VP/WP Recovery Question

[jaerdaph]

I'm not a Star Wars fan (can never get enough Star Trek though), so the VP/WP system found in Polyhedron's Shadow Chasers mini campaign is new to me. I was wondering how vitality and wound points are recovered?

There are some hints in the Shadow Chasers version of the Heal skill (can't remember the name right now): 1 VP and 1 WP a day in what I assume is natural healing. But are there any "tricks" to how it works? Do wound points come back first, then vitality? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Joe Bardales

 

[Rollo Le Brun]

If memory serves it's 1 VP per LEVEL per hour. WPs are recovered through treat injury, a skill, and are augmented by surgery, a feat. Then magic healing from prestige classes. It's tougher to get back the WPs because VPs represent your character dodging the bullet. Fatuige is involved in it some how too but I mis remember it. Reread it it's worth the effort. I plan on using VP/WP in a new campaign. Read up on Defense instead of AC too very interesting stuff.

 

[Ranger REG]

Character heals 1 VP per character level per hour. He heals 1 WP per day. You can heal WP faster on a successful Treat Injury check, without or without Surgery feat.

He no longer suffers a fatigued condition (usually when he takes damage to WP ... NOT when his VP is reduced to 0) after an 8-hour bedrest, even though his WP is not at full strength.

Also, if he takes damage to WP, he must make a Fortitude saving throw vs DC 5 + number of wound lost. If he fails, he falls unconscious (passes out from the pain).

 

[jaerdaph]

Thanks guys for the info

Defense vs. AC: Yeah, I like Defense as an alternative to AC, with armor providing damage reduction. At the very least, using Defense instead of AC would make that sexist string bikini chain mail found in fantasy art more realistic.

 

[JerryLove]

The balance problem there is when DR of partial armor removes completely the ability of a weapon to do damage.

Functionally, a person with a knife could not inflict damage against a person in DR 6 armor, even with a critical hit.

From a realistic standpoint (in terms of balance), how much armor would you have to wear to be immune to a knife? I can't think of anything shy of a Jim Diving suit that provides complete coverage against a knife.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Unless you rule that critical hits ignore armour, of course

 

[Palax Seyr]

Critical hits already automatically bypass vitality points (!) which makes those hits potentially very lethal; this is particularly noticeable at high levels. Having them ignore armor as well might be lending too much power to the random element of the game (and hence giving a lot of power to NPCs; remember that random elements of the game are in favor against player characters).

IIRC, archaic armor has a DR equal to half its AC bonus rounded down (e.g. full plate would have a DR of 4/- against wound damage). Keeping that scale in mind might help balance things out.

Another important point is how much damage modern weapons can produce; if a burst from a high-calibre submachine gun causes, on average, something like 14 points of damage on a successful hit, then that armor isn't going to look so overpowered.

 

[Jack Haggerty]

In the revised rules I believe that the plan is to have the Armor's DR only come into affect when characters take Wound Damage.

The reason is that Vitality damage is supposed to represent your character being lucky enough or quick enough to turn the hit into a near-miss. The attack never actually hits you, so armor shouldn't come into play.

Armor is what's there to turn a wounding attack into a harmless attack, or a lethal blow into a survivable wound.

Think about bulletproof vests... A bullet that would normally pierce a hart or lung and kill the target (a critical hit), instead drops the fellow on his back, knocks the wind out of him and gives him a horrendous bruise.