I'm working on a new D&D-ish system from the ground up, and I think that I've finally found the elegant answer for Structures, and that's Structure Points and Siege Damage.
Structures like boats, castles, houses, siege engines, swords, and walls don't have HP. They use SP (Structure Points). That means that these things are so tough that you have to do a minimum amount of damage to have any effect. As it stands, that's 10+ damage in one hit. Fireball does it. A fighter with 20str rolling 5 or greater does it... but rolling 4 or less doesn't, no matter how many times they do it, because each hit doesn't meet the minimum threshold of 10. Dealing 19 slashing damage still only causes the structure to lose 1 structure point. 20 bludgeoning would cause it to lose 2SP.
Some objects (like cannons and catapults), as well as some monsters (like Krakens) have special attacks that deal Siege Damage. These attacks can only hit structures, and they'll typically deal something like 1d6 siege damage, but each end every point of damage counts. 6 Siege Damage costs the structure 6SP... so in this case, a Cannonade can deal 6d10 + Dexterity Modifier bludgeoning to a character, or 1d6 siege to a structure.
How tough is everything? A 5'x5' panel of wall on the fourth floor of a castle might have 2SP, but the first floor's 5'x5' panel might have 8SP... and destroying one panel won't kill the castle. Boats on the other hand might have a grand total of 8SP to 24SP. They roll on their mishap table just like an Infernal War Machine, and at 0SP they are just going straight to the bottom. Sword? 2SP + 1SP for each +1 it has to attack... so a regular sword has 2SP. A +3 sword has 5SP. Any hafted weapon has 1SP. Soft things like fabric for rope, nets, or tents still just uses HP... but a wagon might have 3SP.
Lastly, structures don't suffer from splash damage. This rule is 100% just to avoid bookkeeping, but your sword doesn't get hurt because you got Fireballed. Similarly, you don't need to track structure of the place you're standing in, unless it's for dramatic reasons. In short, it's okay to forget about it until it's dramatically important. They need something to specifically target the structure to try and deal structural damage.
I'm also toying around with the idea of "quick magical siege damage" being a simple count of the damage dice. Every 4d4, 3d6, 2d8, 2d10, or 2d12 deals 1 siege damage. Remainders don't deal anything... so Fireball would just be reduced to 2 siege damage. A 4th-Level Fireball would deal 3 siege damage. A 7th-Level Fireball would be 4 siege damage.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Structure Points replacing Hit Points
I'm working on a new D&D-ish system from the ground up, and I think that I've finally found the elegant answer for Structures, and that's Structure Points and Siege Damage.
Structures like boats, castles, houses, siege engines, swords, and walls don't have HP. They use SP (Structure Points). That means that these things are so tough that you have to do a minimum amount of damage to have any effect. As it stands, that's 10+ damage in one hit. Fireball does it. A fighter with 20str rolling 5 or greater does it... but rolling 4 or less doesn't, no matter how many times they do it, because each hit doesn't meet the minimum threshold of 10. Dealing 19 slashing damage still only causes the structure to lose 1 structure point. 20 bludgeoning would cause it to lose 2SP.
Some objects (like cannons and catapults), as well as some monsters (like Krakens) have special attacks that deal Siege Damage. These attacks can only hit structures, and they'll typically deal something like 1d6 siege damage, but each end every point of damage counts. 6 Siege Damage costs the structure 6SP... so in this case, a Cannonade can deal 6d10 + Dexterity Modifier bludgeoning to a character, or 1d6 siege to a structure.
How tough is everything? A 5'x5' panel of wall on the fourth floor of a castle might have 2SP, but the first floor's 5'x5' panel might have 8SP... and destroying one panel won't kill the castle. Boats on the other hand might have a grand total of 8SP to 24SP. They roll on their mishap table just like an Infernal War Machine, and at 0SP they are just going straight to the bottom. Sword? 2SP + 1SP for each +1 it has to attack... so a regular sword has 2SP. A +3 sword has 5SP. Any hafted weapon has 1SP. Soft things like fabric for rope, nets, or tents still just uses HP... but a wagon might have 3SP.
Lastly, structures don't suffer from splash damage. This rule is 100% just to avoid bookkeeping, but your sword doesn't get hurt because you got Fireballed. Similarly, you don't need to track structure of the place you're standing in, unless it's for dramatic reasons. In short, it's okay to forget about it until it's dramatically important. They need something to specifically target the structure to try and deal structural damage.
I'm also toying around with the idea of "quick magical siege damage" being a simple count of the damage dice. Every 4d4, 3d6, 2d8, 2d10, or 2d12 deals 1 siege damage. Remainders don't deal anything... so Fireball would just be reduced to 2 siege damage. A 4th-Level Fireball would deal 3 siege damage. A 7th-Level Fireball would be 4 siege damage.