So, I've been really stuck on making a damage/health system for my game, but in order to get any advice I should probably share my mechanic with you, first.
This system I've been working on and off for over a year; first for my Divinity Horizons game--which has gone through about a dozen systems before I finally decided I'd just have to make my own--and now for my new game, too, Apotheosis.

The basic system is very simple; every character has nine Attributes (3 Physical, 3 Mental, and 3 Spiritual).
Strength, Dexterity, Endurance
Intelligence, Perception, Willpower
Passion, Intuition, Integrity

(If they seem arbitrary, the first attribute is the Power of that aspect, the second is the Quickness, and the third is the Fortitude. Those aspects and aptitudes won't really come into play discussion, though)

Each Attribute is rated between 1-10, with 4-5 being human average. Whenever a character tries to accompish anything, their rating in that Attribute is compared to a Difficulty chart; if their number is equal to or higher than the Difficulty, they succeed. Pretty straightforward so far.

Characters do not have a pre-designed set of "Skills," but they will have a place where they can write down special Traits that make their characters unique. Individual passions and motivations, particularly important or renowned possessions, and, yes, even skills. These Traits will have a rating, also between 1-10, with no average score. The Trait's rating can be added to an Attribute for any relevant Difficulty check.

Finally, every character will also have a trait called Fate, rated between 1-5. This trait will give them a number of Fate dice equal to their score x5 (which refreshes each in-game day). Fate dice will be d10's that can be spent on any action, any time the Player chooses. They roll the die/dice, and add the result to their Attribute (+ any relevant Trait). These dice represent Fate itself manipulating events to the character's favor, and the action resolution should be described in such a manor if an action augmented by Fate dice succeeds.

So, those are the basic mechanics (comments/critiques welcome). In combat (which is relevant to the Health/damage discussion, obviously), I've already decided that the defender's decisions determine which Attributes are relevant for a particular attack. The attacker is already understood to be using their best efforts to damage or kill their opponent, so whether they succeed or not depends on how the other combatant defends.

If the defender tries to dodge the attack, pit their Dexterity + Perception (and any relevant Trait and/or spent Fate dice), vs. the attacker's Dexterity + Intelligence (ditto; and ditto for any skill contest I mention).

If the defender tries to block the attack, compare his Strength + Endurance (+ any bonus from a shield) vs. the attacker's Strength + the damage of their weapon.

Now, what I can't decide is how to do Health. Weapons will have a static damage rating (e.g., a dagger might be 4, a sword 7, and a spear 10). If the attacker succeeds, compare the damage of the weapon + the margin of success to the target's armor, and whatever points are left over is applied as damage.
On the one hand, I've been thinking of having an outline of a person on the character sheet, with each part of the body having it's own "hit points," if you will; something like Endurance + 10 for the chest, Endurance + 3 for each arm, Endurance +6 for each leg and just straight Endurance for the head. Of course, the placement of the armor would be very important in such a system. I think that, in such a system, the defender should decide where an attack hits if damage gets through (within logical reason), as a defender does have to chose his position based on what part of his body he most wants to defend. If an attacker was going for a specific target on purpose, the defender would get a bonus to their defence based on the size of the body part.

This system seems alright to me for the more visceral, hand to hand combat I wanted in Apotheosis, but there's also going to be a lot of supernatural powers and attacks going on in the game, and I worry that it might get a little complicated keeping track of all the different body parts when area attacks are falling or when the thunderbolts are being thrown. Also, I would need to have rules for how damage to any one part of the body effects the character's abilities, and I worry that it might get too complicated. (Obviously, there are plenty of games more complicated that have been played happily by many players; what I mean is that I want to keep combat rather swiftly moving during gameplay)

The other idea I had is more complicated up front, but seems to facilitate faster gameply (though I could be wrong... that's why I'm posting!) In this system, characters would have Wound Levels, rather than a "pool" of hit points. Each level would have a damage threshold; if a character took damage equal to that level, then that's the level they mark off. Let me see if I can show better than tell...it would look something like this:

Uninjured  < END  ooooo
Painful  END -> END+3 oooo
Severe  END+4 -> END+8 ooo
Critical  END+9 -> END+12 oo
Mortal  END+13 ^ o

Each wound level would impose a penalty to all actions. Those little "o"s represent how many of each level a character can take before wounds that level or below start counting as one level greater. For instance, if a character took damage equal to a Severe wound, they'd mark out one of those bubbles and take a -4 (fr ex) penalty to all their actions. If next they took a wound equal to the Painful level, their action penalty would not go up, they'd just mark off a Painful bubble. They could then take 3 more Painful wounds before Painful wounds begin causing them to mark off Severe bubbles.

So, what do you guys think? First off, are there any glaring problems that I have overlooked, either in my core mechanic or in either of those Health examples I gave? And, if not, which mechanic do you think works better? Is either too complicated? Which one do you think would keep combat moving the quickest? Is either one more realistic than the other? (I know the body grid sounds more realistic at first, but when I think about it, I think the second system does pretty well describing the wear-and-tear aspect of combat).

Thanks in advance,
John

John,

So your goal here is realism in damage.  Of the two, I'd have to say the former is the more realistic, and the latter the more simple.  Of course, the problem with the second system is that it doesn't allow for the targeting/called shots you're talking about.  That is the primary hole in its "realism," IMHO.  And trying to patch that hole may make it altogether more complicated than the first.

The lack of realism in Hit Point and Health Level systems comes from the overestimation of its applicability.  Just keep track of what is important, interesting, and applicable for your game. 

The way I handled this in ERA d6 is by imposing a set of Conditions on characters who have suffered damage, rather than keeping track of each target zone or some abstract pool of health.  Then again, I was leaning toward the dramatic effect of damage, rather than realism.

-Jason T.

Well, I am going for realism, but I recognize that you can't achieve total realism, and if I had to choose between realism and keeping the pace of the game flowing, I'd choose the latter...leaning slightly in favor of the former if it provided interesting tactical decisions for players in the game.

Ok, then.  If I understand your second system correctly, then unless an attacker chooses to use dice on any particular attack, their attacks are always going to do the same amount of damage.  Basically, it's a system of resource management that's a tad more complex than HP. 

Without having playtested it, I'd have to predict it would primarily have implications on arbitrating power-level differences.  For instance, the implications of that system would lie in how much a high-Endurance character should fear a character of lower Strength + Intelligence.

In a battle where no dice were used, the outcome would be predictable with a little math.  Since a die, rolled high enough, can change the type of wound as much as 3 steps, it would seem a very important, if unreliable, resource.  Characters may be tempted to use them all at the beginning of a tough battle to ensure a mortal wound on their opponent at the get-go.

Whereas, in the first system, the tactical decision lies in what the defender is willing to sacrifice.  Put in this context, I'd say the first system you mentioned allows for more tactics. 

I hate to be critical, but again, if I understand the systems correctly, it seems like neither of them would help keep the pace of the game flowing.  Since this concern seems to be more important to you than either the tactics or the realism, I'd say it does need a lot more work.  Perhaps you had planned on doing this already, but creating derived values that are simply written on the character sheet would simplify the calculation.  It's easier to search for the highest value in a set of derived values than to have to come up with the highest derived value only knowing the potential components and what possible combinations you could use.

I.E.:
The attackers "Attack versus Dodge" value is 13, and my "Dodge plus Chest Armor" is 14, and all my other values with their size bonus added in are at least that much, so I don't have to worry about this guy unless he rolls a die.  On the other hand, this other guy has an "Attack versus Dodge" of 17, but his "Attack versus Block" is only 15, so perhaps I'd do better to block that.

-Jason T.

Oh, I certainly plan on having spots on the character sheet to record down important, often-used score totals.

As far as the flow of the game, I mean that in a relative sense. I'm not making Wushu, here; though DH was Wushu in the beginning, I've decided I prefer more tactical combat and so plan on making my game offer more choices. As such, I suppose the first option would probably offer more tactical decisions, but for some reason my mind just keeps straying back towards the Wound Levels, and I'm not sure why... perhaps because it sounds more like traditional RPG Health systems?

If I go with the body grid option, what would be the best way to make it more than just D&D hit points spread over the whole body? Obviously, if you lose all your hit points in your left arm and you were holding a shield there, now you're not going to be able to use that shield and that will change your combat options drastically. But what about when your arm is down 2 hit points, or 5? What does that mean in game and out of game, I wonder? The only way I can think to represent things like that is to impose difficulty penalties, but I really hate penalties, and you'd have the possibility of dealing with several different wound penalties at once, with this system. Do y'all think that's acceptable? Are there other ways of doing it?

Is there a way to weave the Wound levels and the Body grid? An overall shock/stress to the system, like falling or holding something really heavy or climbing  a steep wall could be distributed over the body gird, with wound levels for distinct wounds. Or maybe section the body (the burn system of 9s springs to mind, and mirrors your 9 stats nicely) instead of a flat grid. So if I fall, I can take damage in my legs, legs and torso, legs and arms, legs and back, or legs and face. Boy, that last one not only hurts, it looks stupid, too! But if the fall breaks my leg (must have failed the role), then I get wound levels on the leg in addition.

I'd recommend finding an Emergency Medical Technician textbook for help with how badly people can get messed up - I was an EMT and I was the damage system for years: "Okay, here's what happens - Meg, what happens and how bad is it?"

Heh, EMT, now that's a different outlook...

As I said, I know that I can't get 100% realism and, indeed, I'm not trying to. I like the idea of combining the wound levels with the body grid, though. Any ideas how it might be done? What is this 9's you are talking about?

There are some potential issues, such as: it will be a clear choice to be hit where it will cause the least damage. That means in your fictional universe, when someone gets hit by a knife, inevitably the first hit will always be on the leg, or something along those lines. You might want to avoid that, because it doesn't exactly fit with your ideas of realism and grit.

Now, overall I would like to know more about the game before I make any recommendations.

What are the characters going to do in the game? Are they disposable and expected to die often? Do player characters die as easily as their opponents?

How do you think the players should approach the game? Are they going to be in tactical optimization mode, or do they try to experience the turmoil of combat through their characters, or...?

And connected to that, the role of combat in your game: is the story a series of combat events tied together through a narrative? Is combat an exceptional thing that the players should try to avoid? How much play time should be devoted to combat as opposed to other activities?