Proposed Damage / Healing System

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Pass -- I really don't want to have to track *two* sets of ablative defenses, which is basically what you get for all variations of vitality/wound points. It's chasing artificial "realism" at the price of extra bookkeeping, which I find to be a poor tradeoff outside of Rolemaster.

 

[Meophist]

True, it does.

But at 20th level, PCs have access to a LOT of resources that they did not have a 1st level. Damage Resistance. Higher CON. Magic Items.

At 20th level, PCs are fighting Dragons the sizes of small buildings. But, PCs are still human (or elven or whatever).

Doesn't it make sense that a Dragon the size of a small building should hit the Fighter at 20th level and crack some ribs on solid hits more often than the Kobold did at first level?

The difference is that this Fighter has some Damage Resistant armor. This Fighter has Potions in his pouch for just such an occasion. This Fighter just needs to survive the fight and his team can brew some herbs. This Fighter has a boon from the High Priest in the city. This Fighter had a CON boost cast on him and is healthier (i.e. more CON) than he was at 1st level.

The first level Fighter doesn't have any of these "Go to the Well" abilities. He might have a Healer in the party.


So, I think that if you scale it with hit points, it stops working because of the vast plethora of abilities that PCs acquire.

If it equates to CON, then certain threats are equally threatening to everyone with the same CON from a sheer wound damage perspective, but higher level PCs can handle the bigger threats more because of their abilities, not just because they are "bags of hit points".

I suppose, although I'm thinking in terms of if the PC's don't really get that large amounts of abilities as they level. There's been mention where the Fighter just attacks turn after turn, and that's their gameplay. Such a fighter probably gets a large amount of hit points and bonuses to their rolls, but wouldn't have much in terms of mechanics to get around the wounds.

That said, there's another difference...

As for adding up or subtracting down, it doesn't matter too much. With normal hit points in various editions of D&D, I've seen players do both (and I've done both myself).

The specific reason for counting up rather than down is because in the system I've thought of, the wounds also become a negative modifier on your various checks, so counting up makes more sense in that context. This also means that getting wounds should probably be a bit rarer.

They're two different systems, but have a lot of similarities, which is why I brought it up. One problem I wanted to address, however, is the feeling of there being more between "healthy", and "almost dead". Your system seems to go from the former straight to the latter once they no longer have "enough" wound points left.

 

[Mokona]

Penalties for being hurt create a deathspiral. Once your hurt you're more likely to get hurt and this gets progressively worse until you can't pull out of the nosedive.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Penalties for being hurt create a deathspiral. Once your hurt you're more likely to get hurt and this gets progressively worse until you can't pull out of the nosedive.

Depending on the style of game, that might be a feature instead of a bug.

 

[JohnSnow]

Best solution that ISN'T a death spiral:

A PC sporting a certain number of "wounds" can not recover more than half his hit points (he's always "bloodied"). This way, his combat effectiveness is undiminished, but his staying power is reduced until he can properly heal. A heroic adventurer in this state of affairs MIGHT keep adventuring, but only if he had no choice.

Especially if, after receiving X wounds, he was going to start dying. It would have to be something like 3+CON bonus in wounds leaves you "wounded," twice that many and you're "dying." And once you slip to dying, you should stay wounded until you get a lot of rest, or are the subject of magical healing. I haven't totally worked out how spells should restore wounds.

I like the 1 wound per 10 hp of damage in a single attack. I'd also say you take a wound if you drop to 0 hp for any reason.

Just a few thoughts.

 

[Meophist]

Penalties for being hurt create a deathspiral. Once your hurt you're more likely to get hurt and this gets progressively worse until you can't pull out of the nosedive.

Wounds aren't unrecoverable. They'll simply require some sort of magic or extended rest. If the adventurers are in the middle of a dungeon and are finding that their wound penalties are at the point where they can no longer fight properly, and they are running out or are out of resources that can heal their wounds, they should probably retreat to rest. That's the general idea, in any case. The gradual penalties for wounds is more so that the effect of wounds are felt more gradually, rather than abruptly as can happen with the op's solution or the 4th Edition Healing Surges.

 

[harlokin]

I agree with the death-spiral thing being bad.

I would prefer some bonuses for characters that kick in when their Hit Points drop to a certain level, to encourage a do-or-die heroism.

I incidentally really liked the 4e idea of monsters triggering some sort of nasty attack or ability when they dropped below 50% Hit Points.

 

[Hassassin]

Depending on the style of game, that might be a feature instead of a bug.

Exactly. If the spiral is slow enough, you'll see it while you still have time to fall back or flee. It would also cut down on the grind: the more certain the outcome of the fight, the faster it will be over.

It would need to be very simple to be playable, though.

 

[KarinsDad]

It's not a terrible idea. I think there needs to be a way for small damage to turn into wound (to represent what happens if that halfling rogue with low base damage stabs you in the eye).

I think that's called backstabbing or sneak attack.

The halfling rogue gets extra dice of damage and often wounds foes.

In 4E terms, D4 dagger, +4 Dex, +2D6 sneak attack = 13.5 average damage. Granted, this damage might be less using this system with 5E.


However, I don't think we do not want a wound system for damaging monsters, just for damaging PCs. So, the Rogue or striker equivalent Lurker does a bit more damage than normal once in a while and this gets reflected in PCs taking wound point damage. Ditto for the Brute who smashes PCs.

Similar level Artillery (and other monster role NPCs) might not be doing wound damage as often as Lurkers or Brutes depending on the defenses of the PC targets (DR or other ways to mitigate damage), simply because they don't do as much damage in a single shot.

There needs to be a set of injurious consequences for having wound damage. Healing options need to be detailed and options rendered. Hit points need to be renamed.

Agreed on the first two although D&D has never had a death spiral system and some people are really afraid it will make the game too gritty. I used those types of systems for decades and it was more scary for the players than it actually was debilitating for the PCs, but everyone's experience using those types of systems differs. I've found that it encourages players to roleplay their PCs as if they were actually injured.

I thought about renaming hit points, but I think it's a sacred cow.


As far as healing goes, a simple to remember and use system (keeping the 4E 25% concept) is that:

Cure Light Wounds heals 25% hit points plus 1 wound point.
Cure Moderate Wounds heals 50% hit points plus 2 wound points.
Cure Serious Wounds heals 75% hit points plus 3 wound points.
Cure Critical Wounds heals all hit points plus 4 wound points.

These type of spells would be Dailies or Vancian magic. For a less gritty game, these spells could double the number of wound points they heal.


The Heal spell does Cure Critical plus all wound points plus some other debilitating conditions.


I think the key to creating a good D&D system is to make as many rules and abilities as possible simple and easy to remember.

 

[DEFCON 1]

this may be, but there is an equal number of people (probably greater) who prefer the pre-4E healing and cleric as healer. I think they should include healing surges as an optional people can add into the game, but leave the core system so the non4e crowd will climb aboard.

You misunderstand... I have no problems going back to pre-4E healing, all I was saying was that those other classes should have enough healing at the disposal to be at least as competent as a cleric. That, I'd be okay with and I think others would too.

In 3E, the availability of spell slots and the Cures that could fill them did not make the bard and the druid (for example) very good options for party healer. They would be off-healer at best. Whatever 5E has... there should at least be several classes capable of being the lone healer in the group, so that players don't have to be locked into a single choice, if they are going to heal.

Bards and druids can have plenty of other options so that they don't HAVE to heal (if a particular player wants the cleric to be the only option for their particular campaign)... but the possibility should be there for the rest of us.