Hit Points (Alternate Rule)

Alternate Rule: Hit Points

Earlier editions of the Mutants & Masterminds game included optional rules for using the time honored table-top tradition of hit points, mostly as an afterthought and to reach match player expectations of the time. However, the current third edition rules have ignored the option, having stepped fully into its own. Some of us still aren’t ready to let go.

Why Hit Points?
Hit points are a game mechanic used to represent a character’s proximity to incapacitation or death; the same purpose as the damage resistance check in Mutants & Masterminds. Both are abstract and neither simulates actual injury. While both approaches have merit, hit points do two things that a Toughness check usually doesn’t. Hit points force players to manage their hit points like any other finite resource and create an atmosphere that is more reminiscent of certain gaming experiences such as that of exploring a fantasy dungeon or wilderness populated with monsters.

What Hit Points Represent

While debatable, hit points (especially in most tabletop games) are an abstraction of a character’s ability to persevere and may represent luck, physical endurance, morale, skill or some combination of these. In some settings, hit points may have an explicit nature which applies to all characters as objectively as the game allows while in others, hit points might mean different things to different characters (or objects).

When hit points are less abstract they tend to be a purely physical representation, and are determined mostly by a character’s size and strength. In these cases, there must be an upper limit to hit points to preserve a sense of realism; if hit points are physical, a human shouldn’t be able to have more of them than a wall does. Unfortunately, real life isn’t always realistic and people can and do survive astonishing injuries and a less abstract hit point system may do a poor job of allowing improbable (yet possible) survival, at least without gamemaster intervention or lots and lots of dice rolling.

When hit points are abstract, more important characters tend to have hit points that scale to match, while less important ones have a lower (and usually intractable) value. The extra ‘plot protection’ can be a very good thing if players are to identify with their characters over the course of an extended gameplay experience, particularly when great care (not to mention time) is taken in creating those characters. The down side to this is that improbable survival can become commonplace, especially without additional rules to enforce realism or discourage risks that defy rational thought like leaping from extraordinary heights because “I’m at full hit points, I can take it!”

Ultimately, each group should decide how abstract hit points will be during play to best fit the needs of that group, the game setting and the desired play style. In fact, hit points may not be referred to as such and choosing a different name for hit points can help set player expectations and better represent the game world. Some examples from various media include guts, health, heart, morale, vigor, vitality, and wounds.

Determining Hit Points

Just as hit points may represent different things, the number of hit points assigned to characters and objects may be determined in different ways. In Dungeons & Dragons, which originated and popularized the concept, hit points were provided tied “hit dice” and each hit die (originally a six-sided die), when rolled, provided a random number of hit points. When the concept was refined, hit dice were tied to character class and level with characters (usually) receiving one die per level and using a die size based upon the perceived durability of the class in question.

Similarly, the optional hit points rules from first edition of Mutants & Masterminds gave characters 1d6 per power level. In the game’s second edition, hit points were instead based on the character’s Constitution score or Toughness in the case of characters lacking Constitution.

In fact, the original version of Star Wars d20 had two hit point scores; the more abstract Vitality (which was handled similarly to hit pints in Dungeons & Dragons), and the more concrete Wounds which was equal to the character’s Constitution score. Characters in that system usually lose only Vitality until they run out unless subject to a critical hit or certain special damage situations, at which time Wounds would be lost until reaching a current value of -10 resulting in the character’s death. In addition, loss of Wounds caused temporary ability damage to represent the shock of injury. Some characterized the loss of Vitality as ‘sweating’ (and perhaps receiving a bruise or scratch) and the loss of Wounds as ‘bleeding’.

What follows are several options to from which to choose when determining the hit point scores for Mutants & Masterminds.

•Heroes and villains have a number of hit points equal to 1d6 per power level plus Stamina. Minions divide the amount rolled by half and gamemasters can choose whether or not to add a bonus for Stamina. Optionally, the Stamina bonus for heroes and villains can be applied to each roll, rather than to the total; Stamina + 1d6/PL. Some gamemasters may prefer to use a different ability score instead of, or even in addition to Stamina, perhaps even applying the character’s highest ability.

•Characters have hit points equal to five times their Stamina score plus 10, except minions who receive half this amount. As with the previous option, gamemasters may choose a different ability score or a combination of scores. For example, if hit points is meant aggregate the character’s over all physical conditioning, the gamemaster could use the following formula Strength*2 + Stamina*3 +10.
•Instead of hit points, characters have wounds and vitality. Wounds are equal to two times the character’s Stamina score plus 10. Vitality is equal to four times Stamina. When a character takes damage, reduce vitality first. On a critical hit, all of the damage bypasses vitality and is applied to wounds. Minions have no vitality score.

•Characters begin play with hit points equal to 10 + Stamina score points and gain 4 additional hit points per +1 Toughness defense.   

•Characters have 5 hit points per power level.

Damage

When using hit points, damage is applied against a target’s current number of hit points. Choose one of the following options for adjudicating damage:

•A successful attack with any damage effect deals hit point damage equal to 3 per damage rank.

•Hit point damage is equal to 1d6 per damage rank. If using an option with lower hit points, consider changing this to 1d6/(damage rank -2). For ranks one, two, and three use 1d4, 1d6 and 1d8, respectively.

•Attacks deal a variable amount depending on the type of attack. The average amount of damage is 3.5, but the gamemaster can choose to round this up or down. Determine the total average damage for the damage rank (damage rank x (3, 3.5, or 4) and create a unique “damage expression” based on the average result. The various dice have the following average results:

Die average result

Die Type	Average
1d2	1.5
1d3	2.0
1d4	2.5
1d6	3.5
1d8	4.5
1d10	5.5
1d12	6.5
1d20	10.5
1d30	15.5
1d100	50.5

Therefore, if a character wields a pistol with a damage rank of 3, the average damage amount is 10.5 (or 9 or 12, depending on the gamemaster’s desire for simplicity). The pistol’s damage can therefore be expressed as 3d6, 1d20, or even 1d10 + 1d6 + 1d2! In general, it is more common to use 1 type of die in a damage expression. Keep in mind that the smaller the die type, the closer to average results will be. Continuing with the example of the pistol, a 3d6 roll totaling between 8 and 13 has a likelihood of 67.58% while a result either a of 3 or an 18 happens less than 1% of the time between them. Using 1d20 to express the damage has widely varying results; each number will come up 5% of the time; thus a minimum or maximum result comes up more often. Using smaller numbers of dice with more sides can become game (or session) breaking with players who are more or less lucky.

In many games that use hit points, damage can be partially fixed and partially randomized. Our pistol could, for example, deal 1d12 + 4 points of damage, or 3d4 +3, or 1d8 + 6, any of which can reach the desired average result of 10.5 (6.5 + 4.0). When expressing damage this way, it is generally best make roughly half of the desired result random and half fixed. It’s fine for the average result of a damage expression work out to be less than the desired amount for a particular damage rank, especially if a player prefers rolling a certain type of die. 

Damage Reduction

Damage reduction is the ability to reduce the amount of damage resulting from a successful attack or use a damage effect. Damage reduction (DR, also known as damage resistance) is a numerical value which is compared to any damage dealt by an attack. Only damage in excess of a character’s damage reduction causes any loss of hit points.

Characters usually gain damage reduction through powers or other effects, such as Protection.

As with the other rules pertaining to hit points, damage reduction can be incorporated in more than one way.

•Damage reduction is equal to 2 times the character’s Toughness bonus, regardless of the source; Protection, Stamina, Defensive Roll and so on. If the bonus is limited in some way, make note of circumstances when the damage reduction doesn’t apply. A character with Stamina 2 with Protection 4 from removable armor, for example, has DR 12/4 (without armor). If the character is wearing their armor, all incoming damage is reduced by 12. Otherwise, only their Stamina score provide any reduction in damage (DR 4).

•Certain effects provide damage reduction while others don’t, depending on descriptor. Protection from “absorption”, “hardness” or “evasion” effects might provide a reduction in damage, while Stamina and Toughness only affect hit points. Characters receive between 1 and 3 points of damage reduction per effect rank The gamemaster decides the value of DR before play, deepening on how generously hit points are assigned.

•When using the lethal damage option (see the Mutants & Masterminds Gamemaster’s Guide for more information), damage reduction only applies to nonlethal damage. At the same time, damage reduction “converts” lethal damage to nonlethal damage at the same rate. In this system character with DR 10 hit with a nonlethal punch for 11 points of damage takes 1 point of nonlethal damage. If the same character is shot with a lethal pistol for 8 points of damage, the damage is converted entirely to nonlethal damage. If the pistol deals 15 points of damage, DR 10 converts most of the damage to nonlethal, but 5 points of lethal damage is also dealt. Characters should receive 3 to 5 points of DR per effect rank (chosen by the gamemaster at the start of play). What effects provide DR can be decided under the same terms as the previously discussed options.

Critical hits

No change needs to be made to the way critical hits work when using hit points when using any of the hit point options. If the character chooses an “increased effect” simply recalculate the amount of damage dealt as if the effect rank was +5. A critical hit with a damage rank 3 pistol is treated as if damage rank 8. If using “damage expressions” each player should prepare a critical hit expression for all of their most common attacks. In fact, they should do this for any options their character is capable of using to affecting damage (or simply not use them) including power attacks or accurate attacks, particularly if they choose the associated advantages for their characters.

There are few other options for critical hits, some of which work better, worse or only with other options.

•A critical hit can deal up to double damage. If damage is rolled, the character can either roll twice the number of dice normally rolled (and add double any damage modifier) or can roll normally and multiply the result by 2.

•If damage is normally rolled, the attack simply deals the maximum possible damage on a critical hit without rolling.

•Damage is determined normally, but ignores any damage reduction (or conversion) effects.

•If using the vitality and wounds (or similar) option for hit points, a critical hit ignores vitality. As usual, minions are incapacitated or killed automatically on a critical hit.

Effects Of Hit Point Damage

When using hit points, characters usually continue to function at their full capacity and do not slow or tire from the loss of hit points alone until their current hit points reach 0. Some systems add wound levels that take effect when a characters reaches a fraction of the maximum hit points. Exactly what happens to a character with 0 hit points can also vary, but the default assumption is that characters at 0 hit points are incapacitated and that further damage causes the character to begin dying.

Consider these additional options:

•Instead of becoming incapacitated, a character with 0 hit points or fewer (called negative hit points) takes on a new condition which combines dazed and hindered. Give this condition a name such as injured, stricken or wounded*. Such characters can take move actions normally, however any standard action or other strenuous activity causes the character to begin dying. Characters can take additional damage after reaching 0 hit points or fewer however once a character dies after accumulating a certain number of negative hit points. Traditionally, this is -10 hit points, however the gamemaster is free to set any number and to allow one or more traits to influence it (a negative value up to 10 plus Stamina, for example).

*Other d20 systems refer to this state as “disabled”, however in Mutants & Masterminds, disabled refers to suffering a -5 penalty on checks.

•Hit points never fall below 0 and characters are not incapacitated at 0 hit points. Instead, characters immediately make a Fortitude resistance check as soon as their hit points have been depleted. The DC of this check can be based on the damage effect rank (usually adding 10 or 15) or the amount of damage rolled.  On a success, the character is dazed and hindered, but remains conscious. If this resistance check fails the character is dying. With two or more degrees of failure the character dies. Repeat the Fortitude check any time a character at 0 hit points sustains damage or takes any strenuous action (including most standard actions).

•Upon reaching a number of hit points equal to or less than half of their full hit points, character take on a new condition called bloodied. This condition is similar to normal in that it doesn’t apply any modifiers or penalties as other conditions do, however it allows limited effects to reference it. Attack effects might only work on characters who are bloodied, or character might take an effect like regeneration or enhanced trait that can only be used while the character is bloodied.

•Use this option only if differentiating between lethal and non-lethal damage. Characters have wound levels that are each a fraction of their full normal hit points. Each wound level affects a character a certain way and can be referenced by effects (as with bloodied above). Consult the table below to determine wound levels and their effects.

Wound Levels

Wound Level	Current Hit Points	Effects
Healthy	More than 3/4	None/Normal
Grazed	3/4 or less, but more than 1/2	As impaired except the penalty is only -1. Impaired supersedes grazed.
Wounded	1/2 or less	Impaired. Must succeed a DC 15 Fortitude check or be dazed for 1 round.
Critical	1/4 or less	Dazed for 1 round as well as impaired and fatigued. Must succeed a DC 15 Fortitude check or be staggered for 1 minute. On a failure of two degrees or more, the staggered condition remains until the character recovers.
Worsted	0 or less	Disabled, exhausted and staggered. Must succeed a DC 15 Fortitude check or be incapacitated immediately. Repeat this check when taking any standard action or receiving damage with a cumulative -1 penalty. On a failure of two degrees or more or at -10 hit points, the character is dying.

Recovery

As with the standard Mutants & Masterminds rules, characters recover from the effects of damage with rest or the use of healing effects.

•Characters recover 1 hit point per power level per minute of rest. If using the lethal damage option, lethal damage heals by the day rather than the minute. Using treatment to reduce the time rank of recovery by providing care effectively doubles the amount of hit points restored.

•Characters recover 1 hit point plus Stamina per minute of rest (minimum 1). If using the lethal damage option, lethal damage heals by the day rather than the minute. Using treatment to reduce the time rank of recovery by providing care effectively doubles the amount of hit points restored.

•Characters make a recovery check to restore their hit points after resting for one minute. On a success, the character recovers a number of hit points equal to power level plus Stamina (minimum 1). When using the lethal damage option, the character may also attempt to recover from lethal damage only once per day (and usually after resting for several hours). Using treatment to reduce the time rank of recovery by providing care effectively doubles the amount of hit points restored.

Options for Healing

•Healing restores 1d6 hit points per effect rank with a successful Healing check. Add +1d6 for each additional degree of success on the healer’s check.

•Each healing power restores a variable number based on an average of 3.5 per effect rank (similar to a “damage expression” above) with a successful Healing check. A rank 5 healing effect could heal 3d8+4 hit points, for example. Ignore degrees of success on the healer’s check but on a roll of natural 20, the effect heals the maximum number of hit points.

•Healing restores 1 hit point per effect rank plus the subject’s Stamina (minimum 1) with a successful Healing check. Multiply this amount by the degree of success.

•[Lethal Option] Healing restores nonlethal damage using one of the methods above —or— half that amount of lethal damage. As a further distinction, healing effects can target lethal or non-lethal damage only. To do both, the healer must take an alternate effect.

•[Lethal Option] Healing restores equal amounts of lethal and nonlethal damage using one of the methods above.

•[Lethal Option] Healing restores nonlethal damage using one of the methods above —or— converts an amount of lethal damage to nonlethal damage. In this case, the subject recovers lost hit points with healing but suffers an equal amount of nonlethal damage. This damage can be healed normally including with additional applications of healing effects. If slower healing is preferred, nonlethal damage caused by healing lethal damage can —only— be recovered by normal rest or regeneration.

Options for Regeneration

•Regeneration grants a character one additional opportunity to recover hit points each minute, and independently of rest, for each effect rank. If using lethal damage, this effect heals lethal damage first and at a rate of 1 point per hour per rank (in addition to any healing from rest). As normal, spread out the additional “recovery events” over the course of 1 minute; Regeneration 5 grants the effects of recovery every other round, and so forth.

•[Lethal Option] Regeneration removes 1/rank points of nonlethal damage each minute and 1/rank points of lethal damage per hour.

•[Lethal Option]Each rank of Regeneration reduces the time rank of normal recovery through rest. At rank 3, resting for 1 round allows the character to recover from the usual amount of nonlethal damage and resting 4 hours allows recovery from lethal damage. Consider increasing the cost per rank of this power or otherwise restricting the number of ranks characters can take.

•[Lethal Option] Regeneration removes 1/rank points of nonlethal damage each minute —or converts an equal amount of lethal damage to nonlethal damage. Nonlethal damage doesn’t heal until all lost hit points are restored.

Other Considerations

Systems with a fully integrated hit point mechanic may benefit from secondary mechanics and statistics (or adjustments to those already established) to better represent particular styles of play. What follows are notes on how they can be incorporated into games using hit points.

Impervious and Penetrating

By default, the impervious and penetrating extras are unchanged when using hit points. Regardless of how much damage an attack does, if the effect rank is equal to or less than the target’s ranks in impervious, that attack does no damage. Likewise, regardless of how many ranks in impervious a target has, penetrating attacks deal damage with a rank up to the effect’s ranks in penetrating.

For example, if Impervious Man has Impervious Toughness 10 and is attacked with a barrage of fire from light pistols (effect rank 3), submachine gun fire (effect rank 4), and shotgun blasts (effect rank 5), it doesn’t matter how the damage from those attacks is determined or how much damage is rolled; regardless of how many hit points Impervious Man has, all of those attacks do no damage.

If instead, Impervious Man is stabbed with a magic knife and would normally be immune to the 2d4+2 points of damage it deals, the knife still deals 1d6 “magic” damage (based on having a penetrating rank of 1).

Impervious and penetrating can also be redefined to integrate more thoroughly with hit points in the ways outlined below:

•If only some powers provide damage reduction (see above), the impervious extra can add +1 or +2 per rank of impervious to the DR value of those powers.

•Each rank of penetrating ignores a certain amount of damage reduction. Exactly how much depends on how readily available damage reduction is and how generously hit points are assigned. If DR is derived only from Protection with a proper descriptor, penetrating should only ignore 1 point of DR per rank.

•If DR is gained from the impervious extra, each rank of penetrating can simply negate one rank of impervious.

•Each rank of penetrating can deal additional damage, but only to characters with impervious.

•When using vitality and wounds, each rank of penetrating can deal 1 point of wound damage on a hit (and subtract that much from vitality damage that would be dealt).

•When using massive damage (below), penetrating can reduce the threshold for massive damage by its rank (or a multiple thereof).

Lethal and Nonlethal Damage

When using both hit points and the lethal damage option, it is typical only for lethal damage to cause a loss of hit points. Rather than causing a loss of hit points, nonlethal damage accumulates until becoming overwhelming to the injured character. When nonlethal damage equals a character’s current number of hit points, the character is staggered, or when nonlethal damage exceeds that number, incapacitated.

If desired, additional grades of nonlethal injury can be used, similar to the wound levels option above. Another option for characters in more heroic (or superheroic) settings is for an incapacitated result to occur only after the character’s maximum number of hit points is exceeded and only use the current total to track lethal damage.

Massive Damage

Some games with hit points have rules to cover sudden, catastrophic amounts of injury in an effort to maintain a certain level of realism. When incorporating such a rule, the gamemaster must determine what constitutes massive damage and the results of such damage may be. Consider these options:

•When a character suffers 50 or more points of damage from a single attack, that character must succeed a DC 15 Fortitude resistance check or die.

•Whenever a character suffers an amount of damage from a single attack that is equal to or greater than half of their current total hit points (minimum 50 points of damage), that character must succeed a DC 15 Fortitude resistance check or die.

•When a character suffers an amount of damage from a single attack which is equal to or greater than 25 + 5/power level, that character must succeed a DC 15 Fortitude resistance check or die.

•A character’s massive damage threshold is equal to 50, but modified by size (usually plus or minus 10 per size category).

•When using any of the above options, a character failing their resistance check is dying, not dead. Alternatively, a graded check can be used with varying results for success of failure.

•When using any of the above options, the Fortitude resistance check DC varies by the amount of damage the attack caused. Divide the total damage by 5 and add the result to the DC. A base DC of 10 may be preferable to 15 when using this option.

Healing Reserve

When using hit points, a limit on healing effects may be desirable depending upon the setting and types of powers available. In this case, characters can have a healing reserve which determines how often they can benefit from such effects. The reserve creates a pool of potential for recovery from which any healing (other than natural recovery and perhaps regeneration) must draw. Regardless of how many healers or healing items are available, each character can only recover hit points from their use a limited number of times before their healing reserve is emptied.

A character’s healing reserve is usually based on some multiple (or fraction) of their maximum hit points and might have other applications (and be targetable by effects) at the gamemasters option. After receiving a healing effect that restores an amount of hit points, the character’s healing reserve is reduced by a like amount. Once the healing reserve is emptied, no more healing effects can be applied (but the character can still recover hit points normally).

In a typical game setting, a character’s healing reserve is equal to twice their full normal hit point score and it refills completely once per day, regardless of rest. When using this option (especially if using a smaller value for the healing reserve pool), gamemasters may wish to omit the Healing check for healing effects or ignore the limitation for waiting 1 minute (or using extra effort) to try healing again.

A similar option that requires less bookkeeping than the healing reserve is employing a healing effect limit. In this case, characters can only benefit from healing effects a certain number of times over a given interval (1 day, 12 hours, 6 hours, etc.). A typical healing effect limit would be Stamina + 1/2 power level each day. Whenever a player’s character receives healing under this system, the player marks of one use (regardless of hit points recovered) and after reaching the limit, the character must recover from further damage normally until the following day.

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