Asmor
First Post
So I've had this idea rattling around in my head for a few days. It's not fully developed, and not even something I think would work well in D&D, but I think it's an interesting idea.
It's inspired by something I observed in Dead Rising where sometimes when you got hit, a box would pulse like you were about to lose a life but it didn't actually disappear. In practice, I think it would actually end up working somewhat similarly to damage saves in Mutants & Masterminds.
So let's say that you have a number of wound points equal to your constitution score. This never changes. In addition, you have a base damage save of, say, 10. I'm basing this all on percentages, but I like the DC system where higher is always better for stats as well as rolls, so when you take damage you make a damage save with a d% and have to beat a base DC of 100.
Now, instead of getting HP, your damage saves goes up. For every HD, it goes up the following amount:
d4=1
d6=2
d8=3
d10=4
d12=5
So a level 10 fighter would have a damage save of 50 (10 base + 10*4 for HD).
Magical weapons could increase the DC of the save. Not sure what you'd do about damage, though. You'd need to tone it down a lot.
Alternatively, you could make it so that your check is the percentage of damage prevented. So say you roll a 75 against 13, you'd prevent 9 damage (always round down) and take the remaining 4. Still makes it so that the "target number" is 100. In this scenario, bonuses to DC would be applied as penalties to the save, instead.
Big problem with this, though, is that it's a lot more complicated and time consuming. Especially if you use the percentage of damage prevented option. It would be easy enough to come up with critical rules for the system, but adjudicating things like elemental damage could be tougher.
It's inspired by something I observed in Dead Rising where sometimes when you got hit, a box would pulse like you were about to lose a life but it didn't actually disappear. In practice, I think it would actually end up working somewhat similarly to damage saves in Mutants & Masterminds.
So let's say that you have a number of wound points equal to your constitution score. This never changes. In addition, you have a base damage save of, say, 10. I'm basing this all on percentages, but I like the DC system where higher is always better for stats as well as rolls, so when you take damage you make a damage save with a d% and have to beat a base DC of 100.
Now, instead of getting HP, your damage saves goes up. For every HD, it goes up the following amount:
d4=1
d6=2
d8=3
d10=4
d12=5
So a level 10 fighter would have a damage save of 50 (10 base + 10*4 for HD).
Magical weapons could increase the DC of the save. Not sure what you'd do about damage, though. You'd need to tone it down a lot.
Alternatively, you could make it so that your check is the percentage of damage prevented. So say you roll a 75 against 13, you'd prevent 9 damage (always round down) and take the remaining 4. Still makes it so that the "target number" is 100. In this scenario, bonuses to DC would be applied as penalties to the save, instead.
Big problem with this, though, is that it's a lot more complicated and time consuming. Especially if you use the percentage of damage prevented option. It would be easy enough to come up with critical rules for the system, but adjudicating things like elemental damage could be tougher.
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