Status Effects

[Lackhand]

I don't (think) I have any information you guys don't, so this is pure conjecture. Please, join in and conject with me!

What's going to happen for status effects?
We 'know' that level drain, stat drain, and so on are gone, and that there doesn't seem to be a condition track to replace them. However, I can't imagine that the conditions which were represented by the stat or level drain are gone, so what's going to take its place?

I think we're going to something like the conditions from 3.x. A lot more of them, and a lot more targeted.
We've got our first hint with the spined devil's "Poisoned" condition -- guess is that it attacks your fort each round to deal 5 points of damage. My supposition is that if you make some number of saves in a row, the poison ends.
I don't think that that's the only poisoned condition -- Blinding poison, where if it drops you below Bloodied (or below 0), it blinds you? Paralysis poison that does no damage but gives you some "Numb" condition, if you fail some number of continuous times, it paralyzes you? And so on.

For this to work, we'll need (at minimum):
Weakened. This is a similar condition to Fatigued. Heck, it might *be* fatigued. There might be levels of it. Shadows should inflict this. You lose Strength and Dex and can't run. It should also lower the amount that you can carry; depending on how the encumberance rules are defined, this doesn't necessarily mean that it forces continual recalculation.

Numbed. Sort of a dex-focused Weakened, inflicted by Hold Person and paralysis poison. It should reduce armor class, reflex saves, and movement. It might also reduce senses somewhat? Cold damage might also give this. It might be called "slowed".

A variety of brain-bending status effects -- "hallucinating", targeting int and wis, say? Fear Effects suppressing charisma-based powers?

"Sapped Lifeforce" -- this could be represented by permanent hit-point drain (as per mummy), or as negative levels (which is not the same thing as level drain, necessarily), or a poison or disease-like effect.

I'm not a game designer for a reason, but with orthogonal, well defined status effects, losing level- and stat- drain doesn't need to be the end of the world. In 3.x, there were many effects which basically boiled down to "-2 to all d20 rolls".


In 4e, I suspect this won't be the case; while that will still exist, it'll be one condition, with other conditions doing other things. Give suggestions!

 

[perchy]

Well, i can come up with 2 easy to track penalty stacks strait away.

The condition track for SWSE, you start off fine, the 1st step is -1 to everything (lvl drain without the hit point loss but also effects defences), then -2, -5, -10, dead. Something similar, but much more spread out, a basic -1, -2, -3 etc.

The other is action penalties e.g. 1st (lose the ability to take a swift action, all swiftactions count as movement actions) 2nd. Lose movement action (re-gain swift action). 3rd lose standard action (re-gain movement) 4th paralised

I guess you could also stack movement penalties, (-1 square, -2, etc).

I suspect most penalties will work like this, monsters that did level drain or ability damage will move you along the condition track by a larger or smaller amount, or some times temperaily.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I think hit points is a good measure of status; wounded or otherwise.

The room is dark; lose up to 3 hp.

You are poisoned; lose 10 hp.

The ship rocks; lose up 1d6 hp.

An so on.

 

[HeinorNY]

The room is dark; lose up to 3 hp.

Drink a healing potion, you can see in the dark.

 

[Lackhand]

I think hit points is a good measure of status; wounded or otherwise.

The room is dark; lose up to 3 hp.

You are poisoned; lose 10 hp.

The ship rocks; lose up 1d6 hp.

An so on.

Very constructive and helpful, thanks! However, you forgot to include things like a hit point bonus from flanking and a hit point bonus from being equipped with lockpicks.

Actually, I feel like hit points are a bit too single axis to serve as an interesting measure of status in the D&D game. You need to be held, frozen, set on fire, poisoned, cursed (maybe in a few different ways!), diseased, maimed, blinded, weakened, sickened, shrunk, transmogrified, charmed, put to sleep, dominated, addicted, shaken, and so on. Without a variety of strange and unpleasant status effects, there's no way to both meaningfully and enjoyably model all the terrible fates that lurk in dungeons.

Statuses are also quite nice for a variety of beneficial effects, but that's not my point.

That Said, I'm pretty sure we don't literally have the condition track from Saga, because we've only seen the Bloodied Condition with no mention of threshholds. Also, I seem to recall some designer said it wasn't coming over, but that might just be hopeful thoughts whizzing about.

My point was really just to demonstrate that there are a variety of ways of modeling Terrible Things Happening To A Character without invoking the mathematically involved process of Level Drain or Stat Drain.

A permanent Maimed, Fatigued, Shaken, Slowed, Cursed, or Sickened condition, with defined effects, would go quite some way towards replacing the removed tools.

(Example: Slowed X: You suffer a -X penalty to Armor Class, Reflex Saves, all Attack Rolls, Dexterity-based Skill and Attribute checks, and Initiative checks. You also suffer a -Y (for Y some function of X) square reduction in movement; if this reduces your speed below 0 you are paralyzed and can take no actions until your speed becomes at least one square. Your DM gets to laugh at you.)

This is much more complex, on the face of it, than 3.X stat drain or level drain. Look at all the text!
However, nothing cascades. Those are the numbers, simply apply them. Your dexterity mod is still +5 or whatever, but if it's one of the called out situations-in-which-being-Slowed-affects-you, it's modified by the number, rather than having to track where all the math came from.

Heck, the "X" was something I came up with spur of the moment. I'm sure Slowed might also just be a single condition, with X always equal to 2 or 5 or what-have-you.

 

[LostSoul]

Drink a healing potion, you can see in the dark.

So the issue is with the name "healing", eh?

Rename it a "potion of blessing". It is the blood of the gods and when you drink it, good stuff happens to you (like not dying as fast).

"Though the darkness plagues me, I shall not fear! For I have the blood of the gods coursing through my veins SWEET MERCIFUL GODS WHAT IS THAT-"

 

[Frostmarrow]

Drink a healing potion, you can see in the dark.

Never trust the label on potions. You are right, it's not that easy. To clarify read below:

Lose up to X signifies non-lethal damage and is disregarded if it makes you bloodied but still affects you if you already are bloodied when the light is snuffed. There is no save.

Lose X signifies damage that can be halved with a save.

Lose 1dX signifies damage that can be avoided with a save.

Lose up to 1dX means damage that can be avoided with a save but still won't make you bloodied.

Whatever the lingo - hp can be used to measure discomfort. It does wounds rather well in my gamist oppinion.

 

[Lackhand]

Well, i can come up with 2 easy to track penalty stacks strait away.

The condition track for SWSE, you start off fine, the 1st step is -1 to everything (lvl drain without the hit point loss but also effects defences), then -2, -5, -10, dead. Something similar, but much more spread out, a basic -1, -2, -3 etc.

The other is action penalties e.g. 1st (lose the ability to take a swift action, all swiftactions count as movement actions) 2nd. Lose movement action (re-gain swift action). 3rd lose standard action (re-gain movement) 4th paralised

I guess you could also stack movement penalties, (-1 square, -2, etc).

I suspect most penalties will work like this, monsters that did level drain or ability damage will move you along the condition track by a larger or smaller amount, or some times temperaily.

This.
I think where we differ is that I think this will be one-of-several non-hit-point deleterious mechanics, while it sounds like you think they'll be unified.

Gut hunch says multiple (fairly uniform, with half their effects usually applied to a few offenses and a few defenses, and the other half to some unique character statistics like types of skills or powers) ways of hosing people. No proof, just personal favoritism.

 

[Lackhand]

Never trust the label on potions. You are right, it's not that easy. To clarify read below:

Lose up to X signifies non-lethal damage and is disregarded if it makes you bloodied but still affects you if you already are bloodied when the light is snuffed. There is no save.

Lose X signifies damage that can be halved with a save.

Lose 1dX signifies damage that can be avoided with a save.

Lose up to 1dX means damage that can be avoided with a save but still won't make you bloodied.

Whatever the lingo - hp can be used to measure discomfort. It does wounds rather well in my gamist oppinion.

Hmmm. Mebbe. But it never modifies what you do, save twiddling the bit between 'conscious' and 'unconscious' (which is still my biggest gripe with D&D).

In conjunction with a richer condition track, it's not bad, but (I'm also *very* gamist about my D&D) it's just not a rich enough vocabulary for me.

 

[HeinorNY]

Never trust the label on potions. You are right, it's not that easy. To clarify read below:

Lose up to X signifies non-lethal damage and is disregarded if it makes you bloodied but still affects you if you already are bloodied when the light is snuffed. There is no save.

Lose X signifies damage that can be halved with a save.

Lose 1dX signifies damage that can be avoided with a save.

Lose up to 1dX means damage that can be avoided with a save but still won't make you bloodied.

Whatever the lingo - hp can be used to measure discomfort. It does wounds rather well in my gamist oppinion.

Lol.
I also like the idea that HPs could be more than just wounds or weariness, but also morale. When I read your post i thougth "hmmmm cool, Intimidate Attack: You scared the crap out of your opponent, roll Intimidate vs. Will. Opponent lose 1d6 HPs and can't act that round" But then the healing potion situation... healing potion shouldn't heal your morale. Maybe Healing potions in 4E are called Invigorating Potion

Maybe all sorts of weariness and morale damage mean loss of HPs, but you never go below Bloodied for those. But then healing potions can't heal your non-bloodied lost HPs?

I think I need to wait for some more previews.