Crit and death saves mean automatic ability score damage - Too gritty?

[Shiroiken]

Edit: nevermind. I'm tired, and I would rather post after I collect my thoughts better.

 

[Li Shenron]

One aspect of 5E I hate is full hitpoints after a long rest.

My 15th level fighter is beaten down by a Balor, he is unconcious with two failed death saves when a party healer hits him just enough to bring him to 1 hp. No more healing is available so I go to bed at 1 hp. Assuming no one attacks us in the night and we get a long rest "BOOM" I am suddenly at full health and in perfect condition.

Hate it hate it hate it.

An idea, just an idea is this. Every time you take a critical hit you take one point of Constitution damage. You are physically injured in a way beyond just get a bruise or cut. But this is not it, My super barbarian with 185hp can get knocked unconcious and almost die without a single crit in a long battle. So this is the other part. Making a death save (whether you succeed it or fail it) is a point of Con damage. You are unconscious, you are bleeding out, you may be face down in the mud not breathing, etc, etc. Basically your body had been badly injured and even if you are brought back there will be fairly long term consequences until you can spend a couple weeks back at home resting and recuperating or the party healer uses something more than a cure wounds to get you back on your feet.

What do you think? Would this be too rough? It makes combat more dangerous, it makes it more realistic as you cannot get crisped by red dragon breath today and be sweet as a daisy tomorrow just by sleeping. You might also have to add a spell or two, low level ones that have too long for combat casting time, and a high level ones you can cast in combat that can heal ability score damage.

(I haven't read others' comments)

As long as you understand the 2 rules are VERY unrelated.

Critical hits occur statistically once every 20 attacks. At mid levels it is not uncommon for monsters to have multiattack. An encounter against 5 monsters with 2 attacks per round or 3 monsters with 3 attacks per round, means about one critical every 2 rounds, thus at least one critical per encounter on average. Think carefully if you really want it to be this common, and how does it mean in terms of "fun" having to update one of the character sheet with a Constitution change every encounter, always with the same penalty. Critical hits wounds system actually work better in combat-light games. Also note that with your suggestion, the monster doesn't matter: a crit from a rat has the same Con penalty as a crit from a dragon.

Death Saves frequency is a lot more variable. Not only it depends on how many encounters per day but also what kind of monsters and how hardcore the DM decides to play them. Any house rule can be good or bad depending on how often the PCs make death saves.

Generally speaking however, I would avoid 'fiddly bits' penalties. Con damage is serious, but 1 point is not even a penalty for 50% of characters i.e. those who have an odd score.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I’m a big fan of Eric Pommer’s Wounds approach to dealing with the consequences of dropping to 0 HP. Not quite what you’re looking for as you’re concerned about the full heal after a long rest. But what you have to remember is that HP is measuring your ability to stay in the fight. So resting overnight should be enough (for combat hardened adventurers).

http://www.mindplaces.com/pictures/wound%20doc.pdf

Yes Hp is your ability to stay in a fight, but it also somehow represents being hit by the enemy in some fashion. Two 10th level fighters beat each other with longswords until one goes unconcious and (barring lucky rolls) the other is one or two hits from going unconscious. They each have a beer, grab a wench, and get a good nights rest and both of them getting up the next morning in perfect health.

I know this is heroic fantasy but if I do my very best to beat you to death with a very large sharpe blade you should not get up the next morning like nothing at all happened unless you received some heavy magical healing.

Does it bother me to the point of not wanting to play? No it doesnt, but it does add a layer of silly and results in silly results. Point a heavy crossbow at Chuck Norris and he will sit down and shut up if you tell him to because otherwise he might die if you shoot him and at the very least if you cleanly hit him he spend a serious amount of time in the hospital. Point ten of the same heavy crossbows at a 8th level monk and he will commence to kill every single one of those first level guards, not break a sweat, and be in perfect health the next day.

Hitpoints and the no consequence to injury can be quite annoying and break lots of very legitimate aspects of storytelling and plot ideas.

 

[Gwarok]

One aspect of 5E I hate is full hitpoints after a long rest.

My 15th level fighter is beaten down by a Balor, he is unconcious with two failed death saves when a party healer hits him just enough to bring him to 1 hp. No more healing is available so I go to bed at 1 hp. Assuming no one attacks us in the night and we get a long rest "BOOM" I am suddenly at full health and in perfect condition.

Hate it hate it hate it.

An idea, just an idea is this. Every time you take a critical hit you take one point of Constitution damage. You are physically injured in a way beyond just get a bruise or cut. But this is not it, My super barbarian with 185hp can get knocked unconcious and almost die without a single crit in a long battle. So this is the other part. Making a death save (whether you succeed it or fail it) is a point of Con damage. You are unconscious, you are bleeding out, you may be face down in the mud not breathing, etc, etc. Basically your body had been badly injured and even if you are brought back there will be fairly long term consequences until you can spend a couple weeks back at home resting and recuperating or the party healer uses something more than a cure wounds to get you back on your feet.

What do you think? Would this be too rough? It makes combat more dangerous, it makes it more realistic as you cannot get crisped by red dragon breath today and be sweet as a daisy tomorrow just by sleeping. You might also have to add a spell or two, low level ones that have too long for combat casting time, and a high level ones you can cast in combat that can heal ability score damage.

I wouldn't do permanent damage to ability scores, but there are other options depending on how your players are willing to work with you. First, give them some scars. Depending on the nature of the attack. Now they have an eyepatch, or are missing a finger or something. Second, if you wish to represent recovery from a serious injury I've always thought that levels of exhaustion represented such things pretty well. But instead of automatically recovering exhaustion after a long rest, they have to make a DC whatever CON check(not save) after each long rest to recover that level of exhaustion. Crushing injury from a collapsed building, or say a Balor just whupped your butt? Then you have even when stabilized you have 5 levels of exhaustion. Your movement is zero, etc... This will take some time to get over. You could even say that X amount of failed saves makes that level of exhaustion permanent. Failed at the outset, well your injured person is now a cripple. Obviously this is pretty rough on PC's, but you get the idea.

 

[phantomK9]

Hiya!
"A creature gets 1/2 of his Maximum HD, rounding up, upon waking the next day after a good nights rest. This HD roll does NOT count towards the normal use of HD for healing. It's 'free' HD. A PC may spend actual HD, as per normal, if they want"

So a 5th level fighter would get to roll 3d10 upon waking in the morning after a safe, comfortable rest.

I note "safe, comfortable rest" because if it's not, then I reduce healing by using a negative adjustment per HD; -1 if it was safe but uncomfortable (in a rainstorm in a tent but no fire), perhaps a -2 if its actually unsafe at the same time, dropping it down to -3 if it's unsafe, uncomfortable, and un-sanitary (no bandages or worse; say on a barely-afloat raft in a lake in a swamp during a rainstorm. I do give a bonus of +1 if someone with the skill Medicine is looking after them, +2 if the person makes a DC 15 Medicine check in the morning AND has access to clean water, sheets, bandages, etc.

It works well and gives incentive to find an actual safe, comfortable place to rest...and gives those with Medicine a nice reason to have it.

^_^

Paul L. Minge

I've been working on something a bit similar (although yours is vastly less complicated) where the amount of healing you get is all based on the level of your accommodations (Wretched, Squalid, Poor, Modest, Comfortable, Wealthy Aristocratic) where you take the rest, for both short and long rests.

The numbers need tweaking and finalizing, but the basic jist is that the better your conditions the more you can heal.

I may steal the "fee hit dice" method and use that and plug it into the wealth level chart.

 

[oriaxx77]

Ability score decrease seems too harsh.
We play like this:


Short Rest

Characters can only take one short rest per day.
To get the benefit of a short rest, they need to find a shelter where they can relax mentally and physically for 8 hours without any distubances.
During a short rest a character heals 1 hp.

Long Rest

Characters can only take one long rest per week.
To get the benefit of a long rest, they need to find shelter, where they can relax mentally and physically for 3 days without any interruptions.
During a long rest a character heals 1 + Con modifier hp (min 1) every day.

It works for us. A bit like odnd.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Ability score decrease seems too harsh.
We play like this:


Short Rest

Characters can only take one short rest per day.
To get the benefit of a short rest, they need to find a shelter where they can relax mentally and physically for 8 hours without any distubances.
During a short rest a character heals 1 hp.

Long Rest

Characters can only take one long rest per week.
To get the benefit of a long rest, they need to find shelter, where they can relax mentally and physically for 3 days without any interruptions.
During a long rest a character heals 1 + Con modifier hp (min 1) every day.

It works for us. A bit like odnd.

Doesnt this nerf the heck out of every class that is a primary spellcaster?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Doesnt this nerf the heck out of every class that is a primary spellcaster?

That depends entirely on the encounter rate. As long as you have the same number of encounters between long rests, it won't change things much for them.

It does make things a bit easier for the warlock, though, since you get seven short rests per long rests. But as long as you have some days where there are no encounters, and some days where there are three encounters, then that should also balance out.

 

[oriaxx77]

We usually have 2-3 fights / session. Have bard, lock, sorc, priest, barb, fighter. Works as a charm. They can have 1-2 sort rests / session , 1 long rest / 1-3 session. No class imbalance. We have been playing like that for 2 years now.

 

[77IM]

Changing ability scores mid-game is a huge PITA, so instead of Con damage, consider just reducing the character's maximum hit points instead. I'd base the reduction on the damage dealt past 0; e.g., if you are at 3 HP and take 15 points of damage your max HP would be reduced by 12.

This avoids any sort of "death spiral" penalties (you can still adventure just fine if your max HP are reduced -- just be a little careful, maybe don't tank as much) and provides the healer a strong incentive to heal you BEFORE you reach 0 HP. If the max HP return very slowly, that can help verisimilitude for some people. Under this system, if the balor beats you to just past 0, you are only beat up a little, but if he pounds you into the ground hard, it might take a long time to recover fully.