Systems without HP bloat

Try Song of Swords 1.9.9.

You need to stop thinking of hp as only physical health. A long sword across the jugular will kill anyone. Think of it more abstract like being able to dodge swings, parry attacks, feint with your weapon to lesson a blow. More subtle things that someone who has been in a lot of combat situations can do to survive. So when the hill giant clubs the fighter for 27 damage, his ability to roll with the blow or get his head out of the way are represented as damage. Where a lower level fighter may take the blow full on and be killed. Otherwise fights would just be 1 to 3 hits and done. Not very epic

If you wanted to go to a system with more fleshed out avoidance and micro combat mechanics then you could get away with not bloating hp but I don’t know about a system like that

That's too realistic for what I'm looking for, sadly. Marvel Heroics was closer.

You put it into words quite a bit better than I did, in just one sentence. Yes, what I'm looking for is a system with more fleshed out avoidance and micro combat mechanics. That's exactly it.

I should add, a system with more fleshed out avoidance and micro combat mechanics that is still at it's core a medium fantasy, medium power game with magic and dungeons and crap. Not medieval combat simulator.

Savage Worlds has no HP bloat. You have your toughness, that needs to be surpassed to get dealt a wound, but all Wildcards can take three wounds, and extras go down after first wound. In general, SW character progression is more horizontal, on advancements most often you learn new tricks rather than increase your numbers in anything.

>Playing something that has level
>Complains about HP bloat

Try GURPS, HP is around 10-20 range normally and the combat is lethal, especially when you use the wounds and bleeding rules, the system relies entirely on skills, characters develop by increasing their skills or gaining new ones, it's on of the few rare systems where every defense counts, but if you use it in a fantasy setting it's more forgiving due healing spells, and even then, act stupidly and you're as good as dead.

>If you conceptualize this flaw as something else is seems less glaring!
How apologists pls go

Yes, but HP bloat in games like DnD ends up with scenarios where a fighter has so many HP that he can simply jump off of a tower, land and take a hundred damage, and keep trucking as though he just got dinged by a goblin's arrow.

Where HP ends up just being a massive pool that deals with enviromental effects as well as combat damage -- and especially where there are no wound penalties -- then HP basically just becomes a metric of "Am I upright or not?" With Shadowrun and WoD, you at least have penalties for having accrued large amounts of damage, whereas in DnD, you can just keep popping a weak heal on a dying character and they pop up right-as-rain until they get bonked back down.

That sounds pretty good, I'll check that out as soon as I can get my hands on a PDF. Will need to dig around. Thanks for this, I don't think I would've checked this out otherwise.

Two of my close friends have warned me that GURPS, this is a direct quote, "always turns into a total shitshow." With two recommendations in this thread, though, I'll likely check it out anyway, thanks.

Yeah I see your point. I’m not trying to argue that DnD does level progrssion perfectly, I think what it does best is give a foundation for roleplaying and adventuring.

>been told multiple times by people I trust to never try it.

Apart from the fact that everyone is entiled to have an opinion, that's a pretty retard advice. Just give a read to the gurps lite manual, even if you don't like it in the best of cases you can find some interesting concept to use in other games, in the worst case you'll have formed a better definition on what you (and not your friends) not like about a ttrpg design.

GURPS is a tool set so it's as good as the GM running it, you can be as crunchy as you want or just play loose and fun, by the way, since you're fantasy you better check the Dungeon Fantasy RPG box set, it's a self contained experience streamlined towards dungeon crawling so better start with that.

Yes.

Which is why I play wfrp (which comes with its own problems with Toughness bonuses mind)

Nice blog

Also, pic related

Play Mythras.

I did, actually. It was a lot better than I expected and I had a lot of fun.
In the end it wasn't what I was looking for, though.

WFRP is fucking trash.

>Think of it more abstract like being able to dodge swings, parry attacks, feint with your weapon to lesson a blow.
Then what is AC?

>have been told multiple times by people I trust to never try it
Imagine being this much of a retard and formulate your opinions exclusively on what others told you.

How about being someone who decides he doesn't have time to learn a system after being told non-stop that it's hot garbage?
I get like 2 hours of free time when it's not the weekend, pal.

Yeah, this really bothers me too. Probably not the right genre you're looking for, but Call of Cthulhu does this. Granted, there aren't any levels in that system, characters progress through other means.

>2018
>Willingly playing WFRP
Let me guess - it was the first TTRPG you ever played and the only you ended up playing for past 20 years, right?
I'm willing to bet you are a dirty Pollack, too.

>Then what is AC?
Nothing! Go away! Nothing to see here!

>Then what is AC?
This kills the HP apologist.

I still fail to see the point. Unless you are suggesting reading 33 pages (including images) is a task that exceeds not only 20 minutes, but 2 hours mark and thus means it's better to hear what others have to tell than checking on your own.

I've been told Cyberpunk 2020 is irredeemable wreck of aged rules. Spend 1 hour reading said rules. And while I get the sentiment toward them, I find the game fun enough to run it.
What's your excuse, aside 'but they told me to' you fucking idiot?

I've already told you my "excuse."
I'm a busy man, and if my trusted friends tell me it's shit I'm not going to bother checking it out. I know what kinds of things they like and dislike, and if they dislike something so vehemently, there's a damn good chance I'll share that opinion. Seeing as I'm not dying to know about GURPS, I'm perfectly fine with letting it be.
But I see this is a fundamental issue of worldview, here. Let's agree to disagree before you have an aneurysm, alright?

Not him and forget gurps, i'm not gonna argue about it, but anything you say doesn't make sense: you say you're not gonna waste time on something since you "have no time", how can you trust some stranger over a mongolian board about committing some of yours precious time on their suggestions? Are you gonna ask your friends again? In wich case why are you asking us?

Didn't Starfinder make some major changes to HP/AC? What did they do?

I don't see what's so confusing.
I'm here asking for suggestions on a topic. I will then spend time investigating the suggestions that seem interesting. I'm a busy man, so I won't go into too much detail on them unless they really grab me (such as Savage Worlds has). I don't trust a random stranger on a tibetan basketweaving forum more than my friends, but my friends don't have the information that said random strangers do. I literally cannot ask my friends about this. If my friends, which I understand and know very well, of course, had a wealth of information on this topic, why would I be here? A mass of anonymous posters will always produce good suggestions eventually, if you keep asking or if you find them on a good day.
No offense, but are you autistic?

Maybe he's just afraid of forming his own opinion.

Tell me, do you go out of your way to form an opinion on everything your friends hate?

>Yes, but HP bloat in games like DnD ends up with scenarios where a fighter has so many HP that he can simply jump off of a tower, land and take a hundred damage, and keep trucking as though he just got dinged by a goblin's arrow.
Which any DM with a brain will respond with "Your legs completely shatter on impact. Your speed is reduced to 5ft. While you crawl around for a month think about why metagaming is damaging."

I form my opinions regardless of what my friends think.

Flaws in the system shouldn't require the GM to fix them every time they come up. They shouldn't even be there.

AC is how hard you are to hit naturally. HP is a measure of your experience in avoiding fatal blows.

>but cure wou-
Schrodinger's wound. It's everything and nothing until treated.

So you take the time to form an informed opinion on absolutely everything, then? How do you decide that something isn't worth your time? Are you incapable of doing so without first spending 15 minutes with it?

I'm going to bet it's copy/pasted straight from d20 modern

>So you take the time to form an informed opinion on absolutely everything, then?
That's right.

How do you find the time to be alive? Are you unemployed? Do you have no hobbies, no friends, no family? Is your life just ceaseless education? That's almost inspiring.

No, I'm just not an ignorant moron.

Rules for every little thing is how games get fucked up with shitty rules in the first place. There are times when you have to take a stand and say "Stop being a cunt".

you sure you're not just a huge autist?

Nevermind, here other suggestions:
>Basic Roleplaying
>The Burning Wheel
>Rolemaster
>Fate
>Harnmaster
>Fatal
>Google

Since you're gonna basketweaving with your friends i'll just post whatever came to my mind... or you can just type "tabletop rpg list" on google and click the "i'm feeling lucky" button

How about instead of adding 20 clauses to a busted HP system you just make the HP system not fundamentally busted?

See, now you're just listing random popular things I've likely already seen. That's not valuable. But that's alright, I can just ignore those suggestions and use the good ones. That's how decision-making is done. Am I making sense yet?

Or you just punish people for being cunts?

Which is better, fixing a bad system for every game that'll use the system, or hoping that every GM will manage to come up with bandaid fixes that are not only satisfactory but do not upset the players at the table?

I have this image in my mind of a little goblin-man lurking a forum or social media, looking for people talking about things he hasn't heard of, then disappearing into the mists to binge an entire series in one go, or read a whole book without pause, so that one day he will be able to have a conversation about it and show off his intellectual superiority.

You punish cunts for being cunts. That concept might be difficult for you to understand but if someone is being disruptive with a smile on his face like a fucking wetback dreamer then you show him the door.

Play AD&D or B/X

>Hit dice stop at level 9
>Wizards have a d4 hit die
>On average a level 9 wizard is gonna have 23hp, enough to take a couple hits, but he's going to fucked in a fight especially because he loses his spell if he is hit while casting

You could prevent this instance of "cunt" by just not having the system be broken to begin with.
I fail to see why the GM has to be responsible for fixing the fuck-ups of the system designers. I mean, he will inevitably be doing so, it's part of the gig, yeah, but said designers could at least try to leave as few fuck-ups in as possible.

>absolutely everything
Bitch, i think it's implyied that you have a personal interest over ttrpg. If you don't find time for things you like (about fucking 20 minute of reading, is not that complicated and not a sacrifice since you like it) then why bother?

Precisely

I like video games too.
Should I be spending time trying out literally every game that ever comes out, no matter what anyone says about it?

No but you formed over the course of time your own tastes and subgenre interests, it's not like they came out of the blue by their own... or you just asked your friends? Have you suggested something to them? If yes how the fuck have you formed an opinion about that?

Fate is my first suggestion. It’s very toolbox-oriented, and a bit hand-wavey. But if you’ve got a group with good chemistry and solid improv skills, Fate does a great job of facilitating some fucking awesome collaborative stories. In terms of how it handles HP, every character has a small handful of stress boxes that they can use to tank a couple hits, but past that, they’re assigned “Consequences.” These are short descriptions of what kind of injury they suffured, and apply escalating penalties to any activities that might be impaired by that it. Character growth is about how your place within the narrative evolves over time, so the stress boxes and consequence slots you start with are probably what you’ll end with.

My second suggestion is Traveller. Nominally, it’s a sci-fi system, but with a little tweaking, I’ve found it makes a decent dungeon crawler, too. Your core attributes function as your hit points, so as you take damage, you become less and less effective at strenuous tasks. Because damage can accrue quickly, and character progression is almost nonexistant, the system heavily encourages creative problem solving. It’s definitely in your players’ best interest to engineer their circumstances such that they can achieve success with as little dice rolling and as many bonuses as possible.

There’s quite a few editions of each system, so if either one is piquing your interest, I suggest posting in the Fate or Trav generals that pop up every now and then. My personal favs are Fate Core and Mongoose Traveller 1st edition, for what it’s worth.

Tell me, if you're not meant to try absolutely everything available in your sphere of interests, what's the problem with avoiding something based on the opinions of other people? People whose opinions you understand and know how to utilize?
Is it really so bad to think "there is a high chance I will not like this. I don't care enough to find out." in your world?
Does the simple fact that someone disliked something compel you to find out more about it just so you can prove them objectively wrong or something?

AC is how good your armor is at absorbing or deflecting blows

The fuck is that base 10 AC everyone has then?
What about dodge and DEX bonuses?
C'mon, man.

Hey, thanks for the insightful post. I've looked into Fate already, but not Traveller. Will definitely check it out.

If everyone starts at 10 then what does it matter if you call it 10 or 0 or 1000?. I don’t see your point

>I sincerely hate the fact that a Wizard who has not once taken damage from level 1 to 10 can now somehow survive 5 level 1 bandits stabbing his kidneys for multiple turns by just standing.

There's your problem OP. HP isn't a hard number that just represents your health. It represents stamina and durability as well as health. It's a percentage thing.

At level 1, if you have 10 health and you take 5 damages that's 50% of your health. That's a particularly nasty stab wound or slash at your torso.

If you are level 10 and have 100 HP and take 5 damage that's only 5%. That's a shallow stab to the arm or a glancing hammer blow.

If your level 20 and have 200 HP then take 5 damage, that's just 2.5% and it means they hit your armor and you got a little hurt by the rattling of your chest piece

I see you too have a dodge bonus to AC with that post.
How about you don't sidestep the other half of that, huh?

There's your solution, OP. (Even though he's wrong on the hit die issue at least where 2e is concerned).

>Tell me, if you're not meant to try absolutely everything available in your sphere of interests, what's the problem with avoiding something based on the opinions of other people?
That maybe, MAYBE, you can have parameters, similar on surface with your friends but very different in depth, and not being aware of.

>People whose opinions you understand and know how to utilize?
Is it really so bad to think "there is a high chance I will not like this. I don't care enough to find out." in your world?
Not. At. All. The point in fact is not the fact that you don't want to try something for whatever reason, but the fact that you don't needed this thread to begin with, another probably more interesting thread is dead when a simple google search would be enough. You're just a lazy fuck.

>Does the simple fact that someone disliked something compel you to find out more about it just so you can prove them objectively wrong or something?
I couldn't care less what you play or like, but this board is Veeky Forums, we "argue" about tabletop games and you're not

OP here. You're talking to someone else, not me. Stop shitting up my thread.

>why is there a need for an ever-increasing health number?
Can't have people's special snowflakes dying.

Which is strange, because with the way it works you're very likely to die at early levels, when you haven't really had a chance to play the character.

And then you quickly become effectively immortal.

In dungeon world, you HP is based almost exclusively off your starting class and your constitution. Health is decently high, but it never really gets higher past level 1, unless you increase your constitution (which can't go past 18).

As long as you like PbtA and D&D, it should work for you. It does have high hp, but there isn't an increase as you level up.

My point is that AC is total avoidance of being hit. HP represents being able to endure small hits or things that wear you down in combat

Bite my shiny tentacled ass.

WFRP 2e. You have wounds, moreso than Mythras, but the enemies meant to be tough can still fuck you up hardcore.
Anyone who doesn't use shields or wear armor is pretty much praying for enemies to miss, and you gain talents/stat-ups/spells as you gain experience, even though there are no clear cut levels.

WFRP is awful, stop recommending it to unsuspecting newbies.

>One of my biggest pet peeves in tabletop is what I've coined "HP bloat."

The term "HP bloat" has been around since long before you started shitting up the hobby. Don't pretend you coined it, you aren't fooling anyone.

t. contrarian retard

WFRP is goat fun

GURPS.

>Any given year
>Playing WFRP 2e
Pole detected

DnD also has you fight monsters that would be quite capable of dealing the same damage as a terminal fall. It's just a method to stop rocket tag, where the first landed hit would instantly kill you at higher levels

Started gming/playing shadowrun 4e for the first time. So far firefights have been quick and very deadly. With lucky pistol shots nearly out right killing the PCs..... im i doing something wrong or is this the lethality that the game was designed for? Because my group REALLY likes the fact that theu can die really easy since it adds tension.

How about you treat HP as dodge / fatigue, and when down to zero or on a crit, damage comes straight off CON. Zero CON and you're dead. Zero HP means staggered and vulnerable

That's normal for Shadowrun. A particularly quick character can dodge bullets frequently and a particularly tough character/a prepped mage can soak damage like it's not even happening, but everyone else dies pretty quickly.

Haven't played it myself, but Interlock Unlimited seems to do exactly what you're asking for. You dont gain hp after character creation except through gear and armor

WFRP is all kinds of farmyard animal fun, but mechanically it's a dog's ass.

I'd say GURPS from experience. Check put GURPS lite to get a free and basic understanding of the system, and to see how simple it can be. If you DO get it, just remember that there are a TON of rules, but the vast majority are optional to make your game as simulationalist or narrativist as you'd personally like. I've seen GURPS campaigns time I to unfun slogs because of indecisive and nitpicky GM's, and I've played ones that were fun because the GM had a solid grasp of what should and shouldn't apply in his world. Heavily relies on GM understanding, super rewarding when done well. Good luck, and have fun regardless of your choice!

The Dark Eye has a really solid system that makes use of magic and magical items completely optional while preserving many possible action choices. It's a bit rolling-heavy, though (most checks being three ability rolls that you bolster with your skill score).

In Strike! players start every encounter with 10 HP (barring spending a feat on getting a bit more).

This doesn't go up with levels, only damage and enemy health (and damage).

Amen to that

>you can jump out of a 10 story building and survive because you dodged the impact

Systems without levels can still have progression.

Usually, your character improves by becoming more accurate, better at defending themselves and by widening their tactical options, rather than the straight ladder progression of a level based system.

You dont need mmo levels to.have those other things. And your mmo levels dont need to give you hp linearly or even at all. I think the majority of ttrpgs do not have hp bloat, its just nu dnd and its bandwagoners that do.