Bleeding Hearts: D20 things and ways for HP to be

Bleeding Hearts

everyone's HP is different now

why should we all bleed in the same way?

D20
  1. your HP is a sack of human hearts and unless you can readily cram one into your mouth you have 0 hp; collecting hearts gives you more HP. a human heart is 1, scales up or down by size. your wounds are either hearts spilling from your sack or are horrifically maiming, but the flesh knits together as you gobble greedily. 
  2. your HP is just your meat, and you have a lot of it. your size is multiplied by your total 4xHP but you only ever heal back half of what you lost rounded down. Your wounds are gaping gashes and bludgeoned pulp. 
  3. your HP is an interlocking web of slender hands and laced fingers; 2xHP against attacks that can be grasped or gripped, and 0 hp against attacks that engulf or crush underfoot. Your wounds are severed fingers and splintered knuckles. 
  4. your HP is a dreaded and shadowy presence; you have 2xHP against those who know your name but not your face, 1xHP against those who know neither, .5x against those who know your face but not your name, and 0 HP against those who know both. Your wounds are frantically lucky swings and intrepid investigations. 
  5. your HP is a bunch of guys; one guy is 1 HP, scales up or down by size and skill. Your wounds are their lives. 
  6. your HP is a suit of full plate; 2xHP but you need an armor smith to heal, and 0 HP if grappled with a dagger. Your wounds are dents and staggering steps, claws screeching on steel and the clang of helmets. 
  7. your HP is a balloon-like body stretched full of ectoplasm, 4xHP, 8x vs blunt, .5x vs piercing. your size is multiplied your total HP, but you can squeeze into most rooms if people sink into you. your wounds are rips in the suit and puffs of plasm through your orafices. each time you take lose HP you shrink accordingly. 
  8. your HP is your constant rolling and ducking and dodging, and your wounds are masterful footwork and breathtakingly close shaves. start with 2xHP, then 1x, .5x, 0 on each subsequent round. spend a turn catching your breath to move back up the ladder. 5x HP max if slowed, 0 HP if immobilized.
  9. your HP is the rubble and debris heaped on your light but nearly indestructible form as you get hurled through walls and into marshes. your wounds are torn clothes and collateral damage, or the smothering of your form beneath a heap of ropes and bodies. 2xHP if you are in an open area, .5 if you are in a completely enclosed one. At .5 HP and below you must spend a turn unearthing yourself each time you're hit. 
  10. your HP is your masterful positioning; 2xHP if you end each of your turns in a spot you have not previously been in. your wounds force you into uncomfortable positions and off of your vantage points until you can't run anymore. 
  11. your HP is a big bug inside of you; your wounds let it escape; each point of HP you lose, another of its legs pokes out, can flail and grab and scurry. heal 1 point of HP per food item eaten, and eat twice your HP in food items to gain a new one 
  12. your HP is hilariously overfull bundles and bags; HP is equal to the number of items in your inventory. your wounds rip your sacks and satchels and send that many random items flying whenever you lose HP, until you stand bereft, with only your life to lose. 
  13. your HP are your prognostications; on the end of your turn, write down what you think 1 enemy is going to do next turn; if you're right, 3xHP against that enemy whenever they attack you. your wounds are effortless steps and happenstance guiding you narrowly out of harms way, until your fated death claims you.
  14. your HP are your memories; at the end of each session, name up to 2 specific significant events or images that stood out to you, write them down, and gain that much HP. your wounds are your death and swift return; erase that many random memories; you may heal them only by revisiting each specific spot or scene
  15. your HP is your bones; you have 206. your wounds are your enemies taking that many random bones, which are also their money. even if you damage yourself falling, crows and beetles and worms will scatter with your bones, snatching them as they pop out of your flesh. you may spend your own bones as money if you would like, though the experience is horrifying. you can heal only by replacing your missing bones.
  16. your HP is your perfect wonderful face. 2xHP against anyone you've been nice to who can see your face. your wounds are grotesque mutilations of your appearance. get all up in there. you heal by disguising those hurt parts of yourself. but you know they’re there.
  17. your HP is your holy name; known to all, spoken by few. only one who can speak it may harm you. each time you take damage, halve your HP, rounding down, but track HP separately for each enemy; the tracker represents that enemy forcing through the blisters to speak your name. your wounds are a searing pain as your aura turns inward and begins to bake your sacred organs.
  18. your HP is your drunkenness.  Do a shot to start at base HP, then multiply it by 2, 3 etc. for every following shot. 0 HP if sober or puking. Your wounds knock you around comically and send you reeling.
  19. your HP is the part of you that loves and begs and cringes and cries and makes friends. they’ll carve all that away from the bone with time. 3xHP, you can’t heal. at .75xHP or less, asking for help damages you. at .5, accepting gifts damages you. at .25, being touched gently, skin to your bare skin damages you. taking damage from one of these sources is the only thing that can kill you. your wounds knit and heal into great gnarled scars.
  20. your HP is spit in the eye of the torturer and an invitation to future pain. 2xHP, but anyone who hurts you at least once without killing you will never do so. your presence fills them with a furious fear that dominates their mind, and they will hurt you so desperately and hungrily to drive that feeling away, but they cannot land a final stroke, since doing so  would deprive themselves of their catharsis. your wounds are the panting, ravaged flesh that the acids and needles and pliers and teeth and nails have left. 

if you hit negative HP and every time you get hit while at negative HP, roll a death die.

death die die dead death

  1. die horribly
  2. die horribly
  3. die horribly
  4. take a final action then die horribly
  5. take an final action that automatically succeeds, then die horribly
  6. narrowly avoid horrible death and take an action that automatically succeeds

"bleeeeeghhh this all seems clunky you should modify damage not HP"
this feels better idiot

Comments

  1. I cannot even start on how very useful and inspirational it is. You can set up gods or demons with all of this with ease, the whole cosmology of permanently drunk demiurges ala Morgan Megan, to ghosts of our memories at the end of the world.

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  2. You know, the mechanics you describe always feel like they would work to me, which is amazing in and of itself, but past that, they are also incredibly evocative. Doing one or the other is difficult enough. To do both and so consistently is really incredible. Great stuff.

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  3. "your HP is hilariously overfull bundles and bags; HP is equal to the number of items in your inventory. your wounds rip your sacks and satchels and send that many random items go flying whenever you lose HP, until you stand bereft, with only your life to lose"

    To end this with the line "with only your life to lose" goes way harder than it has any right to. Damn.

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