D&D 5E Help me build alternative injury/death rules

[Crimson Longinus]

So these rules have several goals. First, I want to make a real injury that cannot be just shrugged of a possibility (if somewhat remote one) and secondly, I want to make death less likely. I also want to tie the likelihood of the death and injury to the power of the attack, but that is less important. This is a rough first draft to outline the general idea, and I decided to post it before I proceed further. I'd appreciate any feedback whether this seems like something that could be made to work.


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When reduced to zero hit points, roll a constitution save with the DC being equal to the amount of the damage the attack or effect that caused the hit point loss dealt. Natural one always fails, natural twenty always succeeds. (Is this too easy? Should it be 5 + damage for the DC?)

If the character succeeds, they fall unconscious but are otherwise fine.

If they fail, they have been injured. Roll at the following table

Injury table (D8)

1-2 Arm injury. Unconscious. One arm seriously wounded, disadvantage on any tasks involving use of the injured arm (including attack roll with two-handed weapons.)

3-4 Leg injury. Unconscious. One leg seriously wounded, halve movement.

5-6 Mortal wound. Unconscious. Use normal dying rules. If two death save fails are accrued, gain a level of exhaustion.

7-8 Mortal wound plus. You suffer a mortal wound, in addition roll again on this table using D4 and apply that result as well.
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Normal instant death rules apply. I'm not sure how the wounded limbs can be healed yet, but basically it is down time activity. Medicine skill might be involved. Greater restoration should fix them too. I also wanted to keep the table pretty generic, instead off having a great number of very specific results.

I'm not sure if I went overboard with the lessened lethality. I don't want to make the combat feel too safe either. I'm not also sure how this should interact with taking further damage whilst already in zero hit points.

 

[Laurefindel]

Making Con save DC = 10 or half damage , whichever if highest, has precedents and therefore easier to remember and implement.

greater restoration is a 4th [edit: 5th level] level spell; it will be long before wounded characters get access to it.

also, your consequences sound like exhaustion levels. Any idea why you wouldn’t use those instead? You could even get one level at random (dice roll), or empower the players and let them choose which one

 

[UngainlyTitan]

If I were to introduce a wounds system in 5e, I would model it off the exhaustion rules. Drop to 0 level: 1 wounds, Fail a death save: level 2, fail 2 death saves: level 3
Set recovery rate to what you feel appropriate and can use medicine checks to speed up healing. Magical healing needs restoration level spells to help.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Making Con save DC = 10 or half damage , whichever if highest, has precedents and therefore easier to remember and implement.

That might indeed make it a bit more predictable. Where was that used?

greater restoration is a 4th level spell; it will be long before wounded characters get access to it.

It's fifth level. And yes, once they get that then this doesn't matter terribly much. But these are not meant to be some long term maladies, merely ones that cannot be easily healed 'on the field.' And this system assumes a playstyle where there will be downtime for the characters to get healed. The idea is not that they have to go limping for several adventures.

also, your consequences sound like exhaustion levels. Any idea why you wouldn’t use those instead? You could even get one level at random (dice roll), or empower the players and let them choose which one

I considered something like that. It might be more straightforward. Then again, I kinda like the idea of being a bit more specific. Furthermore the first step of exhaustion is already a disadvantage to ability checks which is a pretty damn debilitating.

 

[Cadence]

Specifying the location seems odd to me. Giant hits me in the head with a rock. Then I get knocked to zero. Then I find out it was really my leg.

I've been mulling something myself, and was wondering about each character having some wound points (not a huge number, maybe 5 + con mod + size mod?) in addition to hitpoints. You take wound points after hitpoints are gone too. Maybe you also lose one wound point each time you're criticaled, each you're knocked to 0, and each time you take a huge hit (twice level or more in damage? some fixed amount in damage). Wounds are harder to heal and maybe you get a -1 or -2 on everything or exhaustion if you've had a certain number of them.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Specifying the location seems odd to me. Giant hits me in the head with a rock. Then I get knocked to zero. Then I find out it was really my leg.

As this happens at the moment you drop, you can just roll for the injury before describing it. I have seen some systems which assign injuries based on failed death saves, and I didn't like those as that indeed leads to the sort of weirdness you mention.

I've been mulling something myself, and was wondering about each character having some wound points (not a huge number, maybe 5 + con mod + size mod?) in addition to hitpoints. You take wound points after hitpoints are gone too. Maybe you also lose one wound point each time you're criticaled, each you're knocked to 0, and each time you take a huge hit (twice level or more in damage? some fixed amount in damage). Wounds are harder to heal and maybe you get a -1 or -2 on everything or exhaustion if you've had a certain number of them.

D20 Star Wars had something like that. But I definitely want to go with an condition based approach.

 

[Cadence]

As this happens at the moment you drop, you can just roll for the injury before describing it. I have seen some systems which assign injuries based on failed death saves, and I didn't like those as that indeed leads to the sort of weirdness you mention.

I'm picturing the case where what drops you is that last little hit at the end, where a big one set you up. Maybe just have the DM pick something appropriate if they've narrated already and roll if they need help.

D20 Star Wars had something like that. But I definitely want to go with an condition based approach.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

 

[aco175]

Con seems like the most used stat for surviving trauma, like dying. You could use Strength, but Con is important to all the classes.

I would also like to see a way to take away injuries. Say my led in maimed and I have 1/2 movement. Should the penalty be that I need 1 month rest to heal, or is there a spell that could take this away? If there is a time penalty, then a lot of games would run into problems with pacing, but if there is just a 5th level spell to heal me, then after a certain level most things like injury is moot.

What about your class? Do fighters tend to suffer from less injury over mages or such? It might just go back to the Constitution point and that over class is more important.

I would also want to have something about the amount of damage influence the injury. I would want something to not penalize low level PCs. A single hit for 20-25HP allows PCs to get a few levels before they are turning up lame all the time. May need to look at the massive hit rules for some ideas.

 

[BlivetWidget]

That might indeed make it a bit more predictable. Where was that used?

They were referring to the concentration mechanic: "The DC equals 10 or half the damage you take, whichever number is higher."

 

[Crimson Longinus]

They were referring to the concentration mechanic: "The DC equals 10 or half the damage you take, whichever number is higher."

Ah, of course! It indeed would make sense to use the same DC here.