5.5/6e - Is it time for Wounds/Vitality?

[Lanefan]

If you do that, what are you buying other than overhead and complexity, especially when you include things like magical healing?

Let's say a PC has (arbitrary numbers here) VP: 30, W: 10 and they take 35 points of damage. There's no difference from HP other than you split up the numbers, right? So at this point they have VP:0, W:5. Now suppose you could recover VP but not W with a short rest so they have VP:30, W:5. They again take 35 points of damage and I assume they drop to 0.

You're making this far more complicated than it needs to be.

For combat purposes the PC here has 40 HP. When they reach 0 they start dying, or die outright depending on system.

The PC cannot recover FP (VP) in any way before it is back up to full BP (WP). So, no need to ever track two sets of numbers. For monsters, who almost never need to worry about recovering hit points because after the combat they are dead, it works just like normal.

The only added complexity comes in curing and resting, as a PC not at full BP (WP) a) takes longer to recover and b) cures are not as effective until-unless full BP (WP) is reached.

After that, FP (VP) recover as normal for the system in use.

 

[Lanefan]

What is the intention?

I see people saying it's superior, that it's better than HP... but how?

1. Clear delineation between mostly-meat and mostly-fatigue hit points
2. Easy to add in a lingering-injuries or incurability system for when someone goes into BP (WP).
3. Added realism of actual injuries being more difficult to patch up than simple fatigue or loss of stamina.
4. No more - or at worst very much less - whack-a-mole.

In most such systems, Wounds/Body is something that rarely comes up or it the special ability of things that are hyper-dangerous and those things have a commiserate lower damage because they're going to wounds, not lobbing 2d6 wounds at you on every single crit.

With what I have in mind, almost nothing ever goes straight to BP (WP); the only things that do are things that would almost certainly kill the PC anyway e.g. outright assassination attempts.

You don't go into Body every fight in HERO for example, and you don't go into wounds from a fist fight in other systems, but the proposed systems here seem to expect everyone to go into wounds every fight.

Only if the fight takes out all your FP (VP), which is something you'd probably want to avoid in any case.

I'm not sure what's actually being conceived of here.

About three or four different things at once, I suspect; some directly basing themselves off the SW system and others - like mine - basing themselves off of homebrew systems.

Edit: typos

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

But if you get rid of the idea that crits go straight to WP/BP it then works much more as intended, right?

I think so, if the point is to basically have some specified "meat" HP.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I think so, if the point is to basically have some specified "meat" HP.

in the d20 SW wound points were (more or less) the "meat" because they were represented by your Constitution score only (no addition for higher levels, etc.).

As where Vitality (i.e. hit points) was your energy, skill, etc. used to avoid or turn physical damage aside. Losing vitality would result in sweating, labored breathing, muscle strain, etc. but no actual physical injury IIRC.

 

[Stalker0]

If you do that, what are you buying other than overhead and complexity, especially when you include things like magical healing?

Let's say a PC has (arbitrary numbers here) VP: 30, W: 10 and they take 35 points of damage. There's no difference from HP other than you split up the numbers, right? So at this point they have VP:0, W:5. Now suppose you could recover VP but not W with a short rest so they have VP:30, W:5. They again take 35 points of damage and I assume they drop to 0.

But what about magical healing or bandaids if you have the healer feat? Do you only recover VP? Recover W first? Do you have to actually rest to recover VP or does it recover if you're not doing something that not particularly strenuous so you could be walking around and exploring?

All of these questions are easy to define in such a system. The goal is that vitality recovers quickly and wounds take much longer. Magical healing would still fix wounds, you would heal wounds first and then vitality (and you could make it where cure wounds or "restore vitality" might heal 1d8 + 5 vitality or 1 wound (or whatever amount of healing feels right). Vitality might take a full 1 hour rest, or perhaps 5 minutes...whatever makes sense.

But these are a few rules updates in one section of the book (healing), its not a scenario where you rip out entire sections of the PH and have to replace them.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm not sure what's actually being conceived of here.

These things:

• Creating a concrete definition between "Stamina/Luck" type HP and "Meat/Body" hp, which is common confusion and source of argument for people.
• Provide both a measure of HP that are fast regenerating (maybe even faster than they are now), but also provide a means for a character to be injured in a way that takes actual time to heal (rather than a single night's rest).... and do it in a way that makes flavor sense.
• Design it in a way where its easy for people to tailor to their games (as healing rates seems a common area for house rules). I could have more or less vitality in favor of wounds as a very easy example. I could have all wounds if I want a super gritty game, or all vitality if I want a superheroic.

 

[DND_Reborn]

This is precisely why W/VP is a superior system IMO.

The Vitality aspect is the metaphysical.
The Wounds (Wound Points) aspect is the physical.

A system designed around this distinction would be much better. This is why I started the thread on using Hit Point Maximum to represent the "physical", in essence replacing the Wound component of the d20 SW system.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Thanks to those that gave a rundown of their aims.

 

[Oofta]

A little more clarity in how you describe things. That's all you get, but I'd bet a majority of people who don't like hp as-is would actually be a lot happier with that as the only change.

I guess I'm not convinced that it adds much or that there's any significant demand for this. There's never going to be any system that's particularly accurate (whatever that means), I just don't see how breaking up HP into 2 numbers adds much.

But I also don't see it ever happening outside of house rules.

 

[pantsorama]

Yeah - WOD is one of the worst death spiral type games in that respect.

Ummm. Rolemaster?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I guess I'm not convinced that it adds much or that there's any significant demand for this. There's never going to be any system that's particularly accurate (whatever that means), I just don't see how breaking up HP into 2 numbers adds much.

But I also don't see it ever happening outside of house rules.

Pretty much this. I played a good but with wounds vitality and I am not convinced of its value. Not every one want gritty danger in their combats.

 

[Voranzovin]

In theory, I love the idea of WP/VP. Hit points and their inconsistency bug the he'll out of me.

In practice, though, I think they're actually even worse for verisimilitude then HP are. HP are essentially fictionless. Their saving grace is that they don't actually mean any particular thing, which papers over a lot of bizarre inconsistencies inherent in trying to make meaningful fiction out of the system of DnD. Once you try to make some kind of concrete sense out of HP by turning them into WP/VP, you immediately have to grapple with these issues too. What does it mean to take poison damage, when you know you haven't actually been hit? Why is a cleric using the awesome and miraculous power of a god to make you slightly less winded? How come they have to use extra powerful healing to make more skilled people less winded? How was that monster able to grapple you when we know you couldn't have actually made contact with its acidic tentacles because you haven't actually been burned? How did you get stunned when a monk's fist didn't hit you? Etc etc.

I wish there was a better alternative to HP, but for me, at least, WP/VP isn't it.

 

[cbwjm]

How come they have to use extra powerful healing to make more skilled people less winded?

This here is where healing surges were great. If the healing spell heals a surge +X amount then it is always going to be a better amount for higher level PCs.

 

[Gradine]

The thing about Vitality/Wounds is that it doesn't work super well to port directly into D&D. Star Wars d20 made a lot of additional changes that impacted the Vit/Wounds system, including:

• Crits were a range with damage straight to Wounds rather than bonus/extra damage.
• In addition, this was back in d20 where crits had to be confirmed, making them relatively rarer
• Armor was also completely changed, providing damage resistance rather than AC.
• Defense was now a class feature that went up with level

You could theoretically do one or more of these without using all of them but they really worked out for the best in tandem with each other.

An additional thing I forgot to mention is how much more deadly Star Wars d20 weaponry was. Even a basic blaster pistol was doing 3d6 damage a pop. All of these systems worked together to make Vit/Wounds work incredibly well.

 

[Voranzovin]

An additional thing I forgot to mention is how much more deadly Star Wars d20 weaponry was. Even a basic blaster pistol was doing 3d6 damage a pop. All of these systems worked together to make Vit/Wounds work incredibly well.

It's been a while since I played Star Wars d20, so hopefully I'm remembering correctly, but from what I recall, while WP/VP certainly worked better then they do in DnD, they still led to a lot of weird results that were difficult to describe. As an example, lots of big creatures had heaps of both WP and VP. So if you attacked a Bantha with your lightsaber and only did VP damage...does that mean the Bantha dodged? How?

I suppose this problem cuts right to the heart of the interaction between mechanics and fiction. How does one construct a system for tracking "damage" that both produces genre-appropriate cinematic results and works as a game mechanic? Hit points dodge the problem by punting on fiction completely until you hit 0. I find this unsatisfying, and I'd love to have something that could serve both requirements, but I haven't yet seen a system that felt like it could--there are lots of systems that do a better job producing meaningful fiction but they tend to be deadlier and less "cinematic" than DnD. I'm hardly familiar with every RPG ever published, though, and I'm curious what other options are out there that I've missed.

 

[Voranzovin]

This here is where healing surges were great. If the healing spell heals a surge +X amount then it is always going to be a better amount for higher level PCs.

I do like that approach, and am considering using it as a house rule in 5e.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It's been a while since I played Star Wars d20, so hopefully I'm remembering correctly, but from what I recall, while WP/VP certainly worked better then they do in DnD, they still led to a lot of weird results that were difficult to describe. As an example, lots of big creatures had heaps of both WP and VP. So if you attacked a Bantha with your lightsaber and only did VP damage...does that mean the Bantha dodged? How?

Yeah, it is weird. Part of the problem, however, is also with AC, even in d20 SW. The +10 natural armor for the Bantha above really should be some form of DR. Natural armor should not be "dodging".

But, even so, VP damage is:

So, it wasn't so much the Bantha dodging the blow, but turned with it so the lightsaber just skimmed it, causing minor burns, etc. instead of solidly hitting it.

 

[Shardstone]

Bloodied is the best mechanical idea in 4E imo. Having negative and positive effects key off it, and letting spells, classes, feats, etc interact with it would add sooooooo much to the game imo.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Bloodied is the best mechanical idea in 4E imo.

Having never played 4E, what is Bloodied?

As I understand it, it just means below half maximum HP?

 

[pantsorama]

Having never played 4E, what is Bloodied?

As I understand it, it just means below half maximum HP?

That's right. If you are at half or below your max HP you are considered bloodied.