Toned down Wounding

[Ruvion]

I found the Wounding ability very cheap for what it does, especially at high levels. The following is what we use in our campaign.

Wounding: This replaces the property listed in the DMG v3.5, on page 226. A wounding weapon deals 1 point of temporary Constitution damage on every attack roll that is over the target’s AC by at least 5. If your target is wearing a heavy armor or has natural armor bonus of at least +10, then your attack needs to bypass the target’s armor by at least 10 in order to deal the Con damage. You can not deal this Con damage if your target is immune to criticals such as from fortification or natural immunity. You can not deal both bleeding* and wounding effect at the same time, because they are essentially similar damage: you have to choose which effect will takes place every round. A wounding property may only be added to a piercing or slashing melee weapon.

*another weapon property in our campaign

 

[Telperion]

Okay, fine enough, but exactly how does this fix the problem? If you give a fighter a +5 Wounding Longsword, then that fighter will most likely have a high enough total attack bonus to still cause Con damage 1 - 2 per' round against your average enemy, and much more against any creature that isn't on par with the party level.

Certainly there are plenty of Big Bad Monsters around that have huge amounts of natural armor (usually), but are those the common opponents of a high-level party? The problem is that your average opponent isn't likely to be wearing heavy armor mainly because it is very expensive, harder to create and therefore rarer than medium or light armor. Of course this is a setting / DM question, but in my opinion orcs don't go around chasing good guys in heavy armor. They have barbarian levels and plenty of hit points to take anything that the characters can unleash in their direction.

 

[Ruvion]

oops forgot to point out that wounding has a market price of +3 in our campaign.

 

[Ruvion]

Okay, fine enough, but exactly how does this fix the problem? If you give a fighter a +5 Wounding Longsword, then that fighter will most likely have a high enough total attack bonus to still cause Con damage 1 - 2 per' round against your average enemy, and much more against any creature that isn't on par with the party level.

Certainly there are plenty of Big Bad Monsters around that have huge amounts of natural armor (usually), but are those the common opponents of a high-level party? The problem is that your average opponent isn't likely to be wearing heavy armor mainly because it is very expensive, harder to create and therefore rarer than medium or light armor. Of course this is a setting / DM question, but in my opinion orcs don't go around chasing good guys in heavy armor. They have barbarian levels and plenty of hit points to take anything that the characters can unleash in their direction.

so a +5 wounding longsword would cost be really a +8 weapon....due to this very hefty price tag you should be doing 1 to 2 Con damage per round without feeling guilty. In our version of the wounding you pretty much need high enhancement bonuses to really take advantage of wounding which in my opinion sort of balances it out price wise. Any other criticism?

 

[Stalker0]

Problem with this I have is anytime you have to make a new comparison in combat it slows the game down.

Now its not just did I hit but did I hit 5 over, more math, more remembering, gets tedious.

I prefer to make it a critical effect, that way its easy to use and remember since it only comes up once in a while, something like this.

Whenever your weapon deals a critical hit, your weapon deals damage equal to your crit multipler. So x2 is 2 con, x3 is 3, etc. This might need to drop the price to a +1, but I think its a much more balanced ability.

 

[Ferret]

Why not have it activate on a crit, I know it's the other end of the spectrum but youi shouldn't crit more then one in an attack.