Wound Points Based on Size

I had a look at the wound point system in the Unearthed Arcana book and I like it, but I would like wound points to be based on size/body mass/body shape rather than Constitution, though the Constitution bonus/penalty would still apply as a modifier. My question is... how many wound points would you assign as a base for each particular size category (it would still be modified by type of creature, by Con, etc). Feel free to use a humanoid shaped creature as a base.

I am thinking:-

Fine: 1
Diminutive: 2
Tiny: 3
Small: 5

Medium: 10 wound points

Large: 20
Huge: 40
Gargantuan: 80
Colossal: 160

Any thoughts?

Looks cool

Looks like you got some good numbers there. I definitely like this since Star Wars uses this and it keeps one from critting and instantly killing a space slug with a blaster pistol. It adds a little realism without a ton of rules rewriting...

DackBlackhawk said:

Looks like you got some good numbers there. I definitely like this since Star Wars uses this and it keeps one from critting and instantly killing a space slug with a blaster pistol. It adds a little realism without a ton of rules rewriting...

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Hmm, on reflection though, if I raised the Default Number of Wound Points for a medium sized humanoid to 16 (modified by constitution bonus/penalty), I could be more consistent and have the number of wound points double or half with each increase or decrease in size category. Do you think 16 Wound Points would be too many as an average for a medium sized humanoid?

No

I wouldn't go that high. 12 at most. Remember you're not just dealing with size increases but Mass increases as well. A monster 2 times larger is more than 2 times more massive.

DackBlackhawk said:

I wouldn't go that high. 12 at most. Remember you're not just dealing with size increases but Mass increases as well. A monster 2 times larger is more than 2 times more massive.

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Well, a monster 2 times larger in all three dimensions is 8 times more massive. Increasing wound points by a factor of 8 for each category, however, sounds a little bit excessive from a playability point of view. One must also consider the fact that thickness of tissue before vital organs increases proportionately to size (2 times larger creature will have twice the thickness of tissue - not 8 times, since you only need to penetrate it from one dimension). As such, the wound points should probably increase by a factor of somewhere between 2 and 8 per size category from the point of view of realism/versimilitude and perhaps a factor of 4 per size category would be ideal for this purpose. Nonetheless, I would guess that playability reasons might limit this to a factor of 2.

I will look at several scenarios, using your suggestion of 12 wound points for a medium size humanoid creature as a starting point:-


Change by a factor of 2 per size category:-

Fine: 1
Diminutive: 2
Tiny: 3
Small: 6

Medium: 12 wound points

Large: 24
Huge: 48
Gargantuan: 96
Colossal: 192


Change by a factor of 4 per size category:-

Fine: ?
Diminutive: ?
Tiny: 1
Small: 3

Medium: 12 wound points

Large: 48
Huge: 192
Gargantuan: 768
Colossal: 2,072


Change by a factor of 8 per size category (this makes the increase in wound points proportional to the increase in body mass):-

Fine: ?
Diminutive: ?
Tiny: 1
Small: 2

Medium: 12 wound points

Large: 96
Huge: 768
Gargantuan: 6,144
Colossal: 49,152




If we try increase by a factor of 2 and assume the base for a medium sized humanoid creature would be 16, we get the following:

Fine: 1
Diminutive: 2
Tiny: 4
Small: 8

Medium: 16 wound points

Large: 32
Huge: 64
Gargantuan: 128
Colossal: 256


Change by a factor of 4 per size category:-

Fine: ?
Diminutive: ?
Tiny: 1
Small: 4

Medium: 16 wound points

Large: 64
Huge: 256
Gargantuan: 1,024
Colossal: 4,096


Change by a factor of 8 per size category (this makes the increase in wound points proportional to the increase in body mass):-

Fine: ?
Diminutive: ?
Tiny: 1
Small: 2

Medium: 16 wound points

Large: 128
Huge: 1,024
Gargantuan: 8,192
Colossal: 65,536


Well, you get the idea of how these go... which do you think is best?

My only comment here is that if you make larger creatures that much harder to kill, you need to make smaller creatures even harder to hit.

Otherwise this is just one more way to shaft the little guy. And I've noticed that a lot of the current rules think that bigger is so much better, where it's been proven that smaller is better at least some of the ways bigger is listed as better.

ARandomGod said:

My only comment here is that if you make larger creatures that much harder to kill, you need to make smaller creatures even harder to hit.

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Agreed - but that comes later - first I must figure out the number of wound points I actually grant each size category as a base (and how they are modified by type, constitution, body build, etc).

Bumpity, bumpity, bumpity, bump!

No further comments?

The way I see it, large creatures already have 'Wound Points' factored into their hit points. As a quick fix, I just assume that any creature with racial hit dice has those hit dice as WP. I mean, Dragons don't dodge swords (which is what would happen if they had vitality points). They get hit and ignore the injury..