UA: V/WP - what about this?

[Drow Jones]

Hi everyone,

Here's what Sean K Reynolds thinks about the VP/WP system:

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1. One, it makes battles MUCH tougher, because any critical hit automatically goes to wounds (based on Con) instead of vitality (based on level). That means that any creature capable of doing 15 or so points of damage has a chance of instantly taking out most typical PCs (since most PCs don't have 15+ Con).

2. Critical hits overcome damage reduction. So a if you crit a creature with DR 20/magic with a _nonmagical dagger_, it's suffering 1d4 points of damage right off its wounds. Heck, if you crit a creature with DR 20/adamantine with a _piece of thrown bark_, it's taking wound damage. That makes no sense.

3. Wound points can't drop below zero. That means if you're at 1 wound point and an orc hits you for 1 wound point, you're at zero and disabled, and have to save or be dying. If a dragon hits your for 30 wound points ... you're still at zero and disabled, and have to save or be dying.

4. Item 3 above also means that if you're at zero and dying, normal hits can't hurt you any more ... normal hits either come off your vitality points (which you don't care about, because you're already disabled and possibly dying) or go to your wound points ... but since wounds can't go below zero, nothing extra happens ... you're still disabled and possibly dying. In fact, even if you reduce someone to 0 vitality and 0 wounds, you can't hurt them any more with normal attacks! The only sort of thing that can make them worse is a coup de grace ... and only because it forces another save (DC 10 + damage) ... it doesn't make your wound points drop any more. Baffling!! If at 0/0, the tarrasque could make all of its attacks on you every round, and all you have to worry about (assuming that you're dying and not just disabled) is making your save (DC 10 +1/round) to not die and possible stabilize. The 0/0 guy under attack from the tarrasque is no worse off than the 0/0 guy resting on a hospital bed.

5. No massive damage rule. So the dragon hits you for 50 points of damage, wiping out your last ten vitality and wounds. You're at zero, and possibly dying ... but your save isn't any more difficult than it would be if it was an orc who hit you for your last 1 WP and VP.

6. NPC classes don't give you vitality. So now all creatures with NPC classes (say, like those warrior elves, dwarves, and city guards) are even weaker than their sucky NPC classes would normally make them. How does this affect CRs? Why would a PC ever take an NPC class now (one of the good ones, like aristocrat or expert)?

7. Creatures with regeneration take wound damage from fire and acid (though they can make a save to take it as vitality instead). That means that if you hit a human with a fireball for 15 points, he can suck it up with VP, but if you hit a troll, the troll might take it as WP (and see point 1 about how that takes out creatures quicker because of direct hits against their Con-based WP). And if the troll takes that as WP damage, remember that taking even a single WP means you're fatigued and has a chance of stunning you. So, oddly enough, the troll is MORE vulnerable than a human to certain attacks because of its regeneration instead of less.
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Original post here: http://pub17.ezboard.com/fseankreynoldsboardsfrm1.showMessage?topicID=1609.topic

Just some food for thought...

- DJ

 

[Cergorach]

I have a week off now and want to write someting up based on the V/WP rules, but i'm still waiting on the UA shipment from the distributor and don't expect it to arrive before the end of the week. So i would like to ask a couple of questions regarding V/WP.

Question 1:
The V/WP excerpt on the Wizards site, is that it regarding the V/WP rules in UA? If not what's missing?

Question2:
Are the V/WP rules OGC? Are the terms Vitality and Wound Points OGC? Is there anything in there that's not OGC?

 

[woodelf]

WP / VP is just a more complicated but more realistic way to express hit points. Hit points have always (up until the last couple of hits) represented the ability to narrowly avoid blows or shrug them off completely.

Sorry I'm not actually contributing to the thread much, but I had to get that out of my system, because I hate it when people are under the impression that getting "hit" with 15 arrows in D&D means that you now have 15 arrows poking out of your chest.

well, if they were poisoned arrows, you just made 15 saves, so presumably you were exposed to poison 15 times--i.e., all 15 of those arrows actually scored flesh. If the poison save represented your ability to not actually come into contact with the poison in some fashion, wouldn't it be a Reflex save, not a Fort save?

 

[Ranger REG]

Think you I am newbie, do you? No... long time player and DM, longtime lurker here too. I have been into D&D for around 16 years or so, as I am 23 now it is quite sometime...

Let me know when you hit 34 ... kid.

I will agree with you that they did not go so far in ensuring each variant rule is playable under the D&D core ruleset. Then again, I'm basing my opinion on the excerpt; I've not yet scored my copy of Unearthed Arcana.

 

[MadBlue]

well, if they were poisoned arrows, you just made 15 saves, so presumably you were exposed to poison 15 times--i.e., all 15 of those arrows actually scored flesh. If the poison save represented your ability to not actually come into contact with the poison in some fashion, wouldn't it be a Reflex save, not a Fort save?

You brought up a good point. And, that's another thing to take into consideration in porting the WP/VP system to D&D if one goes by the "VP damage =! a hit" approach. In SWRPG, a poisoned arrow only requires a Fortitude save if the arrow does Wound damage (i.e. a critical hit, or the defender is out of VP). In D&D that opens up a can of worms for any attack that requires an attack roll and has some kind of "carrier effect" that implies the target was, in actuality, hit, For example, the Dagger of Venom, Life-Drinker and Wounding weapons in the DMG, and most of the weapons in the BoVD have "carrier effects" that only make sense if a successful "to hit" roll is assumed to actually hit the target. If these weapons only have their effects on a critical hit, it makes them much less useful (and worth less money/fewer XP to create). Also, the "VP loss =! a hit" approach doesn't explain why a defender can dodge out of the way of a Touch Attack that deals HP damage (converted to VP in the WP/VP system), but can't dodge out of the way of a Touch Attack that deals Ability damage.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Hi everyone,

Here's what Sean K Reynolds thinks about the VP/WP system:

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1. One, it makes battles MUCH tougher, because any critical hit automatically goes to wounds (based on Con) instead of vitality (based on level). That means that any creature capable of doing 15 or so points of damage has a chance of instantly taking out most typical PCs (since most PCs don't have 15+ Con).

2. Critical hits overcome damage reduction. So a if you crit a creature with DR 20/magic with a _nonmagical dagger_, it's suffering 1d4 points of damage right off its wounds. Heck, if you crit a creature with DR 20/adamantine with a _piece of thrown bark_, it's taking wound damage. That makes no sense.

3. Wound points can't drop below zero. That means if you're at 1 wound point and an orc hits you for 1 wound point, you're at zero and disabled, and have to save or be dying. If a dragon hits your for 30 wound points ... you're still at zero and disabled, and have to save or be dying.

4. Item 3 above also means that if you're at zero and dying, normal hits can't hurt you any more ... normal hits either come off your vitality points (which you don't care about, because you're already disabled and possibly dying) or go to your wound points ... but since wounds can't go below zero, nothing extra happens ... you're still disabled and possibly dying. In fact, even if you reduce someone to 0 vitality and 0 wounds, you can't hurt them any more with normal attacks! The only sort of thing that can make them worse is a coup de grace ... and only because it forces another save (DC 10 + damage) ... it doesn't make your wound points drop any more. Baffling!! If at 0/0, the tarrasque could make all of its attacks on you every round, and all you have to worry about (assuming that you're dying and not just disabled) is making your save (DC 10 +1/round) to not die and possible stabilize. The 0/0 guy under attack from the tarrasque is no worse off than the 0/0 guy resting on a hospital bed.

5. No massive damage rule. So the dragon hits you for 50 points of damage, wiping out your last ten vitality and wounds. You're at zero, and possibly dying ... but your save isn't any more difficult than it would be if it was an orc who hit you for your last 1 WP and VP.

6. NPC classes don't give you vitality. So now all creatures with NPC classes (say, like those warrior elves, dwarves, and city guards) are even weaker than their sucky NPC classes would normally make them. How does this affect CRs? Why would a PC ever take an NPC class now (one of the good ones, like aristocrat or expert)?

7. Creatures with regeneration take wound damage from fire and acid (though they can make a save to take it as vitality instead). That means that if you hit a human with a fireball for 15 points, he can suck it up with VP, but if you hit a troll, the troll might take it as WP (and see point 1 about how that takes out creatures quicker because of direct hits against their Con-based WP). And if the troll takes that as WP damage, remember that taking even a single WP means you're fatigued and has a chance of stunning you. So, oddly enough, the troll is MORE vulnerable than a human to certain attacks because of its regeneration instead of less.
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Original post here: http://pub17.ezboard.com/fseankreynoldsboardsfrm1.showMessage?topicID=1609.topic

Just some food for thought...

- DJ

It's funny, but just about every one of these points, I address in my conversion.

1. Armor provides wound damage reduction. Makes instant death kind of rare.

2. Anything with DR 20/Adamant is probably a construct, (and an epic one at that, since most DR doesn't go above 15 in 3.5) and not subject to critical hits anyway... but it's already been addressed on this thread that critical hits are partly to overcome DR anyway. DR isn't supposed to be damage immunity, that was dropped with 2e. In other words, I don't actually address this point because I don't have to. This is one of the good rules in UA's VP/WP system.

3,4,5. Yeah, dumb move on the part of UA to use the pre-revised-SW version of VP/WP, but revised Star Wars gives us back negative wound points. I use that. End of story.

6. I'll never understand why Star Wars made it so the NPCs don't get vitality, and there's no real reason you can't give it them, but it's not like it's a big deal.

And no player in his right mind would ever level as an aristocrat or an expert, especially in my campaign, because I add a noble and a technologist to the lineup of PC classes.

7. A long time ago, I realized that spells were going to be the most problematic part of a VP/WP system, particularly since the ones that can critically hit could potentially devistate a high-level character. After pondering long and hard on it, I decided to cap the ammount of damage that becomes wound damage, using the caster level (or monster HD in the case of special spell-like effects). In effect, the fireball-on-troll problem is a case of automatic critical hitting, so the same fix to could be applied here. 5th-level wizard wacking a troll with a 5-die fireball for 17 damage? The troll takes 5 wound damage (which it can't regenerate) and 12 vitality damage. It seems like a good solution to patch the hole with.

 

[Ranger REG]

It's funny, but just about every one of these points, I address in my conversion.

1. Armor provides wound damage reduction. Makes instant death kind of rare.

That assumes we're going to use The "Armor as DR" rule. In that rule, did they specifically mention that critical hits cannot bypass/ignore armor's DR?

3,4,5. Yeah, dumb move on the part of UA to use the pre-revised-SW version of VP/WP, but revised Star Wars gives us back negative wound points. I use that. End of story.

Thank goodness for my copy of Star Wars Revised Core Rulebook. Still, I cannot help but wonder why Andy Collins (who also worked on SW-RCR) didn't port that into Unearthed Arcana.

I guess it's partly because he want something similar to the HP system that would protect PLAYER CHARACTERS (and some key NPC allies) from dying immediately. IOW, everyone dies at 0 WP. Period. PC and key NPC allies die when the Fort Save says you're dead.

6. I'll never understand why Star Wars made it so the NPCs don't get vitality, and there's no real reason you can't give it them, but it's not like it's a big deal.

And no player in his right mind would ever level as an aristocrat or an expert, especially in my campaign, because I add a noble and a technologist to the lineup of PC classes.

NPC using GM classes are like the extras in the film, so they can die easily. PC with hero classes have automatic "script immunity." That's why Leia didn't die from that blaster wound, or Luke suffered a critical trauma from losing his hand.

Occasionally, there are key NPCs that do have hero classes, and for that they should have VP.

In the end, it's up to the GM/DM.

 

[Nifelhein]

I hink it might be a long while before I am 34... Anyway, it ahs been a long portion of my life into D&D!

As we are at it, good points from Sean K Reynolds there, what are the actual chanegs that revised Star Wars did, anyone can tell me?

Also, it seem that VP and WP need some work that is not light... and although I don't have a copy of the book myself, I do agree with the ideea, Ranger.

 

[Ranger REG]

As we are at it, good points from Sean K Reynolds there, what are the actual chanegs that revised Star Wars did, anyone can tell me?

They added the "Death's Door" rule. IOW, -1 to -10 WP when dying. Fort Save (instead of percentile roll) to stabilize (DC 15).

Star Wars "Armor as DR" only protects WP, even on critical hits (won't bypass). Of course, Star Wars -- like d20 Modern -- have level-based Defense bonus (or "Class Defense Bonus").

 

[Nifelhein]

Thanks Ranger, it makes things more coherent, IMO.