What would be a good name for 1/4 hp ?

[MoutonRustique]

Hello, I'm seeking the wisdom of the forums on this question : What would be a good name for 1/4 of your hit points ?

The context being as follows : we already have [Healing Surge Value] as a number to which modifiers can be applied. Now, I want to be able to inflict hp damage equal to 1/4 total on a fairly regular basis. I will be integrating (and changing) many effects to key off this value : SC, curses, magic item use cost, etc...

I would like this to be it's own value (which will also be able to be modified), and I want something better than [1/4 your total hp].

I've been trying to come up with something, but I'm stuck on [Wound]... which doesn't convey what I'm trying to get at here : a serious "blow" to moral, or body, or... you know, everything that hp can represent. I've also thought of [Set Back], but... you know, not feeling it.

So there, I'm hoping that greater minds will offer solutions - or jumping off points. It feels kind of stupid to ask for (probably) a single word, but then again, I've been stuck on this for a good while now. So I figure staying stuck for fear of being stupid, actually is - so yeah.

[dariathalon]

I don't really have any ideas to contribute for a name. I do have a question though. Why do you want to do this? I'd be seriously annoyed if I were wanting to play a class with higher intrinsic hp value. They are meant to be tougher than the other classes, that is part of the balance built into the game. If you fairly regularly are saying the warden and the psion are each losing 1/4 of their hit points, then I think the warden's player should have every right to be annoyed.

I'm not saying this sort of thing can't be done from time to time, a very similar mechanic is already built into a few monsters who steal healing surges in addition to hit points, but those are few and far between, for good reason.

[OracleofWuffing]

The first thing that comes to mind is "Quarter." Which is probably a complete end-run around the fluff but the meaning is quickly understood.

As half HP is "Bloodied," a step back from that would mentally put me at "Bruised," even though I'm well aware there can be cases that being bruised can be worse than bloody in real life. The bonus point to that thought is that one can have a "Bruised ego," so it makes lateral sense to the non-meat hit point idea.

[darkbard]

Staggered?

[Yakk]

The base HP of a 4e character is Level*4+16. (this is what a con-10 low HP character gets).

Divide that by 4, and get "4+Level".

1/4 the HP of a high-HP 4e character is about 6+Level*1.5.

So, instead of nullifying the HP of high-HP builds, consider using "Level+4" damage, where "level" is the level of the challenge. (By using the challenge level instead of the character level, we also prevent nullifying power gain from leveling up).

[MoutonRustique]

Thanks for your ideas and interest.

For what it's worth, one way I'm going to use this approach is to replace HS loss from SC and such by damage. If I didn't use a percentage, I'd exponentially advantage those with higher hp pools - it would equate to, not only them having more hp, but also, more healing surges. One situation where this will be used is that when players face a sudden encounter, instead of having lost some HS, they'll start the encounter with lost hp.

I'm not saying it's the best mechanic ever, or that it's for everyone and every situation, but it's something that I want to try out.

[ThePurple]

For what it's worth, one way I'm going to use this approach is to replace HS loss from SC and such by damage.

I've completely redone the math and design for skills and SCs from the ground up, but, rather than having SCs just take away HSs, I have them deal a damage roll (with an average value based upon the level of the SC) while allowing players to spend HSs at-will during combat without having to use their second wind or whatever (which parses to the same thing as HS loss without the massive chunkiness of entire HSs).

I've always disliked how SCs just ate entire HSs, since that's a super chunky amount of damage that disproportionately affects characters that make an effort to beef up their hp. It's not like damage is any harder to calculate or track than HS loss, especially since damage in combat explicitly tracks to level.

[Yakk]

HS loss for exhaustion makes sense.

HS loss for "you triggered a trap" doesn't.

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Suppose you want to roll damage, and want a modest amount of damage on a business card.

Low is based off of 4 HP/level heros, Medium off 5 HP/level and High off 6 HP/level heros.

Roll 1d, plus 1d for every 5 levels (round up) of the challenge, +2d for every tier after heroic.

For Low damage use d6, for Medium d8 and High d10s.

This generates *about* 25% of the "target character"s HP in damage. At the start of each tier, it bumps up to 35% ("welcome to paragon" fear) before falling over the tier.

So a level 24 high damage threat is (1d) base, (4d) epic, (5d) for level, d10 for high damage -- 10d10. That'll about take out a healing surge worth of damage on a Defender or equivalent.

Feel free to use d12s or even 2d6s for "OMG" damage. That is the kind of damage that risks 1-hit dropping a 4HP/level class if you roll well, or bloodying a defender in one shot.

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Now how to pick? Well, environmental damage that hits a foe "at random", or hurts everyone, should use Low (Every round, everyone must make an endurance check or take damage -- d6s). Things where the character is doing something modestly dangerous should use Medium for damage (jumping between buildings, and failing, during a challenge -- d8s.). Blatantly risking the challenge to hurt you should use High (using your shield to block the fire blast from the demon engine, and failing -- d10s). And doing something crazy (using your body to connect the loose wires together the magical lightning-based storm controller) should do OMG damage (d12s or 2d6s).

Fragile characters who act cautiously should be taking Low damage expressions, while characters who solve things through increased self-risk of damage take successively higher damage expressions. If the wizard does something stupid (stands in front of a fire blast), they'll get more damage than they are built for (unless, say, they also have resist 20 fire).