D&D 5E Input Needed on Attack Roll Concept

[Blue]

Condolences for slowing down combat. You now have (at least) twice as many attack rolls to resolve per attack. As a player, I would definitely want my meat-AC calculated in a different way than my fortune-AC. I would also want to know what meat took damage, because well, who needs a kidney?

To steal an idea from another system, the superficial/wounds divide was in the damage roll, not the attack roll. Actually, all rolls did both, but then reduced by defenses. So a "meat" roll wouldn't suddently not have a chance to knock someone out anymore.

This was a Xd6 damage system. You counted up the dice as normal for damage, and every die also was a point of meat damage, with 1s not counting and 6s counting twice. And then you subtracted your defenses from both, so normal rolls did little meat damage.

For a more D&D type game I'd probably adjust so that every weapon die that's a 4+ does a wound, so a greataxe is more likely to wound than a short sword. Though really that works better in a 13th Age game where instead of multiple attacks, weapon wielders get a single attack but it does [lvl]dX. (That's a 1-10 level game, maybe [PROF]dX for D&D.)

(Oh, and for the "kill the defenseless person" trope, have that 2+ are wounds in cases like that.)

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

have 2 ACs
Dex Ac which hits your Hit Point Pool
Con AC which hits your 'Meat' Pool

So, you roll your two d20s

The first one hits your Dex AC and you roll damage of your weapon as usual.
The second one targets your Con AC and you take 'meat' damage equal to the overflow. (so you don't have to roll a second set of Damage Dice.)

You'll have to figure out How much 'Meat' Hit points you get to make sure it's balanced with AC.

I'd have AC= 10+Con bonus.
maybe Armour adds damage reduction =to its type: Light armour =1; Medium=2; Heavy =3 (or whatever)

You roll to hit, an AC. Let's say they are wearing studded leather. If it hits do damage, like normal and also roll:
-an attack against Con AC. If your Con AC is 12 (con+2) and they hit AC 20, you take 8 Meat damage minus 1 for the studded leather.

 

[Shiroiken]

It really depends on what your goal is. If you simply want to split HP into Meat Points, there's a fairly simple method for it. Creatures can take a number of wounds equal to a number based on size (I generally think of 5 for small/medium, +/- 3 for each size). When a creature does one of the following in a day, they take one wound. Wounds are only removed by using the Rest/Recover downtime activity (1 each). If a creature takes wounds equal to their maximum, they die.

• Receive a Critical Hit
• Drop to 50% HP for the first time since your last Long Rest
• Drop to 0 HP
• Whenever you would normally fail a Death Save

This system makes for dangerous combats. You can die with HP if you're unlucky. You'll get worse over time, getting closer to death each time, needing downtime to recover. The whack-a-mole problem some DMs dislike is an extremely dangerous tactic!

If your goal is to simply make some combats more dangerous by using a new type of mechanic, I'd steal Pathfinder 2's method. If you succeed on an attack by 5, you cause an addition effect (in your case, causing wounds).

 

[DND_Reborn]

Lots of good ideas and feedback! Thanks everyone.