Balancing a Game (part 4)

The obvious answer was staring us in the face, but I did not want to follow the same path that other games had and increase character hit points. This would eventually lead to weapons with higher damage, and produce the need for more hit points, and the cycle would spiral infinitely upward, producing longer and longer battles as characters gained levels and hit points. There had to be a solution! I began to consider one existing factor of the game that we used for other purposes—Stamina points. Each character has up to a maximum of 4 Stamina points available (depending on the character's race and initial point investment). We'd been using Stamina points for things like re-rolling one of the dice, allowing a double-move (sprinting), using an especially powerful talent, and even ignoring a wound penalty. It was up to the player to decide how he wanted to use his Stamina points, and there was always that risk that he might run out of Stamina points and need them during an encounter. The solution was right there, though, and it was such a small rule change that I barely had to alter the text in the book: Stamina points could allow you to ignore your injuries.