D&D 5E On Lingering Injuries

[The Crimson Binome]

d) and, how people read the stipulation about magical healing (whether any magical healing removes the injury, or whether it has to be a specific kind of (higher level) spell?

I don't use Lingering Injuries in my game, and this is the major reason why. If I say that any amount of magical healing will fix it, then nothing will ever linger more than a minute; the same is true if I say that it takes Lesser Restoration, if there's someone in the party who can cast that.

On the flip side, if I say that it takes a Greater Restoration or a Heal spell, then the injury might last for months (both in-game time and real-world time), and it could seriously impact the fun for the player. In some ways, it would be preferable to just have the character die outright, rather than to try and play with something like an Internal Injury, and I really don't want to put the players into the sort of position where they would want to think that way.

Honestly, I would prefer to deal Lasting Injuries in the form of HP damage, but it's just way too easy to recover HP in this edition. Even with the grittiest options in the book, there's nothing stopping a character from spending all of their hit dice to go from zero to full after a single short rest. (The only impact from the grit dials is that they won't be able to do that multiple times in succession, and it might take as long as eight hours to trigger that short rest.) With something like AD&D healing times, a single injury for 5 damage would still be meaningful, because it would take five nights to heal; if I could deal just a few damage every day, they would eventually be worn down by the end of the adventure. With default healing times in 5E, I have to run through all of their HP every day before they can start to feel threatened :-/

 

[Psikerlord#]

I don't use Lingering Injuries in my game, and this is the major reason why. If I say that any amount of magical healing will fix it, then nothing will ever linger more than a minute; the same is true if I say that it takes Lesser Restoration, if there's someone in the party who can cast that.

On the flip side, if I say that it takes a Greater Restoration or a Heal spell, then the injury might last for months (both in-game time and real-world time), and it could seriously impact the fun for the player. In some ways, it would be preferable to just have the character die outright, rather than to try and play with something like an Internal Injury, and I really don't want to put the players into the sort of position where they would want to think that way.

Honestly, I would prefer to deal Lasting Injuries in the form of HP damage, but it's just way too easy to recover HP in this edition. Even with the grittiest options in the book, there's nothing stopping a character from spending all of their hit dice to go from zero to full after a single short rest. (The only impact from the grit dials is that they won't be able to do that multiple times in succession, and it might take as long as eight hours to trigger that short rest.) With something like AD&D healing times, a single injury for 5 damage would still be meaningful, because it would take five nights to heal; if I could deal just a few damage every day, they would eventually be worn down by the end of the adventure. With default healing times in 5E, I have to run through all of their HP every day before they can start to feel threatened :-/

Yeah, hp bloat and damage bloat over the 5e levels is what has ultimately led me to OSR games instead. I havent played them before (played 2e-5e), so I have come to OSR the wrong way around so to speak - but now that I've read a lot about the different OSR variants, I prefer them to 5e. Simple, deadly, and I can add the best bits of other games very easily (eg: add advantage/disad mechanic).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I use system shock and lingering injuries, when an attack calls for it. The DMG is very clear about that it is in the hand of the DM when to use it.
I like the Idea of using it instead of failed saving throws, so you may avoid a dead.
I would also use it against parties that play the down/up/doen up game to save healing... but actually, I have yet to encounter that problem...

 

[bmcdaniel]

I use a modified syatem. Each time a PC fails a death saving throw, roll once on the lingering injury table. 50% no effect; 33% minor lingering injury that goes away when PC is fully healed of all hp damage; 16% major lingering injury that requires major healing like greater restoration or regenerate.

This accomplishes what I want: dropping to 0 is now serious business with serious consequences, but frequency is about right so it rarely disrupts the rest of game.

 

[scholz]

Actually, I really like that. I imagine players won't often take the option of lingering injuries (especially if there are still healers up and active). But if you've failed two death saves (or rolled a critical fail), you will almost certainly opt for an injury if the alternative is a 45% chance of outright death. And that, to me, seems like about the right frequency of occurrence for these kinds of injuries.

What would you set as the level of magical remedy to deal with these injuries?

I have a modified chart with more emphasis on annoying rather than taking you out injuries, and a reasonable mix of serious, moderate and minor injuries. Typically the minor need 3rd level healing or higher, moderate 6th level or higher, and the serious a regenerate or heal spell.
Some of them can be "cured" with time and successful medicine checks (internal injuries, broken ribs).

 

[empireofchaos]

I use system shock and lingering injuries, when an attack calls for it. The DMG is very clear about that it is in the hand of the DM when to use it.
I like the Idea of using it instead of failed saving throws, so you may avoid a dead.
I would also use it against parties that play the down/up/doen up game to save healing... but actually, I have yet to encounter that problem...

Ideally, I would like to use the system shock rules, too. But the problem is, if you apply them at 1st level, you'll have PCs going down after taking as little as 3 damage, and that seems too much. I've read somewhere (on this list, perhaps) that some people don't begin using the system shock rules until level 3, but that seems too fudgy for me - I'll use them consistently, or not at all.

 

[Phantarch]

I don't use them yet. The 5e game I'm running is for new players, and I don't want to add extra complications to the learning curve at this point.

However, the talk of the ones healing with any form of magical healing got me thinking about a couple of possible house rules:

1) What if there was a percentage chance to remove the injury based on spell level? Maybe something like 30% chance to remove it, +10% per slot used above first. Maybe the restoration spells and heal work automatically, or have a significantly higher percentage chance.

Or...

2) What if you had to choose between either having the injury removed or recovering hit points?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Make it so, that only damage over 10 points trigger system shock. Or only criticals. I never check when the hit is only a few points of damage.

 

[Pssthpok]

a) whether people use the Lingering Injury options;

b) what their reasoning behind choosing to use it or not to use it is;

c) people's take on whether things like internal injuries come up too often, and how they cope with the frequency;

d) and, how people read the stipulation about magical healing (whether any magical healing removes the injury, or whether it has to be a specific kind of (higher level) spell?

a) yes

b) dynamic combat effects derived from penalties other than mere hit point attrition. it's nice to see combat swing on something other than abstract hp totals.

c) the roll is the roll. body shots tend to happen more often as a matter of course, so I don't mind it.

d) to date, I allow any sort of magical healing to eliminate lingering injuries, though I'd prefer if the injury table was more robust and included injuries that a splash of cure couldn't get rid of with taking a rest or two.

 

[jodyjohnson]

a) Yes
b) balancing the narrative elements of fate/luck/skill based HP with the actual ability to get injured in a lasting way
c) I gate it behind a second roll like many here - mine is roll a HD of your class and reduce your maximum by that amount until you recover (naturally), however on a '1' roll on the Table with severity modified by the situation.
d) Magical healing only heals a limited amount. The severity of the injuriy is weighted at where the combat happens in the story. Injuries in a final battle of an adventure are more serious than those from say a random encounter.