Hit or Miss in Detail

[This article is an elaboration of "Hit or Miss."]

Characters begin with hit points equal to their Constitution. They acquire miss points as they level up.

Attacks that cause damage reduce a character's miss points first. Such attacks cause no harm whatsoever and are considered misses.

When a character's miss points are reduced to zero, further damage reduces a character's hit points. Such attacks always cause harm and are considered hits.

Any reduction of hit points causes a physical wound of some sort even if it is only a prominent scar. In general, any attack that reduces a character's hit points by 50% can be considered a significant wound that may impose a penalty to attacks, movement, or attribute checks until healed. Any attack that reduces a character's hit points by 75% can be considered a grievous wound that may result in permanent disability. The specifics of such wounds can be determined by hit location, random tables, GM fiat, or—if the GM consents—victor's choice.

Healing always restores hit points first. All of the usual methods of healing are effective in this regard.

Miss points can only be recovered when hit points are at maximum. Miss points are recovered by time and, possibly, the acquisition of good luck or good karma (depending on the game system and/or the GM).

With this rule option, I recommend that zero hit points should equal death. No death saving throws, no countdowns, no Constitution depletion. This compensates for the high number of hit points with which characters will start.

In a future article, I may address miss point acquisition and recovery as it applies to some well-known level-based fantasy role-playing games.

[This is my first blog post using my new System 76 computer running Linux. Freedom at last!]

[Edit: Replaced 25% with 50% for significant wounds and 50% with 75% for grievous wounds.]

[Edit: I just discovered that Greg Stolze already discussed this concept in forum.rpg.net in 2010. So, I'll not pursue this topic further.]