Homebrew System - Vitality/Wound Point Questions

[ValhallaGH]

As to lightning bolts, there are people in the real world who have been struck by lightning and been relatively "unharmed" (I'm sure they wouldn't survive a second lightning bolt, but they have no severe injuries), even able to walk away under their own power almost immediately.

But these people were slowed down. Which is more than any edition of D&D can say.
D&D injuries are cosmetic. Nothing but flesh wounds, healed away within a fortnight of rest, no matter how nearly fatal the injury itself may have been at the time of damage.

My point was that all players have their peeves, their points of disconnect from the cooperative illusion that is role playing, and that what doesn't work for one person works just fine for other people. The OP may decide that Reserve Points perfectly represent what he wants to do. He may not. He may decide that toughness saves in one form, or another are the way to go.
The point is to give advice and options so that shadow can play exactly the game he wants to play.

 

[Derro]

My point was that all players have their peeves, their points of disconnect from the cooperative illusion that is role playing, and that what doesn't work for one person works just fine for other people.

This is the key right here. The perception of the games events through the gloss of rules is just as much in the hands of the players as the rules themselves. There are many cases in the game where you just have to accept that things are the way they are for purposes of playability. Hit points as a measure of staying power is an adequate. Beyond that you are just asking to much of a rule that was never meant to simulate reality.

Consider the RAW regarding hit points. There are three states of hit point health. You are either fully capable (1+ hit points), disabled (0 hit points), or dying (-1 or lower hit points). Other than the closing potential of death with the dying condition and the possibility of slipping into dying from the disabled condition there are no effects of taking damage and specifically no lasting effects.

There are a few reasons for the rules being this way and having been this way for a long time. D&D promotes heroic action. That is the central theme and the seed of the fun of the game in this regard. It may not be realistic or promote versimilitude but it is the standard of this game. Players generally want to be in the action giving there all rather than crippled by debilitating injury. Realism and grittiness are not watchwords of D&D. So in that regard there are stumbling blocks that you just have to turn a blind eye to if you want the game to operate with the fluidity it was intended to.

If a person wanted to have effects that felt more real then it's a matter of adding layers of rules. Adding layers inevitably creates more complexity. I think that the Reserve Point rule allows for the game to function as intended, without too much additonal complexity, in a low magic setting where magical healing is rare. If you want grittiness and realism regarding injury you have to step outside the rule-set.

So all that being said here's another rule-set that I have used.

Massive Damage and Reserve points are in effect as per standard rules. A character's disable condition is set at 0 to -X with X equaling their Constitution bonus. Any amount of damage taken beyond the disabled condition reduces the character to dying. Each round the character is affected by the dying condition they take 1 point of Constitution damage. No hit points can be restored until the dying condition is removed whether by means of spell, potion, fast healing or Healing check. Upon reaching 0 Constitution they are dead. In this manner there is lasting effect to the dying condition.

Even in settings with ready healing magic Restoration is not always a plentiful spell. The character slowly regains their Constitution which slowly returns the top end of their hit points. Occasionally I'd turn the Constitution damage into a lasting injury (DMG pg. 27) but that was always a case for case situation.

The OP may decide that Reserve Points perfectly represent what he wants to do. He may not. He may decide that toughness saves in one form, or another are the way to go.
The point is to give advice and options so that shadow can play exactly the game he wants to play.

What he said.

 

[shadow]

I just got Monte Cook's Book of Experimental Might. Looking through it, I ran across the Grace and Health rules. For those who haven't seen TBOXM yet, hit points are divided into grace and health. Grace returns at the rate of 1 per minute (they represent luck and vitality) whereas health heals like normal hit points as per the Core Rules. Obviously, it requires more bookkeeping, but it seemed like an interesting idea. This may be the solution that I'm looking for. Has anyone tried Monte Cook's Grace/Health system?

 

[Derro]

I haven't seen Experimental Might yet. Is that a 50/50 division? Do you lose Health only after all your Grace is gone?

I'd say that is a pretty decent system. The book-keeping is minimal compared to other systems. It might even be considered too simple for some. The degree of grain it introduces is not terribly fine. But still it could work in a pinch for low magic.

I seem to recall a similar system as a house-rule back in my 1e/2e days. Clerics couldn't spontaneously cast healing back then and some of the poor buggers didn't even have healing with the specialty priest domain system.

 

[Raven Crowking]

When I was devising my own house rules (later to evolve into RCFG), I began by using a Vitality/Wounds system. However, a lot of discussion of the pitfalls on EN World made me change my direction. If you follow the link in my sig, you can steal the "Shake it Off" mechanic from RCFG (said mechanic is OGC, so this follows even in something you wish to publish).

SiO allows a character, with 5 minutes rest, to "shake off" a certain amount of damage done since the last time he "shook off" damage. In playtests thus far, SiO drastically reduces the need for healing magic, even at low levels, while still allowing healing to become necessary (either through magic or rest).

I'm currently in the process of a higher-level playtest (using a modded Against the Giants), so there might be changes to the base SiO calculation to make higher-level play more challenging (they've been skulking around the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief so far, so no real info gained).

If you do decide to go V/WP, the biggest problem you will have is that, especially at higher levels, some attacks will go around the "buffer" of Vitality and directly into WP. Unless WP are significant enough, this means that character deaths can become very swingy. Smart characters will avoid combat altogether. If monsters use V/WP, too, the PCs will have to coup-de-grace all their fallen foes, or potentially face them again later.

If you want a goblin with a crossbow to be a real threat to higher-level PCs without using V/WP, you can also use RCFG's "Getting the Drop" mechanic, which, thus far, has playtested enormously well.

Best of luck.




RC

 

[3catcircus]

I like the "hit point" system in Twilight:2013.

Essentially, you have a "base" hit point value = [10+MUS+(2xFIT)]/4. In D&D terms, that would be [10+STR+(2xCON)]/4. I'd probably play around with this and drop the 10 in there or use the STR and CON modifiers instead.

Once you have you base hp, you then apply it in an array as follows:

Slight Moderate Serious Critical
Head 1 base/2 base base x 1.5
Torso 1 base base x 2 base x 3
Limbs 1 base base x 1.5 base x 2

Upon crossing each wound threshold, you suffer various effects - from penalties on your ability and skill checks, loss of use of the particular limb, even to potential limb amputation, unconsciousness and death (a criticl wound to the hit is instant unconsciousness). There is also a "lights-out" category for head/torso equal to base x 2.5 (head) or base x 4 for torso - this is a very deadly option to allow for those insta-kills.

They also add checks (probably equivalent to fortitude or will saves) to avoid going into shock and/or becoming unstable and bleeding out.

Essentially, a serious wound would (in real life) involve a trip to the ER while a critical wound means a life-flight to a trauma center.

I like this system because it allows for a more realistic approach to damage and the character's resulting combat effectiveness.

It would require a major reworking for use with D&D for a couple of reasons:

1. The basic task resolution is to roll a number of d20's equivalent to your skill rating and compare them to your controlling attribute with any results lower than your attribute a success.
2. Damage is a function of a fixed number based on weapon type plus a margin of success (i.e. if you needed to roll 10 or less and you rolled a 6, you add 4 to the fixed base damage for the weapon).
3. Armor vs. weapon penetration (weapons have a pen. value that is multipled by the armor value and the result subtracted from the overall damage).
4. Twilight:2013 is a very gun-centric system for combat.

It might be best to use this injury system with the penalties based upon SWSE's condition track (-1, -2, -5, -10, etc.)