Welcome to this week’s blog book club. This week we are discussing “I’d hit that” by Logan of the blog Last Grasp.
Next week we’ll be discussing “Why I Prefer OD&D” by the Nine and Thirty Kingdoms.
You can see a list of previous blog club posts here.
Over the course of D&D’s history and editions there’s been a robust discussion over what a health point represents. Is it how much injury a character can endure? Or the amount of fighting spirit within an adventurer? Why do we even have to choose? This blog discusses having two health counters. One representing physical health (Flesh), one representing avoidance to injury (Grit).
The post provides examples of how the Flesh / Grit dichotomy effects different classes based on the size of their hit die and their constitution modifier. Grit replenishes easily with resting. Though for 10 minute increments the inclusion of any language relating to “sleep” feels a bit jarring. I guess there will be power napping in the dungeon.
Specific rules of when Grit would be bypassed and Flesh would be attacked directly are given. This partially this reminds me of how AC used to be modified in 3rd edition D&D but likely more relevant to this post is how “into the odd” incorporates damage to stats as a secondary HP track. Overall while this maps a little awkwardly onto BX style games I still think the fundamental idea is entertaining and can help differentiate characters.
We also get the background on a dubiously named item meant to replace Health potions.
This flask allows a popular adventuring item grounded in the game world without anything feeling too high magic. I get this as for some people magical liquids available at every corner shop is annoying. Also the flask allows for grit to temporarily raise over the limit. I would have liked a table of effects for overuse. I’d likely reflavor this, but again I really like the idea here and the built-in limitations that prevent over use by adventurers. I prefer to avoid video game style guzzling of potions whenever possible.
Finally, the post offers explores the kind of rationalizations that always come with HP discussions. Do characters get tougher from physical conditioning or does experience hone their instincts?
Ultimately for me this is a rule whose core idea has already been implemented for the Into the Odd style of games I play. However, I do like the idea of stealing the flask and adapting it. There’s just something about adventures downing dubious beverages that’s become a dungeon trope that I’ve become attached.
Splitting the hp into two pools fits in with the explanation of hp being both physical meat, stamina, brusing, and such on one hand, AND metphysical luck , favor of the gods, what have you on the other. Whereas D&D just tosses both handsful into the same pot for use, splitting them into two pots works much the same.
What’s on the blog I think puts far too much into the Flesh pot and too little into the Grit pot. I’ve taken to giving PCs 0-lv hp – a D6 rolled as D3+3 – prior to getting their 1st lvl hp. I’d call that 0-lvl D6 their Flesh points and anything derived from class HD then would be Grit. I’d also limit the CON bonus to the initial 0-lvl roll for purposes of Flesh and the CON bonus thereafter would apply to Grit. I just don’t buy into PCs somehow getting meatier over time just because (perhaps some extra training or something could shift that on a per level basis).
As far as recovery of the Grit at one HD per turn, well, That also doesn’t work for me. On the one hand, it’s too random and on the other it seems a bit too generous. I’d have to rule it as a more consistent amount at perhaps 1/2 HD per turn, so 1-2 for a D4, 1-3 for a D6, and 2-4 for a D8.
I’m working to eliminate hp bloat in my projects from the outset. In two of them, there are no hp pools at all. In the AD&D/BX riff, hps are fewer in number; that began by first decreasing the HD rolls to all using D4 plus a bonus of 0 to +3, then capping HD rolls at 5th level…and they might end up decreased even further.
From an OSR history perspective: I wonder if this is the first instance (in the blogosphere, I mean, not in people’s home games) of splitting HP like this? Also, did Chris McDowall get the idea from here, or at least is there a lineage from this blog post to him via other designers?
In August 2011 Chris McDowall’s rules for Into the Odd have roll to hit and death at 0 HP.
By March 2014 he says he “ditched separate to-hit rolls some time ago”, and this later post is about some changes to what happens at 0 HP. (Maybe to-hit rolls are gone by this earlier post from March 2013? But I don’t know if this coincides with the two types of health).
So it seems likely that 2013/2014 was when this idea was taking hold in the OSR community.
That’s interesting. I wasn’t involved in the blog scene during the OSR early years, not even as a reader. Most of my recollections of online theory talk and such come from the 90s and 00s, when I was active online in RPG forums. And in offline spaces during the 80s. It’s been interesting to see how various ideas have waxed and waned over the years.