Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Dungeon 204 had an Unearthed Arcana article "Less Death, More Danger" for adding Injury Cards to D&D. (Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Less Death, More Danger!)). I liked the concept, cards with Minor and Major problems, but the rules didn't quite do what I wanted.
Here's an alternate set of rules for using the Injury cards.
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Injury
We will be using the injury deck from Dungeon 204, but not the accompanying rules. For each failed death save, you gain a minor injury. If it was your final death save (and you’re not dead)*, it’s a major injury instead.
If you draw a duplicate minor injury, it upgrades to a major. If you draw a major and minor of the same card, or duplicate majors, you drop to zero and need to start making death saves.
Injury cards may be given out at other times as well, such as certain failures in skill challenges.
* Also looking at using the Meaningful Death optional rule from 13th Age, but not required for this.
Criticals
If a foe crits, you have to option before damage is announced to take an injury card instead and it downgrades to a normal hit. It’s a minor injury for a standard or elite foe and major injury for a solo. (And we just laugh at you if it’s a minion. And perhaps golf clap.)
Recovering Injuries
During an extended rest, you must make a moderate DC Endurance check. This will remove a minor injury or downgrade a major injury to a minor injury. A moderate DC Heal check may also be made (by you or another) during an extended rest with the same effect.
Finally, any time you may spend a surge (2nd wind, power, short rest, etc.), you may spend the surge but forgo regaining the surge HP in order to attempt these checks against a hard DC. (Note that other HP healed as well as other effects may still take place.)
Failing any of these checks will worsen the injury, from minor to major or major to 0 HP.
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I've seen instant 0 HP rules if you take your bloodied value in one hit. I put that in, but then took it back out. The Criticals rule pretty much covers it for all intents and purposes, and puts the choice in the hand of the players. Immediate massive damage now, or a lingering wound.
I'm worried about how this will affect Defenders vs. others. I can see Defenders picking up a few more injuries, but then they often get Endurance which helps remove them. I'm thinking it's a wash but open to other thoughts. The original article gained an injury card just for going below 1, and that's too nasty. Now you usually have a bit of a break to get healed up before you have to save.
I'm was concerned about since you can spend surges to attempt to remove an injury outside an extended rest that characters will blow through surges on the first short rest until it's gone. That's not what I'm looking for, but limiting it to "one per short rest" just means they take more back-to-back short rests - it's still 12 in an hour. So the fail the roll by 5 that we see in a lot of skill checks came in to prevent lots and lots of rerolls. It isn't as big a factor against a moderate DC during the extended rest. If I took out the chance to recover with surge spend, I'd take out the chance for an injury to worsen as well.
All in all, dropping isn't a frequent occurrence in the games I'm in. This adds in a bit of danger and consequences, while also making combat a bit less swingy by putting he effects of a crit vs. a PC in the hands of the player. The Injury deck is for a grittier tone than default whether by the original rules or these, but this takes out some of what I see as uneven for Defenders and melee strikers, as well as providing more dramatic tension.
Here's an alternate set of rules for using the Injury cards.
---
Injury
We will be using the injury deck from Dungeon 204, but not the accompanying rules. For each failed death save, you gain a minor injury. If it was your final death save (and you’re not dead)*, it’s a major injury instead.
If you draw a duplicate minor injury, it upgrades to a major. If you draw a major and minor of the same card, or duplicate majors, you drop to zero and need to start making death saves.
Injury cards may be given out at other times as well, such as certain failures in skill challenges.
* Also looking at using the Meaningful Death optional rule from 13th Age, but not required for this.
Criticals
If a foe crits, you have to option before damage is announced to take an injury card instead and it downgrades to a normal hit. It’s a minor injury for a standard or elite foe and major injury for a solo. (And we just laugh at you if it’s a minion. And perhaps golf clap.)
Recovering Injuries
During an extended rest, you must make a moderate DC Endurance check. This will remove a minor injury or downgrade a major injury to a minor injury. A moderate DC Heal check may also be made (by you or another) during an extended rest with the same effect.
Finally, any time you may spend a surge (2nd wind, power, short rest, etc.), you may spend the surge but forgo regaining the surge HP in order to attempt these checks against a hard DC. (Note that other HP healed as well as other effects may still take place.)
Failing any of these checks will worsen the injury, from minor to major or major to 0 HP.
---
I've seen instant 0 HP rules if you take your bloodied value in one hit. I put that in, but then took it back out. The Criticals rule pretty much covers it for all intents and purposes, and puts the choice in the hand of the players. Immediate massive damage now, or a lingering wound.
I'm worried about how this will affect Defenders vs. others. I can see Defenders picking up a few more injuries, but then they often get Endurance which helps remove them. I'm thinking it's a wash but open to other thoughts. The original article gained an injury card just for going below 1, and that's too nasty. Now you usually have a bit of a break to get healed up before you have to save.
I'm was concerned about since you can spend surges to attempt to remove an injury outside an extended rest that characters will blow through surges on the first short rest until it's gone. That's not what I'm looking for, but limiting it to "one per short rest" just means they take more back-to-back short rests - it's still 12 in an hour. So the fail the roll by 5 that we see in a lot of skill checks came in to prevent lots and lots of rerolls. It isn't as big a factor against a moderate DC during the extended rest. If I took out the chance to recover with surge spend, I'd take out the chance for an injury to worsen as well.
All in all, dropping isn't a frequent occurrence in the games I'm in. This adds in a bit of danger and consequences, while also making combat a bit less swingy by putting he effects of a crit vs. a PC in the hands of the player. The Injury deck is for a grittier tone than default whether by the original rules or these, but this takes out some of what I see as uneven for Defenders and melee strikers, as well as providing more dramatic tension.
