VP/WP systems, and CON increases - hong?

[JoeBlank]

My group is debating a Vitality Point/Wound Point system, mainly because we dislike healing magic and see this as a way to make it much more rare.

Alternatives to hit points and other combat systems are being debated here: http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38946&perpage=40&pagenumber=2

I started this thread to get advice on VP/WP, and mentioned hong in the title because his system seems pretty good to me:
http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/vpwp_dnd.htm

My main question is how do CON increases (buff spells and items, rage, etc.) handled? If WP = CON (or something like that in hong's system), then can my raging barbarian take even more WP before he starts dying?

Otherwise, I would love to hear opinions on VP/WP systems. My version, based on hong's primarily but keeping the term WP, has been proposed to my group as follows:

a - As long as a character is at positive hit points, he heals 1
HP/level/hour of rest. (Just like #2, above)

b - Use CON score as a form of wound points (WP).

c - There are no negative HP, once you run out of HP you take WP. When you have 0 HP you are staggered, can only take partial actions. (you are still on your feet, but moving slowly)

d - A character with 0 WP to –9 WP is unconscious and dying. A dying creature loses one WP each round unless stabilised. See the usual rules in the PHB for dying creatures.

e - A character with –10 WP is dead.

f - If a character's HP total is 0 or lower, their WP are regained
at the rate of 1 point per day. Can be increased to 2/day using Heal skill. Once a character's WP reach maximum (CON), they regain regular hit points at the faster rate mentioned above in section a.

Personally, here is why I like each sub-part:

a - fixes our magic healing problem. We can start making magic
healing increasingly rare, and our charactes will still be able to
adventure and just rest between tough encounters when the situation allows it.

b - I like using CON as 'wound points' or whatever you want to call them, some people should be just a little tougher. We could throw in the proposal of the Toughness feat adding to WP too, so taking Toughness adds 3 HP and 3 WP.

c - This simulates someone who is hurt but can still act, and I like
that, rather than the "Hey look at me, I have 1 HP and am just as
healthy as when I had 50 HP, but oh no, now I stubbed my toe and am dying, can not act at all" situation. Puts a level of injury between fighting and dying. Note definition - Partial Action: As a general rule, a combatant can do as much with a partial action as a combatant could with a standard action minus a move. So you can still attack, but can't attack and move. Or you could move, but not attack.

d - Once you get past the CON=wound points situation, things go back to normal, just like being at negative HP under the normal rules.

e - Again, just like normal rules.

f - Like this slower healing rate for being at 0 HP and having WP
damage, it balances with the faster rate for when you are at
positive HP. Still debatable, as it will slow down the game if we
make healing magic go away completely, but I don't think we will do that. So now, for example, we have a good reason to hang on to his rare CLW spells or potions. If anyone in the group loses all thier HP and takes WP damage, that person will be out of it for days without magic healing.


Thanks for any advice and/or comments

 

[Ascending Crane]

I wish my players would allow some type of a wound/vitality point system. I'm afraid to muck with anything lest it shatter, like a too fragile piece of stained glass. But I digress.

Your system seems fine, but two points.

* Critical Hits - Directly to wound points, as expected? I didn't see a mention of it...

* What about a gradiation on wound damage. When you start taking wound damage you're fatigued (-2 to Str and Dex, can't run or charge), and then when you are at 1/2 Wound points remaining *then* you can only take partial actions.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Weapons in D&D and SW are balanced differently because of the differences between HP and W&V.

My own method for handling the difference is that the first roll for damage on a Critical applies to Wounds and the other rolls apply to Vitality/HP. When applying Sneak Attack (because it scales higher in D&D than it does in SW), it adds only +1 point per die to Wounds (but full to the Vitality component).

Again, though, this is my take. Combat isn't so common in my games, with higher focus on RP and finding non-lethal solutions and/or seeking tactical advantage over toe-to-toe slug fests.

 

[hong]

Muahaha! Soon, I and my army of sockpuppets will TAKE OVAR TEH WORLD!!! Or at least this messageboard.

Anyway, yes, under my system Con buffs would have the effect of giving you more "wound points". Basically a frothing berserker won't notice as much that they're about to die.

One change I've been thinking about is to increase the "tap out" buffer at the bottom end, which will probably have more of an impact on survivability than just giving people more points. Consider what often happens in combat: a monster will attack you until you go down, and then switch its attentions to the next target. Now typically, you only go down when you reach -1 points or lower. You then bleed each round until -10, which means you have an effective 10-point buffer (at most) between when the monsters leave you alone, and when you actually die.

Now, 10 points isn't that much even at mid-levels. It's quite common to be fighting things that can dish out 15 or 30 points in one hit, which means it's easy to go from alive to dead instantaneously. Therefore, what might be a good idea is to increase the size of that 10-point buffer, so that even if you take one blow for tremendous damage, you still have a chance of hanging on.

Haven't decided exactly how I'm going to achieve this, though.

 

[JoeBlank]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Ascending Crane: No, crits would not go directly to WP. This is the way hong does it, and I like it. The idea is to make healing magic very rare, but still have a way for PCs to recover from fights in a timely manner. Having crits go to WP would mean you take WP more often, which we don't want.

hong: Thanks, I thought CON increases would have that effect, but wanted to be sure. I like your idea about increasing the buffer. Perhaps have death come at -CON rather than -10. That would be a small buffer increase, but one that your front-line fighter types could and probably would increase as they got to higher levels.

 

[JoeBlank]

And the news is that my group is resisting the change. Some felt it was too complicated, others just thought it was too much of a change. Note that I am not the DM, but one of many (we broke up our campaign world, each took an area, and we rotate DM duties in a shared world). So we need consensus on house rules. The proposed compromise, cut & pasted from our site, is:

STABLE: + hit points, heal at a higher rate (1/level/hour), just rest between encounters like a hero.

UNSTABLE: -1 HP to -(1/2CON) HP, rounded in character's favor. You can only take partial actions, lose HP at 1/round, until you make a successful heal check or are magically healed, heal at 1 HP per day.

UNCONSCIOUS: -(1/2CON-1) HP. Dying and vulnerable. Can be healed by others, still losing 1 HP/round until healed somehow.

DEAD: HP at -(CON)


I think this proposal has a better chance of acceptance because it does not use new terminology (WP/VP).

Other comments and suggestions?

 

[hong]

I think even -Con is a bit small. What I was thinking was something like -(10 + levels), so at 1st level you die at -11, and at 20th level, you die at -30.

Also, note that using VP/WP doesn't completely remove the need for healing. Things like poison, energy drain and whatnot will still need a medic around to fix up, so if you don't have a medic, you might have to tweak the encounters a bit (not so many monstrous spiders or wights, for example). What I've found is that the main benefit is in letting the group keep going for longer without having to stop and rest, which is good for pacing.

 

[hong]

STABLE: + hit points, heal at a higher rate (1/level/hour), just rest between encounters like a hero.

UNSTABLE: -1 HP to -(1/2CON) HP, rounded in character's favor. You can only take partial actions, lose HP at 1/round, until you make a successful heal check or are magically healed, heal at 1 HP per day.

UNCONSCIOUS: -(1/2CON-1) HP. Dying and vulnerable. Can be healed by others, still losing 1 HP/round until healed somehow.

DEAD: HP at -(CON)


I think this proposal has a better chance of acceptance because it does not use new terminology (WP/VP).

Other comments and suggestions?

If terminology is a problem, just think of it as extending the 0-hit-point spot into a range.

Main consequences of your changes that I can think of:
- pacing won't be as much of a problem if people heal hourly instead of daily, as mentioned above
- things might actually become slightly deadlier, because you've compressed the "tap out" buffer by roughly half. Before, you could count on monsters to leave you alone when you got to -1 hp. Now they'll keep hitting you until you go to -(Con/2).

 

[darkbard]

sean reynolds proposes a dying progression from -1 to -10 [-constitution score]. i.e. a character with a 14 constitution would be "dying" from -1 but not die until -24 hp [which is just over two minutes of bleeding out your life's blood if you think about it]. i think this system works and is realistic. a 30 hp blow of damage when you're hovering in the single digits will still kill you pretty fast, but in most circumstances you've got more time to stabilize or receive healing.

 

[JoeBlank]

- things might actually become slightly deadlier, because you've compressed the "tap out" buffer by roughly half. Before, you could count on monsters to leave you alone when you got to -1 hp. Now they'll keep hitting you until you go to -(Con/2).

Good point, thanks. I think we can deal with this effect. Won't be too big a problem when facing intelligent opponents, as they are more likely to turn their attention to someone who is not bleeding/dying (unless they have reason to want a particular PC dead).

In fact, we usually play animal intelligence opponents as having a better chance to attack whoever is attacking them. So as long as the PCs are smart (which is not always the case), they will withdraw from combat once they are at negative HP, as long as there is a way out.