Idea On wounds

[Zeymere]

I was posting over at another forum stating how I cannot stand th 4e's take on all healed up after an extended rest. This promted me to try this scenario please add input etc and let me know if you think it could work or if it needs tweaked somewhere.

Wounds:
Players can take wounds relative to their constitution ability score.

Base Wounds:
(Basically I just took the constitution ability score divided it by 10 and rounded down. Page 11 Players Handbook “Always Round Down”)
Base Wounds:
ability score / BW
1-9 = 0
10-19 = 1
20-29 = 2
30 = 3


Wound Score = Base wounds + add your constitution ability modifier (from player’s handbook page 17) and only if it’s positive.
Wound Score:

Ability score/WS
1-9 = 0
10-11= 1
12-13= 2
14-15= 3
16-17= 4
18-19= 5
20-21= 7
22-23= 8
24-25= 9
26-27=10
28-29=11
30= 13

• So a player with a constitution score of 17 would have wound score of 4 (+1 from chart above base wounds and +3 from player’s handbook.)
• Wounds are generated if you get bloodied. (This is where I am not sure if this would work but here we go.)
• If your wounds are half your wound score or more you suffer a -2 penalty to hit and damage. E.g. the above example would need 2 wounds to suffer this penalty for the example above. (Remember round down).

Ability Score/Wounds to -2 modifier
1-15 = 1

16-19 = 2
20-21 = 3
22-25 = 4
26-29 = 5
30 = 6

• You can use your healing surges to raise your hit points above bloodied. If you get bloodied again; then you get another wound.
• If you get wounded up to your wound score you fall unconscious. As in the example above if a person with a 17 con takes 4 wounds without having any removed they fall unconsious.
• Wounds are not healed by a short rest or an extended rest. Wounds are only healed by spells.
  • Cure light Wound
    • Can only heal someone with 1-2 wounds in increments of 1 per spell.
  • Cure Moderate Wounds
    • Can heal someone with 1-4 wounds in increments of 1 per spell.
  • Cure Serious Wounds
    • Can heal someone with 1-6 wounds in increments of 1 per spell.
  • More than 7 wounds:
    • Can only be healed with multiple spells
      • Ritual needed.

A lot of this is straight forward easy math and using rules and such already in place. I didn’t want to recreate the wheel or add a lot of different things. Let me know what you think.

Zeymere

 

[FireLance]

First: I suggest you have some means of restoring wounds that does not require the use of healing powers. Either one wound point removed per extended rest, or make an Endurance check to recover one wound point after an extended rest (or an ally can make a Heal check to do so), or per week of rest.

Second: I suggest that you tie a character's maximum wound threshold to something else apart from Constitution, so that it isn't totally dependent on a single ability score. Perhaps a character's base wound threshold can be equal to half the number of healing surges he gets from class, plus his Constitution modifier. This allows characters with classes that have more healing surges (which generally means that they are expected to get hit more) to take more wounds.

Third: Some races get benefits that trigger when they are bloodied, e.g. dragonborn and shifters. Such races should get some flexibility in the wounds department (a higher wound threshold or quicker recovery of wounds), or the benefits they get should be increased since it becomes more dangerous to get them.

 

[Zeymere]

All very good points I will rethink this and edit. I appreciate the feedback.

My main thing was I wanted to make it very simple. Con seemed the logical route to go.

 

[Zeymere]

Why all the sudden though did D&D go away from Clerics healing? This was one of my beefs here. Thats there schtick. Why recover a wound after an extend rest? Wounds dont recover that fast unless some magical aid.

It almost like taking back stab away from the rogue. WTF?

 

[FireLance]

Why all the sudden though did D&D go away from Clerics healing? This was one of my beefs here. Thats there schtick. Why recover a wound after an extend rest? Wounds dont recover that fast unless some magical aid.

It almost like taking back stab away from the rogue. WTF?

From what I know, the key reason for giving other classes the ability to heal is so that you don't need to have a cleric in the party.

Clerics are still pretty much the best healers, but a party can get by with another Leader-role class such as the bard, the shaman, or the warlord, or even without a Leader-role PC at all.

There was a similar philosophy for rogues and traps. Now, every PC has some ability to deal with traps, even if it's just an untrained Thievery check.

What some people do to rationalize the idea that any character can heal himself without magic is to de-link hit point damage and hit point recovery from physical injury. When a character loses hit points, he does not necessarily get wounded: he could have dodged a sword blow entirely, but he still expended some of his reserves of stamina and luck. After the fight, a short five-minute rest is all that is necessary for him to catch his breath and get back to full hit points. Even if a character had been brought down to 0 hit points (dying) in the course of a fight, but did not actually die, being brought back to full hit points without magical healing could simply represent his ability to fight on despite his wounds (said wounds would have been assumed to be treated and bandaged in the course of a short rest, of course).

Some people dislike the flavor of such rationalizations, or prefer a more direct link between hit point loss, hit point recovery and physical injury. It is quite likely that they would prefer wound point systems similar to the one you have proposed.

 

[Zeymere]

I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. I have since spent some time reading the threads more here and see its a common thing people have a beef with but no real answer. I will dapple in my idea and others here and try to come up with one that works for what my group and I think might be the best route.

 

[Garthanos]

I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. I have since spent some time reading the threads more here and see its a common thing people have a beef with but no real answer. I will dapple in my idea and others here and try to come up with one that works for what my group and I think might be the best route.

Well everyone has answers of various kinds none overwhelm the others.

Poets, Priests and Politicians (Bards, Clerics and Warlords) have words to thank for their positions... and they inspire people let us reach for and find our deep inner resources, of morale, verve, energy? we can call on those resources a little all on our own, hence the second wind. Some of the fighter powers amount to self hypnosis.

The two things missing for me in D&D 4e were also missing in 3.5

1. Wounds ... longer lasting wounds have never really been represented by hit points worth a hill of beans (the higher your hitpoints in 3.x the longer it took to heal??? where does that make sense) . Hence wound vigor systems in unearthed arcana.
2. A way to allow re-use of powers (in 3.x it was a spell point systems and other tricks also presented in unearthed Arcana)

For me there are 3 things which intimate "wounds"...the failed death check, the failure on an ongoing damage saving throw and mayhaps a critical hit (or simply taking massive damage in one attack instead).

Let us know your results and post a thread update note.
Being bloodied is for me more like your first scratch in a sword fight. Its kind of first blood.. but not a heavy injury.

 

[Zeymere]

Ok here is my new idea I am going to play around with tommorrow and test.

Wounds:
You receive a hit that is rather dire in nature. Normal healing just isn’t going to cut it.

Wound Score = Healing Surges per Day/2 (remember to round down).

• Wounds are generated if :
  • If you receive a critical hit.
  • You go below 0 hit points.
  • Massive damage
    • Not sure how to define this at present. It was defined in 3.5 as 50 damage or more in 1 hit.
• If your wounds are more than half your wound score or more you suffer a -2 penalty to all checks you perform (remember to round down).
• If you get wounded up to your wound score you fall unconscious. You remain unconscious until you are healed at least 1 wound.
• Wounds are not healed by a short rest or an extended rest. Wounds are only healed by spells and some magic items.
  • Healing Word 1 wound - Cleric
  • Cure Light Wounds 2 wounds – Cleric 2
  • Cure Serious Wounds 3 wounds – Cleric 6
  • Mass Cure Light Wounds 3 wounds AOE- Cleric 10
  • Death Ward 3 wounds– Paladin 16
  • Potion of Healing – Item 1 wound per day.
  • Possible others.....???

 

[Zeymere]

Update Idea v.3 with help from Sir Kazum

Wounds:
You receive a hit that is rather dire in nature. Normal healing just isn’t going to cut it (no pun intended).


Loose 1 healing surge “semi-permanently” when one of the following conditions happens:

• You become bloodied (once per combat only), save to avoid;
• You receive a critical hit that deals damage equal to your healing surge value or more, save to avoid;
• You receive any attack (critical or otherwise) that deals damage equal to your bloodied value or more, save at -2 to avoid;
• You fall into negative HP, no save.

The wounds (aka semi-permanent HS loss) could be healed by:

• Healing Word 1 wound - Cleric
• Cure Light Wounds 2 wounds – Cleric 2
• Cure Serious Wounds 3 wounds – Cleric 6
• Mass Cure Light Wounds 3 wounds AOE- Cleric 10
• Death Ward 3 wounds– Paladin 16
• Potion of Healing – Item 1 wound per encounter???
• Rest
  • Recover 1 wound only if you haven’t had any serious exertion (i.e. haven’t lost any HP or healing surges) since your last extended rest,
    • Endurance check DC = Wounds
      • Recover 1 additional wound.
• A couple new rituals
• Other

Affect of being wounded:

• By more than half of your healing surges.
  • -2 penalty to all actions
• Up to your healing surges
  • Unconscious until you recover at least 1 healing surge.

 

[DreamChaser]

What some people do to rationalize the idea that any character can heal himself without magic is to de-link hit point damage and hit point recovery from physical injury. When a character loses hit points, he does not necessarily get wounded: he could have dodged a sword blow entirely, but he still expended some of his reserves of stamina and luck. After the fight, a short five-minute rest is all that is necessary for him to catch his breath and get back to full hit points. Even if a character had been brought down to 0 hit points (dying) in the course of a fight, but did not actually die, being brought back to full hit points without magical healing could simply represent his ability to fight on despite his wounds (said wounds would have been assumed to be treated and bandaged in the course of a short rest, of course).

Not to be a stickler, but this is not a rationalization: It has been explicitly stated to be the case in every edition of the game (since 1e at least) that HP are only partly physical damage.

The idea that any person (no matter how heroic) could withstand the impact a dragon's bite or a bear's claw without simply snapping once (let alone twice in 1 minute) completely destroys all sense of "reality" and thus HP cannot be physical damage. They are stamina. And stamina recovers with rest.

On topic, this idea isn't too bad...it links wounds only to the built in damage dealers (bloodied, critical, etc) and leaves resting / stamina as a viable option. I don't know if I'd use it and I'd probably leave room for the Heal and Endurance skills to interact with it here (perhaps the later could be used to ignore the effects of wounds).

Also, clerics were lame as walking bandages...only die hard cleric lovers ever wanted to play one because of that. Pushing them back into the party in that role is not going to make many gamers happy but YMMV.

DC