Proposed Damage / Healing System

[KarinsDad]

With all of the discussion on healing recently, I posted the following damage / healing system. But, it got buried in one of the other lengthier threads. Considering that the 5E goal is to bring in players from many different D&D game systems, what do people think of the following type system?


1) Hit points represent luck, courage, fatigue, turning heavy blows into glancing blows, etc. Hit points recover with a short rest. PCs have hit points somewhat slightly less than the 4E level (to make the wound system below work).

2) Wound points represent real wounds. Wound points require magic or significant rest to heal. PCs have wound points = CON.

Run out of hit points, the PC is unconscious. Run out of wound points, the PC is dead.

Every 10 hit points does 1 wound point, so a 25 hit point shot does 2 wound points which makes critical hits nastier, but 4 hit point shots do 0 wound points. PCs could get into barroom brawls where they take no actual wounds because the punches and kicks are not damaging enough, they just get knocked out. Minions often don't do wound points. But, BBEGs might often do quite a few. Players are not bothered as much by normal monsters, but they might be extremely wary of BBEGs and Elites.

Note: Hit point damage is not cumulative for determining wound points. Each hit is considered separately. A 7 hit point hit followed by an 8 hit point hit would do 0 wound points of damage.

No healing surges needed. PCs get either one Second Wind per day (my preference as per Star Wars IIRC) or one per encounter to rally with. Second Wind restores hit points, but not wound points. There is no self healing, but there is self rallying.

The bookkeeping is similar to 4E. Instead of keeping track of hit points and healing surges, the player now keeps track of hit points and wound points.

The only limit on combat with regard to wounds is the number of times that PCs can magically heal (with spell or potion or whatever) wound points. Warlords restore hit points and rally allies, they do not restore wound points. That requires magical healing.

There could be rules that an unconscious PC is dying and takes a wound point each round that s/he isn't stabilized (by a good stabilization roll himself, or by an ally helping). This adds in an element of urgency to dying PCs that doesn't occur in 4E.

PCs could still Second Wind, Warlords could still rally PCs, but healing itself goes back to being magical. If a group doesn't have a healer, they'd better get themselves some potions or even a healer henchmen to help out, etc., or they might be holing up once in a while.

Because healing goes back to requiring magical healing, some more ways to mitigate damage would be useful. Damage resistance becomes a very useful and desired ability. Temporary hit points, not as much.

 

[Minigiant]

As much as I'd like a Stamina/Wound system... it's not happening as the core of 5e.

D&Dn/5e will have very few "new" ideas as it is a unity edition. Anything that wasn't the default in a previous edition in some form, wont probably make it to core.

A stamina/Wound system might be mentioned as a module or variant in the books but it probably wont be the default.

 

[Szatany]

With all of the discussion on healing recently, I posted the following damage / healing system. But, it got buried in one of the other lengthier threads. Considering that the 5E goal is to bring in players from many different D&D game systems, what do people think of the following type system?

I must say I like it. It's pretty much what I would want from D&D. It's somewhat gritty and at the same time somewhat heroic.

1) Hit points represent luck, courage, fatigue, turning heavy blows into glancing blows, etc. Hit points recover with a short rest. PCs have hit points somewhat slightly less than the 4E level (to make the wound system below work).

Yes. However, since you change the definition of hit points slightly, you should also change the way they are calculated. Maybe 1st level character should have HP equal to 1/2 Strength (layers of muscle protect organs) + 1/2 Constitution (resistance to fatigue and pain) + 1/2 Wisdom or Charism (determination).

2) Wound points represent real wounds. Wound points require magic or significant rest to heal. PCs have wound points = CON.

Okay, but I see a potential issue at high levels. At lower levels characters take little damage at once and so they will suffer wounds not that often. At high levels, attacks will deal 2-4 wounds each. People will die faster, regardless of their HP. Is that intended?

Run out of hit points, the PC is unconscious. Run out of wound points, the PC is dead.

No negative HP. Good. IMO under this system they are unnecessary.

Warlords restore hit points and rally allies, they do not restore wound points. That requires magical healing.

Agree that nonmagical characters shouldn't be able to cure wounds in combat, but it should be possible for a warlord to suppress the effects of a wound on a character for a few rounds.

There could be rules that an unconscious PC is dying and takes a wound point each round that s/he isn't stabilized (by a good stabilization roll himself, or by an ally helping). This adds in an element of urgency to dying PCs that doesn't occur in 4E.

A good alternative to bleeding to death (which felt out of place in 3E, mechanically).

As much as I'd like a Stamina/Wound system... it's not happening as the core of 5e.

D&Dn/5e will have very few "new" ideas as it is a unity edition. Anything that wasn't the default in a previous edition in some form, wont probably make it to core.

A stamina/Wound system might be mentioned as a module or variant in the books but it probably wont be the default.

If it's a module, it's good enough for me. I would pick it if DMing.

 

[KarinsDad]

Okay, but I see a potential issue at high levels. At lower levels characters take little damage at once and so they will suffer wounds not that often. At high levels, attacks will deal 2-4 wounds each. People will die faster, regardless of their HP. Is that intended?

People may die faster, but probably not.

At higher levels, PCs have more access to damage mitigation and healing (spells, items, class abilities), buffs and debuffs, etc. Also, Wotc is flattening out the damage and hit point model in 5E, so although higher level foes would do somewhat more damage, it's probably not 4x the amount of damage like what occurs in 4E. Maybe closer to twice the damage. Plus, there appears to be ways to boost ability scores at higher levels in 5E.

I'm thinking that WotC could design the game so that this isn't actually an issue.

 

[RangerWickett]

I don't think that would fly for most D&Ders. If I may suggest an alternative?

It seems like 5e will have different rules modules you can layer atop the core rules. I imagine the core rules will be "You have HP. When you're at 0, you're unconscious. At negative X you're dead. Also make death saves to see if you bleed out." In effect, basically 4th edition, though I imagine they'll take out healing surges and instead give you a once-per-day second wind.

But then there could be the "wound module."


Wound Module
Wounds are persistent injuries that impair adventurers and their enemies beyond a single encounter, and that can possibly even kill a creature outright. Most wounds occur due to critical hits, but these rules handle any sort of long-term or permanent injury, such as if a thief is caught stealing and has his hand chopped off in punishment.


Wound Types
Wounds can be minor or major, temporary or permanent.

Minor Wounds - Partial blindness (-2 to attack rolls), garbled (unable to speak above a whisper), weakened arm (weakened condition on attacks by that limb), weakened leg (slowed), blood loss (make a single death saving throw (DC 10) at the end of your next turn; three failed death saves in a day result in death). These conditions also likely incur -2 penalties to skill checks that rely on the injured body part.

Major Wounds - Blindness (-2 to attack rolls and Perception checks, grant combat advantage), muted (unable to speak), crippled arm (unable to attack with that limb), crippled leg (immobilized unless you have a crutch), severe bleeding (make death saving throws (DC 10) at the end of each of your turns until you die, receive magical healing, or stanch the bleeding (Heal DC 15). These conditions also likely incur -5 penalties to skill checks that rely on the injured body part.

Temporary Wounds - After an extended rest, make a Constitution save (DC 20) to recover. You or an ally can make a Heal check in place of your Constitution save.

Permanent Wounds - The damage can only be restored with magic, either to heal or to create a prosthesis. If you have a permanent bleeding wound, the bleeding condition reoccurs the first time you take damage in a combat.


Wounds in Combat
When an attack is a critical hit (natural 20 on the attack roll), in addition to its hit point damage, it causes a wound. The severity of the wound depends on the die roll of the damage, not counting modifiers. If the attack has several dice of damage, use whichever single die is highest to determine the wound's severity.

The attacker chooses one of the options available at the appropriate severity, including what type of injury to inflict (eye, throat, arm, leg, etc.).

Severity 1

• The defender makes a Con save (DC 5) or suffers a minor temporary wound.

Severity 2

• Con save (DC 10) or minor temporary wound.
• Con save (DC 5) or major temporary wound.

Severity 3

• Con save (DC 15) or minor temporary wound.
• Con save (DC 10) or major temporary wound.

Severity 4

• Con save (DC 20) or minor temporary wound.
• Con save (DC 15) or major temporary wound.
• Con save (DC 5) or minor permanent wound.

Severity 5

• Con save (DC 20) or major temporary wound.
• Con save (DC 10) or minor permanent wound.
• Con save (DC 5) or major permanent wound.

Severity 6

• Con save (DC 20) or major temporary wound.
• Con save (DC 15) or minor permanent wound.
• Con save (DC 10) or major permanent wound.
• Mortal wound. Immediate Con save (DC 5) or die.

Severity 7

• Con save (DC 20) or major temporary wound.
• Con save (DC 20) or minor permanent wound.
• Con save (DC 15) or major permanent wound.
• Immediate Con save (DC 10) or die.

Severity 8

• Con save (DC 20) or major permanent wound.
• Immediate Con save (DC 15) or die.

Severity 9+

• Immediate Con save (DC 20) or die.

 

[KarinsDad]

But then there could be the "wound module."

I agree that this does not necessarily have to be core, but a lot of rules are dependent on what core might be.

I think that what you suggested will get very little traction because of complexity. Any time that the DM or players need to look up DCs or look on a chart or whatever, it slows up the game. I suspect based on the proposed skill system that simplicity and few rules will be the name of the game in 5E.

I see a gaping chasm between players that prefer an earlier model of hit points consisting of some measure of damage and restored with effort, and 4E players that prefer a model of them not actually being damage and quickly restored. The only way I see to bridge that chasm is to give both sets of players what they want to some extent. Compromise. Dropping out one or the other group of players completely in the core rules doesn't seem to be the best option.

 

[Jork Ferngler]

Alt-alternative

As an alternate to OP's alternative: Why not have wounds represent real damage as you propose, but limit the number of total wounds to the Con mod - damage above the total Con score inflicts a wound; dropping to zero or below inflicts a wound. When equal or exceeding their Con mod in wounds, the character is dead.

Magical healing wound heal wounds only; hp would return at perhaps a faster rate as they're less about physical damage under this model, a short rest returning half or more hp. Wounds would be more serious, and heal naturally at the same rate as hp do under older systems, days or weeks. Heal spells would fix one or more wounds depending on spell level, light=1 moderate=2 serious=3 and so on.

 

[Rhenny]

I like op's proposal because it is simple and easy to follow. I have some questions/suggestions as follows:

1) How would HP (as fatigue) replenish after combat? Would a 5 min rest restore 1/4, 1/2 or all? Could PCs rest for more time if the DM deems it safe?

2) At 0 Wounds let PCs make Death Saves of some sort to see how long they can cling to this world. Based on CON score in some way.

 

[Bedrockgames]

For D&D i think I would just prefer they go back to traditional hp and healing.

 

[Meophist]

This sounds similar to the idea I posted earlier. The main differences is that wounds for me count upwards, are gotten from getting hits that are a quarter of maximum hit points(as opposed to a straight 10)(although half may be better now that I think of it), and is a negative modifier to all ability-based checks.

I think it's better to have the wounds based on the PC's maximum hit points rather than a straight number for scaling reasons. 10 hit points means something entirely different to a level 1 PC as it does to a level 20. A PC's hit points may even rise to the point where they have more than ten times their constitution in it, at which point it becomes easier for them to die than to be knocked unconscious, which is unintuitive.

The reason I have the wounds become a negative modifier(and thus have them counting upwards) is due to the complaint that, otherwise, there's little difference if how the player would act due to their injuries until they're almost dead. Until their wounds get close to the constitution score, or the other way around in your system, it makes little differences to the player. The damage to ability ensures that each wound gets noticed, although it's perhaps a bit harsh.