Your Days Are Numbered, and So Is Your HP

This character creation idea arrived in a dream. I wrote down the broad strokes as soon as I woke up. You know you are getting good at roleplaying games when even your subconscious gives up on normal escapist dreamfare, buckles down, and starts creating mechanics and hacks. If you’re not going to go to sleep, brain, then you might as well get some work done.

Roll stats as normal for a D&D-style game, 3d6 down the line, no dropped dice or modifiers. Keep these ability scores; they work as is typical.

Also sum up the results of all stats. This will give each character a number between 18 and 108. Each player subtracts that number from 108. The resulting number is their HP.

For example, I just rolled a character and got 4, 11, 14, 12, 14, 10, for 65. 108 minus 65 is 43 HP.

That’s a lot of HP, right? Well, there is no maximum/current distinction in this model. HP is a non-replenishing resource. So it may sound like a lot, but it has to last you your entire adventuring career.

In the grand spectrum of HP, from “literal combat wounds” on one end to “luck” or “fate” on the other, this is closer to the latter. The more heroic a character is – the higher their stats are – the more Fate expects them to burn brightly, but briefly. These adventurers are like Achilles; they are the best at what they do, but they’re not going to last that long. Fate has decreed it to be so, and Fate will have its way.

Yes, this means that a first-level character with 18 ability scores across the board would have 0 HP. They would literally die in one hit. A wretch with all 3s would have a comparatively massive 90 HP to work with. But because the math is averaging six stats together, most characters will end up a lot like my example above (the mode character in this system should be at 45, so I was just two points off).

For a more forgiving version, treat this HP more like Bastionland-style hit protection, and have damage spill into ability scores. Or allow for (very modest) increases to HP, either through leveling up, or through some intrinsic mechanic within the game (perhaps bargaining with Fate).