My group wants long-term wounds

[RangerWickett]

Last night an assassin slit the throat of a sleeping PC, who survived. However, the group felt it was a little silly that, even with healing magic, he should be good to go with a few hours rest. So I've devised this. How does it sound?

Dying and Lingering Wounds
Normally when you fail 3 death saves, you die, and an extended rest gets you right as rain. I don't want you to get right as rain so fast.

You get four steps of Dying. So each turn when you're at or below 0 hp and not stabilized, you make a death save, and if you fail, you progress one step. Then every time you take an extended rest, you have to make an Endurance check (DC varies) to improve one step. Or if you're getting bed rest, someone else can make a Heal check in place of your Endurance check.

At step one, you have one fewer maximum healing surge at the start of the day. DC 15 to improve.

At step two, you have two fewer healing surges, you can't heal above your bloodied value. DC 20 to improve.

Step three, you have four fewer surges, and your max hit points are equal to your healing surge value. And if you get to this point, you're almost definitely going to have a serious injury like a broken limb or a cut that leaves a nasty scar. These depend on the nature of the attack that got you at this point. DC 25 to improve.

Step four, you're dead.


A coup de grace of any variety drops you to 0 hit points, then does damage. If you're not already dead from being at negative bloodied, you have to make two death saving throws. If the attack does damage equal to your healing surge value, it forces another two death saving throws. (None of these death saves lets you spend a healing surge on a natural 20.)

After this, since you're below 0 hit points, you have to make further death saves each round until someone can come by and rescue you. These, however, do give you the potential to roll a 20 and struggle back so you can defend yourself.

So a typical pissed off peasant with a knife who slits your throat only drops you to -6 hp, which just forces you to make two death saves. At worst you've still got about two rounds to live. If you're lucky, you might cling to life for a few rounds, maybe even come back. (If you fail neither of the two death saves, that represents the killer doing a crappy job on the initial stab. But if you don't have any friends around, nothing's stopping the assassin from couping your unconscious ass again in the next round.)

If an ogre with an axe tried to chop off the sleeping wizard's head, he'd do something like 22 damage, which would just kill our wizard outright I believe. Against our paladin and his 70-odd hit points, that would force four death saves. That might kill him, or maybe the axe only clove through the side of his neck, giving him a chance to come to and save himself.


You could also use rituals like Remove Affliction to reduce the Dying Step by one.

How does that sound?

 

[Alisair Longreach]

Do you have the Advanced Player's Guide from Goodman Games?

It has an optional rule about lingering injuries using the disease track with a scale of lethality and a Heal Injury ritual as a bonus.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

There have been some injury/wound discussions in the past. I think your system isn't too bad, though it is still... basic. Or... boring? I think it would work out and cause no major issues, though don't be surprised if you won't see much of its effect in gameplay. Most people will never fail more than one death save, except at low levels. A party member will certainly offer some healing or Heal check to "fix" things. And once a character is down a few steps, the party will simply wait.

The desire for lasting/lingering wounds is something typically born out for realism/verisimilitude, sometimes to highlight grittiness. The question is - how to make it something exciting, so that it also appeals to the gamer?

I think too many people focus on the negative aspect of injures. That's realistic and all that. But does it lead to interesting decisions? Only in rare cases, like: "Sorry, we don't have 4 days to get you up to full health, you have to fight 4 healing surges less". But the mechanic on its own doesn't offer much decision-making.

In another thread I sketched out a risk/reward scheme - there the starting point was to assume that you could - on your own decision - choose to take a wound, which gave some benefits. The idea I head was to give minor penalties (like -2 to damage and some skill checks) for different types of wounds. Gaining a wound gave you an action point, and you can spend 1+wounds action points per encounter. Milestones allow you to turn a healing surge into an extra action point. Wounds heal slowly (the first healing step means the penalties only apply while bloodied), and when you "heal them out",you can choose to take a scar, which gave you some extra benefits when you chose to apply a wound to an existing scar. (And opened up a few feat options once you got your first scar.)

Your starting point is different and you bring up a neat example - the throat-slitting example. (Personally, I would carefully work to narrate the scenario in a way that the aassassin couldn't perform his "throat-slit" - the hit point buffer represents your ability to avoid such a deadly wound. Or just have the PC wake up dead. )
Maybe a similar approach could be applied here, too. Once you are wounded, you get an extra action point, and can turn in healing surges into action points. There is a risk - the fewer healing surge and hit points you have will kill you - but there is reward - you get to kill your enemies faster.

 

[Starfox]

Realism of this sort works good for slow-paced intrigue scenarios. Less so in a more fast-paced game, where the PCs simply don't have the time to rest and recuperate. But if it fits your game, by all means go for it.

And I also favor the wounds-as-subplots idea. Mix a bit of sugar with the medicine (wounds) - after all, the dramatic tension is heightened. You don't need to make the bonus balance the penalties, but giving out SOMETHING makes the player feel special and more willing to actually play the penalty instead of just skipping some of the action.

 

[Kzach]

Normally when you fail 3 death saves, you die, and an extended rest gets you right as rain. I don't want you to get right as rain so fast.

Erm, is this just bad phrasing or is this what you really think the rules are?

'cause if you fail 3 Death Saves in the standard rules, you're dead. Only a raise dead spell can bring you back, and in addition to the cost and time and inconvenience of the ritual, the character has a -1 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks and ability checks until they reach three milestones.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I don't have the Advanced Players Guide by Goodman Games.. its it worth picking up? I am reticent to buy a book for a side-bar


There was a thread a while back that I lost on wounds with an idea I really like. Instead of the dice causing the wound, the player has the option to take a wound. IIRC it went something like this:

When damaged you can choose to burn a healing surge to take a wound instead of some damage. You reduce the damage by half your healing surge value.

A wound causes a -1 penalty to all D20 rolls and reduces your number of healing surges by one. Each full night of rest you get an Endurance check to see if you recover from one wound. The DC is set by level of the creature that did the damaging.

A critical hit from a BBEG may also inflict wounds, as would coup de gras attacks.

... I should probably try and dig that thread up again, I lost it when my computer died late last year
{edit 77IM's wound system here! }

 

[RangerWickett]

Erm, is this just bad phrasing or is this what you really think the rules are?

'cause if you fail 3 Death Saves in the standard rules, you're dead. Only a raise dead spell can bring you back, and in addition to the cost and time and inconvenience of the ritual, the character has a -1 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks and ability checks until they reach three milestones.

Heh. I meant to say 'if you fail 3 death saves you're dead, but anything less than that, you just need an extended rest to recover.'

I am intrigued by the idea of providing an option to the players, but my group goes more for simulation-style rules, rather than gameplay-balanced, so they might balk at the idea that by letting someone cut off their ear they're suddenly able to take an extra action.

I'll think on it.

 

[Alisair Longreach]

Primitive Screwhead, the Advanced Player's Guide is worth picking up.

It's a cheap 20$ paperback. It has alternate writeups for Gnomes, Half-Orcs and Halflings. There is a very good Martial Artist class for your Kung Fu loving PCs and the other classes can be plundered for powers for Barbarians, Bards, Druids and Wizards.

It also has some rules for Crafts and professions.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Why don't you just assess an ongoing penalty for anyone hit by a CDG? I mean - you're just trying to remedy the "it seems silly that after having your throat slit, you're right as rain in a few minutes" problem because it's not easily explained away as any of the "not physical damage" hitpoint categories, right? I mean your players have had people get knocked down and stand back up before, haven't they?

It seems odd to change the day-to-day flow of the entire game to fix a niche situation seeming a little off.

 

[N0Man]

I'm not really that crazy about long-term wounds, however I've thought about it a lot in order to appease a player who is much more of a simulationist than I am. I haven't seen the Goodman games book, but it sounds very similar to what I considered doing, which is using the Disease Track as a model for a wound system.

I had considered that wounds might be gained either from being Crit by a monster, or from failing 1 or more Saving Throws from Dying.

For possible results from injuries, if you get worse, to be things like being unable to recover 1 or more healing surges until recovered, temporary ability penalties, or maybe even a chance of it getting worse (like in the disease track) due to an injury being aggravated or becoming infected. Each of these things could potentially even occur more than once and stack effects with multiple untreated injuries.

However, it's a little too mechanical and luck-driven for my taste. I think I'm more inclined to implement and use some kind of Fate System style Aspects or something to my game and maybe use some temporary Wounded aspects instead, if I were to use a wound system. I think that gives more incentive to roleplay the injury, rather than trying to simulate it. I don't think that Fate uses them this way (I don't know a ton about the system but I like the concepts) though I still think it could work.