Injuries buy off damage system

[Will]

Ok, been considering this for a while now, and think I have a conceptual breakthrough to make it work.

The goal is to have a 'descriptive' element to combat: I'm much happier saying something like 'the mace clips your knee -- your eyes water from the pain, and it's going to be hard putting weight on that leg for a while.'

But called-shot or random damage systems for D&D never quite felt right, or had issues integrating with the rest of the system.

Then it hit me... I also like Action Point systems and other ideas where you can 'buy off' bad effects to survive. Why not combine the two?

(Pardon limited formatting, I haven't been on ENWorld in a while)


Injuries Buy-Off Damage System

Injury rank x character level = amount of damage you can 'buy off.'
Long-term injuries have a rank 5x as high as short-term versions, so buy off 5x as much.

Short-term Injury rank : Injury : Translation to game : Long-term effect

Systemic/conditional effects:
1 : Fatigue : A crushing blow to the vitals, bleeding damage : chronic pain
1 : Knocked prone : heavy blow : (don't use for long-term)
2 : Stun for 1 round : sudden extreme pain, head-blow : comatose (with Immobile)
2 : Bleed 1 hit point per round : Slashed open, lacerations : As long-term, bleeding is one point per minute

Ability scores:
Ability damage, # of points = rank, Dex - joints, arm, leg; Con - abdomen, head; Str - head, pain; Int/Wis/Cha - head injuries

Ability drain, permanent, # of points x 5 = rank. This damage is crippling/scarring

Mobility:
Mobility stacks. Each level of mobility injury increases severity, so someone with a Limp can take another rank 1 injury and becomes Lame. Another person might go from normal to Lame as a rank 2 injury.
If mobility damage is long-term, short-term injuries stack on top. So someone with permanent Limp (injury rank 5) might take a rank 1 injury and become Lame; it then takes relatively little time to heal from Lame to Limp.

1 : Limp, 3/4 speed : Hips, lower back, knee, legs
2 : Lame, 1/2 speed
3 : Crippled, 1/4 speed
4 : Immobile, 5' step only : Often knocked prone as well, if only temporarily

Arms/torso:
1 : -4 to off-hand : Slashed open arm, bruised arm, shoulder or back injury : Tendons cut, broken arm
3 : off-hand useless : (same, more severe)
2 : -4 to on-hand
4 : on-hand useless
(If -4 to one hand, other hand is fine, and using 2hand weapon, penalty is -2. A useless hand can't hold anything)

Injuries should be listed, like:
5 Strength damage (painful back injury)
5 Limping 3/4 speed (long-term, lower back injury)

When a PC takes damage, the player may elect to use an Injury to reduce damage. If the minimum Injury rank necessary to eliminate damage has any 'left over' points, these points can be used to heal prior damage (but the player may not pick a higher injury rank just for the sake of healing).

Injuries are either short or long term. Short term injuries require a Heal check, DC 15 + injury rank, per injury after combat. After successful treatment, the injury will disappear after hours of rest equal to the rank of injury. An hour of rest applies to all injuries sustained, not just one at a time.
Treating an injury can only be attempted once per day.
Healing magic can be used to treat injuries; most injuries are equal to Injury Rank x character level damage. Ability damage is treated like any other ability damage, and requires Restoration spells to treat.

Long term injuries require a Heal check, DC 15 + injury rank, per injury after combat. After successful treatment, the injury will disappear after days of rest equal to the rank of injury. In this case, a day of rest only helps one injury at a time.
Treating an injury can only be attempted once. If it fails, only magic will heal the damage.
Generally, permanent injuries require Regenerate to treat. Permanent ability damage is treated with Restoration or Greater Restoration.


It is up to the player to call for an injury, and she should have a lot of say into which injury occurs. The DM is, however, responsible for it making some sense. For example, a lightning bolt is unlikely to cause Bleeding damage, but the player might argue that the bolt struck her left shoulder and came out her right leg, leading to -4 off-hand, stun, and Limping injuries. If the DM agrees, that's 3x her level in absorbed damage.

The DM may also refuse injuries that wiggle out of anything meaningful. A character who can fly at will should ignore movement injuries, unless those injuries apply to her flight. Ability drain should usually be accompanied by some other effect -- loosing a point of Int, Cha, and Wis is fine, but should probably come with Stun or Prone or something similar.

The player is expected to be told how much damage is done before deciding on injuries; the major purpose of injuries is to allow players to survive longer, but to trade that survival for considerable handicaps.


HELP NEEDED:
Ok, so I have a pretty good start, but I'm a little unsure if the numbers work out. Also, my main focus is on E6 and other 'low fantasy' games. I'm wondering if, in games that go higher-level, the availability of spells like Restoration make the whole injury system meaningless.

The other area of consideration is NPCs. At a first pass, it seems leaning on the mook/named idea might work: mooks just take damage and fall down, but that named kobold necromancer/sorcerer is going to be saving his scaly tuchus with injuries as much as possible.

Constructive feedback would be grand.


Edits:
Dropped the 'twist'... it distracts from the core premise of 'buy off damage.'
Changed Stun from 1 > 2 ranks
Clarified rank and what it does.
Clarified Ability damage.
Organized types of injuries.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Pretty cool idea, might have to borrow it.

If I understand you right, taking an injury reduces damage equal to it's injury rank times character level (this is a little unclear)?

Stun should proably be worth 2 or 3, as being stunned for 1 round is pretty bad.

When ability drain occurs is it for a value 1?
Perhaps it could drain more in exchange for larger damage buy off (1 for 1 ratio). Possibly ability drain should only be for the long term effect and ability damage for the short term effect.

I would only allow named NPCs to use this as you suggest.

I don't think high level magic will make your injury buy off system meaningless. Consider to remove in an injury during combat a caster would have to spend 3 rounds casting restoration or regeneration. Outside of combat in high level DnD no injury or affliction or even death keeps a PC below full strength for long.

 

[Pyrex]

One thing you're going to have to watch for is players picking favorite injuries for their character that don't really hamper them much and just using them as an HP buffer.

For example, a wizardly type who generally has Fly active in combat might mysteriously recieve far more than their fair-share of movement-impairing leg wounds...

 

[Will]

Yes. injury reduces damage = rank x character level.

Ability damage is 1 rank for 1 point. So you could take 10 ability damage for 10 ranks.
And I meant 'ability drain' = long term version of ability damage, so I may need to make that clear. Higher rank for Stun also makes some sense.

Looks like some rewriting for clarity needed.

Pyrex: Good point.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I was thinking, and another problem with this system is that there is no limiter on how often your character can take injuries in the place of damage.
So its conceivable that you might have by the end of a fight two guys at 1 HP who can only move 5ft per turn, useless off hands, fatigued, 10 points of ability damage to multiple ability scores.
In fact there is no reason a named NPC or PC would ever want to drop below 1 HP if he has the option of taking a non permanent injury still, unless he knew he could be healed up from negatives shortly after the fight.

Solutions: Allow a character to take only 1 injury per round or....
A character must spend an action point to take an injury instead of damage or...
A character can only have a number of injury ranks (before the x5 permanent multiplier) equal to his constitution modifier plus 5 or 10 or some other value after this the character just takes damage.

 

[Pyrex]

I had another thought to curb abuse:

1) Define a list of conditions, most likely the ones from the DMG (Dazed, Stunned, Sickened & Nauseated would be common) plus a few more effects like crippled limbs. I'd stay away from ability damage/drain as it's still pretty boring. Temporary conditions could have a somwhat variable duration (Dazed for a few rounds, Sickened or Fatigued until end of combat, etc), crippling effects should list what cures them (Probably a Lesser Restoration).

2) In order to prevent abuse, the cost (value?) of an injury is not fixed, but rather handled by a bidding system.

Example 1:
DM: Ogre critically clobbers you upside the head with his club for 30hp damage. Knocked Prone & Dazed for a round to bring it down to 20?

Player: Bring it down to 15 and you've got a deal.

DM: Done

Example 2:
DM: Giant bug chomps your wizard for 15hp.

Player: Crippled leg halving land speed until Lesser Restoration to bring it down to 5hp?

DM: Your wizard is already under a Fly so that's pretty minor. Leg wound will bring it down to 12hp.

Player: Nah, I'll pass. How about Sickened by the pain for 3 rounds to bring it down to 8hp?

DM: 10

Player: Done.

 

[Will]

Aust: Hmm. Good points. Been thinking about this last night, and I think it might be good to treat it as something like Reserve points.

How about this:
Divide hit points by 10. This is how much an Injury Rank can soak. You can soak up to 10 ranks.

Injury ranks can be used to keep someone from dying, but only if the new hit point total is between 0 and -10 (IE: You are still down, just not dead). These injury ranks are long-term, but priced like regular short-term.


Pyrex:
I agree wrt ability scores. I was feeling a bit ... meh about using them, and your comment adds to that. I think it's more interesting to make injuries flavorful.

I'm less sure about the bidding thing; I would prefer something fast, and I'm a bit leery of interrupting the flow of play for a negotiation. In the right group it might work great, but my group is easily distracted by babies and what-not, so I think it'd penalize some players.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I would prefer something fast, and I'm a bit leery of interrupting the flow of play for a negotiation. In the right group it might work great, but my group is easily distracted by babies and what-not, so I think it'd penalize some players.

My group is easily distracted too, and I know a bidding system would result in a 5 minute back and forth everytime someone decided to 'buy off' and injury.

Limiting the amount a person can soak with an injury seems like a good way to limit its use too, that way a truly massive blow will always floor a character. I'll have to think about it more, possibly divide HP by 5 instead of 10 for the limit.

10 injury ranks max seems like the right amount.

Using permanent injuries to prevent death when in negative HPs, seems like a logical extension of the system.

 

[Will]

Another possibly neat extension of this system is a 'called shot' conversion -- damage is traded for effect.

Joe: 'I want to smack him in the leg, cripple him as much as possible. I rolled ... ha! Crit, 20 damage!'
(SRD standard ettin, 65 hit points is 7 pts per injury rank; knock down & 3/4 speed sucks up 14 damage, while 6 hit points taken from total)
DM: 'Ok, your sword slashes his leg viciously and he falls with a roar; it doesn't look like he's going to move easily with that open wound when he gets back up.'

(Now Joe can play 'keep away' with the Ettin while friends fire, if he can avoid a charge, or can run away if needed)

I do have to figure out how to handle things like 'the enemy doesn't WANT you to hit his leg,' though perhaps if the enemy gets hit he's rather lost his chance to argue...