I suspect that 5E will have a system like this. They'll probably go back to the earlier model of hit points requiring rest or magic to heal, and then add in a module that allows them to heal faster with other means.
Proposed Damage / Healing System
- Thread starter KarinsDad
- Start date
I suspect that 5E will have a system like this. They'll probably go back to the earlier model of hit points requiring rest or magic to heal, and then add in a module that allows them to heal faster with other means.
Abraxas
Explorer
This flaw could be fixed by having the PCs heal wound points at a rate of 1 per (5 - Con Modifier) days. Your 10 CON PC would take 45 days to recover 9 wound points and your 18 CON PC would take 17 days to recover 17 wound points (assuming the CON Mods are +0 for a 10 CON and +4 for an 18 CON still)
S
Sunseeker
Guest
I don't favor a wound system unless we change entirely the way to-hit bonuses are calculated. From my experience in Deadlands, wounds were fun, but their negative impact on my ability to do things racked up pretty darn quick. The upside to this is that hitting things was really easy, you got lots of chances and with their system you could stack your hit bonuses pretty high even at "level 1"(the game doesn't really have levels, more powerful characters are represented by the ability hit better, harder, and more often).
I would also only accept a wound system if, like Deadlands, we could target and wound specific body-parts.
All in all, I find a wound system far too complex for the simplicity that much of D&D strives for in the health and damage area. Without more complex systems regarding inflicting damage it would be too easy to abuse in the same way the Star Wars Saga abused "wounds" and you could kill someone by yelling at them a lot.
I would also only accept a wound system if, like Deadlands, we could target and wound specific body-parts.
All in all, I find a wound system far too complex for the simplicity that much of D&D strives for in the health and damage area. Without more complex systems regarding inflicting damage it would be too easy to abuse in the same way the Star Wars Saga abused "wounds" and you could kill someone by yelling at them a lot.
I consider that a feature not a bug. Sticking with the HP is dodging, bruised etc idea.
2 separate wound tracks mid encounter is a bookkeeping nightmare. Anyone who tried some of the old grim and gritty rules can probably attest to that.
imagine, you get hit critically, lose some con as a result. Now you have to take off HP, take off CON, re-adjust HP for the CON loss etc.
It opens you up to silly issues as well. I remember a gritty 3e wizard in a game I played in with these rules. Guy had rolled fairly badly most levels for HP and as a result had about 3 HP per level.
Minute he had gotten down to 4 CON he was hurt to the point where he had no HP left to recover because the CON loss had adjusted them all away.
we wound up ruling that he was in a coma until his CON recovered enough to get HP's back but it was a serious hassle for the rest of us to drag his body back up through the whole dungeon and get him someplace to rest.
Penalizing both at the same time can wind up being way too deadly to PC's.
The warhammer RPG before this latest one had a fairly simple wound system full of cool grittiness.
Of course even a great hero is made of paper mache in that system but it shows that it can be done.
El Mahdi
Muad'Dib of the Anauroch
IME, more bookeeping, even as simple as one extra stat to track, makes the game more complicated. As part of the core system, I believe they are trying to go as simple as possible. This may be too complicated for an entry level player. Also, for me, it sounds too much like the Star Wars system.
A specific point/critique I have is:
I think what you meant to say there was "any single successful attack inflicting 10 or more hit points, also automatically does 1 wound point for every 10 hit points (10 to 19 hit points = 1 wound point, 20 to 29 hit points = 2 wound points, 30 to 39 hit points = 3 wound points, etc.)".
My critique is that this adds additional disparity to the system, and even more inequity between certain classes and characters.
A low hit point character will likely always lose all their hit points long before they incur enough wound points for death (figure average Con. score of 10, giving them 10 wound points, unless they have 100 or more hit points, they are almost always going to reach unconsciousness before suffering enough wound points to die).
A high hit point character probably has more of a 50/50 shot at whether they lose all hit points (uncconsciousness) or lose all wound points (death) first.
A high hit point character with a low Con is almost always going to die long before becoming unconscious.
I think it completely changes all expectations of how to survive combat, and makes these expectations inconsistent across different classes and builds.
The only way I can see to fix it would be to use percentages. Each character has their own wound threshold for hit points. Depending on how many wound points is the average would determines what percentage to use. Probably somewhere around 5% or 10%. So, whatever a characters total hit points are, their wound threshold would be 5% or 10% of their total hit points. Whenever they suffer that amount of hit point loss (different for every character) they lose a wound point.
For example: a character with 35 total hit points would have a wound threshold of 3 (10% would be 3.5, round down and you get 3 hit points). A character with 75 hit points would have a wound threshold of 7 (10% would be 7.5, round down to 7).
Of course though, this still runs into math inequities due to varying Constitution scores.
For equity you'd probably need to use a ratio of Constitution to Hit Points as the basis for each characters percentage, then use that percentage to determine the characters wound threshold. Which too me (and probably most other people), would be a completely unacceptable complication to the system.
IMO, all of the above and IMO the original concept also, are far to complicated for the basic core system, don't really "add" anything to the play experience, and create some significant problems with the systems math.
A specific point/critique I have is:
I think what you meant to say there was "any single successful attack inflicting 10 or more hit points, also automatically does 1 wound point for every 10 hit points (10 to 19 hit points = 1 wound point, 20 to 29 hit points = 2 wound points, 30 to 39 hit points = 3 wound points, etc.)".
My critique is that this adds additional disparity to the system, and even more inequity between certain classes and characters.
A low hit point character will likely always lose all their hit points long before they incur enough wound points for death (figure average Con. score of 10, giving them 10 wound points, unless they have 100 or more hit points, they are almost always going to reach unconsciousness before suffering enough wound points to die).
A high hit point character probably has more of a 50/50 shot at whether they lose all hit points (uncconsciousness) or lose all wound points (death) first.
A high hit point character with a low Con is almost always going to die long before becoming unconscious.
I think it completely changes all expectations of how to survive combat, and makes these expectations inconsistent across different classes and builds.
The only way I can see to fix it would be to use percentages. Each character has their own wound threshold for hit points. Depending on how many wound points is the average would determines what percentage to use. Probably somewhere around 5% or 10%. So, whatever a characters total hit points are, their wound threshold would be 5% or 10% of their total hit points. Whenever they suffer that amount of hit point loss (different for every character) they lose a wound point.
For example: a character with 35 total hit points would have a wound threshold of 3 (10% would be 3.5, round down and you get 3 hit points). A character with 75 hit points would have a wound threshold of 7 (10% would be 7.5, round down to 7).
Of course though, this still runs into math inequities due to varying Constitution scores.
For equity you'd probably need to use a ratio of Constitution to Hit Points as the basis for each characters percentage, then use that percentage to determine the characters wound threshold. Which too me (and probably most other people), would be a completely unacceptable complication to the system.
IMO, all of the above and IMO the original concept also, are far to complicated for the basic core system, don't really "add" anything to the play experience, and create some significant problems with the systems math.
This is actually sort of the point of such a system.
You're not supposed to go from full wounds to none in a single encounter. The idea is that replenishing hit points is easier overall, but wounds carry over between encounters. It makes for a more long-term survival possible while still allowing drastic changes in hit points in a single encounter.
El Mahdi
Muad'Dib of the Anauroch
And that's true, but only for a low hit point character. Also, what makes mere unconsciousness so much more desirable. Typically it results in either captivity or a coup de grace (which in the end likely means you're dead anyways).
Of course though, while this is happening to the low hit point character, the high hit point/high con tank is in a race to see which runs out first (hit points or wound points), which is almost as it's always been. But the high hit point/low con warrior is almost certainly dying rather than becoming unconscious, and dying faster than if only hit points were used. This might even be more complicated in 5E if they go with a system that doesn't only use Con as a bonus to hit points (such as using Dex for an agile warrior, Strength for a brute warrior, Intelligence for a smart warrior, etc. - there are systems that do something similar, I also use this as a houserule in my own house system, and just to emphasize again, it may end up being a part of 5E).
So it's a mechanic that benefits low hit point characters only. Maintains the status quo for high hit point/hich con characters. And penalizes high hit point but low con characters. It solves a percieved problem, but only for a percentage of characters, and creates even more problems for another percentage of characters.
That's called disparity and inequity, and usually causes no end of griping and complaints about a system. I can understand those that disliked the concept of balance that was incorporated into 4E. Personally I like the concept of balance and equality between classes, but didn't like the way it was executed in 4E. Other people liked 4E specifically for that sense of balance. But whether one likes balance or not, I doubt you'll find too many takers for a mechanic that actually goes out of it's way to create imbalance.
The only way I see to fix this is to use a percentage of hit points to determine each characters individual "wound threshold", and if abilities other than Con end up being used in the system, then those abilities would need to be used to determine wound points also.
And all of that adds up for me to an overly complicated addition to fix what most people don't see as a problem in the first place (especially as that seems to be the case from looking at the results of the poll, which seems to be showing the majority overwhelmingly against this mechanic as is - as of this time 37% completely against, 36% who might like it with changes, and only 24% unequivocally in favor of it).
I understand the idea behind this mechanic, and I understand the motivation. I've wrestled with this very same conflict myself. But I think it needs a lot of work before being an usable mechanic. It needs to address the disparity it generates, and yet still needs to be as simple as is presented in the OP (or even more so). Right now, it's not there. Personally, I really don't see how it's possible for this mechanic to accomplish both of those goals. But I'd definitely be interested in a mechanic that did.
S
Sunseeker
Guest
To be fair, I play D&D for the epic adventure, not the grittyness. As a comic-book fan, the obsession with making everything viceral, real, dark and gritty is rather annoying.
I'm totally down with any sort of optional rules system implemented, it is after all: optional. But I don't feel that D&D's system of calculating attacks and damage caters to a system in which wounds build up quickly(like Deadlands).
Isnt that really the point of new editions though? To change things?
Besides if they go real retro I seem to recall 2e having pretty low cap on HP. Something like you stop gaining HP at 9th level and only pure fighters could get more then 2 pts per level from CON.
If you think about it a fighter basically maxed out HP for the game at 126 in that edition and regular warriors (rangers, palidans who got a D8 if i remember right) maxed out at 88pts.
To most people who started in 3e or 4e thats pretty damn gritty right there.
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