D&D 5E Wounds and Vitality module, what default mechanics don't fit?

[DDNFan]

Let's say your DM has decided to play the Wounds and Vitality option instead of default HP.

Can anyone explain to me how it might work, based on the star wars version? I've never played that game.

Is it something like your top 50% HP are stamina / vitality & other weird stuff, and the lower half is wounds? Or is your Con score the wounds part, and everything on top is vitality?

Either way, what does this mean for mechanics that need to change?

So far, one might guess :

-Hit dice and Second Wind only restores stamina / vitality (duh. If it still doesn't that is going "full gonzo"). Pity PHB and DMG editors didn't speak to each other and realize SW should have cost an HD to use, then it would have worked right out the gate without alteration or any short rest chaining issues.
-A long rest should restore all hit dice, and max out the current vitality, but only give con modifier in wounds back per day.
-Damage on a miss can't work, at least not against the wounds part. I would be fine with vitality loss on a miss, which actually does make sense, although it's still weird that one never loses stamina for attacking. But you can't kill something on a miss, ever.
-Cure Wounds restores anything, or just wounds (duh, but is a major nerf since Con scores are rather low compared to the current healing provided by Cure Wounds. Then again, it frees up a ton of slots from the cleric for Bless and other useful spells). If it only restores wounds and not vitality as well, then the relative value of this daily resource is drastically lowered.
-Heavy armor protects against wounds better? But not against vitality loss. So the armor table would grant DR X / vitality

The best part about adopting W&V ? Never debating these topics ever again. At that point it becomes mere game mechanical or balance issues, and not philosophical or playstyle ones. I would suggest moderators of D&D websites even make subforums for fans of each playstyle because they are not really compatible visions of the game, and at that point the only thing to say is, we're playing different games, and that's that.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Unearthed Arcana had a V/WP system that made it into OGC. You can see it on d20SRD.

 

[Remathilis]

Well, if it works like Star Wars...

* Your Vitality is equal to what you would normally have in HP. So a fighter with a 14 Con has 12 vitality at 1st level.
* Your Wound is equal to your Con score. Said fighter has 14 Wound.
* Attacks that "hit" remove vitality. When you are out of vitality, attacks start to target your wound.
* If you take wound damage, you are fatigued (-2 Str/Dex, cannot run/charge) until you rest.
* Your vitality recovers at 1 vp per level per day. So a 8th level character rests and recovers 8 vitality. HOWEVER, you only recover 1 wound per day. Treat Injury and the Force can speed this amount up.
* Healing Powers (Heal Self/Heal Another) treat more vitality than wound when used. (2d8+4 vitality or 1d4 wound for example).
* Your wound points never improve except by raising your con or taking a feat.
* Critical hits bypass vitality and go direct to wound. (See below).
* In Star Wars, AC is a function of level and armor acts as DR AGAINST WOUND ONLY. So if you are shot for 8 vitality, your armor does nothing to fix that. If shot for 8 wound, your armor blocks an amount of that (based on armor).
* NPC classes and monsters NEVER have vitality, only wound. (Vitality is for PC classed characters only).
* When Wound is 0, you start dying. (-10 is dead).

Advantages
* Vitality heals faster. Wound heal slower.
* It clearly separates "luck/skill" vs. "meat" hp.
* Healing wounds is difficult.

Disadvantages
* Remember how crits go straight to wound? This is HUGE! In a game where a common blaster pistol from a stormtrooper does 3d8 damage and lightsabers can reach 6d8+strength, your measly 14 con is a speedbump. Every combat is Russian roulette and nearly all of them end with the first crit. (Remember, if you take a point of wound you become fatigued, hastening the death spiral by lowering your attack/defense). And since PCs take more crits than any single NPC, expect to replace A LOT of PCs due to random crits. The system is great if you want the "death threat" in every combat, but very unsatisfying when you expect a fight to go like Darth Maul vs. Obi-wan & Qui-Gon and instead get Mace vs. Jango Fett (done in three rounds to a crit).
* It also creates a weird wonkiness for what constitutes a "hit". For example, a snake bites you for 3 vitality damage. Does it poison you? It didn't create a "wound", so technically it never pierced your skin to inject the venom. What about a slam attack that does energy drain? Did I dodge it with my vitality or did it still touch me?


If you want to read more on how 3.5 did it, might I suggest the Unearthed Arcana version?

 

[Remathilis]

Having played a LOT of d20 Star Wars, I grew to LOATHE V/WP. Good in theory, terrible in execution. Fights ended stupid quick and nobody cared about vitality since than small pool of wound was all that mattered. At low levels, armor is king. At high levels (when you have multiple d8 lightsaber damage) all you can do is take Improved Critical at the first opportunity pray you get the first crit...

I sincerely hope the DMG V/WP system is "in name only" since the one was so disliked by the SW community, Star Wars Saga abandoned it for normal HP!

 

[Lanefan]

Simple way is to have wound (body) points always represent "real meat" - actual injury - while vitality (fatigue) points represent nicks, scratches, luck, endurance, etc. (there still has to be a small "meat" component to FP if weapon-delivered poison is to work properly)

Temporary h.p. of any kind are always FP even if you're below full BP.

You go through your FP first before touching BP except in very rare circumstances; crits do not go straight to BP or anything like that.

Then, have all the various things that logically restore fatigue (e.g. Second Wind, a short rest, etc.) only work if you are at or above full BP. Further, have all the various "cure xxx wounds" spells give back less BP than they do FP, to reflect that BP (being real injury) are harder to fix. A long rest might fix some BP damage, this would be up to the DM; and having BP ties in really nicely to a lingering injury system.

You could then introduce different types of healing potions, herbs, etc. if desired - say, a potion that is particularly good at fixing BP damage but not so useful at relieving fatigue.

Do it this way and the mechanics work just fine.

Lanefan

 

[Remathilis]

Simple way is to have wound (body) points always represent "real meat" - actual injury - while vitality (fatigue) points represent nicks, scratches, luck, endurance, etc. (there still has to be a small "meat" component to FP if weapon-delivered poison is to work properly)

Temporary h.p. of any kind are always FP even if you're below full BP.

You go through your FP first before touching BP except in very rare circumstances; crits do not go straight to BP or anything like that.

Then, have all the various things that logically restore fatigue (e.g. Second Wind, a short rest, etc.) only work if you are at or above full BP. Further, have all the various "cure xxx wounds" spells give back less BP than they do FP, to reflect that BP (being real injury) are harder to fix. A long rest might fix some BP damage, this would be up to the DM; and having BP ties in really nicely to a lingering injury system.

You could then introduce different types of healing potions, herbs, etc. if desired - say, a potion that is particularly good at fixing BP damage but not so useful at relieving fatigue.

Do it this way and the mechanics work just fine.

Lanefan

Aside from specifically calling out what is meat and what is luck, what is the advantage of this? Really, its just adding your Con score to hp and being picky on what type of healing you need.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Aside from specifically calling out what is meat and what is luck, what is the advantage of this? Really, its just adding your Con score to hp and being picky on what type of healing you need.

Which is precisely what some people want. Whether or not it's an advantage all depends on how someone sees hit points. Based on your response, VP/WP do not seem necessary... but for other people it handles things much better than a straight HP system.

 

[Remathilis]

Which is precisely what some people want. Whether or not it's an advantage all depends on how someone sees hit points. Based on your response, VP/WP do not seem necessary... but for other people it handles things much better than a straight HP system.

Your point is taken. For me, its an additional layer of complexity that doesn't yield much in practice. If you run it "crits to wound" its a deathtrap, but if you don't it just becomes an additional pool of hp with some strings attached. YMMV, but it was more hassle than it was worth for me.

 

[Lanefan]

Aside from specifically calling out what is meat and what is luck, what is the advantage of this? Really, its just adding your Con score to hp and being picky on what type of healing you need.

The advantage is a clearer definition of what wounds are going to linger and what can be easily cured.

We've used this system for ages; you don't get your Con. score in BP, instead you roll a small die at 1st level (most people have 3 or 4 BP) and the result pretty much never changes. All damage below 0 h.p. (you die at -10) is also BP of course and BP are intentionally more difficult to cure.

Most important, though, is if you go below 0 you can't be cured above full BP for a period of time determined by
a) how far below 0 you went, and
b) how strong the first cure was that you received

You can rest back BP but it's very slow.

Voila - instant lingering wounds system. Works like a charm!

Lanefan

 

[Ainamacar]

From what Mearls says in the video it will actually be somewhat different from Star Wars d20.

Where basically as you take damage your maximum hit points go down, especially if you take fairly large wounds. Like a 10 or 12 point hit, being different from a 3 or 4 point hit.

If I'm interpreting correctly the main effect of wounds is to reduce your ability to sustain hit point (vitality) damage over the long term, but to me it doesn't sound like there is a separate pool of "wound points" or anything like that. I imagine they did something like that so a crazy crit will have some long-term consequences without turning things into rocket tag. Changing maximum hp to represent wounds hopefully means almost everything in the game besides the rules for getting a wound and healing them simply works without changes: You would still fall unconscious at 0 hp, etc.

I'm just guessing, but from the last sentence in the quote maybe they're doing something like reducing maximum hp by damage taken divided by 5 (round down).

I made a post suggesting and analyzing a very similar-sounding system a couple years ago so I'm pretty interested to see what they came up with.