Alternate Massive Damage Rule

[Shadow145]

Has anyone experimented with the Massive damage rules?

I was thinking about changing the threshold in my campaign to 1/2 of the creature's Max HP, with a minimum threshold of 25 HP of damage.

For Creatures above 100 HP, this effectively raises the 50 pt threshold, but for creatures less then 100 hp it lowers the value. The Min of 25 is there to avoid any "5 HP damage causing instant death" silliness to creatures with less then 50 HP. But is 25 too low? Should I set the minimum at 50 as it is in the core rules? Has anyone played with this?

I was also going to include a combination of two variants from UA. I was going to set the Save DC at 15+(2 per 10 points of damage above the threshold). A failed save will bring the character to -8, unless they failed by 5 or more (or a roll of 1), which would mean instant death.

I'm just looking for other people's experiences to see what they have done. If someone else tried this and effectively created a TPK situation, I would definitely like to hear about it.

Thanks a lot.

 

[Ferret]

If you leave it at 50 that only helps creatures with high HP, but 25 that..uhm...unhelps creatures with less hp. Think about it.

 

[JimAde]

Shadow145, I agree with you that there should be a minimum, or low-hp creatures will be REALLY hosed. Ferret is right, though. Any change like this makes the tough tougher and the wimpy wimpier (is that a word)?

In most campaigns I've seen (which admittedly is not many) opponents that regularly do half the PC's hits in a single strike are fairly rare. So I would ask myself 2 questions:

1) How many HP do my PCs' typical foes have?
2) How much damage do the PCs do on an above-average but not exceptional roll?

If #2 is anywhere near one-half of #1, you're making the PC's significantly more powerful. That may be fine, but it's something to think about.

Slightly off-topic: Why adjust the DC by 2 per 10 points of damage instead of 1 per 5 points? Just curious.

 

[Kyamsil]

I have changed the threshold in my campaign to a combination of variants from the UA.

Con Score + 2hp/level or HD. I have also added a modifier for smaller/bigger creatures than Medium (Exactly the same size modifier they get to opposed rolls:+4 for each size category bigger than medium, -4 for each size category smaller than medium).

I have also adopted the saving throw DC that you have mentioned: 15 +2/10 extra damage. The results is that you drop to 0 (I am using a modified version of the "Death & Dying" rules from UA so reaching 0 is enough of a problem.)

My PCs are in the 9-10 level range and thus have massive damage thresholds of around 34-45 more or less, so there isn't much change. So far, the system seems to be working well (when used with the modified "Death & Dying" that is). The only noticeable change is that forcing a Fortitude save for massive damage when someone who deals good amounts of damage on a critical comes into play more often, but as the results of the failed save are less severe they balance it nicely.

 

[Shadow145]

Thanks for the input.

2 points per 10 is what was in Unearthed Arcana I think, and I went with that instead of 1/5 because 2/10 is easier to figure out on the fly.

Some background: My campaign has 7 players, all about 9th level, and is soon to head for Necropolis. Last session the massive damage rule came up for the first time in any of the campaigns me and my friends have run, and I didn't like it as is (didn't seem logical or a good representation), so I wanted to fiddle with it. But I don't want a rule that is too complicated that it slows down combat (with my seven players it is slow enough).

As for the tough tougher and the weak weaker (avoiding wimpier until the vocabulary police show up ) , shouldn't that be the case? Shouldn't a high constitution/HP characters be able to take a bigger hit then a low con/low HP character? That was my reasoning for making the change. I don't think the value should be a set number for everyone. So 1/2 total HP made sense to me. 1/2 max HP is easy to calculate quickly and it represents a large percentage of damage taken that could potentially lead to a shock death. That is the logic talking.

Unfortunately Logic and game balance don't always agree.

There is such a difference between the potential damage dished out at levels and the HP the characters have that it doesn't work out that simply. A 9th level fireball does 9d6 (31.5 avg). But a 9th level wizard's HP may only be 24 HP (avg without con mod). For a character with a 9d8 HD and a +2 con mod (Average 62 HP) that is still a potentially fatal blow if using the 1/2 rule.

So what I am getting at is one part of me says 1/2 total makes sense, while another part sees this and says it is a little too much when an average fireball can potentially wipe out all but the tanks. So to reconcile this I tried to add a cap.

So I went back and forth between 25 and 50. 50 seems to protect the weaker guys a little too much, since the 1/2 rule wouldn't apply until a character broke 100 HP. So I cut it to 25 HP (Honestly, just because it was 1/2 of 50 and an easy number). Now looking at my math above that seems a little low. Maybe set it at 30 or 40. Or maybe I'm completely on the wrong track.

Con+2/HD+size mod? That's interesting. I'll have to think about that one. That's sort of like D20 Modern's version using the con score, with a little more to compensate for D&D's high damage.

What about instead of a static minimum cap, vary it. Con+2/HD like Kyamsil uses or something like it. The value would vary as they leveled up, so low level characters aren't necessarily toast since they have a little buffer with the con score. So con 10 at 9 HD would be around 28, while con 20 would be around 38. But most likely at con 20 they would be using their 1/2 max HP number anyway. The only drawback I see is calculating it in combat, but as long as I prep ahead of time I should be okay.

I'll have to check out UA's death and dying variant. But I don't want to shock the players too much.

I only started with rpg's when 3rd edition came out. Anyone know where the massive damage rule came from? Is this a sacred cow or something new the designers did for 3rd ed?

 

[Kyamsil]

It was already a rule on AD&D 2nd edition (Don't know if on 1st edition it applied as I didn't play more than a couple games back then). And it has been always the same: more than 50 points of damage of a single attack/spell/fall/whatever, save or die.

My method isn't so hard to calculate, also you don't have to do it on the fly. I simply calculated it and made each player write his threshold on his character sheet near the HP box. Also, as I have a really big playing group (12 players, yes, you have read it well... sometimes it is really slow) I have like a DM assistant that helps me with some issues like the initiative order, keeping record of the hp values of each player and so on. She also has the threshold written down. The assistant keeping record of hp is because some players have old bad habits and instead of counting down from their hp total they accumulate damage (the way non-lethal damage is counted) or do some other silly things that slow down play as writing down only the amounts of damage of each blow, adding it together from time to time and things like that...

Anyways, the half-total HP is a bit too much to me. Once a barbarian player gets to 150 hp (not that hard if he has a good enough CON score and fairly good rolls, specially during a rage) the mass-damage almost never shows up. Also, I have been toying with the idea of Toughness not only giving you 3 extra hit points, but also adding those 3 points to mass-damage threshold. That way that sort of feat will be more attractive to players.