D&D General Gritty: A Simple Wounds & Death Houserule

[Sorinth]

5 wounds before death seems like a lot, and the no movement after 1 wound seems like it's going to punish melee classes the most but spellcasters are still going to be mostly fine.

I would drop it down to 3 wounds before death and only have the no move rule come in at the 2nd wound level (Or level 3 if sticking to 5 wounds). But I would also make it so a crit isn't an automatic wound, I'd probably go with Con save with DC equal to the damage, this way a crit from a big bad is probably a wound, but swarms of minions with pack tactics aren't going to easily take down high level PCs.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

5 wounds before death seems like a lot, and the no movement after 1 wound seems like it's going to punish melee classes the most but spellcasters are still going to be mostly fine.

Well, if you use the intended CON Save to ignore the condition, your front-line classes are more likely to succeed than your average back-liner.

I would drop it down to 3 wounds before death

and only have the no move rule come in at the 2nd wound level (Or level 3 if sticking to 5 wounds). But I would also make it so a crit isn't an automatic wound, I'd probably go with Con save with DC equal to the damage, this way a crit from a big bad is probably a wound, but swarms of minions with pack tactics aren't going to easily take down high level PCs.

I get what you're working on here, but it starts to get a bit more fiddly than I mean to get. But I appreciate the feedback anyhow.

 

[Distracted DM]

I agree that the wounded condition is rough- a DC 15 con save might not be too scary in late tier 2 for con-proficient characters, but it's still pretty nasty. That may be your intent, to prevent healing yo-yoing, but critical hits are something less under the PC's control than dropping to 0.

I'm satisfied with how Level Up A5E does it- they separated the 5e Exhaustion track into Fatigue (physical) and Strife (mental), and dropping to 0 causes a level of fatigue; in addition 1/short rest you can use a reaction to negate a critical hit in exchange for a level of fatigue (or break your shield if you have a shield).

That's not to pooh-pooh your own method here, but I like working within existing mechanics; maybe lower the DC to 10, or make it a CON or WIS save (pushing through the pain with willpower). I imagine you don't want to make it an auto-pass later on, you could always make the DC scale with level or PB somehow if that's the case- or you adopt crit fails/successes on Saves like A5E did, so even if you have a +9 con save you'll still fail on a nat1.

Alternatively if you wanted to adopt a new sub-system (I know you said you didn't so I'm just flapping my gums here for others' benefit) you could use Kobold Press' Game Masters Guide's optional wound system where they have rules for a busted arm, leg, eye, etc. a whole d20 table iirc.

 

[Krachek]

I would go for a simpler rule : reach 0, take a level of exhaustion.

 

[Maxperson]

First immediate thought: falling unconscious shouldn't always be a choice, there needs to be a mechamism by which you risk falling unconscious whenever you take a Wound.

Also needs to be a mechanism whereby an unconscious character left behind eventually either wakes up or dies on its own.

You could bring back death saves, but have the save every minute so that the combat will almost surely be done before the first save is rolled. Each failed save adds a wound. Success and you wake up after the hour.

 

[Maxperson]

that wounded condition is ROUGH for just getting crit once. i feel like it'd only feel appropriate with the save, and even then it might be a little too harsh. it's not as disproportionate if you get it from going down, though.

Tie it to tier maybe. At tier 1 you can ignore the first crit. Second and on cause a wound. At tier 4 it takes 5 crits, which is unlikely, but it's freaking tier 4. And you will still garner a ton of wounds when you hit 0 as DMs won't be as reluctant to hit the guy at 0 like happens now.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Tie it to tier maybe. At tier 1 you can ignore the first crit. Second and on cause a wound. At tier 4 it takes 5 crits, which is unlikely, but it's freaking tier 4. And you will still garner a ton of wounds when you hit 0 as DMs won't be as reluctant to hit the guy at 0 like happens now.

yeah, but then you need to start tracking how many crits you've taken and now this one mechanic has 2 new things to track.

 

[Maxperson]

yeah, but then you need to start tracking how many crits you've taken and now this one mechanic has 2 new things to track.

Then make it a damage threshold. As an example, 30+ damage from a crit and you get a wound. By specifying that it has to be a crit, it keeps high, but normal damage rolls from causing it.

@FitzTheRuke, does magical healing remove wounds? Regeneration?

 

[Whisper-Kitten]

I had one that involved crits as well, but it was more loss of limbs and bleeding than anything. You rolled a d20 and if you got a 18-20 then you rolled again and got an injury and a scar. The worst was the internal bleed if you got a 20. You had to have a medic heal it and it did 1d4 of bleed dmg per round, and it scaled with their levels. Outside of my sadist player, no one liked it and I had to scrap it after a few sessions. I was sad. Anyway, I like what you have there. It looks like it would work well.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

That's not to pooh-pooh your own method here, but I like working within existing mechanics; maybe lower the DC to 10.

The way my original draft looks, which I simplified a bit for presentation here, was dc10 for Wound 1 & Wound 2, and dc15 for Wounds 3 & 4. (Some things, such as the Durable Feat, can give you a Wound 5, and more rarely, a Wound 6, that would be dc20, before dying).

But I wanted to keep it simple and more easily adopted as a piece. My full homebrew will also have much more medicine (to make up for a lowered expectation of healing magic and healing potions). But I won't get into that.