Vitality/Wound Points in D&D

[Elder-Basilisk]

It's not just giants that are lethal. Pretty much anything CR 8+ and a lot of things with CRs as low as 1 basically drop anyone on a critical hit. An ogre? 2d8+7 with a greatclub. 15 points on average is enough to exceed most characters wound points. A half-orc barbarian? At first level, he will typically do between 2d6+7 and 2d6+12 depending upon starting stats and power attack. An 8th level fighter type will typically do somewhere around 2d6+14 points of damage on a successful hit without buffing. (2d6 greatsword, +6 (18 strength), +2 weapon specialization), +2 enhancement bonus, +4 power attack). Factor in that most of the time such characters will be using scythes or falchions in an unmodified system and as soon as they get Imp Crit, they'll crit on 1/3 of their attacks and you have a system where an 8th level fighter type will take drop his foe on roughly half of his full attacks--2/3 of them if hasted. (Improved crit grants a 30% threat ratio (15-20) and, assuming that a character confirms the majority of threats, the chance to NOT be critted is 70% for one attack, 49% for two attacks, and 34.3% for three attacks). 2d4+14 wound points is enough to pretty reliably stun anything it doesn't drop outright.

Add in buffing or non-core materials, and it gets really ugly. An 2/6 barbarian/fighter with leap attack and shock trooper (or heedless charge or Reckless Assault (Player's Guide to Arcanis)) will routinely do weapon damage +38 points of damage (power attack 8 x3=24 points plus 10 (starting strength 16+2 half-orc+2 levels+4 rage) plus 2 enhancement bonus (Greater Magic Weapon in a low-magic game) plus 2 weapon specialization). Give him bardsong and that's +40. (If the bard has access to Complete Adventurer's Inspirational Boost, the weapon damage is +41). Add prayer and it's +42. And his attack bonus at that point is at least +16 (+7 str, +2 charge, +3 morale, +1 luck, +1 weapon focus, +2 enhancement) +23 if he's doing the Shock Trooper thing. If you get Recitation instead of prayer, the damage goes down to weapon damage +41 but the attack bonus goes up to +18 (normal) or +26 (dumping the Power Attack penalty to AC). And that's within the NORMAL range for a character of that level. A paladin with Divine Might will routinely do weapon damage +8 even with a one-handed weapon--weapon damage +16 on a smite without power attack. Given a two-handed weapon and power attack, things will get even uglier. And I'm not mentioning what will happen if you're silly enough to allow spikes (Complete Divine) into your game.

Lethal does not begin to describe an unmodified UA wound points/vitality points system as soon as the game reaches even the middle levels. That the writers commented that the system makes sneak attack deadly only demonstrates that they have no clue how high normal damage routinely goes. A good BDF will deal more damage per hit than a full level rogue will with sneak attack.

The reason the system works in Star Wars, etc. is that characters are mostly using energy weapons, etc. and don't get to add their strength bonus to damage (even once), nor do they power attack, nor do they routinely get damage bonusses from spells or aother abilities (and, IIRC, the only Star Wars weapon with a threat range better than 20 is the lightsaber).

As to giants and such being lethal. Yes they are. But i dont think thats bad. Afterall a man who is 15ft tall and over 1,000 pounds just hit you with a really big baseball bat. Sounds pretty lethal to me. I allways thought big creatures should be more dangerous then they are. And the system from modern and star wars etc.. is designed for games with some pretty high damage weapons, it works okay for them. It should work okay in any D&D campaign too, as long as the armor is DR.

 

[boredgremlin]

Those systems all lower the threat range of weapons to either 20 or 19-20. Most of them either ditch improved crit altogether or make it only improve the crit by 1 pt.
1) Your forgetting that Armor has a high DR.
2) The "average warrior" is not a 20 STR half orc barbarian. But even if so. power attack penalizes the to hit so its usually not that great an idea, it also makes confirming crits a lot less likely so its an even worse idea in this system then normal. Power attack with a 2 handed weapon does double damage not triple. So even taking away his entire +8 BAB only gives him +16 damage. For 2d6+7 (str)+16 full penalty. for 25 to 37. Mean. But, an 8th level character probably has full plate (8 DR or so). A hit might still kill the fighter.
3) Your to hit sucks. 8 BAB, -8 (+0 BAB), Str +7 ( though i think you cant count your STR bonus to hit when using power attack), charge +9. (We arent figuring magic. Then i just take fortification armor and no longer worry at all about your criticals), weapon focus +10. Fighters AC bonus under that system is usually +6 at that level AC 16, non magic large shield AC 18, dodge feat AC 19, dex +1 AC 20. So you only have a 50% chance to hit. Less to critical because you also have to confirm. Now any smart fighter uses full expertise to defense for fighting a raging barbarian and waits for his rage to wear off. Now the AC is 25. So you only have a 25% chance to hit and again rather less to actually confirm a critical. These numbers drop a further 15% once your rage ends.
4) The barbarians AC is probably also +6 since he is a warrior and thats the best one the system gives at that level. AC 16, dex +2 AC 18, maybe dodge AC 19. But you charged AC 17. The fighters BAB is +8 base, +4 strength (+12), weapon focus +1 (+13). Meaning the fighter only needs a 7. Or a 65% chance to hit. That compares rather favorably to your 25% dont you think? The damage is less but the amount of hits equals out especially with the lower DR of the barbarian because of his light armor.
5) what this all means is that a lower level character with VP/WP has more HP. Because the WP usually adds to VP. A higher level character has potentially less HP because of criticals. This adds survivability at low levels, keeps it fairly even at mid levels, and makes all combat still dangerous at high levels. That suits some DM's styles and not others.
6) and totally off topic but the smart fighter still usually wastes the smelly barbarian if he shows a little patience.

 

[Nifelhein]

Well, I mostly will not have that high damage problems, capped power attack at +5 penalty to attack (as combat expertise) and madee it do 1.5 str bonus instead of double.

Improved Critical for me requires fighter levels and will only add 1 to the range, stacking with keen and the like, which will not show in any weapon short of medium power, increasing the bonus is ncie too.

In Midnight the only clerics are evil and NPCs and that channelers don't have all that spellcating power, you end up with a good sum of restrictions. Buffing the Wp for higher levels might be a good idea indeed though, i will wait to see how it fares.

On the long run to make D&D with Vp&Wp woudl require a remake of the spellcasting system in the amount of bonuses one can gain and also, on how spell damage works. Armor bonuses (like Fortification), sneak attack, spell damage, damage reduction, buff spells and a lot more needs to be thought about for any serious use of Vp&Wp in a D&D game without Midnight's peculairity of cleric being away and channelers having a lot less spellcasting potential.

Unless you like survival at lower levels and deadliness at higher levels, as boredgremlin pointed out.

 

[squat45]

okokokokokok

Thanks for all your input. I'm working on some revisions to the rules anyways (I run a game pretty heavy on the house-rules anyways). With the following assumptions:

1) Using viatality/wound points
2) Lower-level game up to mid-level... I very rearely will run a game past level 10-12, mostly because we play once a month or so...
3) Using Weapon Groups option instead of the "standard" Simple/Martial/Exotic categories

#3 is going to be the key to this... as these are the changes I'm thinking of:
1) Change the weapon damages so that weapons of the same size are doing the same amount of damage, reduce the critical to 20 (for all but a couple of weapons)... so there is really no difference between a battleaxe, a mace and a longsword in terms of damage/criticals.
2) I understand the need for using armour as damage reduction, but most of the characters are going to be low-armour (the heaviest, the cleric will probably not go past chainmail), so that is not going to help much. This is what I'm going to do instead:

Create a stat called Wound Reduction (WR). Wound reduction will reduce wound damage done as long as there is vitality present (essentially, reduces the damage of a critical hit). If you have no vitality, Wound Reduction is not applicable. WR is equal to the sum of:

Magic Bonus (such as from magic armour and shields)
Deflection Bonus, Exalted bonuses and the like
Natural Armour Bonus
Any damage reduction marked as x/-
Class bonus (classes will add to this at certain levels)
Feat bonus (certain feats will add to this)

My hope is that starting off at 4th level, most of the characters will have armour +1, either a ring of protection +1 or an amulet of natural armour +1. This will give at least a WR of 2 even for the poorest of attackers... my concern here is the exalted monk we are going to be playing with, I'll need to crunch some numbers...

Oh, now I need to figure out what to do about the Goliath Barbarian/Fighter!!!

 

[Wrathamon]

first I will say abandon hope all yeh who enter here...

then I will mention that you can try to combine the D20 modern rules and the vitality wound system to some effect.


Use a MDT score if damage exceeds that you take wound damage instead of a save or die.

Remove the Critical hit automatically does wound damage business, crits most likely will go over the MDT score, any damage that exceeds MDT is taking from wounds the rest vitality or something to that affect.

Make MDT go up in level

Use a different unconscious system, one that can keep you disabled longer because you will be in that situation a lot more often.

DR can be a problem... because it makes it seem like you are always hitting the breast plate, opposed to hitting vitals. Daggers, darts, etc become practically useless.You could say that Armor adds a Damage resistance score to your MDT or it converts wound damage to vitality

 

[Nifelhein]

Wrathamon,

Interesting thoughts, I will ntoe them down, it has some promises.

 

[boredgremlin]

You could try something similar to grim and gritty. Give damage soak (DR) and your con score adds to soak instead of more HP. Then a critical hit bypasses the soak. They dont use VP but maybe you could find a way to incorporate it. Or just give your characters an extra WP or two each level so they still add some toughness as they get better.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Those systems all lower the threat range of weapons to either 20 or 19-20. Most of them either ditch improved crit altogether or make it only improve the crit by 1 pt.

It all depends which system you use. The original poster mentioned the Unearthed Arcana system which is the one I used as a starting point for the VP/WP system I use in my game. That one keeps the threat ranges the same for most weapons but converts 20/x3 to 19-20 and 20/x4 to 18-20.

1) Your forgetting that Armor has a high DR.

Again, it doesn't necessarily in the Unearthed Arcana system... and the Unearthed Arcana armor as DR system is pretty weak--at least as long as 3.5 power attack remains in play--since it reduces damage by less than twice the AC reduction.

2) The "average warrior" is not a 20 STR half orc barbarian. But even if so. power attack penalizes the to hit so its usually not that great an idea, it also makes confirming crits a lot less likely so its an even worse idea in this system then normal. Power attack with a 2 handed weapon does double damage not triple. So even taking away his entire +8 BAB only gives him +16 damage. For 2d6+7 (str)+16 full penalty. for 25 to 37. Mean. But, an 8th level character probably has full plate (8 DR or so). A hit might still kill the fighter.

Ahh, you need to re-read that section of the post. I was specifically discussing non-core rules and consequently had the barbarian using Leap Attack (make a jump check during a charge and get x3 power attack damage with a two-handed weapon) and Shock Trooper or some other feat (I know there's one in the Player's Guide to Arcanis and I suspect it's elsewhere too) to take the Power Attack penalty to AC instead of to attack.

Even if he weren't using it, the buffed version still attacks at +16 or +18 with a full Power Attack. Even at 8th level, that's pretty good--especially if armor grants less of an AC bonus in return for its DR.

However, I disagree with your assessment of the "average" warrior. When discussing PC/Adventurer types, by 8th level, even an iconic array fighter will start with a 15 strength and increase it twice. If the game is using the wealth by level guidelines, he'll probably have gauntlets of ogre power too for a 19 strength. If he's a half-orc, he'll have a 21 strength. I figure that's pretty darn close to iconic as far as stats and ability distribution goes. Generally in home games, stats are higher than that, not lower.

3) Your to hit sucks. 8 BAB, -8 (+0 BAB), Str +7 ( though i think you cant count your STR bonus to hit when using power attack), charge +9. (We arent figuring magic. Then i just take fortification armor and no longer worry at all about your criticals),

That's a mistake as long as you're still playing D&D. First, effective fortification armor (medium and heavy fort) isn't generally affordable until high levels under the standard wealth guidelines. Second, the point of the exercise isn't to demonstrate that barbarians win a fighter vs. barbarian duel but rather to point out that damage per hit scales very high very quickly even for PC types. A troll or a dragon is not likely to have fortification armor, but will still have to deal with the wound point damage on a crit. Wound points making the game more random with the 1 crit=death effect impact the DM's ability to stage a climactic fight just as much as the PC's ability to survive till level X.

weapon focus +10. Fighters AC bonus under that system is usually +6 at that level AC 16, non magic large shield AC 18, dodge feat AC 19, dex +1 AC 20. So you only have a 50% chance to hit. Less to critical because you also have to confirm. Now any smart fighter uses full expertise to defense for fighting a raging barbarian and waits for his rage to wear off. Now the AC is 25. So you only have a 25% chance to hit and again rather less to actually confirm a critical. These numbers drop a further 15% once your rage ends.
4) The barbarians AC is probably also +6 since he is a warrior and thats the best one the system gives at that level. AC 16, dex +2 AC 18, maybe dodge AC 19. But you charged AC 17. The fighters BAB is +8 base, +4 strength (+12), weapon focus +1 (+13). Meaning the fighter only needs a 7. Or a 65% chance to hit. That compares rather favorably to your 25% dont you think? The damage is less but the amount of hits equals out especially with the lower DR of the barbarian because of his light armor.

Again, it's not a PC vs. NPC duel here. (But it bears mentioning that the standard armor for a BDF barbarian 2/fighter 6 is a suit of fullplate (mithral if you can get it)--not light armor.

5) what this all means is that a lower level character with VP/WP has more HP. Because the WP usually adds to VP. A higher level character has potentially less HP because of criticals. This adds survivability at low levels, keeps it fairly even at mid levels,

In my experience, the deadliness starts a bit earlier than you allow for here. I'd say, by level 6, even the nerfed VP/WP system I use was more deadly than the normal D&D system.

and makes all combat still dangerous at high levels. That suits some DM's styles and not others.
6) and totally off topic but the smart fighter still usually wastes the smelly barbarian if he shows a little patience.

Totally agreed there. Barbarians and fighter/barbarians tend to deal more damage over a shorter time than fighters but they also suck up a lot more healing. They're better for player versus monster than player vs. NPC.

 

[boredgremlin]

I remember looking over the unearthed arcana version of the rules. To be honest i wasnt impressed. I thought starwars did it better. I have also heard good things about conan and arcana unearthed by monte cook. I havent played either though.
I use a version of the starwars rules and a few home brew rules. The problem with unearthed arcana was they split armor between AC and DR and in so doing made it pretty worthless for both. The higher DR system helps the survival factor at mid and higher levels some. Redoing shields to have a halfway realistic defense bonus helps that even more.
I recently looked over the new version of the grim and gritty rules though. Not sure about the life pips they use there but having CON add to your soak (DR) instead of your HP is a interesting idea.
Another one i have seen done is giving large creatures like dragons and giants more wound pts based on the creatures size so you dont get one lucky hit killing the ancient dragon.

 

[Thanee]

Also, one problem with WP is, that size figures in rather little.

A gargantuan or colossal being should have a lot more WP than, like, 30.

Bye
Thanee