Aetrimonde

Today’s topic will be resource mechanics. A resource mechanic gives characters a reserve of something (health, stamina, mana, etc.) that can be spent to do things, or that they need to conserve.

In this post, I’m only going to discuss the types of resources that all characters will share as part of the goal of unified mechanics. I’m also not going to define numbers, or even a lot of rules, just yet, because that will be part of a later discussion on level scaling.

Health Resources

The first kind of resource we’ll talk about is one that pretty much every RPG has some analogue for: health. Characters in this game will be fighting, and dodging traps, and potentially falling from cliffs, and when that happens they will get injured. We need a resource that tracks how healthy they are.

Health Mechanics in Other Systems

Various RPGs track character health in various ways:

• Hit Points: A classic, and one used by D&D since the beginning. A hit point is some discrete unit of “banged-up-edness.” Being injured reduces HP by some amount (typically a dice roll); receiving healing increases them. Tougher characters have more HP.
• Wounds: A wound is again some discrete unit of “banged-up-edness,” but instead of attacks reducing wounds by a fixed amount, they cause a die roll that determines if you lose one or more wounds. More harmful attacks are more likely to inflict wounds, and might cause more of them when successful. Tougher characters have more wounds, and it may be harder to make them lose wounds.
• Stress: In a stress system, attacks and injure cause a check to determine if you receive stress, much like a wound system, but with a couple of twists. Firstly, receiving stress has effects other than moving you closer to defeat: it might give you an arm injury making it harder to swing a sword, or daze you so that you can’t think straight. Secondly, stress systems often give you a choice of what kind of stress you get from an injury, and they’re often used in more narrative-based systems for this reason.

I don’t see a strong reason to depart from 4e’s hit point mechanic. Hit points are simple and familiar to most RPG gamers, and so this will make Aetrimonde accessible. (I’m absolutely going to change how hit points are calculated, though.)

4e also had a second health-related resource, the “healing surge.” Characters had a limited number of healing surges, which were consumed by many sources of healing and regained when resting overnight. Each use of a healing surge would restore a quarter of the character’s hit points (although many healing effects would add to this amount). So healing surges fulfilled two purposes: they allowed healing effects to scale with how tough a character was to begin with, and they represented a limit on a character’s ability to recover from injury.

5e has a slightly different take on healing surges, in the form of “hit dice.” A 5e character gets one hit die per level, with tougher classes having larger hit dice. While hit dice are not consumed by many healing effects like spells and potions, a character can spend their hit dice to regain hit points when they rest. Hit dice thus act as a limit on a character’s ability to recover from injury, just like healing surges.

I think there are good things about both mechanics:

• I like that 4e’s healing surges being used by most sources of healing limited how much a character could be healed: eventually, a character getting constantly injured would get worn down, no matter how much healing magic you threw at them. This is a nice, gritty mechanic that I think fits well with the pulp-adventure kind of feel I’m going for.
• I like that 5e’s hit dice involve an actual dice roll. Healing surges restoring a fixed amount of hit points (unless a power said to roll dice on top of that) always seemed like a missed opportunity to me. Rolling dice is fun!

So, I’m going to invent a mechanic that takes the better parts of both:

• Characters have a finite stock of resurgences that are consumed by major sources of healing. Not all healing will consume a resurgence, but it will be difficult to regain full hit points without using resurgences. Non-resurgence healing will have limitations like consuming a resource other than resurgences, only working up to half health, or only being temporary.
• Characters also have a healing die that varies by class. Most healing effects will involve rolling the healed character’s healing die, allowing these effects to scale depending on the character’s toughness.

HP and resurgences will both be regained on resting.

Stamina Resources

The next type of resource is a stamina resource, loosely defined to encompass resources that characters need in order to do things and that are renewable (they can be regained once spent).

Stamina Resources in Other Systems

There are many types of stamina resources in various game systems:

• In D&D, the most common type of stamina resource over several editions has been the spell slot: characters are able to cast a finite number of spells, of varying potencies or levels, before resting.
  • Up to 3.5e, many spellcasters had to prepare spells individually: if they wanted to cast two Fireballs, they had to prepare two Fireballs, and they had to pick the level they would cast each one at. 5e has done away with this, allowing casters to cast any of their prepared spells using any slot of sufficiently high level.
• 4e is the sole edition to do away with spell slots entirely: every one of a character’s limited-use powers had its own dedicated resource, and they were not transferrable between powers. In general, a per-short-rest or per-long-rest power could be used exactly once per rest, even if you had other powers on the same frequency.
• Many editions of D&D have had other stamina resources, such as barbarian rage uses, bardic music uses, ki points, Channel Divinity charges, etc.
• Some Fate-based games allow stress to double as a stamina mechanic, by causing strenuous actions to possibly cause stress to the user.

In the interest of Design Goals #1 and #2 (Unified Mechanics and Minimize Fiddly Numbers), I’m going to roll stamina resources as much as possible into a single resource.

Characters will have things they can do as much as they want, and things they can do that are strenuous. We will call these lesser and greater powers. Using a greater power, whether it’s a special sword trick or a powerful spell, will consume a greater power use, and these will be regained on resting.

Action Resources

An action resource is a limit on how much time a character has to do things on their turn. Action resources replenish every time a character gets a turn.

Action Resources in Other Systems

D&D has traditionally used a system where characters get one each of several types of action, each used for different things.

• A standard action (shortened to just “action” in 5e) would be used for something major, like attacking or casting a spell.
• A move action would naturally be used for movement. Most characters could move normally or sprint with a move action; situationally they might climb or swim; and some characters could fly or teleport with their move actions. However, in systems with a move action, characters typically have to use all of their movement in one go, with any excess being lost. 5e does away with the move action, instead allowing characters to split up their movement however they like around and between actions. A standard action could be traded down for a second move action in 3e through 4e, while in 5e the Dash action fills a similar niche.
• Late 3.5e introduced the swift action, which successive editions renamed the minor and then the bonus action. This could be used for minor tasks like opening doors, pulling levers, and making some kinds of attack.
• Opportune actions, in 4e, allowed characters to make attacks of opportunity when another creature moved around them, or otherwise react once on each other creature’s turn. 3e had a similar attack of opportunity mechanic, but did not make this an action type.
• Immediate actions, introduced in late 3.5e, allowed for a more significant action on other creatures’ turns. 4e split this into interrupts, taking place before a trigger event fully resolved, and reactions, taking place afterwards. 5e has preserved this as the reaction, doing away with opportune actions.
• Free actions represent “instant” actions requiring minimal time but still some thought. Unlike other actions, free actions were unlimited.

Other game systems use action point mechanics, where characters have some number of points that they can spend on actions during their turn, with more complicated actions requiring more action points. In some of these systems, having unused action points at the end of a turn allows a character to make certain reactions to other characters.

Action points are a source of fiddly numbers (having to subtract points from your total, and having to track leftover points between turns if the system allows leaving them unused to make reactions), so I’m going to stick to a D&Desque action system.

I think that 5e’s action economy of one big action and one smaller action per turn is a good place to be: these will be named the main and minor actions. Unlike 5e, I will allow trading down the main action for a second minor action; I don’t mind if a character wants to do two small things in a turn.

I do like 5e’s take on movement, so I’ll do away with the discrete move action in favor of movement that the player can split up however they like.

Aetrimonde Design History

At one point, before I’d played much 5e and gotten to appreciate how its movement system worked, I retained the move action from 4e. The main, move, and minor actions were named for their alliterative appeal.

I liked that 4e allowed for more off-turn actions using both opportune and interrupt actions, so I’ll keep this distinction where characters can potentially do several small things (balanced around normal weapon attacks, mainly) and one big thing between turns. But, I did find that 4e’s terminology of Immediate Interrupt vs Immediate Reaction led some players to think that they had both an Interrupt and Reaction each round. For clarity, I will name this type of action (once between each of your turns) a Reaction. Some Reactions will be Swift Reactions, indicating that they can interrupt; I think that Reaction vs Swift Reaction will make it clearer that one is a subtype of the other.

Asset Resources

An asset resource, like a stamina resource, is something that characters spend to do things, but asset resources are non-renewable: once spent, they’re gone forever. The classic asset resource is wealth: money that can be spent to get goods and services.

Types of Wealth Resources

Wealth resources tend to be handled in one of two ways:

• Account Balance: Characters track the exact amount of money they have, and spend it to get things. This is more common in games with pre-modern settings, where characters are unlikely to have fungible assets, access to credit, etc.
• Wealth Level: Characters have a Wealth statistic like they might have a Strength or Charisma statistic. A given level of Wealth allows characters to make smaller purchases without impacting their Wealth at all, while larger purchases might permanently reduce the character’s Wealth.

I don’t see a strong reason to depart from 4e’s currency system of gold, silver, and copper pieces. To make this system a little more flavorful, I’m going to include some information about non-standard currencies (like Waystone half-guineas worth 2gp1sp, and Elvaren electrum obols worth 4sp) in the Game Master’s Handbook’s setting section. And, because I want Aetrimonde to support Victorian Fantasy (which comes with the beginnings of a financial system…) I’m also going to include some rules support for GMs to include assets other than hard cash and gems, like banknotes, savings bonds, and stock certificates.

Meta Resources

A meta resource, loosely defined, is a resource that players have but characters don’t. It is an out-of-universe resource that players can use to ensure things go their way when they really need it, or to otherwise influence the story in a more satisfying direction.

Types of Meta Resources

Various systems have introduced different kinds of meta resource:

• D&D 3.5e introduced “action points” as a variant rule that was made an official part of the Eberron campaign setting. Action points could be spent to increase the result of a d20 roll after seeing the roll (but before the result was announced), or for a variety of other effects tied to specific classes and feats. A character would replenish their stock of action points upon gaining a level or when finishing a major milestone in their adventures, and could gain action points from doing something “cool” in the eyes of the GM.
• 4e retained the name action points, but changed the mechanics: an action point could be spent once per encounter to take an extra standard action during a turn. A character would have one action point after completing a long rest, and would gain one for every two encounters completed without resting.
• 5e uses an “inspiration” mechanic that allows characters to gain inspiration for doing “cool” things. Inspiration can be spent to gain advantage on a d20 roll.
  • Baldur’s Gate 3, a video game adaptation of 5e, instead uses inspiration to allow characters to re-roll failed skill and ability checks.
• The Fate system uses Fate points as a core mechanic: Fate points can be gained by playing into aspects of one’s character, accepting complications proposed by the GM, or by allowing enemies to use aspects of your character to their favor, and can be spent to improve or reroll dice rolls, or to make declarations about how the story progresses.

I’m not going to make meta resources a part of Aetrimonde’s default rules: I think that the use of meta resources is a matter of taste that’s best left up to individual tables. But, I will be including a section discussing a few options for meta resource systems that could work well in Aetrimonde as part of the GMH.

Up Next

The next post in this series will cover ability mechanics: how the system accounts for a character’s, well, abilities and how they inform what a character can do.