VP/WP Difficult Issues, Ideas Wanted

[DonAdam]

Here's the VP/WP system I plan on implementing, based on the star wars system:

Hit points will become vitality points.

Wound points will equal Con score, adjusted for size for creatures larger than Large and smaller than Small.

Armor will provide damage reduction equal to its armor bonus for wound points only.

Class defense will follow the original 3 progressions from the original star wars core rulebook. Wizards and Sorcs will get the lowest progression, Monks and Rogues will get the highest progression, everyone else will get the medium progression.

All weapons will deal double what they deal now (so a greatsword will deal 4d6).

No crit multipliers. Add crit mod -2 to present threat range.

Improved Crit adds 1 to threat range.

Shields will provide a cover bonus to AC (which also means that those characters are not vulnerable to attacks of opportunity).

Two-handed weapons will deal double strength damage.

Deflection bonuses will still be to Defense, not damage reduction.

Monk's wisdom bonus to AC and class bonus will stack as an armor bonus to DR (so it won't stack with bracers of armor).

Sneak attack is getting replaced with a precise attack variation (can't have someone doing 10d6 damage to wounds).

All spells will get bumped by 1 die. All elemental and force damage will bypass half of nonmagical DR (so full plate +2 would provide a 6 DR). Positive and negative energy will ignore DR.

Healing/inflicting spells will heal/do 1 WP of damage per die of healing, full healing on VP.

So, I have a couple of issues that need resolving, specifically with monsters.

Keep in mind that I don't care if CR's are thrown off a little. I don't use them to award experience anyway, so I don't need precise numbers. However, I still want tough monsters to be tough.

Natural Armor: I'm thinking it will stay on AC (so that I don't have to give monsters a class bonus to defense) AND count 1/2 for DR.

Damage Reduction: Should this apply to VP and WP or just WP?

Fast Healing: VP? WP? Both?

Regeneration: VP? WP? Both?

Energy Resistance: Same question. I'm thinking VP too on this one (otherwise that measly 5 from Resist Elements doesn't mean anything).

Has anyone dealt with these issues? Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[willpax]

Your conversion rules look good. I'll be interested to see how your damage revisions play out (I use normal multipliers for critical hits).

I think some of your issues should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Some monsters have DR because of magical enchantment (they simply can't be harmed by normal weapons). It would make sense that they probably wouldn't bother trying to avoid those weapons, thus incurring the kind of fatigue that VP loss represents; others have DR because of thick hides. They probably don't enjoy getting hit even if it doesn't hurt too much, so DR only applying to wounds makes more sense.

Your natural armor conversion is simple and effective.

Regeneration is similar, but I would probably only apply it to wounds. Fast healing might also imply a quicker recovery from exertion, which means both VP and WP.

And I agree with you on energy resistance.

Good luck with your revisions. Keep us updated.

 

[LostSoul]

Here's what I do with VP/WP:

Everything acts the same, except the VP is all subdual damage.

But I don't have clerical healing other than the Goodberry spell. And I don't need it!

 

[hong]

Why do you want weapons to deal double damage?

I have a page that addresses some of these issues:

http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/vpwp_dnd.htm

 

[Thorvald Kviksverd]

You might like to take a look at the new Traveller RPG, they're offering a FREE Light Version in PDF.

It also has an interesting take on damage reduction that might work well with the increased damage potential of your proposed weapons.

Hope it provides some ideas

 

[mmadsen]

Why do you want weapons to deal double damage?

Probably because everyone -- mooks included -- starts with ~10 extra Hit Points (from Con).

 

[DonAdam]

I want weapons to do double damage for several reasons:

1) everyone's got the extra WP (stated abvoe)

2) it makes combat go faster- i like to get combat over with to move on to the next part

3) if someone has full plate it's nearly impossible to injure them with a weapon unless you do this

4) it puts the weapons and armor on a very similar scale as the star wars weapons, which is the system i got the rest of the rules from, so it may take care of a few hidden balance issues i'm not considering

5) an average longsword shot should just about kill the average peasant- at 9 average damage + str mod, i think it does that rather nicely

i'm at work now, i'll look at the traveller rules when i get home.

thanks for all the replies, keep them coming!

 

[EarthsShadow]

cool

I like it.

I use VP/WP also in my dnd campaign which I think makes more sense. I don't use crit multipliers, but I do add one more die of damage to all weapons (not double). All crits go straignt to Wound Points, bypass VP. I also changed the Sneak Attack to its variant, which I think works better (and in the long run makes Rogues more viscious). I also let everyone gain +1 WP/level they gain in a class level, not monster level or based on monster hit die.

 

[Wolf72]

My current DM uses the VP/WP thing ... so far so good.

VP=con +1/10hp ... so my dwarf psion has 17 VP (we call 'em hp, but it's the same thing) and 51 WP so now VP = 22.

(note: VP/WP/HP are prob all mixed ... which ever relates to your luck of survival is 51, and the one for core damage is 22)

 

[Bendris Noulg]

I split Armor between Resistance and Absorbtion. Absorbtion applies only to Wounds.

Class Defense when unarmored, equal to Base Reflex.

Crit Range the same, but total result must be 5 or more higher than what was needed to hit. -1 multiple; First Die is Wound, all other Die do Vitality. Each Crit receives a Wound Effect per Mongoose's Call Shot Rules (which makes up for the -1 Multiple rather nicely).

Sneak Attack does 1 point per die to Wounds; Wound Damage subtracted from SA Damage, remainder goes to VP.

Still working on other things, but those parts are definate keepers for me.

Hong:

Thanks for the Traveler tip. Should prove interesting.