D&D 5E Lingering Wounds Revamped

Crazedjedi · Mar 4, 2017

I've been DM'ing for a group of new players for the last year, and we're about to start our second campaign (and my first homebrew). In our first campaign, I found it very disappointing how easily unconscious players could be revived. As there are six PCs and thus multiple sources of healing magic in the group, they could play reverse whack-a-mole for an incredibly long time.

Going into this second campaign, I wanted a system to add actual penalties for hitting 0 hp, and I hoped the lingering injuries from the DMG would teach my players to fear taking frequent dirt naps. However, on closer inspecting, the injury table supplied is either insanely harsh or mildly irritating There is a 3 in 20 chance of receiving a literally crippling injury which requires a 7th level spell to remove, but the rest of the table's effects only require a single healing spell to fix, making them a trivial drain on the healers' 1st-level spell slots.

After researching other GM's solution to this problem, I've devised one of my own and would appreciate feedback. Specifically, I want to know if these changes will work for inexperienced players, penalizing them for dropping to 0 without brutalizing them so badly they're terrified to take risks.

My change to the system is focused entirely on how injuries are removed. All injuries can be removed with healing, but with more severe injuries, players must be healed for a specific amount and none of the healing spent to remove the injury is added to the player's total HP.

Injuries would be divided into tiers, and each tier would require more healing to cure. For example, a tier 1 injury like a limp or small scar is removed with any amount of healing, but a tier 4 injury such as having your arm shattered requires 20 points of healing. Players can deliver the healing over time and with multiple spells, but the debuff will persist until the full amount is healed.

The scaling for the heal threshold is based on Cure Wounds' scaling. At tier two, the threshold is 10 (because the average heal of a second level Cure Wounds is 12 assuming a +3 caster modifier) and each subsequent tier increases the threshold by 5.

The only difficulty is this system requires the DM to keep scaling tables as the players level. Obviously low level characters don't have the resources to deal with more than a tier 3 wound before they're forced to end their adventuring day early to deal with it. Alternatively, 10th level characters need higher tier wounds to keep the penalty meaningful. It's up to the DM to decide what tier bracket the players are in, as well as creating interesting debuffs and injury descriptions. Fortunately, wound systems are relatively common in RPGs, so I don't see much difficulty cannibalizing other games for content.

So, is this a viable system to spice up death in 5e, or should I just save myself a bunch of work, listen to my inner sadist, and let the enemy prioritize attacking downed PCs?

Springheel · Mar 4, 2017

I found the lingering injuries table a bit too harsh as well. I'm not sure my wound system is as structured as yours, but you might find it useful:

http://www.mindplaces.com/house_rules.htm

jodyjohnson · Mar 4, 2017

I just added a middle step between Hit Point loss and the Lingering Injury table. The middle ground is a 'Wound'. You take a Wound equal to one of your Hit Dice on a crit, '1' on a save, or dropping to 0. If the die comes up '1', roll on the lingering wound table with the result modified by the story (severity determined where the combat occurs - climactic fights have higher chances to inflict a severe injury but the story pacing allows for out of game recovery - think season cliffhanger). Not similationist at all but more likely to generate more 'story'-like results.

Based on your version it seems like you are more simulation leaning which normally means random rather than DM adjudicated. I think you'll have more derails of campaigns if you stick to a set chart than if you give yourself freedom to use the injury chart as a guideline and then make rulings for encounter pacing.

jrowland · Mar 11, 2017

jodyjohnson said:
I just added a middle step between Hit Point loss and the Lingering Injury table. The middle ground is a 'Wound'. You take a Wound equal to one of your Hit Dice on a crit, '1' on a save, or dropping to 0. If the die comes up '1', roll on the lingering wound table with the result modified by the story (severity determined where the combat occurs - climactic fights have higher chances to inflict a severe injury but the story pacing allows for out of game recovery - think season cliffhanger). Not similationist at all but more likely to generate more 'story'-like results.

Based on your version it seems like you are more simulation leaning which normally means random rather than DM adjudicated. I think you'll have more derails of campaigns if you stick to a set chart than if you give yourself freedom to use the injury chart as a guideline and then make rulings for encounter pacing.

I have a similar system (not used with current group - too casual).

Suffer a Wound:
On "Bloodied" (half hp)
On receiving a critical hit
On going to 0 HP (or taking damage at 0 hp)

A wound reduces your Max HD by 1. If your max HD is reduced to 0 and suffer another wound you gain a level of exhaustion that can only be removed by curing the wound.

All other game rules apply as well. Say you drop to 0hp with 0 HD remaining. You fall unconscious and gain a level of exhaustion.

Wounds can be healed (Max HD restored) at the rate of 1 wound per day of rest. Healing spells gain the ritual tag and when cast as a ritual, heal a number of wounds equal to the level of the spell slot used.

You could even drop the unconscious at 0HP rule, maybe impose disadvantage on everything instead, to completely get rid of "whack a mole"...the penalties for wounds are severe enough to encourage getting out of the fight. You could even introduce a severity level: Light wounds are the normal HP drain, Moderate wounds are one of the above conditions (crit, for example), Serious Wounds are two of the conditions (crit and bloodied, eg), and Critical Wounds are all three of the above (crit, bloodied, and 0 hp). Each wound takes a number of days of rest to drop by 1 severity (Critical wounds would completely heal in 3+2+1 = 6 days and would need a 3rd, 2nd,and 1st level spell slot healing ritual to be cured). Probably too granular for most.

Leatherhead · Mar 11, 2017

I also had this problem.

To solve it, I made a bunch of artificial limbs. Also a few lower level spells to supplement the dependency on Regeneration.

tardigrade · Mar 11, 2017

Very nice - I might use some of those in a planned piracy-themed campaign! There was also an article on magical prostheses in an old issue of Dragon magazine; I'll see if I can dig it out (somewhere in the 230-250 range, I think). The only ones I can remember off-hand were an eye of infravision/darkvision and a leg of swimming.

[edit: Dragon Magazine 240, page 88, "Bazaar of the Bizarre: Ye Olde Body Shoppe"...]

akr71 · Mar 13, 2017

Cure Wounds has a Range of Touch and Healing Word is 60 feet. If you have a whack-a-mole problem, give less opportunity for rests to replenish resources and hit points. Also you can spread out the battlefield. If your healers can't touch the wounded, are further than 60 feet away and/or being harried by opponents of their own, it may become less of an issue.

You can also limit access to healing potions and such. Just because it is on the Adventuring Gear list doesn't mean every place the party visits has any for sale.

GMMichael · Mar 14, 2017

Crazedjedi said:
I've been DM'ing for a group of new players for the last year, and we're about to start our second campaign (and my first homebrew). In our first campaign, I found it very disappointing how easily unconscious players could be revived. As there are six PCs and thus multiple sources of healing magic in the group, they could play reverse whack-a-mole for an incredibly long time.

Going into this second campaign, I wanted a system to add actual penalties for hitting 0 hp, and I hoped the lingering injuries from the DMG would teach my players to fear taking frequent dirt naps. . .
After researching other GM's solution to this problem, I've devised one of my own and would appreciate feedback. Specifically, I want to know if these changes will work for inexperienced players, penalizing them for dropping to 0 without brutalizing them so badly they're terrified to take risks.

I'd like to dissect this a little bit. If your monsters are playing "whack-a-mole," it means that once a PC is knocked down, a healer revives that PC, who then stands back up and starts fighting until he's knocked down again. I already want to know:
- what did the monsters think when the first downed character got back up?
- did the monsters notice that certain PCs were capable of this amazing feat, and decide to focus on the healers?
- why wouldn't monsters learn, after the first revival, that it takes more than just knocking a PC down to take him out of the fight?
- ...or that maybe they should stand over fallen PCs to either finish them, or make sure that the healer(s) can't bring them back up?

"Actual penalties for hitting 0 HP." Being unconscious is a decent penalty. Risk of dying in 5 rounds or less is a good penalty too. The worst, hands down, is to be taking a nice dirt nap, dreaming of your lost sweetroll, and then waking up to find a big, stinky orc standing over you with a spiked club, just waiting to stick that club back in the exact same, painful place he did a few rounds ago.

"Terrified to take risks." A certain amount of risk makes combat exciting. Orcs are more terrifying than city watch because the orcs' goal is to kill you, while the watchmen's goal is to lock you up. If your PCs get scared easy, build up their confidence with more watchmen fights, and let them ease into the orc fights.

Or, as many movies do, make combat the climactic scene, instead of the bulk of acts one and two. And three.

akr71 · Mar 14, 2017

In addition to what [MENTION=6685730]DMMike[/MENTION] said, on page page 292 of the PHB says an unconscious creature "attack rolls against the creature have advantage" and "any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature." Page 197 states that "if you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death."

So that big, stinky orc standing over you only needs to hit you twice, with advantage and you are dead. Now your healers only have 1 minute to get over to you safely and cast Revivify.

Crazedjedi · Mar 14, 2017

I'm aware of the rules for monsters attacking downed players, and I used them when it made tactical sense for the enemies to do so. However, with three players able to cast healing spells, it's a moot point. Unless I go out of my way to have a single monster double attack a downed player, or two monsters strike them once, they will get up by the next round. And frankly, I'm just not going to double-tap someone unless there's no viable conscious target for the NPCs. This is a game among friends who are mostly noobs, not an AL game.

Thus, since I'm not willing to outright murder my players when they go down if there are conscious targets nearby, I need a system that punishes them for hitting 0 without killing them. I'm open to alternative ideas or tweaks to my concept, but I already know the base game's rules are too forgiving unless I want to be a vicious DM and pick on downed players.