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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4082804" data-attributes="member: 4937">My thoughts on making grittier 4E.1) Break hit points into 'vitality' and 'wound' points.  Vitality points work just like hit points as described.  Wound points make up 1/3rd of the character's hit points, and work like hit points as described with the following exception: wound points cannot be healed using your own second wind or 5 minute rest and are not fully healed by a six hour rest.  These effects are written such that they now only heal vitality points and not hit points generally.  Vitality points are lost before wound points.  For example, a character with 27 hp has 18 vp and 9 wp.  He takes 20 damage over the course of the fight, reducing him to 7 hp (0 vp and 7 wp).  He then uses his second wind to restore 9 vp, and after the fight rests 5 minutes (using a second healing surge) heals an additional 9 vp.  He now has 25 hp (18 vp and 7 wp).Wound points are not fully restored by a 6 hour rest.  Instead, a six hour rest restores all vitality points and 1/4 your character level (rounded down) worth of wound points.  A full 24 rest restores wound points equal to your character level.1a) Note in particular the way this interacts with existing abilities.  For example, the Cleric's 'Healing Word' power should be interpreted as 'The target can spend a healing surge (gaining vitality points), and gains 1d6+4 hit points (which can be either vp or wp).'  Some existing abilities may need to be rebalanced such that they specifically effect only vitality points, though most seem fine as is.  1b) Also note that despite my usage of the term 'vitality point' it is not my intention that this system should work like any existing system using a similar term.  For example, it should not be construed that criticals or anything else bypasses vitality points.  Such rules could of course be adopted with some care by groups that find them interesting, but 'always being vunerable' isn't really what I'm going for here.2) Whenever you are reduced to 0 hit points or less, your healing per healing surge is reduced to 0 until such time as your wound points are restored to positive.  See exception in the death and dying rules.3) Whenever you are struck by a blow that reduces you to 0 hit points or less (including if you are already below 0 hit points), you take an injury as follows:1-2: -1 penalty to your strength bonus3-4: -1 penalty to your dexterity bonus5-6: -1 penalty to your constitution bonusFor each six hour rest, if your wound points are positive you may make a save to shake off one of your injuries.You may still choose the higher of your two bonuses when calculating your current defences.4) The following changes are made to the death and dying rules:4a) You do not automatically fall unconscious when dying.  However, you may only choose to perform any two of the normal actions - move, minor, and standard - in each round.4b) If you’re dying at the end of your turn, roll 1d20. 1 or less: You get much worse.  As 'You get worse' below, except that you also take 1d10 damage.  If this reduces you below your minimum hitpoints, you die immediately.2-9: You get worse.  Fall unconscious.  If you get this result three times before you are healed or stabilized, you die.10-17: No change.18-19: You manage to stablize. 20: Your body recovers from shock.  You stablize.  If you have an available healing surge, you may use it immediately to regain wound points equal to the value of your normal healing surge.  This consitutes a specific exception to the rule that your healing surge value is zero when you have less than zero hit points, and that your own healing surge cannot restore wound points.If any modifiers apply to this roll for any reason, a natural 1 is always treated as a 1, and a natural 20 as a 20.4c) If a character with negative hit points receives healing, he does not return to 0 hp before any healing is applied.DM's using these rules should keep in mind that encounters will be slightly more deadly to PC's and exercise thier judgement.  I don't feel injuries more complex than the ones outlined in #3 are necessary.  Obviously, some attacks could potentially inflict injuries or mental injuries, though DM's are encouraged to be extremely judicious with such usages.Any other treatment of long term effects waits until I can see how 4E handles things like curses.</blockquote>

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