Variant Wound/Vitality System

[Aethelstan]

I'm planning to use this new system in my campaign, I would be interested in some feedback, thanks

Variant Hit Point System

All characters with class levels have both Wound Points (WP) and Vitality Points (VP):

Wound Points: These points represent a character’s ability to withstand direct physical damage to the body. Characters with no class levels have only WP. Any damage taken to WP results in injury to flesh and bone and has debilitating effects (detailed later).

Vitality Points: These points represent a characters ability to use fighting skills and experience to avoid receiving physical damage to the body. However, the effort exerted to avoid injury and deflect blows results in fatigue and minor cuts and bruises i.e. the reduction of VP. Only characters with class levels gain VP.

Hit Points: The combined total of WP and VP.

Calculating WP and VP:

A character’s WP is equal to ½ Con (round up) + WP class bonus.

WP Class Bonuses:

Soldier: +2 at 1st level + 1 every two levels
after 1st level.

Expert: +1 at 1st level + 1 every three levels
after 1st level.

Magician,
Physician: +0 at 1st level + 1 every four
levels after 1st level.

A character’s VP are determined by the following method:

1st level: VP equal to class Hit Die + Con modifier.

2nd level and on: ½ class Hit Die + halved class Hit Die rolled (d8 = 1d4, d6 = 1d3,
etc) + Con modifier. Aka: the “get half, roll half” rule.

Thus a 1st level fighter (HD d10) with Con 14 (+2) would gain 12 VP at 1st level (10 + 2 = 12). At 2nd level, the fighter would gain ½ Class Hit Die (5) + the result of the halved Hit Die roll (say 3) + Con mod. (+2). Total VP: 12 (1st lvl VP) + 5 + 3 + 2 (2nd lvl VP) = 22. This fighter’s total HP would be 31: 9 WP (½ Con + class WP bonus: 7 +2 = 9) + 22 VP = 31 HP.

Effects of Losing WP and VP:

A character does not take any damage to WP until all VP are lost, with certain exceptions (noted below).

Stunning Blow Threshold (SBT): SBT = current WP + 1 per level. If a character takes damage in a single hit equal or greater than his SBT, he must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 2 per point of VP damage over SBT) or be stunned for 1 round. If the save is failed by 5 to 9 points, the character is stunned for 1d2+1 rounds. If the character fails this save by 10 or more points, or rolls a natural 1, the character is knocked unconscious for 2d4 rounds.

WP Damage:

A character who takes any damage to WP is considered Hurt.

Each time a character takes damage to WP, he must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 2 per point of WP damage). The WP damage added to the save DC is cumulative. Thus if a character loses two points of WP on one round the DC would be 14, if he loses 5 more WP on a later round the DC would increase to 24.

If the save is failed, the character becomes Wounded.

If the save is failed by 5 to 9 points, the character becomes Maimed.

If the save is failed by 10 or more points, or a natural 1 is rolled, the character becomes Incapacitated.

Conditions:

Hurt: -1 penalty to armor class, attack and damage rolls, saving throws, ability and skill checks.

Wounded: All penalties of Hurt plus an additional -1 penalty to aforementioned
stats (-2 total) and the character is stunned for 1d2 rounds.

Maimed: All penalties of Wounded plus an additional -1 penalty to aforementioned stats (-3 total) plus character can take only a single move action or standard action per turn and begins losing one WP per round.

Incapacitated: All penalties of Maimed plus an additional -1 penalty to aforementioned
stats (-4 total) and the character is knocked unconscious for 2d4 rounds (unconscious supercedes stunned).

All penalties resulting from damage to WP remain until all WP are restored or until removed by use of the Surgery skill.
Damage to WP limits the full recovery of VP. A character who loses ½ or less of their WP may only recover ½ of their total VP. If the loss if more that ½ , the character may only recover ¼ of their total VP. Thus if a character with 8 WP and 20 VP suffered 5 points of damage to WP (more than half), a maximum of 5 VP (¼ total) could be recovered.

Recovery of WP and VP

Through natural healing, characters recover ¼ of total WP per week + Con modifier + class WP bonuses (round up). Example: a 3rd level Soldier with a Con of 14 (+2) and 10 WP would recover 8 WP per week (2.5 for ¼ WP + 2 for Con + 3 for class WP bonuses at 1st and 3rd level = 7.5, rounded by to 8). For natural healing to occur, a character must remain at complete rest in a marginally comfortable area and must receive successful First Aid each day. If these conditions are not meet, the character’s WP heal rate is reduced by ½.

Through natural healing, characters recover VP at the following rate per hour: current WP ÷ 2 + class level (round up total). Example: a 6th level fighter with 10 WP would recover 11 VP per hour (½ WP + level, 5 + 6 = 11). For natural healing to occur at this rate, a character must avoid all strenuous activity and must have a marginally comfortable area in which to rest. If these conditions are not meet, the character’s VP recovery rate is reduced by ½. Rest periods can be divided into one-half hour increments (round recovery rate up). If a character’s rest is interrupted at any point within a one-half hour rest increment, no VP are recovered. The successful administration of First Aid (DC 15) will double the VP recovery rate.

Death and Permanent Injury:

If a character’s WP falls to 0 or lower, he becomes unconscious and is considered dying. Dying characters lose WP at a rate of one per round.

Dying, Maimed or Incapacitated characters may slow or stop WP loss by making a Fortitude save on the round in which they being losing WP:

DC 12: WP loss slows to 1 point every 2
rounds
DC 15: WP loss slows to 1 point every 4
rounds.
DC 20: WP loss stops.

Maimed or Incapacitated characters must lie down and cease all activity in order to attempt this Fort save.

A character who reaches a negative WP level of more than one-half his Con score (round up) must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 2 for every point of damage to WP below ½ negative total) to avoid receiving permanent damage to an ability score. If the character fails the save, he permanently losses one point from a randomly determined ability score (1d6, abilities in standard order). If a natural 1 is rolled two ability points are lost.

A character can drop a negative WP equal to his Con score before becoming dead.
(i.e. a character with Con 14 would be dying at -14 WP but dead at -15 WP).

If a character is helpless (see DMG p. 84), all damage is applied directly to WP and all VP are immediately lost.

 

[SpiralBound]

This is a very interesting system, one that (from a first read-through only) doesn't appear to be obviously broken or structurally "wrong" in any way. It does raise a few questions/comments though:

1) What sort of setting/campaign will this be run in? Judging from the lack of any mention of magical healing I would think a non-magical and possibly even a non-fantasy setting, yet you mention "magician" as one of your example classes...

2) This appears to be a rather "naturalistic" system in that many of the system's structures rely upon or imply the existance of there being a very close connection between the WP/VP and the natural abilities of the body to respond to damage under varying conditions. This is prevalent almost to the point of being a dominant theme even, does this theme extend to other modifications to your system & setting?

3) It looks as though disability and death is fairly easy to come by, or to put it another way, this system doesn't seem to support epic superhero/swashbuckling types of characters. Is this intentional? If so, do make sure that your players are on the same page as you are in the intent and style of the campaign. It's hard enough to introduce a new system to a game without also surprising the players with the play style as well!

4) This system's regular functioning relies upon a sizeable number of "if this condition is met, then this penality occurs" structures with sometimes even impromptu conditional calculations being required as well. I suspect that this may be expecting rather a lot from your players to stay on top of the bookkeeping. Not that the amount of calculations all by themselves are prohibitive, but your players will be at a disadvantage to being able to remember and use all of this.

i) They're going to be unfamilar with the system.
ii) They're going to be SERIOUSLY distracted (after all, they'll only be using this system in the heat of battle, when their character is receiving damage), and stressed out a little ("imminent character death! warning! warning!").
iii) Lastly, they're going to want to be playing the game of "portraying a character in an adventure", not playing the game of "resource management for their character stats". Your system is complex enough that it could distract from or possibly even dominate the gameplay itself whenever combat occurs. As we all know, combat rules themselves have a strong tendency to turn roleplaying into a game of number crunching as it is, and your new system adds a fair amount more number crunching to this.
​

Despite all of my comments which, I admit, range from the neutral to the negative, I do like the "feel" of this system. I get a sense of it conveying a certain mood or awareness of your body having innate strengths and weaknesses in terms of how it responds to and deals with damage and ability loss. The only thing that detracts from it is the work involved in using it... I'd suggest that you make a spreadsheet that would automatically calculate and apply the penalities, but I seriously doubt that all your players will come to the table with laptops at the ready!! I'm really not sure what the solution is.

It's too bad that a printable, yet still functioning, spreadsheet doesn't exist. Imagine how complex and "realistic" we could make a roleplaying system then! Personally, I think it would be great to be freed from ALL calculations whatsoever! For ANY situation where a number is involved, just type it onto your printed spreadsheet/charactersheet and it tells you if you've succeeded or failed, what penalities/bonuses exist, what conditional/situational abilities you are using or have access to, etc. Not because I dislike or because any of the rules of roleplaying are beyond me, but that it would be refreshing to ONLY concern myself with the roleplaying aspects of the game and never NEED to think about the underlying formulas inherent the the rules system I'm using. However, since such technology isn't commonly available (yet, although I do recall reading that it does exist in the infant stages right now), I'm at a bit of a loss as to how your new system can be implemented without creating a lot of additional bookkeeping for your players... sorry.

 

[Aethelstan]

Thanks for the feedback. This system is intended for a "quasi-Victorian adventures explore a dangerous lost continent" campaign. I've made up a Phyisician class that do limited healing but their is no magic healing to speak of. I created this system to retain the high action aspect of hit points mixed with a gritty wound system that makes major injuries tough to bounce back from. This system, combined with the absence of magic healing, seeks to fix one of my major problems with standard d20. Magical healing allows PCs to instantly pop back from near death in a wholly unbelievable manner (often several times in one battle). Getting knocked negative should be scary but its not as long as there is a potion or cleric near by. Also, from mid-level on, magical healing requires the DM to inflict massive amounts of damage on the party just to make things challenging. Many encounters are staged largely to drain away the party’s healing resources. With my hit point system, getting badly wounded will have serious consequences: debilitating injuries and healing times measured in days not hours. I’m hoping this level of grit will add more danger, and thus drama, to combat and require players to rely more on skills and wits than on a bag full of potions.
Also, I never liked that characters fought as well with 50 hp as with 1 hp. My wound system seeks to convey to character a sense of dread about being badly injured. They can, in the classic heroic tradition, continue to fight on despite thier wounds, but the mounting penalties will make them feel that death is near.
As for bookkeeping, I intend to the heavy lifting. I'll gvie them the stat penalty and remind them when their turn is up, just like with poison or a spell effects. Most players should be able to keep tract of "-2 to all AC and all rolls" without much hassle. I'm not asking to remember their wound status. And remember, the penalties kick in only when the character has lost all VP and has taken WP damage, so dealing with wound levels will not be an issue in every combat. Again, thanks for your feedback, I'd be happy to address any other questions

 

[Errant]

Seems a little complicated for my taste, what do you see as the advantage of your system over official rules?

As Spiralbound says, it seems death is easy to come by but I don't see the balancing pay off for the players. Unless you just want them to feel that combat is more lethal.

 

[Aethelstan]

Actually my system gives players more of a buffer between death (total HP = wound points + vitality points, neegtive hp = Con). As a mentioned in my post, my system seeks to address some of the unbelieveable aspects of the standard system. I goal is to add a bit of grit and realism. Wounded people can still fight but do so rather poorly. The standard rules take no account of this. The "balancing pay off" is a more dramatic, nail-biting combat. PCs can't fall back on massive healing to bail them out of stupid mistakes.

 

[SpiralBound]

Wounded people can still fight but do so rather poorly. The standard rules take no account of this. The "balancing pay off" is a more dramatic, nail-biting combat. PCs can't fall back on massive healing to bail them out of stupid mistakes.

This raises an interesting consideration. If we assume that some method is devised such that this system can be implemented in a fast and easy way, then we have a system which stresses the virtue of more closely approaching realism by attempting to model the interplay between ones ability to achieve a given action versus their body's ability to withstand damage. This increases the lethality of combat as well as decreases the immediate effectiveness of healing. So... would it then be fair to keep such things as "critical damage" in such a system? It countermands the implied goals of this system, retaining a dice-driven mechanic that grossly magnifies the effects of a single blow without taking into account any of the same "naturalistic" theory that underpins the damage and healing systems.

It seems that if one is to shift the balance of the "receiving damage" and "recovering from damage" system components, then it is only fair that the "dispensing damage" aspect of the system be similarly adjusted to fit. Otherwise you will be allowing characters to suffer to a greater degree than they would otherwise. Also, since the receiving character can not control, predict, or compensate for the probability of a roll of 20 on a d20 attack die then this would not be received damage as a result of a stupid mistake and would instead be unfair damage that couldn't be avoided.

Just a thought to ponder... When you shift the balancing point of one system component, you may discover that the rest also needs to be shifted to maintain the system as a whole in a state of cohesiveness. I wonder what else needs to be shifted to maintain total system balance?

 

[Aethelstan]

I'm retaining criticals because they cut both ways. In fact, because PCs generally score more hits than opponents, PCs benefit more from a critical system. I disagree that criticals are not "naturalistic." A knife thrust to the leg that just happens to hit a major artery is a
real life example of a critical. Or for legendary examples, consider Goliath or Achilles. The standard critical rules are one of the few really "gritty" elements of d20 and add a level of dramatic unpredictability to combat. Your reservation seems to be that my system makes combat more lethal. That is, in fact, my intent. As you say, added lethality does raise issues of game balance. Consider this. In standard D&D (or d20), massive magical healing and the non-delibilatating HP damage is countered by opponents that deal equally massive damage and are loaded with debilitating special abilities. In my system, healing is limited and getting wounded really hurts. To maintain balance, I will adjust challenges to reflect the fact that PCs can not easily bounce back from damage. As DM, I am no longer obligated to send wave after wave pumped and tricked out bad guys just to deplete PC healing resources. Every encounter, even from weaker foes, poses a danger because PCs risk losing HP they can't not readily replace. I personally have grown weary of the typical D&D adventure were the PCs rush into fights, often rashly, counting on magical healing to save the day if death looms. In my experience, magical healing and the absence of any inpediments caused major HP loss actually encourages a reckless or lackadasical play. By removing the "crutches" provided by the standard rules, I hope to make players feel a greater sense of peril when in combat. I think an element of mild dread is a good thing in an rpg; it focuses the mind and promotes and rewards solid planning and inspired tactics.

 

[SpiralBound]

You may have a point there. The main thrust of my comments were aimed more at the mechanism that controls the critical (ie: just a die roll with no situational or conditional modifiers) versus the rest of your system which has conditional modifiers and limiters. I could see a situation where a character killing by a "lucky strike" so to speak. Granted, this can happen in regular dnd, but it feels as though it would be more likely to happen in your system. I was noting that this is an increase in the power of that random effect, which didn't appear to completely match your intent with your other changes. However, I could be wrong. You may still want to explore alternate methods of granting a critical though which would take external conditions into account, as you have done with the wounds and healings aspects of your system.