D&D 4E Wound/Vitality in 4E

[Garthanos]

It has a risk-reward scheme - or rather a penalty-reward scheme. Yes, there is a penalty, but you get an action point for it! That's neat, isn't it?

One thought I had was to give a burst of temporary hit points when the hero takes the wound ... representing a pain induced surge of adrenaline.

Using an aggravating the wound mechanic (where a bad roll causes a condition to make its pressence felt) nicely allows the wounds effects to fit in with the rest of the combat.

Wounds can be fully recovered using the Cure Wound ritual (see remove affliction ritual).

Tending wounded and using healing skill to ensure there vigor and morale etc remains high reduces time required even if you don't have the Cure Wounds ritual.(at least 3 times as fast). This shows Local clerics really are doing something even if they dont have affliction/wound etc removal rituals

 

[Garthanos]

Meds and Feds who study the impact of injuries on human performance seem to agree that death spirals arent "realistic" by the way. The one study seemed to indicate at most 6 or so percentales of functionality is likely to be lost by injury before we hit "taken out". Its generally not predictable how deadly an injury has to be to induce incapacitation... so realism doesn't support that model either.

Shrug if you want depressing inevitable conclusions to fights death spirals give it to you.

Abstracted hit points give me a measurement for depleting luck fatigue and morale... I do like the idea of pulling long term wounds in to the picture... but think cinimatic stuff without to heavy impact is the way to go.

 

[Turtlejay]

Yeah people want that in a would system, but mechanically your system = virtual death once you get below 50%.
Any system still needs to be fun and viable in play.

To be clear, it doesn't appear as though he is advocating this as a system he would actually *use*, just one that fits the bill of a 4e Wound system.

I don't see the necessity to penalize dying characters any further. In addition to HP damage, they are also being hit by 4e monsters, which means forced movement, conditions, ongoing damage, etc. Most likely anyways.

Any would system should use surges as their currency, and leave the d20 alone, or you get (IMHO) a death spiral...

Jay

 

[Garthanos]

Any would system should use surges as their currency, and leave the d20 alone, or you get (IMHO) a death spiral...

Jay

The MURPG -- as up beat anti-inevitable as its genre and as creative and innovative as its design was... still fell into implementing a death spiral ;(... you are spot on.