# Savage Worlds - Hit Point System?



## Wik (Jan 27, 2011)

Okay, first off, I think it's kind of funny that ENWorld has "rules systems" for RIFTS, Spycraft, and BESM, and not for Savage Worlds.  But whatever.

Second, does anyone know of a rules variant that replaces the RAW damage system in Savage Worlds with a hit point version?  I ask because my group likes Savage Worlds, but hates the damage system, and I'm inclined to agree with them.  A hit point based system would be a great help.

I was thinking of running a few sessions soon, to cure some of the "4e blues" I've been suffering lately.

Thanks in advance!


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## pjrake (Jan 27, 2011)

I was thinking the same thing! Wil check the boards over at SW but I'm interested in a HP system too.

-PJ


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## nerfherder (Jan 27, 2011)

I'm pretty sure I've seen one posted on either rpg.net or the SW boards.  A quick search should find it.


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## MortonStromgal (Jan 27, 2011)

Look at Cortex, its very much like a house ruled Savage Worlds and I believe it uses hit points. Should be easy to adapt.


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## Corathon (Jan 27, 2011)

I also find the Savage Worlds damage rules to be unsatisfying. I'd be interested in seeing a variant, but I'm not sure that my GM would share that interest.


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## Greg K (Jan 27, 2011)

I, actually, like the damage system.

Shaken includes those impacts that knock you off balance or out of position, distract you with momentary pain (e.g., a slap across the face or to the groin), etc., but do no lasting or serious damage.

And, I like the Incapacitation table.

Is  the problem incapacitation results and lethality?  If so, you are supposed to adjust incapacitation based on the lethality of your setting. This has been done in several third party supplements and PEG's free Crime City (in which incapacitation was made even more lethal). To help GMs, Clint Black, the Brand Manager, posted dials for adjusting lethality from Cartoony to very Gritty over at the PEG forum. I can provide a link if anyone wants to check it out.


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## beldar1215 (Jan 27, 2011)

Greg K said:


> I, actually, like the damage system.
> 
> Shaken includes those impacts that knock you off balance or out of position, distract you with momentary pain (e.g., a slap across the face or to the groin), etc., but do no lasting or serious damage.
> 
> ...




I have to agree. The damage system is one of the things that drew me to the system. I love not having to count and track HP.

Beldar


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## Corathon (Jan 27, 2011)

_De gustibus_ and all that. It just bothers me that my character could shoot a high toughness character and hit him time after time without doing any lasting damage to him. E.g. most pistols are 2d6+1 IIRC, and if the character has Toughness 12 (possible with the right edges) I'd need to ace to even shake him.

The default incapacitation table is very lethal, and I think that incapacitated characters who aren't killed outright tend to die way too quickly. One doesn't usually bleed to death in 5 seconds.

 What kills characters iME is going from unhurt to Incapacitated in one high damage roll. Then, with wound penalties, the roll to not be dead on the incapacitation table is very difficult.


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## Wik (Jan 27, 2011)

Corathon said:


> What kills characters iME is going from unhurt to Incapacitated in one high damage roll. Then, with wound penalties, the roll to not be dead on the incapacitation table is very difficult.




This was one of the problems we've faced.  It works with NPCs fine, but with PCs, it can get kind of annoying to get shaken every round, have to make a check to lose your shaken status, and then not take actions.  And then, suddenly, BANG!  You're dead.

It kind of sucks to have to save your bennies for damage soak rolls, instead of using them for stunts, which is how the game usually goes for us.  Every single player in the group that's played it, as well as myself (the GM) agree that the game would be near perfect for us were it not for the damage system.   

We also hate the healing system in the game, as it becomes very difficult to have wounds that really feel like "wounds".  

I was thinking of the Cortex System, which is another system I really like, but the damage system there isn't much better in my experience.  While I could transplant the damage system in Cortex over to Savage Worlds, I have a feeling they wouldn't mesh very well - Cortex rules don't have exploding dice, whereas that's one of the big draws to Savage Worlds.  But I think the Cortex system might be a good starting point, at least - worth checking out.

The other one I'm looking at is Earthdawn's damage system.  As the game uses exploding dice, and in fact has a resolution system somewhat similar to Cortex with the addition of exploding dice, it could work.  As with any damage system that uses exploding dice, it suffers from the "you're fine, now you're dead" problem, but probably not to the degree that Savage Worlds has it.  Plus, the Earthdawn wound system is a pretty tight, elegant little mechanic.


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## Wik (Jan 27, 2011)

Greg K said:


> Is  the problem incapacitation results and lethality?  If so, you are supposed to adjust incapacitation based on the lethality of your setting.




It's not just lethality and incapacitation, although that is part of it.  A big part has to do with the "shaken" condition, and how that can often lead to missed turns.  Another big part has to do with how players look at their character sheets - if they're at 50% hit points, they might be a bit more careful than they'd be at 100%.  You don't have that health gauge in Savage Worlds, which some people call a blessing - my players don't necessarily like that.

The Death Spiral effect in Savage Worlds is also a huge turnoff, to the point where I have two players who refuse to play in games with Death Spirals, for fairly legitimate reasons that I won't fault them for.  (Personally, I like death spirals, but the one in Savage Worlds is pretty brutal).  

In short, my players grew up with HP, and prefer HP over everything else.  I can't really fault them for it.


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## havard (Jan 27, 2011)

Interesting. The lack of HP is one of the reasons I like SW.

It should probably be pretty easy to add it as a feature though. I would probably give a set number of HP to all characters, since they can improve toughness and parry and you dont need another variable.

-Havard


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## amerigoV (Jan 28, 2011)

Wik said:


> In short, my players grew up with HP, and prefer HP over everything else.  I can't really fault them for it.




You should.


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## nerfherder (Jan 28, 2011)

nerfherder said:


> I'm pretty sure I've seen one posted on either rpg.net or the SW boards.  A quick search should find it.




Hmm, I did some searching when I had a free moment, and couldn't find anything.  I'll look again later.

<edit> Here's something, although I'm not sure if it's the article I was thinking of: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=481533


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## Stormonu (Jan 28, 2011)

The damage track of SW is one of the things I really like, as is.  You can take all kinds of nicks, scratches and near-blows and really only have to worry about those hits that REALLY nail you without tracking hundreds of HP.  I also like the "death spiral" to D&D's "Your perfectly fine or your dead" approach.

  However, if you want to have hit points, just assign a number of HP to each of the tracks, say like 3HP or 5HP for each SW hit point.  Or, perhaps HP/SW wound level equal to the character's Vigor die*, and change the target number to 4 to cause a HP of damage (each raise would do +1 damage).  You could remove the effect of shaken for PCs and NPCs and keep the damage system/shaken effect for normal enemies so the GM doesn't have to do so much tracking.

* Someone with a d6 Vigor would have 6 HP per wound level, or 18 hit points.  A person with d8 Vigor would have 8 HP pre level or 24 HP total.  If that's too much, you could do 1/2 Vigor die, 1/2 Vigor die + 2 or any such combination depending on how tough you want characters to be.


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## Bavix (Jan 28, 2011)

*Just Double it.*

Since Toughness is mostly the deciding factor on whether a character takes a wound or not, I'd say the best thing to do would be to just double the wounds a Wild Card can take before becoming Incapacitated. Give All Wild Cards 6 wounds and only count every other wound as a penalty to Trait checks (2 wounds = -1, 4 wounds = -2, 6 wounds = -3, and 7 wounds = Incapacitated).


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## ValhallaGH (Jan 30, 2011)

We can cobble together an HP system pretty quickly.  We just need a few questions answered.

One: Do you want wound penalties (and their associated death spiral)?
Two: Do you want to keep Soak as an option?
Three: Shaken, or similar effects?  If not, what's the Raise benefit for Tricks and Tests of Will?
Four: How lethal do you want it to be?
Five: When do you want Wild Cards to die?

Off the cuff, I'd just multiply non-armor Toughness by 3.  Attack, hit, roll damage, subtract armor from damage, reduce hp.  Extras multiply by 1.


I find myself really liking the effects of giving all my PCs Hard to Kill under the current rules.  They ignore wound penalties for Incapacitation, which means a lot of "Six wounds!  A Raise!  He's still up and fighting, barely fazed by the seemingly devastating attack!"  Recovering from Shaken is still an issue, but they can spend a benny to automatically act.


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## Adoamros (Apr 27, 2011)

Hate to bump old threads but this may be useful to someone in the future. My group and I also disliked the shaken/wound system RAW in savage worlds. I designed a solution, it's still green in play-testing but seems to work very well:



Bavix said:


> Since Toughness is mostly the deciding factor on whether a character takes a wound or not, I'd say the best thing to do would be to just double the wounds a Wild Card can take before becoming Incapacitated. Give All Wild Cards 6 wounds and only count every other wound as a penalty to Trait checks (2 wounds = -1, 4 wounds = -2, 6 wounds = -3, and 7 wounds = Incapacitated).




I took a similar approach because I love wounds in SW, just not how much shaken comes into play. It's downright annoying at times, due to it being able to take PCs pretty much out of action and make hitting and damaging enemies unsatisfying if they recover the next round (this is meant to be blanketed by GM description). It seems to actually slow down play for us, because we like seeing actual incremental results on a damaging hit.

Creatures are no longer shaken when they get hit in combat. If a hit surpasses toughness they're immediately wounded. This wound can be anything from a bruise to a severed head (generally reserving the more gruesome descriptions for extras and minions and heavy hits).

I made this formula for Wild Cards. Each PC has a certain amount of 'wound slots', depending on certain variables.
_
Wound slots = 1/2 vigor + 3_

Wounds now look like this (each [] = one wound slot):

(Incap) [-3] [-2] [-1] [  ] [d4] [d6] [d8] [d10] [d12]

Wild Cards also gain an additional wound slot every time they gain a rank (up to 4 additional wound slots at Legendary). They can also take an edge to get a wound slot (I called it 'Meat Shield' and gave it Novice, Spirit d8+ req's). Max. wound slot amount is 14 (vigor d12, legendary, meat shield edge). Although you don't have to include that edge.

_Example_: Azara is a seasoned character with a vigor of d8. 1/2 her vigor is 4. Adding 3 she has a base wound slot amount equal to 7. She also gained another wound slot when she became a seasoned hero. Azara has a total of eight wounds she can take before becoming incapacitated.

This system makes PCs more durable, which I think caters more to a D&D style of play. It also increases the power curve slightly as characters gain ranks. I'm undecided on whether or not I want to put raise caps on damage, we'll see how it comes into play. 

For NPC's and monsters, I've created a new tier and modified the extras.

*Extra/minion*: This creature only has one wound slot. Once it's hit, it's incap'ed. 

*Elite*: This creature is a bit more advanced than an extra. It has a number of wound slots equal to 1/2 its vigor die. 'Elite' doesn't necessarily mean it has received more training or is gifted, it merely means the creature is tougher and needs to be concentrated on more than an extra.'

*Wild Card*: These creatures and NPCs use the same formula for wound slots as the player characters. They can also use bennies.

Hope this post helps a bit.


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## amerigoV (Apr 27, 2011)

(I'll admit, I cringe at making SW more D&D-like. I find SW as it is runs more like the old 1e games I remember from my youth (fast, hard hitting) than 3.x or 4e, but that aside).

Did you pull out the Bennie/Soak system on the damage side? It seems to me escalating wounds plus soaking would make PCs nearly invincible.


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## Adoamros (Apr 27, 2011)

Understood, I've created this house rule since I run savage worlds a bit differently than how it is usually played, among the other reasons I listed.

I haven't removed the soak rule since I've established this mechanic. My players usually spend bennies on failed trait checks (more often than not all in one go <__>). But, I see your point. I may limit soaking to once per session, meaning only one benny can be spent on soaking. I'll see how it plays out.


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## amerigoV (Apr 27, 2011)

There was a recent thread on Pinnacles forums about how to run a more gritty game. One idea (among many good ones) was you needed 2 bennies to soak. That might tie in well with the expanded number of wounds (although I would only charge 1 bennie to reroll a failed soak).


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## Adoamros (Apr 27, 2011)

I'll go look for that, unless you have a link. I hadn't heard of anyone tinkering so heavily with the core wound mechanic of the game, that I thought it might be a sin. I'm glad to see any other house rules other people have made regarding this.


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## enpeze66 (Apr 28, 2011)

Well, I dont see much advantage in introducing a HP system. SW is designed not as DnD. Each piece of the rules is stongly intereconnected. If you take out something it should be with good reason and substituted with a well thought out rule.

With a HP system probably combat becomes much slower. Everybody has to track HPs and the GM cannot throw anymore dozens of enemies or allies against each other. Our typical SW combats are ca. 20+ combatants. Our biggest SW combat was 125 combatants. We were able to finish this unforgettable and formidable combat in only 3.5h or so. (roleplaying included) 

I doubt that this would be possible with a new HP rule where you have to keep track of so many  creatures life energy. Even smaller combat with only a few dozen combatants would be slowed to a crawl, IMO. One of the strong SW advantages (large full-action skirmishes in comparable short time) would be gone.

But one thing this whole thread shows. There IS a demand out there for a game system which is as simple, direct, complete and effective like SW but also a little bit more deterministic and "tamer" than SW.


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## Warbringer (Jul 31, 2013)

The main problem is the "shaken" conditon that is effectively action denial.

Try -2 and -1 conditions for failure and success on Spirit check rather than lockdown (bennies are too much fun to waste of action denial)


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## herrozerro (Aug 1, 2013)

Warbringer said:


> The main problem is the "shaken" conditon that is effectively action denial.
> 
> Try -2 and -1 conditions for failure and success on Spirit check rather than lockdown (bennies are too much fun to waste of action denial)




It is action denial, but there are free actions you can use like move for instance.

And it is also a condition you can remove at any time with a bennie.


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## oz_chandler (Jan 5, 2014)

i think most of the posters are over-thinking the fix here.  toughness x3 = hit points for wild cards; change nothing else.  gone are the multiple hits that do nothing until a threshold is reached and then nothing happens until another threshold is reached.  let's face it, how much book keeping does it take to keep track of a few wild cards at most during a combat session for a GM?  mooks still die after a successful attack from the pc's and the wild cards have a better idea of their health when the hit points get lower.

imho it takes more player and gm attention to remember the adjustments to wild cards depending on their wound level than to subtract a few points from a single source.

i've talked to clint black at several gencons about an official variant/optional rule for hit points, but that addition will never happen.  so for our group who loves savage worlds, it's the fix that works well.


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## amerigoV (Jan 5, 2014)

oz_chandler said:


> imho it takes more player and gm attention to remember the adjustments to wild cards depending on their wound level than to subtract a few points from a single source.




As a GM of Savage Worlds, I do disagree. The system as written allows me to keep my eyes on the table, not tracking HPs. We use visual markers for wounds, so its easy to know what penalties are in play for wounds. I just cringe anytime I play a HP based system now. But to each their own.


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