Ouch... That looks like it hurts! or OMD Your're Bleeding Out

[AnimeSniper]

I know that it most systems it the norm for the players to advance in class gaining HP over the campaign world time and maybe occasionally dropping to where they nearly die or outright die to the whole massive loss of their HP or like in one campaign the DM had recently slain flying crash down into the ranks of PC's and NPC's outright killing a few and then a few with it's death thrashing and maddened flame spewing.

Question is has anyone played a campaign or house-ruled some guidelines for when the PC or NPC receives massive trauma from an attack or bleeds out over a set time from sound minor or grievous wound... say like the player arm is broken with the bone through the skin or that lovely arrow/bullet that pierced their armor severing a minor or major artery.

So any thought on how this would achieved...

Note that I also have a Called & Random Hit tables that can be further expanded with some minor tweaking.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

There are plenty of games where that sort of thing - bleeding out from your wounds, having a limb crippled, experiencing shock due to trauma, and so on - can happen. D&D is not very good at that sort of thing, with the hit point loss being explicitly NOT representative a physical wound.

Maybe check out GURPS or one of the other similarly detailed games.

 

[Grogg of the North]

Not too long ago I was running my 3.5 D&D game where the paladin took an AoO. The monster rolled something like 20, 20, 19 to hit. (We play it where you keep rolling 20's; three 20's in a row is an instakill.) The damage was enough to turn the paladin into a fine red mist. But the players were trapped in the abyss with no easy way to get the paladin raised. Since we were about 5 minutes into the session and I didn't want the player to sit there twiddling his thumbs, I waved part of the damage and said that the demon "parried at the wrist" and the paladin lost his hand. I didn't have any rules on bleeding out but the cleric was right there to heal him regardless.

 

[Celebrim]

...with the hit point loss being explicitly NOT representative a physical wound.

Depends on the edition. In the 1e AD&D DMG, Gygax makes it very clear that hit point loss is always accompanied by physical wounds. Interpretations of what a hit point is have varied over editions.

 

[Celebrim]

Question is has anyone played a campaign or house-ruled some guidelines for when the PC or NPC receives massive trauma from an attack or bleeds out over a set time from sound minor or grievous wound... say like the player arm is broken with the bone through the skin or that lovely arrow/bullet that pierced their armor severing a minor or major artery.

So any thought on how this would achieved...

I ran GURPS for a time, and my 3.X house rules have some GURPS influence. For example, bleeding is a condition, and you are automatically bleeding when your hitpoints are below 0. This is referred to at the table as 'bleeding out'.

The whole thing is a bit more complicated than this but the basics are...

1) If you are at 10% of your maximum hit points or less, you are staggered.
2) If you are at 0 hit points or less, you must make a consciousness check (DC 15 Fortitude save) or fall unconscious. You must make a new check every time you take damage.
3) If you are at less than 0 hit points, you gain the bleeding condition and you automatically lose 1 hit point at the start of your turn until you are stabilized. This does provoke consciousness checks as above. You stabilize if your roll CON or less on a d% at the start of your turn, or whenever you are healed magically, or whenever you are stabilized by a successful heal check.

This isn't that different from 3.X RAW, but with a few tweaks.

There are also circumstances where you must make a DC 15 fortitude save or receive traumatic damage - such as broken bones, severed limbs, internal wounds, decapitation, and so forth. Those circumstances are whenever you exceed your traumatic damage threshold from one blow, whenever you take a critical hit that reduces you to 0 hit points or less, or whenever you take falling damage that reduces you to zero hit points or less, or whenever you take any critical hit from a vorpal sword. There is a chart that species the gruesome and often fatal result. Some traps also provoke traumatic damage saves with specific results (arm chopped off at wrist, for example).

 

[Jhaelen]

There are plenty of games where that sort of thing - bleeding out from your wounds, having a limb crippled, experiencing shock due to trauma, and so on - can happen. D&D is not very good at that sort of thing, with the hit point loss being explicitly NOT representative a physical wound.

Maybe check out GURPS or one of the other similarly detailed games.

+1.
Rather than trying to shoehorn such a sub-system into D&D (or other system with simple combat rules that don't cover specific wound effects), I'd recommend switching to a system that has been designed around such a system, otherwise you're almost guaranteed to unbalance the system.

Good systems for this include
- Runequest/Harnmaster: both systems use hit zones and (at least) RQ also covers special effects like impaling and severed limbs.
- Ars Magica: uses a condition track; not really detailed, but quite deadly and even minor wounds can require long periods of recuperation and have lasting effects.
- Rolemaster: plenty of tables to simulate all kinds of attack types and similarly complex rules to stop bleeding, mend bones, etc.

 

[LordEntrails]

Depends how extensive you want the rules to be. You could just pull the Lingering Wounds options out of the DMG and start using them.