Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 4665806" data-attributes="member: 99">Well, Paxanadu, thanks for the input.  Certainly nobody can fault you for not being thorough.  Just to be clear about the point of my Wounding rule (and indeed ALL of my house rules), I'm not attempting to pose some universal patch that will satisfy all of gamerdom.  I'm just looking for something that meets the needs of myself and my group.  I can see that some of my tastes don't match exactly with yours and of course that is to be expected.  I'd like to take a moment to briefly address a few of your points though:"FAIRNESS":I talked with my players about this in advance with regards to the fact that the idea I had in mind was purely a penalty to them and would not apply to crits versus monsters.  Their response was essentially that they didn't mind me "screwing them over" a bit since they knew I was doing it for the fun of the game.  Furthermore they knew that this rule was but one of several house rules, some of the rest of which give them options and advantages they wouldn't normally have.  As such, they didn't care if it didn't effect the monsters.With regards to it hitting the Defenders harder than the other characters due to them taking more crits, that is probably true.  However there are some mitigating factors.  So far, two of the three Wounds that have been taken have been the result of failed Death Saves, not Crits.  And those were against a Striker.  The PC's with lower AC and Hit Points aren't in such constant danger of being hit (and critted and therefore wounded) but if they are hit then they tend to go down easier and thus are subject to potentially more Death Save Wounds than the Defenders.But even more of a factor is recovery.  The Defender types are MUCH more likely to be trained at Endurance than other PC's so they are likely to bounce back easier than other more "squishy" characters.  So what is effectively modeled is the "front line" PC's that are very tough who get wounded often but recover quickly and the other, softer PC's who are less likely to get wounded but take longer to recover.  That sounds pretty fine to me."GAME MECHANICS UNIFORMITY":I differ with your take here as well.  "Tougher foes hit harder" seems like a perfectly fine justification for sliding DC's that rise higher with level to keep pace with advancing skills and attribute scores.  It provides a bit of incentive for PC's who don't have Endurance as a class skill to take a Feat to train it if they tend to get in trouble more often.  If they don't, well that's fine too.  It makes the PC's feel more different and that, to me, is interesting.In terms of halving the effectiveness of Healing Surges being a "show stopper", this doesn't appear to be an issue with this group.  The Cleric's Healing Word compensates pretty well for loss in Healing Surge effectiveness."GREATER WOUND" TRIGGER:The triggers I've opted for are Failed Death Save and Critical.  However I'm well aware that criticals could come up a LOT (incidently your 2.5 rounds of combat in an average fight is about half of what mine usually run and many others have fights that seem to run 10 or more rounds on average - Your input would probably be very valuable in many of the "grind" threads if you have found ways to keep fights that short.).Only Elite and Solo monsters can always Wound on a Crit.  A subset of normal monsters can also Wound on a Crit if I decide that they have special training/huge strength/particularly deadly weapons, etc. as a justification.  This limitation means that a smaller percentage of total Wounds should come from Crits, which helps keep the burden from falling too heavily on the Defenders.EFFECT:I'd tend to disagree that a -2 attack penalty isn't part of a "death spiral" of a sort.  I mean lower attack bonus = less hits = monsters around for longer = more chances to kill you.  But I do agree that you don't want to stack penalties because that IS a death spiral.Instead I keep the penalty in combat the same and add more hassle on the "back end" when trying to heal those Wounds.  I like how this will make a battle where you got critted by the dragon three times and then failed two Death Saves before being saved by the Cleric feel like the sort of thing that's harder to recover from than getting nailed once in the back by the Goblin Sneak.  The fact that you limp away and take a couple days to recover fully(unless you roll really good) helps make that fight feel epic.The -1 HP whenever you take more movement than a Slowed character could is pretty interesting.  I think it helps capture the "it hurts to move" idea fairly well.  My only problem with it is that it doesn't scale with level as HP increase and so eventually it just becomes kind of a meaningless nuisance of bookeeping.  Still I like where you're coming from on that.I'm not wild about your idea on the recovery though, especially the bit about having the character with the Heal skill getting no rest while the other PC does and therefore having to take another Extended Rest on the back of it.  This bothers me in two ways.  First it doesn't seem terribly realistic.  For many if not most wounds, there is only so much you can do.  Even in modern hospitals it's not as though doctors stay by the patient's bedside 24/7.  I'm fine with the idea that the Healer can simply bandage up the Wounded PC, wake to check on them a few times in the night and maybe change their bandages in the morning.The larger issue is that it could be crippling to the pace of the game.  You mention earlier in your treatise that it is not a good thing to have a "brickwall that stops the whole group" because one character is Wounded.  It seems like you've just shifted that onus from the Wounded PC onto the Healer at that point.I do want the Healer's care to be a factor and it definitely is.  I give a +2 bonus to the Endurance Check if the Healer makes their Heal Check (I'd probably bump this to a +4 under "ideal" circumstances where they had clean running water and a bed to put the Wounded PC in) and the Healer can also let them recover some Hit Points without spending a Surge while wounded.  That benefit has been significant in play.Anyway, I think that addresses most of your ideas.  Even though I may not agree with all of them I thank you for posting.  Perhaps others will find your rules more to their taste and it's good stuff to consider regardless.</blockquote>

Verification