DnD 5e x Savage Worlds; AC, Toughness and Wounds

[ElPsyCongroo]

I found myself really appreciating both systems but wondered if there could be a reasonable combining of the two...

AC remains an exceptionally graceful catch all for determining a Successful Hit, and Bounded Accuracy ensures (more or less) a level of combat effectiveness.
However what I find less elegant is the old punching bag, Hit Points. They're ungainly pools of abstraction... imo.

Thats when I stumbled upon the Toughness and Wounds System of Savage Worlds. A suprisingly ideal metric for the severity of damage! With a "Raise" scoring another Wound, or in the case of the To Hit roll add a d6 to the Damage Roll. Its Brutal, simple and easy to scale. Ideal for gritty settings.

A PC's/NPC's/Monster's Wound total could be determined by Max HD/2 and Toughness could be calculated by Con/2. With every increment of damage rolled that = Toughness resulting in another wound dealt.

 

[Starfox]

There is an official gamer called Savage Pathfinder. Its Pathfinder and not DnD, but Savage Worlds and d20 are so different that I'd say that in this regard, Pathfinder and DnD are the same. It does use Golarion (Pathfinder's iconic world) as its setting, but this is a kitchen sink setting and so easy to either adapt or just steal stuff from. I have played Savage Pathfinder and enjoyed it a lot.

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[Voadam]

Thats when I stumbled upon the Toughness and Wounds System of Savage Worlds. A suprisingly ideal metric for the severity of damage! With a "Raise" scoring another Wound, or in the case of the To Hit roll add a d6 to the Damage Roll. Its Brutal, simple and easy to scale. Ideal for gritty settings.

A PC's/NPC's/Monster's Wound total could be determined by Max HD/2 and Toughness could be calculated by Con/2. With every increment of damage rolled that = Toughness resulting in another wound dealt.

Could someone explain Savage World's toughness and wounds system here?

I have a bunch of SW stuff but have most skimmed some of it for setting and game theme concepts, not the SW rule system.

 

[Starfox]

Could someone explain Savage World's toughness and wounds system here?

Very brief explanation.

You make a damage roll, which for melee is one die based on your character's Strength and the other depends on the weapon. These dice can explode, meaning you get to roll again and add the result is you roll the maximum result.

You the subtract the target's Toughness, which is based on the equivalent of Constitution and armor worn.

If the result is zero or greater, the target is staggered, meaning they cannot take actions until they succeed on a Spirit (an attribute), but there is no permanent damage.

If the result exceeds Toughness by 4 or more, the target takes a wound for each multiple of 4 on the margin. Each wound inflicts a penalty, and most creatures become dying at four wounds. Very large and/or tough creatures may be able to survive more wounds.

Edit: Perhaps not as brief as intended.

 

[Voadam]

Very brief explanation.

You make a damage roll, which for melee is one die based on your character's Strength and the other depends on the weapon. These dice can explode, meaning you get to roll again and add the result is you roll the maximum result.

You the subtract the target's Toughness, which is based on the equivalent of Constitution and armor worn.

If the result is zero or greater, the target is staggered, meaning they cannot take actions until they succeed on a Spirit (an attribute), but there is no permanent damage.

If the result exceeds Toughness by 4 or more, the target takes a wound for each multiple of 4 on the margin. Each wound inflicts a penalty, and most creatures become dying at four wounds. Very large and/or tough creatures may be able to survive more wounds.

Got it, thanks.

 

[Voadam]

Very brief explanation.

You make a damage roll, which for melee is one die based on your character's Strength and the other depends on the weapon. These dice can explode, meaning you get to roll again and add the result is you roll the maximum result.

You the subtract the target's Toughness, which is based on the equivalent of Constitution and armor worn.

If the result is zero or greater, the target is staggered, meaning they cannot take actions until they succeed on a Spirit (an attribute), but there is no permanent damage.

If the result exceeds Toughness by 4 or more, the target takes a wound for each multiple of 4 on the margin. Each wound inflicts a penalty, and most creatures become dying at four wounds. Very large and/or tough creatures may be able to survive more wounds.

Edit: Perhaps not as brief as intended.

Combining that with "A PC's/NPC's/Monster's Wound total could be determined by Max HD/2 and Toughness could be calculated by Con/2. With every increment of damage rolled that = Toughness resulting in another wound dealt." I think we get PCs with 3-6 wounds, a DR of about 5-8 at low levels (conceptually up to 10 at higher levels), and a death spiral mechanic with the only increasing toughness being from increasing con.

That is assuming max HD means a fighter with a d10 HD gets 5 wounds and not level/2 wounds.

So stagger if damage =1/2 con damage, 1 wound if = con, 2 wound if damage = 1.5 con.

I think the toughness aspect means that at low levels most things can generally only stagger, while at high CR things will do a bunch of wounds with every hit.

A CR 2 wyrmling white dragon does 9 damage with its bite and 22/11 with its breath weapon, so a bite will stagger and the breath weapon will either stagger or do 1-4 wounds.

A CR6 young white dragon does 19 with its bite, 11 with its two claws and 45/22 with its breath weapon, so a bite and claws will stagger to 3 wounds, while the breath weapon will do 1-10 wounds depending on con and save.

I think this makes con a huge impact stat.

 

[Starfox]

What increases with experience in Savage Worlds is how hard you are to hit and your soak value - much less so the number of wounds you can take. I believe there is a merit to increase the number of wounds, and going from 4 wounds to 5 wounds is a large percentile increase, but the main improvement will be in the other defense values Dodge (derived from melee skill) and Toughness.