I think you lose more/have to do more work if you break the existing hp/power relationship, so you're better off having "first blood" be past a HP threshold.
To add an element of risk back into HP, why not make the first 50% of HP be "grace" (ie, no obvious physical damage), -and- not check for first blood until the end of an attack sequence? This should make damage scale with level (a 6th level fighter will have 30-50 HP, but also do 8-10 points per strike, and can therefore do 16+ damage on a turn where they hit with their secondary attack (and don't even mention criticals, power attack, magic weapons, rolling max damage, etc; a 6th level rogue will only make one attack, but assuming they feint for their sneak attack bonus, can do, oh, 4d6 damage; certainly enough to knock down a fighter if they roll well)).
This also means that in fights in earnest, the PCs get a clue about how tough the opposition is when they start showing signs of damage at the 50% mark.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-02-16 04:03 pm (UTC)To add an element of risk back into HP, why not make the first 50% of HP be "grace" (ie, no obvious physical damage), -and- not check for first blood until the end of an attack sequence? This should make damage scale with level (a 6th level fighter will have 30-50 HP, but also do 8-10 points per strike, and can therefore do 16+ damage on a turn where they hit with their secondary attack (and don't even mention criticals, power attack, magic weapons, rolling max damage, etc; a 6th level rogue will only make one attack, but assuming they feint for their sneak attack bonus, can do, oh, 4d6 damage; certainly enough to knock down a fighter if they roll well)).
This also means that in fights in earnest, the PCs get a clue about how tough the opposition is when they start showing signs of damage at the 50% mark.