Freedom from Hit Points- Part II: Other Options

Last time I considered various modifications to traditional Hit Points systems, in order to produce a reasonable simulation of a style of combat that might be called a 'Battle of Fatigue'.

To a certain degree, such modifications work. But as I noted, they do so with some serious stain. The primary problem was Single Target Focus, i.e. it is better to focus all your attacks on a single target in order to bring him down than it is to split your fire (much more genre for the most part) between different targets.

One might wish to try to move to different game mechanics in order to avoid this pitfall, modifying them to allow the desired long drawn out battle.

There's a serious problem with this approach however- if you attempt to use any system that resolves combat as a matter of attrition, you will bring Single Target Focus into being.

That's the core problem with attrition, it means that you can only win by slowly removing a resource of your opponent- and that means the best way to win is to focus all your methods of resource removal on one target until it's gone.

There are three solutions to this and lots of variations within each. But in interest of space I'll present them in wide strokes and call it good enough.

The first is to use a serious Death Spiral with traditional Hit Points or other systems. By applying enough of a negative modifier for lower levels of damage that fall short of defeating your foe, you can make his defeat almost certain as he can no longer effectively defend or attack. Thus players will split their fire between targets in order to quickly force them to suffer said modifiers. In this way, they in practical terms have removed them from the battle.

This avoids Single Target Focus by defining meaningful damage as something else.

I have a simple reaction to such systems, why waste the time? If you're going to have the first landing of any significant damage win the battle- end it there. I don't see much of interest in a slow resolution of a matter that has already been decided.

Such an approach is just a delayed one-shot, one-kill system.


The second solution is to use one-shot, one kill mechanics like those in early RuneQuest or Boot Hill but add a mechanic I'll call 'Battle Points'. Battle Points can be spent to avoid damage, the amount you start with naturally would scale with character power. They also refresh at the start of each combat.

Additionally, say that when a character spends a Battle Point in a round he's protected against all other attacks in that round. Once he's out, he's out and he has to take the full damage effect on the following attacks.

While this works well for group vs. group, what happens when you have a group of heroes fighting a single powerful foe? Do they attack in turn until someone 'hits', and the rest go out to lunch until the next combat round? Rather silly, and attempts to make exceptions run counter to the core mechanic enough that they appear as what they are: meta-game exceptions.


The third solution is to forget about attrition completely and go with a single blow system. This is the method I used in Age of Heroes, and the approach I take in most of my HERO System games.

Here any single damaging attack can easily take a character out of the battle, if it doesn't- it also doesn't meaningfully reduce his combat effectiveness. There can still be rules for 'bleeding out' and other such events- but they would need to be rare outcomes compared to being whacked and dropped.

Character defense is based upon defensive ability (which may be active, passive, or both). Damage soak systems can fit in here in some cases. If the defense/offense is balanced well enough, such fights can last for a good long time between equals.

There are problems here.

First, while it's a long fight that may well see many unimportant wounds- it's not a Battle of Fatigue. The issue isn't resolved by someone getting tired, it's resolved by someone overcoming another's defense- it may happen on round 200, or round 1.

Second, there's a high 'whiff' factor to this system. That is most of the time your successful attack is going to be blocked, parried or otherwised avoided. Some people object to that, despite it's core realism and ability to model movie style combat.


So, no perfect choice that meets all the desired goals. One is left with choices that solves some problems, but that leave others open.

And making such choices is what game design is all about.

Next- We'll leave Battle of Fatigue behind and start examining various damage systems