Fixing the problems I have with UAs wound system

[azmodean]

I really like the flavor of Unearthed Arcana's wound system, but there are several problems I have with it that keeps me from using it. Here's a summary of the problems as I see them and what I've come up with to deal with them.

1. any hit that can deal you damage has a 1/20 chance of disabling you. (natural 1)
This is really a d20 problem, but using wounding rules would take it from manageable to insane. I have been thinking of switching to exploding d20s and that would help, but it still leaves a very high chance of being disabled with a single hit, even if the character is relatively high level. I was thinking of making everyone "tougher" by making the save against disable be at -15 from the base save instead of -10. (I just realised that action points would really help with this)

2. It is extremely difficult to deal any damage at all to very high-save creatures. once the save bonus reaches the 20 area, it takes very high damage to have a good chance of getting those first few hits in, which leads to another problem.

3. No matter how hard the hit, you never take more than a "wound", which is a piddly -1 on future saves. I was thinking of altering the results of failed saves as follows: if you miss by less than five you take a "light wound" for -1 to subsequent saves, if you miss by five to nine you take a "wound" for -2 to subsequent saves, if you miss by ten to fourteen you take a "serious wound" for -3 to subsequent saves, and if you miss by fifteen or more you are disabled.

4. Reducing variation of creature toughness. UA mentions it (basing the wound system on the fort save leaves only two alternatives to represent toughness, "Good" and "bad" saves), but I don't really see the problem. My solution is to make a seperate "wound save" and make 6 save progressions to replace the 6 hit die sizes. Con still provides the bonus to this save.

d4  = "bad"       =     1/3 level = 0 0 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4  4  5  5  5  6  6  6
d6  = "medium"    =     2/5 level = 0 0 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 4 4 4 5  5  6  6  6  7  7  8
d8  = "medium +1" = 1 + 2/5 level = 1 1 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 5 5 5 6  6  7  7  7  8  8  9
d10 = "good"      = 2 + 1/2 level = 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8  9  9 10 10 11 11 12
d12 = "good + 1"  = 3 + 1/2 level = 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 10 10 11 11 12 12 13

 

[Aaron2]

You might want to look at the Blue Rose damage system. It seems to be more what your looking for.

1. any hit that can deal you damage has a 1/20 chance of disabling you. (natural 1)

I make it so that a natural one just results in at least a normal Wound result (ie -1 to future saves).

3. No matter how hard the hit, you never take more than a "wound", which is a piddly -1 on future saves.

The -1 on future saves isn't piddly, it represents what hit points used to represent. Big tough monsters have to be beaten down a bit before you can expect a killing blow.

The bonuses I use for the Toughness save are as follows:

d4: +1 per 2 levels
d6: +2 per 3 levels
d8: +4 per 5 levels
d10: +1 per level
d12: +5 per 4 levels.

You probably don't want to give out first level bonuses (i.e 3+1/2 level) since that will result in major class dropping as players will take one level in many classes to get that juicy save bump.


Aaron