Lifeblood and Vitality-/Wound Points

[Hakkman]

Are these two systems, used in two seperate games made by two individual companies, the exact same? I looked into Traveler's Lifeblood/Stamina system after it was mentioned in another thread. Being a sucker for the cyberpunk and futuristic genre, I have been thinking of purchasing D20 Modern and utilize the Lifeblood system. I was reading up on D20 Modern, on rpg.net, where I noticed that several reviewers mentioned a similar or exactly indentical system, used in a Star Wars RPG, made by WotC. That system was being called the Vitality-/Wound Points system.

Anyone familiar with both these substitutes for the Hitpoint system used in AD&D, D20 Modern, etc? Are they identical in structure and use?

Do you have a favorite system dealing with combat and damage? There is a swedish game distributor called Neo Games that have designed a detailed, realistic, and extremely slow worked system. I like it, but when a fight between 3 PCs and 3 NPCs takes 1 ½ hours it is not very effective.

I figured that Traveler's Lifeblood is a lot more real than HP, but perhaps there are other models that are even better and that work reasonably quick when used in a session.

Suggestions, comments, and corrections are very welcome!

EDIT: I forgot to ask. Those of you that have played D20 Modern. What do you think of it? Is it a good game for that genre or would you recommend something else? I just bought Paranoia XP which is a lot different, but it reminds me of fallout (though a lot sillier and aims for primarily for humor) which is the phatest project ever.

[Mikayla]

My current PnP game is a D20 Modern game, with fantasy elements. Think "Shadowrun" but done with D20 (and in Shadowrun, fantasy creatures 'just' appeared - in my game, they've been there all along). I very much like D20 Modern and its supplements. The one big drawback to the system I've found is that WotC is not really supporting it. Apparently its not much of a seller. The D20 Modern webpage rarely gets updated, and rarely with anything useful. Moreover, there is almost nothing being printed for D20 Modern by WotC anymore.

That said, there are some good D20 modern products by other folks, and the stuff that is already out there (D20 Modern, Urban Arcana, Darkmatter D20, etc) is pretty good. AND ... AND ... they just made a Delta Green (modern Call of Cthulu) D20 book. Of course, its not that great, but hey, its DELTA GREEN!

Now, we tried the Vitality points system and we eventually dropped it. The group just could not get the hang of the system, no one liked it, and it required a lot of extra book-keeping and prep on my end (as you have to convert all the NPCs and monsters and such). So, after a valiant attempt, we went back to a straight hit-point system and everyone (including me) was much happier.

The vitality/lifeblood systems are more realistic, to be sure, but we just were not having much fun with it and it was a lot of extra work for very little gain.

Your mileage may vary of course.

OK, now let me throw you a ringer ...

The new Star Wars is out, and while it used to use rules very similar to D20 Modern (and D&D 3.5) it has changed, rather significantly. Enough so that I am referring to it as D&D 3.6. It has only two saving throws, Fortitude and Reflex, and you use those in combat to avoid damage and hits. And the skill system is WAY simplified - your skills are either Trained or Untrained. If trained, they use one formula, if untrained, a different formula. Makes the skill selection part of creating NPCs (and PCs) a breeze.

So in my D20 Modern game, we are slowly incorporating parts of the new Star Wars system.

OK, so, if you have any other questions, feel free to ask. I've been living with D20 modern for a year and half now and I feel like I've got a relatively good grip on it ...

EXCEPT for the wealth system. F**K the D20 wealth system. I hate the "Wealth Bonus" thing. My players don't like it, I don't like it, we don't really understand it and it does not always make sense. So, yeah, we don't like it so much. The rest is good though. Mostly.