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RPG MECHANICS I - HP TO DAMAGE RATIO, OTHER HP RELATED DISCUSSION
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LouisCyphre
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CloseRPG Mechanics I : HP to Damage Ratios, Other HP Related Discussion
Ideal Questions
What is the ideal damage to HP ratio in an RPG? Should it damage received increase faster than HP over time? Should it increase slower than? Should the remain proportional? Inversely proportional?
For that matter, what should the difference between starting HP and ending HP be? Ten times? One hundred times? Three times? Should it reach four digits at all? Five digits?
What can HP represent, other than physical health? Evasion? Shields? Sanity? Bankroll? Is it necessary to break away from physical health?
Lastly, what should the difference between various character's HP? Should one character's HP ever be triple that of another character's at equal level? Should it even reach twice that? 150%?
This is part of a series of topics that will deal with aesthetics involving the detailed analysis of the numbers and mechanics of RPGs, what can be kept, and what should be discarded.
Ideal Questions
What is the ideal damage to HP ratio in an RPG? Should it damage received increase faster than HP over time? Should it increase slower than? Should the remain proportional? Inversely proportional?
For that matter, what should the difference between starting HP and ending HP be? Ten times? One hundred times? Three times? Should it reach four digits at all? Five digits?
What can HP represent, other than physical health? Evasion? Shields? Sanity? Bankroll? Is it necessary to break away from physical health?
Lastly, what should the difference between various character's HP? Should one character's HP ever be triple that of another character's at equal level? Should it even reach twice that? 150%?
This is part of a series of topics that will deal with aesthetics involving the detailed analysis of the numbers and mechanics of RPGs, what can be kept, and what should be discarded.
- (will be amended with links to later topics)
Clest
0
Ideal Questions
What is the ideal damage to HP ratio in an RPG?
>It depends on characters, in my game, human vs human battles is quite risky since hp is not high and damage by certain weapons (like guns) is really strong (but guns can miss often). For mechs however, HP is plenty and damage is low compared to it, however you cannot heal mech HP inside battles, and out of then it is expensive.
Should it damage received increase faster than HP over time? Should it increase slower than? Should the remain proportional? Inversely proportional?
>Should remain stable.
For that matter, what should the difference between starting HP and ending HP be? Ten times? One hundred times? Three times? Should it reach four digits at all? Five digits?
>No difference or almost none. My point is: HP means the the integrity of a character´s body, meaning how much of the body is in one piece and working (my base is GURPS) and only that, so I always find it too damn stupid when the healer girl get more hp than a truck sized dragon. How come a frail human sized girl withstand more direct damage than a huge ass ubber muscular animal? This tottally screws with my imagination of battle sequences.
Also HP for humans in my setting is kept strictly to 2 digits, including enemies. For mechs it stays 3 to 4 digits.
What can HP represent, other than physical health? Evasion? Shields? Sanity? Bankroll? Is it necessary to break away from physical health?
>Just physical health, or as I said, body integrity (a mystical flame or ghost has no physical health, and a mech has physical integrity, but not health, YES I do think about those minor details), you know, we have other stats besides hp which SHOULD BE USED for God´s sake. Wish ppl paid more attention to that.
Lastly, what should the difference between various character's HP? Should one character's HP ever be triple that of another character's at equal level? Should it even reach twice that? 150%?
>As much as body integrity would differ between characters, sure your strong barbarian can take more sword hits to his meat than our previous mentioned frail healer girl, but he won´t take 100 times more direct (after def and evasion are deduced) damage than her, like if he would be slashed 100 times he´d eventually become a bloody mess far before the count ends :P
What is the ideal damage to HP ratio in an RPG?
>It depends on characters, in my game, human vs human battles is quite risky since hp is not high and damage by certain weapons (like guns) is really strong (but guns can miss often). For mechs however, HP is plenty and damage is low compared to it, however you cannot heal mech HP inside battles, and out of then it is expensive.
Should it damage received increase faster than HP over time? Should it increase slower than? Should the remain proportional? Inversely proportional?
>Should remain stable.
For that matter, what should the difference between starting HP and ending HP be? Ten times? One hundred times? Three times? Should it reach four digits at all? Five digits?
>No difference or almost none. My point is: HP means the the integrity of a character´s body, meaning how much of the body is in one piece and working (my base is GURPS) and only that, so I always find it too damn stupid when the healer girl get more hp than a truck sized dragon. How come a frail human sized girl withstand more direct damage than a huge ass ubber muscular animal? This tottally screws with my imagination of battle sequences.
Also HP for humans in my setting is kept strictly to 2 digits, including enemies. For mechs it stays 3 to 4 digits.
What can HP represent, other than physical health? Evasion? Shields? Sanity? Bankroll? Is it necessary to break away from physical health?
>Just physical health, or as I said, body integrity (a mystical flame or ghost has no physical health, and a mech has physical integrity, but not health, YES I do think about those minor details), you know, we have other stats besides hp which SHOULD BE USED for God´s sake. Wish ppl paid more attention to that.
Lastly, what should the difference between various character's HP? Should one character's HP ever be triple that of another character's at equal level? Should it even reach twice that? 150%?
>As much as body integrity would differ between characters, sure your strong barbarian can take more sword hits to his meat than our previous mentioned frail healer girl, but he won´t take 100 times more direct (after def and evasion are deduced) damage than her, like if he would be slashed 100 times he´d eventually become a bloody mess far before the count ends :P
My game is using a straight up threat/aggro system, so my highest HP "tank" has about 3 times the HP as the lowest HP glass cannon mage. Bosses are terribly powerful, and can usually 1-shot said mage with a single physical attack. That said, it's easy enough to avoid the mage getting enough threat to be targeted.
As far as growth, I think games should stay as deflated as possible, and should inflate only as fast as you want the player and monsters to progress. There doesn't NEED to be 4 digits, hell there doesnt need to be 3 digits. Fire Emblem games have the highest HP characters at 80ish HP, which is huge in those games.
As far as growth, I think games should stay as deflated as possible, and should inflate only as fast as you want the player and monsters to progress. There doesn't NEED to be 4 digits, hell there doesnt need to be 3 digits. Fire Emblem games have the highest HP characters at 80ish HP, which is huge in those games.
By threat do you mean "The charater has % chance of being a target of an attack"?
And I prefer three digits, so I can show some growth in my characters. Two digits works in Fire Emblem because it's a Strategy-RPG, I don't feel it could work well with a more traditional cRPG.
And I prefer three digits, so I can show some growth in my characters. Two digits works in Fire Emblem because it's a Strategy-RPG, I don't feel it could work well with a more traditional cRPG.
Shinan
4314
Slightly influenced from tabletops but also from other games I've started to like the "moving away from HP" thingie. It's also because I'm a bit of a sucker for realism. I like the "damage you can take" to be fairly constant. A chopped off head will result in death all the time. (nearly all the time anyway...)
Things like location damage, wounds and bleeding are things I like. There was some (tabletop) game that had a system where every time you got wounded you had a chance of fainting from the pain, the chance increased every time the hurt increased. And there was also a different chance of dying from the wounds. And you had to take a test against the value every time you got hurt.
That game had damage put into four different categories. Trauma (wounds that might not hurt but will kill you), Pain (Wounds that will hurt and will make you faint from the pain), Bleeding (a value that affected bloodloss) and Bloodloss (A value that increased depending on your bleeding and that eventually killed you)
There was also exhaustion, which wasn't exactly wound-related but it could still cause you to faint.
Every wound increased the three values by a certain amount. A flesh wound in the leg might increase your pain by quite a bit but your trauma by very little. A hit in an aorta would cause a lot of bleeding, some trauma, but little pain.
I'm really fond of this system and would really like something like it to be implemented in a computer game. Of course it might be a system that is one of those that somehow works on paper (despite its complexity) but not on a computer. It's strange though because usually computers can do calculations more complex, but this system was really cool when used manually. Sure it took a while to calculate some of the stuff but getting the exact descriptions of things was very satisfying. (Or like it always went. "OOOH The aorta! You're a goner! There's blood EVERYWHERE")
Another system I'm fairly fond of is the treshold system where you (or an vehicle/building/item) has some sort of value you need to pass and once you do that your status changes, like "Unhurt/scratched/wounded/severely wounded/crippled/dying". In a way that would mean that everything would have the same amount of HP, but everyone would have a different "value" you need to pass. So a vehicle to go from scratched to damaged it would take a lot more than to make a human go from scratched to wounded.
Of course now I've made this huge post and not have any HP in it at all. When it comes to classic HP I'm not all that interested I suppose. Of course all of these systems can be in a HP system. Just hide all the good stuff that I've mentioned and boil it down to a single number the player sees. (The treshold can easily be turned into HP, or even a percentile system where you knock down percent of a creature's HP. Combined with a treshold) When it comes to damage I think that certain things should hurt more than others. A rocket launcher should kill people and cripple vehicles. A sword should kill people and dent vehicles (if even that). I want people killed.
Things like location damage, wounds and bleeding are things I like. There was some (tabletop) game that had a system where every time you got wounded you had a chance of fainting from the pain, the chance increased every time the hurt increased. And there was also a different chance of dying from the wounds. And you had to take a test against the value every time you got hurt.
That game had damage put into four different categories. Trauma (wounds that might not hurt but will kill you), Pain (Wounds that will hurt and will make you faint from the pain), Bleeding (a value that affected bloodloss) and Bloodloss (A value that increased depending on your bleeding and that eventually killed you)
There was also exhaustion, which wasn't exactly wound-related but it could still cause you to faint.
Every wound increased the three values by a certain amount. A flesh wound in the leg might increase your pain by quite a bit but your trauma by very little. A hit in an aorta would cause a lot of bleeding, some trauma, but little pain.
I'm really fond of this system and would really like something like it to be implemented in a computer game. Of course it might be a system that is one of those that somehow works on paper (despite its complexity) but not on a computer. It's strange though because usually computers can do calculations more complex, but this system was really cool when used manually. Sure it took a while to calculate some of the stuff but getting the exact descriptions of things was very satisfying. (Or like it always went. "OOOH The aorta! You're a goner! There's blood EVERYWHERE")
Another system I'm fairly fond of is the treshold system where you (or an vehicle/building/item) has some sort of value you need to pass and once you do that your status changes, like "Unhurt/scratched/wounded/severely wounded/crippled/dying". In a way that would mean that everything would have the same amount of HP, but everyone would have a different "value" you need to pass. So a vehicle to go from scratched to damaged it would take a lot more than to make a human go from scratched to wounded.
Of course now I've made this huge post and not have any HP in it at all. When it comes to classic HP I'm not all that interested I suppose. Of course all of these systems can be in a HP system. Just hide all the good stuff that I've mentioned and boil it down to a single number the player sees. (The treshold can easily be turned into HP, or even a percentile system where you knock down percent of a creature's HP. Combined with a treshold) When it comes to damage I think that certain things should hurt more than others. A rocket launcher should kill people and cripple vehicles. A sword should kill people and dent vehicles (if even that). I want people killed.
What is the ideal damage to HP ratio in an RPG?
Enough that enemy attacks actually pose a threat and can actually kill a character. If I only have to heal after several current level encounters then there is probably something wrong going on.
Should it damage received increase faster than HP over time?
Increase over time. The player shouldn't be that threatened at the start of the game when they're finding their bearings and later in the game the player has access to cool abilities and plenty of tricks that can stop enemies from inflicting too much pain if used.
For that matter, what should the difference between starting HP and ending HP be?
I am a sucker for big numbers (shut up DoaE was awesome). Current projections are starting HP of ~230 to ~12,000.
One of the things I don't like about extremely low HP is how much an extra point of attack makes. 2->3 damage is a pretty big jump that you don't see much of in bigger value games. Big number games can have their own rediculous game breaking strategies but a 2->3 jump in damage seems pretty unavoidable while still having some sort of increase in damage output (which removing could be a valid solution if done correctly).
What can HP represent, other than physical health? Evasion? Shields? Sanity? Bankroll? Is it necessary to break away from physical health?
In Destiny of an Emperor a general's HP was the number of soldiers he commanded. The number of soldiers a general has is important since breaking certain thresholds became more damage. The difference between 999 and 1000 soldiers is x2 damage, as with 9999 and 10000 soldiers.
Personally I'm unimaginative and I use HP as the usual stuff.
Enough that enemy attacks actually pose a threat and can actually kill a character. If I only have to heal after several current level encounters then there is probably something wrong going on.
Should it damage received increase faster than HP over time?
Increase over time. The player shouldn't be that threatened at the start of the game when they're finding their bearings and later in the game the player has access to cool abilities and plenty of tricks that can stop enemies from inflicting too much pain if used.
For that matter, what should the difference between starting HP and ending HP be?
I am a sucker for big numbers (shut up DoaE was awesome). Current projections are starting HP of ~230 to ~12,000.
One of the things I don't like about extremely low HP is how much an extra point of attack makes. 2->3 damage is a pretty big jump that you don't see much of in bigger value games. Big number games can have their own rediculous game breaking strategies but a 2->3 jump in damage seems pretty unavoidable while still having some sort of increase in damage output (which removing could be a valid solution if done correctly).
What can HP represent, other than physical health? Evasion? Shields? Sanity? Bankroll? Is it necessary to break away from physical health?
In Destiny of an Emperor a general's HP was the number of soldiers he commanded. The number of soldiers a general has is important since breaking certain thresholds became more damage. The difference between 999 and 1000 soldiers is x2 damage, as with 9999 and 10000 soldiers.
Personally I'm unimaginative and I use HP as the usual stuff.
Goldenguy
855
What is the ideal damage to HP ratio in an RPG?
I personally tend to go by the following:
~10 hits required in the beginning to kill a character.
~1 hit required in the beginning to snuff a monster.
~5 hits required near the end of the game to kill a character.
~2-3 hits required near the end of the game to snuff out a monster.
When bosses are concerned, I look at rounds, and generally make first bosses an 8-10 round fight, with the last boss possibly being 30-50 rounds.
Should it damage received increase faster than HP over time?
I think my stuff above pretty much answers this, haha.
For that matter, what should the difference between starting HP and ending HP be?
Having never gotten into Final Fantasy and always having been a Phantasy Star nut, I tend to keep my characters between 18-30HP starting out and 400-800 at level 99. Nothing against those that use larger numbers though.
What can HP represent, other than physical health? Evasion? Shields? Sanity? Bankroll? Is it necessary to break away from physical health?
GreatRedSpirit put it greatly with the number of soldiers and such.. and I myself usually only use it as health, but if there's a vehicle-based battle, I might base it on the structural integrity of the vehicle - however I have yet to implement such a battle into a game yet.
I personally tend to go by the following:
~10 hits required in the beginning to kill a character.
~1 hit required in the beginning to snuff a monster.
~5 hits required near the end of the game to kill a character.
~2-3 hits required near the end of the game to snuff out a monster.
When bosses are concerned, I look at rounds, and generally make first bosses an 8-10 round fight, with the last boss possibly being 30-50 rounds.
Should it damage received increase faster than HP over time?
I think my stuff above pretty much answers this, haha.
For that matter, what should the difference between starting HP and ending HP be?
Having never gotten into Final Fantasy and always having been a Phantasy Star nut, I tend to keep my characters between 18-30HP starting out and 400-800 at level 99. Nothing against those that use larger numbers though.
What can HP represent, other than physical health? Evasion? Shields? Sanity? Bankroll? Is it necessary to break away from physical health?
GreatRedSpirit put it greatly with the number of soldiers and such.. and I myself usually only use it as health, but if there's a vehicle-based battle, I might base it on the structural integrity of the vehicle - however I have yet to implement such a battle into a game yet.
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