HP charge to face horror

You could just limit their resources from the get-go instead of using HP as a gauge. Or introduce a sanity meter ala Cthulhu for the sake of the game, Hell, you could even continue to use the same skill system: Sanity starts at 5 in 6, every time you fail it the character refuses to perform the action AND the chance of success next time goes down by 1 (4 in 6, 3 in 6, etcetera). Succeed and the character performs the action. Succeed twice in a row and you gain back one lost point of Sanity (never let it go up to 6 in 6). If they ever fail a 1 in 6 they turn into a gibbering, useless wreck/go on a rampage/commit suicide/and so on.

Or, you know, just roll-play it instead of using gameplay mechanics.

I find using HP for dual purposes like that to be disingenuous, if only because most alternate uses can be either roleplayed or assigned to another stat/a new stat. If you wanna call your HP something else, like Stamina or Willpower, and say that injuries merely wick away at the character's will to continue on, that's awesome and I need to use that in a game.

Last edited by Borlte (2012-12-30 21:05:53)

I'd build such a "horror/sanity countdown" off of Wisdom, perhaps ruling that the failed poison save comes with 1d3 points Wisdom damage.  As Wisdom reaches 0, the character is reduced to a deranged mess.

Instead of sanity points that count down, why not have a madness score that build up?
Whenever madness exceeds any of your ability scores, take a -2 to that score and some sort of extra penalty.
When madness exceeds wisdom it screws up your perception of the world.
When madness exceeds intelligence it messes with your ability to organize your thoughts.
And when madness exceeds constitution you start suffering from psychosomatic illnesses.

What healing rules do you use? First, I would trim those down to minimum; by-the-book, healing is a slow process. Second, I would definitely not add another element to the game (be it sanity points or madness meter or else); if you really want to have rules governing that aspect of the game, go with your original proposal and expand the use of HP to cover such actions (since HP covers everything from fatigue to morale to wounds, not much damage is done to the concept, I guess).