have flat hit damage though. Like:
Mooks: 1or 2
Support: 2 or 3
Brute: 3 or 4
Boss: 4 or 5

…or whatever fits the situation.
Have the number out and known like the target number. Might help keep things snappy.

I might also have every character type start at a d8 (or maybe even d6). Then you’ve got some upward mobility for advancement.

#14

I’m unfamiliar with Hit Dice (and D&D in general). Do characters have multiple hit dice and if so, are they added together for a final result? If so, I see a problem with something having 3d6 in Hit dice being hit with most weapons doing d6 damage … it will be a slow combat.

Even with characters having only one Hit Dice rated as a d10 would probably result in a long combat, as melee weapons only do d6 damage in ICRPG RAW.

I like the idea in general, but have doubts about how it feels in actual play. :wink:

#15

So I go the opposite direction. I’m trying to use an RPG to get fourth graders to do more math. The game gives them a fun reason to do math facts quickly.

I like the opposing rolls scheme, especially in a PVP scenario. That got me thinking of how players could team up using spells of multiplication and division. A mage casts a spell that multiplies the number of foes a warrior can attack. Or a spell that divides the damage received.

Anyhow, cool idea. Got me thinking in new ways.

Thanks!