Lethality and You: An Idea

[Amechra]

I just had a really, really odd idea for a system that I suspect is just awful.

The idea is that any attack that beats a character's "armor class" is an instant kill.

People would have something like hit points for being hurt outside of battle and the like, but actual combat would be lethal++

There would be abilities that you could buy up that would let you hit people nonlethally, or which allowed you to survive a few hits, but the central idea is that combat in and of itself is hideously lethal.

[Nytemare3701]

I just had a really, really odd idea for a system that I suspect is just awful.

The idea is that any attack that beats a character's "armor class" is an instant kill.

People would have something like hit points for being hurt outside of battle and the like, but actual combat would be lethal++

There would be abilities that you could buy up that would let you hit people nonlethally, or which allowed you to survive a few hits, but the central idea is that combat in and of itself is hideously lethal.

You pretty much just described how any game with a soak mechanic works. If you can't soak it, you are either horribly wounded or dead. Either that or Exalted (I hate Unstoppable Force/Immovable Object mechanics...)

That said, you would need VERY tight control over numerical bonuses in either direction.

[Amechra]

Numerical bonuses? What are those? 

The basic idea is that every attack deals 1 damage, as do most environmental hazards (some deal a bit more).

However, you have 1 ICHP (In-Combat Hit Point) and ~3 OCHP (Out of combat HP).

Effects that let you survive attacks in combat either give you about 1 extra HP, or let you treat an attack as an environmental effect, thus sending it to your OCHP.

I envision a "holy crap, he's tough" combat character having 3 ICHP, and maybe 4 OCHP, as well as effects that let you treat attacks as environmental effects (there might even be enemies that only have an environmental HP pool, as a way of representing really large creatures; the attack has to essentially be equivalent to them falling into a pool of acid for it to work.)

[Raineh Daze]

How do you plan to handle creatures with regeneration and fast healing?

[Amechra]

Not every system needs those concepts?

Seriously, I would never have this as a generalized system; this would probably be rooted in a setting where horrific lethality makes sense.

[Raineh Daze]

Oh, right, misread the subforum thing. My mistake. XD

... I always think this sort of system is best for actually having terrifying undead. So what if you blow off half their torso? It's not as if they need it.

[Amechra]

It also makes for hilarious stories.

"So I dealt like 5 damage to this thing, and it was still standing!"
"So is your character really weak, or something?"
"No. He was using his ultimate attack, too!"

[Nytemare3701]

I'm kind of amused that this went straight into the exceptions to the rule.