Crazedjedi
First Post
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?
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?