Condition Tracks and Damage Thresholds

[Yora]

Why did nobody mention this before, or at least in a way that became noticable:

With HP regenerating fast in the Playtest rules, what about bringing in the Condition Track from Star Wars Saga?

All characters and creatures have a Damage Threshold, which in 5th Ed. could be Constitution Score + Level or something like that. When a single attack deals damage greater than this number, the character has suffered a serious injury that penalizes him with increasingly worse penalties. -1 to most rolls after one such injury, -2 for two, -5 for three, -10 for four, and Death for five.
This is in addition to hit point.

Make the position on this Condition Track not go away through simple rest, and you could have a good system to represent injuries.

 

[VannATLC]

As far I've been able to determine, most people don't like Death spirals.

I've suggested in a few other places that when somebody is reduced to under 0 hitpoints, they suffer a reduction in their maximum hit points, and to their maximum hit dice. In 4e, I used this, and it required significant rest or ritual healing to restore to their original numbers. I also added made their death save failure penalty equal to their remaining healing surges. Worked fine, no death spiral, still long lasting injury.

Hit points and attack characteristics are far too abstracted to put penalties on rolls, imo, but reducing your overall survivability seems to fit the same abstracted idea.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I proposed a hit threshold like this in my own thread about healing. I would make the penalty apply to only one ability though, and add up linearly with each additional injury, rather than exponentially. Basically, try to make the penalties enough to alter your behaviour a little, but not so much to incentivise resting forever.

 

[Ahnehnois]

As far I've been able to determine, most people don't like Death spirals.

How far is that?

All characters and creatures have a Damage Threshold, which in 5th Ed. could be Constitution Score + Level or something like that. When a single attack deals damage greater than this number, the character has suffered a serious injury that penalizes him with increasingly worse penalties. -1 to most rolls after one such injury, -2 for two, -5 for three, -10 for four, and Death for five.
This is in addition to hit point.

Make the position on this Condition Track not go away through simple rest, and you could have a good system to represent injuries.

Definitely could work. One of many things that could.

 

[Minigiant]

Death Spirals? Nooooo.

Death spirals just doesn't feel D&D. Not enough to be a core rule. D&D traditionally drains resources as time passes instead of dropping escalating penalties.

 

[Leatherhead]

I would rather have the condition track used as a model for a buff/debuff tracking system.

You know, something like
Get hit with a doom spell: go down one condition
Bard singing battle songs: go up one condition.
Barbarian Rage: Go up two conditions.
Mesmerized: Go back to the starting Condition.

Using it as an improvised wound tracker to get around the "sleep it off" problem, is a disservice to what a condition track could be.