Hit Points and Constitution damage System

[Bawylie]

Here is what I am going to pitch:

First off, more HP: You add your Constitution score to your hit points at 1st-level.

Damage Threshold (DT): Your DT equals your Constitution score plus your character level. If your hit points are less than your DT after you are hit, you become wounded. You must make a CON save (as per Spell Concentration) to remain conscious.

Wounded: While wounded you suffer one or more of the following effects determined by random roll. Each time you are hit while wounded, you must roll again, ignoring duplicate effects.

1. Disadvantage on your ability and skill checks
2. Disadvantage on your attack rolls
3. Disadvantage on your saving throws
4. Your damage is reduced by half
5. Your speed is reduced by half
6. You cannot take both an action and bonus action on your turn
7. You are temporarily blind
8. You are temporarily deaf
9. One of your hands will not work (roll randomly or DM's choice)
10. Attacks against you have advantage

(note: I might add more or replace some of these if I think of any.)

The effects of being wounded are removed after a Long Rest (maybe a Short Rest?). A Lesser Restoration will remove one effect, while a Greater Restoration will remove all effects of being wounded.

Of course, I would love feedback on the system, concept, and wounded effects! I am considering making a critical hit automatically make you wounded, but without the CON save to remain conscious if your HP are above your DT.

FYI, I have run some numbers and typically by 2nd- or 3rd-level your HP will be high enough you would have to lose about half or more before you became wounded. Also, since you add your CON score to your HP to begin with, character survival at lower levels is greatly increased. Remember, RAW right now you would more or less be unconscious automatically when you fall below the equivalent of your DT (roughly at 0 HP).

Why not use the existing exhaustion progress?

 

[Charlaquin]

Here’s what I’ve been doing, and it’s been working beautifully at my table.

•When you are not wearing armor, you are vulnerable to damage.
•Critical hits scored against the target do normal damage but break it’s armor (in the case of targets with thick hide, like a dragon, critical hits do double damage instead).
•Attack rolls that result in a natural 1 break the attacker’s weapon.
•An attacker can attempt a “called-shot” against a target to bypass the armor by taking disadvantage on the attack roll. If the attack succeeds, the target takes damage as if they were unarmored. (Optional: you can attach effects to this like disarm, trip, shove, severing a limb - which succeed when the damage dealt by the attack exceeds the target’s constitution score).
•Whenever a creature takes damage in an amount equal to or greater than their Constitution score, they must make a Death Saving Throw (DC 10). (For unnamed NPCs, they die on a failed saving throw. Named NPCs die on their third failed death saving throw).

Summary: We don’t really change how hit points or recovery function. We just occasionally add death saving throws.

This is really cool.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Here’s what I’ve been doing, and it’s been working beautifully at my table.

•When you are not wearing armor, you are vulnerable to damage.
•Critical hits scored against the target do normal damage but break it’s armor (in the case of targets with thick hide, like a dragon, critical hits do double damage instead).
•Attack rolls that result in a natural 1 break the attacker’s weapon.
•An attacker can attempt a “called-shot” against a target to bypass the armor by taking disadvantage on the attack roll. If the attack succeeds, the target takes damage as if they were unarmored. (Optional: you can attach effects to this like disarm, trip, shove, severing a limb - which succeed when the damage dealt by the attack exceeds the target’s constitution score).
•Whenever a creature takes damage in an amount equal to or greater than their Constitution score, they must make a Death Saving Throw (DC 10). (For unnamed NPCs, they die on a failed saving throw. Named NPCs die on their third failed death saving throw).

Summary: We don’t really change how hit points or recovery function. We just occasionally add death saving throws.

A lot of that is really good.
By "wearing armour", do you mean having a bonus to armour in addition to your Dex mod? So Monks for example aren't vulnerable to damage all the time.

The only thing that I would dislike about them is the automatic breaking of weapons on a natural 1. The more skilled you get at combat, (through multiple attacks,) the more likely that you're going to break your weapon. If weapons only last a couple of encounters, you're going to need a lot of spares.
How does that rule work with magic weapons?

 

[DND_Reborn]

Why not use the existing exhaustion progress?

I could, but I wanted something more random and akin to critical hit tables of ol'. For simplicity's sake, we might just use Exhaustion if everyone thinks it is better.

 

[Bawylie]

A lot of that is really good.
By "wearing armour", do you mean having a bonus to armour in addition to your Dex mod? So Monks for example aren't vulnerable to damage all the time.

The only thing that I would dislike about them is the automatic breaking of weapons on a natural 1. The more skilled you get at combat, (through multiple attacks,) the more likely that you're going to break your weapon. If weapons only last a couple of encounters, you're going to need a lot of spares.
How does that rule work with magic weapons?

I don’t have any monks in my current games but if I did, they would be vulnerable to damage while not wearing armor, even with unarmored defense. They’ve got quite a bit of tools in their kits to handle that, though. And of course this is my house rule and you might very reasonably rule differently.

I like the breaking of weapons and armor, that includes magic weapons and armor, because that fits the game I’m running now where dealing with scarcity is a theme. There’s very little GP to be had, stuff breaks, and characters are using salvage, alchemical reagents, materials, and supplies to craft and repair items, build structures, and even as spell components. So the more the game takes from them, the better, to a point. If I had a game with the regular amount of GP (instead of craft materials) I would still probably keep the break rules so there’s something to spend GP on, from time to time.

Practically speaking, my players carry a number of backups. Not a golf bag or whatever, but a backup light armor and a backup weapon, each, so far.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Here’s what I’ve been doing, and it’s been working beautifully at my table.

•When you are not wearing armor, you are vulnerable to damage.
•Critical hits scored against the target do normal damage but break it’s armor (in the case of targets with thick hide, like a dragon, critical hits do double damage instead).
•Attack rolls that result in a natural 1 break the attacker’s weapon.
•An attacker can attempt a “called-shot” against a target to bypass the armor by taking disadvantage on the attack roll. If the attack succeeds, the target takes damage as if they were unarmored. (Optional: you can attach effects to this like disarm, trip, shove, severing a limb - which succeed when the damage dealt by the attack exceeds the target’s constitution score).
•Whenever a creature takes damage in an amount equal to or greater than their Constitution score, they must make a Death Saving Throw (DC 10). (For unnamed NPCs, they die on a failed saving throw. Named NPCs die on their third failed death saving throw).

Summary: We don’t really change how hit points or recovery function. We just occasionally add death saving throws.

Yeah, definitely some good ideas!

I like the idea of armor making a crit do normal damage instead of double, but ruining the armor. The problem with this is frontliners would be burning through armors. Maybe instead have armor reduced by 1 point for each crit it stops? So, Plate would go from AC 18 to 17 after one crit, then 17 to 16, and so on.

We already have critical fumble rules, but they require a roll. Automatically breaking your weapon on a nat 1 is pretty extreme IMO. I mean, after 20 attack rolls you have about a 65% chance your weapon will have broken by then! Again, maybe reduce maximum weapon damage by 1 on each nat 1? So, after one nat 1, a longsword would do d8 still, but count 8's as 7's. Note, this is not simply reducing damage by 1, but reducing maximum damage on the die roll instead. You could simply make it reducing total damage though if you wanted.

We debated about the called-shot with disadvantage, but if it is working well at your table maybe we'll try it.

Your last point I would use my rule for damage threshold (CON score + character level) simply because it makes sense to me that at higher levels, characters should be less likely to be affected by this option. Of course, since monsters do more damage at higher levels, it keeps it effective. It seems like too many creatures average damage at higher tiers would be imposing rolls against death saves. I mean, an adult green dragon's bite does 17 on average. That will exceed most PCs CON scores, but not as likely their CON score + character level. Just a thought.

 

[Bawylie]

Yeah, definitely some good ideas!

I like the idea of armor making a crit do normal damage instead of double, but ruining the armor. The problem with this is frontliners would be burning through armors. Maybe instead have armor reduced by 1 point for each crit it stops? So, Plate would go from AC 18 to 17 after one crit, then 17 to 16, and so on.

We already have critical fumble rules, but they require a roll. Automatically breaking your weapon on a nat 1 is pretty extreme IMO. I mean, after 20 attack rolls you have about a 65% chance your weapon will have broken by then! Again, maybe reduce maximum weapon damage by 1 on each nat 1? So, after one nat 1, a longsword would do d8 still, but count 8's as 7's. Note, this is not simply reducing damage by 1, but reducing maximum damage on the die roll instead. You could simply make it reducing total damage though if you wanted.

We debated about the called-shot with disadvantage, but if it is working well at your table maybe we'll try it.

Your last point I would use my rule for damage threshold (CON score + character level) simply because it makes sense to me that at higher levels, characters should be less likely to be affected by this option. Of course, since monsters do more damage at higher levels, it keeps it effective. It seems like too many creatures average damage at higher tiers would be imposing rolls against death saves. I mean, an adult green dragon's bite does 17 on average. That will exceed most PCs CON scores, but not as likely their CON score + character level. Just a thought.

Ok so my players are currently level 6. They’ve been playing with these “lethality” rules since last August. We’ve seen fewer than 10 broken weapons and fewer than 6 broken armors. See, when I changed the rules, the players changed their behavior. They take calculated risks when attacking and defending and try to set up as many successful called shots as they can. There’s much less HP attrition combat than in a default setup. Very little standing around trading melee blows. So far it’s been fun.

So we’re not “burning through” anything but we do see breaks from time to time.

As to your damage threshold, of course that’s fine. I was aiming at a more deadly/dangerous combat overall, which my rules achieved. By keeping the threshold at Constitution score, I get more mileage out of lower tier baddies, and my players beef up their CON with their ASIs instead of taking feats. But again, I’m going for a sense of “combat can kill you if you’re careless.” IMO, a dragon’s bite probably SHOULD be deadly. But if that is not your aim, it would make sense to increase the damage threshold. And if breaking stuff is more of an annoyance, don’t bother. It all works great at my table, fwiw.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Ok so my players are currently level 6. They’ve been playing with these “lethality” rules since last August. We’ve seen fewer than 10 broken weapons and fewer than 6 broken armors. See, when I changed the rules, the players changed their behavior. They take calculated risks when attacking and defending and try to set up as many successful called shots as they can. There’s much less HP attrition combat than in a default setup. Very little standing around trading melee blows. So far it’s been fun.

So we’re not “burning through” anything but we do see breaks from time to time.

As to your damage threshold, of course that’s fine. I was aiming at a more deadly/dangerous combat overall, which my rules achieved. By keeping the threshold at Constitution score, I get more mileage out of lower tier baddies, and my players beef up their CON with their ASIs instead of taking feats. But again, I’m going for a sense of “combat can kill you if you’re careless.” IMO, a dragon’s bite probably SHOULD be deadly. But if that is not your aim, it would make sense to increase the damage threshold. And if breaking stuff is more of an annoyance, don’t bother. It all works great at my table, fwiw.

That's cool, whatever works. If we added things like this, though, it would probably be with the suggestions I made since weapons and armor aren't generally so poorly made to fracture that percentages of the time. I'm glad to hear it is changing players' behavior though. I see your point about deadliness of larger creatures. One of the posts I wrote earlier about a variant system made crits by larger enemies very lethal, but it was rebuked a bit LOL. Maybe instead of CON score plus character level I might suggest CON score plus proficiency bonus. That way, higher level characters have an edge, but not as extreme.

Personally, I wouldn't want to have to bolster CON instead of taking feats as a player just to protect myself, but I suppose they are happy with it.

 

[Bawylie]

That's cool, whatever works. If we added things like this, though, it would probably be with the suggestions I made since weapons and armor aren't generally so poorly made to fracture that percentages of the time. I'm glad to hear it is changing players' behavior though. I see your point about deadliness of larger creatures. One of the posts I wrote earlier about a variant system made crits by larger enemies very lethal, but it was rebuked a bit LOL. Maybe instead of CON score plus character level I might suggest CON score plus proficiency bonus. That way, higher level characters have an edge, but not as extreme.

Personally, I wouldn't want to have to bolster CON instead of taking feats as a player just to protect myself, but I suppose they are happy with it.

Yeah I think this is the sort of thing you set to the needs of the game and the tastes of the players. Proficiency bonus might work, but depending on how vicious your monsters are or how heroic your game is, you may be better off with level instead. Incidentally, how heroic are we talking here?

For gear: I hear what you’re saying about the quality of gear, and it makes sense. I mean, losing a magic sword would suck. But I’d bet they’d save re-rolls to insure against “1s.” Personally I prefer a binary “broken/not broken” system to a “degrading quality” system just because that’s easier to track. Practically speaking, a weapon that’s doing less damage is just going to be replaced at the first chance anyway. Same for armor.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Yeah I think this is the sort of thing you set to the needs of the game and the tastes of the players. Proficiency bonus might work, but depending on how vicious your monsters are or how heroic your game is, you may be better off with level instead. Incidentally, how heroic are we talking here?

For gear: I hear what you’re saying about the quality of gear, and it makes sense. I mean, losing a magic sword would suck. But I’d bet they’d save re-rolls to insure against “1s.” Personally I prefer a binary “broken/not broken” system to a “degrading quality” system just because that’s easier to track. Practically speaking, a weapon that’s doing less damage is just going to be replaced at the first chance anyway. Same for armor.

Agreed. It totally depends on the style at your table. Our group is fairly heroic I suppose... We defeated an Archmage while at level 6 (didn't kill him, but he fled... later returned and killed off most of the party...) and a Young Black Dragon when level 4-5 (only one character actually died in that battle, but it was close!).

I get what you mean about tracking degrading items and that is the only reason we haven't already employed such a house-rule. We don't have lots of "re-rolls" in our game, so we can't really rely on those. Either way, I would rather see degraded items repaired if possible, replaced if needed.

At any rate, I'll bring it up when we play (hopefully this week). Thanks again for the ideas!