Description: Let's go crazy and lower all hitpoints by 20. These would be the concrete effects:
- Starting humans and zombies have 30HP.
- Bodybuilding/Flesh Rot grants +10HP as usual, giving a total of 40HP.
- Revived humans have 15/20HP (depending on if they have Bodybuilding or not.)
- drag-eligibility still gets triggered at 12HP, putting freshly revived humans without FAKs at great risk
- damage from weapons and infection remains unaltered
- damage from failed Freerunning into ruins is halved to 2HP, rather than 5HP (17-20% of total possible health for stumbling over rubble would be a bit extreme, wouldn't it?)
- healing still heals 5/10/15HP depending on circumstances and skills, and digestion still grants 4HP per bite
- XP for healing and attacking remain the same
Why go that crazy? Because of these beneficial effects:
Zombies
- Lone ferals get a far better chance to break in and still have the AP to drag/kill someone, making even lone ferals dangerous.
- Cheap revive costs become far less of an issue in balance, as they are closer to kill costs, without the need to raise the AP costs for reviving to a ridiculous amount
- At the same time, combat revives remain a viable tactic, as they work reliably for exactly 10AP and just use up a single 2% item (unlike melee weapons, which probably use more than the 10AP, and unlike guns, which clog up more than 2% of encumbrance).
- Eating corpses becomes a viable tactic, as the AP costs to do so are close to that of receiving a headshot and rising again with full HP
PKers
- PKers would need far less HP to kill, allowing further away bolt-holes and epic striketeam mass homicide
- PKers could actually make some impact, as the kill costs are so close to revive costs
- OTOH, the reduced HP would put also PKers at greater risk, as even dark places aren't darn safe protection from every lone wolf without a genny and fuel. A bodybuilding PKer with a flak jack could be killed with a pistol for 31AP on average (((40HP / 4 damage)/65% hit probability)/50% darkness penalty).
- Carrying genny+fuel for PKer hunting would still be a sensible option, as it allows a.) to "bank" AP in advance that later make it easier to hunt PKers and b.) it allows to collect multiple bounties in dark places swarming with PKers
- This would also give bounty-hunting/retribution kills some sense, as the costs for doing so aren't so much ridicoulously higher than the costs to revive the PKers (although it would still remain somewhat less AP-efficient than ignoring PKers and putting the APs rather into reviving the victims)
Survivors
- Survivors get a far better chance to break a cade block, as they can kill and dump multiple zeds per individual AP cycle. A survivor loaded with pistols could repel a rotter for 10AP on average, allowing him to kill and dump 3 zeds at once and still cade a bit if he is fully rested. (((40HP / 4 damage)/65% hit probability = 15AP, +1AP for dumping = 16AP per pop)
- Survivors can fill up their inventory mostly with FAKs, syringes, a toolbox and maybe also a genny and/or fuel, and still put enough guns into their spare encumbrance for them to actually have an effect. A single revolver and two spare clips for a total of 8% would be sufficient to repel a single fully healthy rotter.
Flavour
- 3-5 shotgun blasts or 6-8 revolver bullets would be all what it takes to send someone to the boot hill, rather than the ridiculous amount of abuse that folks can take right now before they die
The beneficial effects would probably be slightly more in favour of zombies than survivors (as the imperative of zombies is to attack whenever possible, while survivors usually only fight when things have gone wrong), but it would offer something for both, and it would especially nerf the dreaded cade blocking without removing it entirely.
I'm aware that it's crazy and extreme, but I see a lot of merit in this. Discuss.
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