D&D (2024) 5.5/6e - Is it time for Wounds/Vitality?

[Jer]

Correct, and while a W/VP system can include a death spiral (once you take damage from your wound pool you suffer a -2 to your AC as one example), it certainly doesn't have to. The only penalty to taking wound damage could simply be the difficulty in healing it back, which is not a death spiral.

So you're talking a Palladium-style hit point/SDC distinction? (I actually prefer that kind of terminology over "Wound Points" if the "Wound" isn't going to actually be a wound and is just special hit points, but YMMV).

I mean, I guess - I'd still like to see it as an optional system because it adds what I'd consider to be an unnecessary layer of complexity to a system that doesn't need it.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If you don't like the death spiral, don't get hit.

I do.

By keeping my character at least three game tables distant from them.

 

[Jer]

the best example I have is WoD. You have 7 health levels but when down 3 you are at -1 to all rolls, and down 4 is -2... by 6 (almost dead) you are at -5 to all rolls) now WoD is worse cause you roll to dodge or parry and to soak damage... so you get worse at avoiding damage cause you have damage

Yeah - WOD is one of the worst death spiral type games in that respect. I remember my hard core WoD friends back in the day defending that design choice as the game making combat extra deadly so you choose to not do it unless you absolutely have to, but it seems like if you want to downplay combat in your game there are better ways to do it than death spirals.

 

[J.Quondam]

I wouldn't want VP/WP as the default, but it'd be nice to have a variant rule, umm, fleshed out for GM use.
Personally, I like something simple, like Steampunkette's approach. Maybe tack on crit fails, to allow for WP damage on botched save v fireball, etc.

Correct, and while a W/VP system can include a death spiral (once you take damage from your wound pool you suffer a -2 to your AC as one example), it certainly doesn't have to. The only penalty to taking wound damage could simply be the difficulty in healing it back, which is not a death spiral.

Agreed. It could even be implemented as the reverse, along the lines of the "bloodied" condition used in 4e. Eg, if a character drops to half WP, they get some sort of "resolve bonus" or activate a "hard to kill" trait or something to reduce further WP disadvantages-- in effect, forcing the death spiral in the counter direction.

Like every other stat, WP/VP is just another design dimension that can work for or against a character, depending.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Maybe there was a reason they didn't keep him around? Maybe he was promising things that didn't sound like a workable product or one that others believed would not target the market they were aiming for? T

you would think the team would communicate that...

Imagine a tech insider speaking for apple said the next Iphone would have X Y and Z, and a month or two later he is fired... if the company didn't come out and say "No it isn't that employee was mistaken/lying/crazy" then yeah... it is still the company.

have you ever heard people on youtube tic tock and the like say "I work for X but I don't speak for the brand or the company" there is a reason they keep parroting that line.

he so-called "promises" were comments made during an interview, never published as official direction for the product. What was there to retract?

a public statement of intent by a current employee that was working on the project.

In any case it's water that went under the bridge so long ago that it long ago made it's way to the ocean. The horse is dead and buried, there's no reason to keep beating the grave.

yet here we are... with yyou needing us to explain why we believed WotC employees statements.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yeah - WOD is one of the worst death spiral type games in that respect. I remember my hard core WoD friends back in the day defending that design choice as the game making combat extra deadly so you choose to not do it unless you absolutely have to, but it seems like if you want to downplay combat in your game there are better ways to do it than death spirals.

Yeah... I believe that is the intent too. 'anyone can be shot and die' makes you not want to be in a fire fight.
In practice it just made everyone load up on combat abilities 'if there is a fight I am ready' then that colored the game

 

[J.Quondam]

I do.

By keeping my character at least three game tables distant from them.

Well, still keep an eye out for that badwrongfun. It's a reach weapon!

 

[Vaalingrade]

Well, still keep an eye out for that badwrongfun. It's a reach weapon!

Another already bad term for cutting off discussion loses all meaning.

RIP

 

[grimslade]

I would love a fleshed-out Vitality/Wound points option. Mainly, it would open the door to more mechanics within bounded accuracy, like a spell casting system that used vitality to fuel powers and a fatigue system that was not so punishing. To ameliorate the impact on melee combatants perhaps an ability to divert wound damage or limited heal/ignore some wound damage. 4Es Bloodied mechanic could be repurposed to Wounded when you suffer wound damage.
I would love to see a psionics system that used vitality points to replace the concentration mechanic. You spend some of your combat effectiveness to maintain focus on sustaining a power or managing psychic combat during a fight.

 

[Oofta]

you would think the team would communicate that...

Imagine a tech insider speaking for apple said the next Iphone would have X Y and Z, and a month or two later he is fired... if the company didn't come out and say "No it isn't that employee was mistaken/lying/crazy" then yeah... it is still the company.

have you ever heard people on youtube tic tock and the like say "I work for X but I don't speak for the brand or the company" there is a reason they keep parroting that line.

a public statement of intent by a current employee that was working on the project.

yet here we are... with yyou needing us to explain why we believed WotC employees statements.

Someone that didn't even work on the product long enough to make it to the playtest (much less actual concrete rules or likely even drafts of the PHB or DMG) had some ideas that didn't pan out. Meanwhile we have the best selling version of D&D ever released. I simply don't see what the issue is.