Wound Points and Vitality Points

[Limper]

Does anyone else use them in a DnDesque setting? What house rules do you use with them? Or did they work fine out of the box?

As it stands I'm torn between altering the size mods to wp (like making small size a 1/2 con offense... notan issue since I have no small PC races in my game) or addinga size attribute to the game... which might just make a good post all on its own.

 

[robberbaron]

We tried them and didn't like them. They work fine for Star Wars, but just didn't feel right in D&D. Just too different, I guess.

What we do nowadays is have people being able to take more damage and stay alive.
IMC a character dies when he is taken to Minus (CON + Level) hit points. Increases survivability (only one PC has died, so far) and ties in death to character progression, rather than being set at -10.

 

[Plane Sailing]

One of the biggest problems with using them in D&D is that more damage gets thrown around than the case in Star Wars - and if it goes straight to wounds on a crit, there is a lot of dead PCs.

I used it for a while in my campaign (which Robberbaron plays in) and from my point of view the main reason that we ditched it was because it robbed the game of one significant element - the "down and dying, life bleeding away", "do I save my friend or hit the bad guy" moments.

The wound/vitality points never gives you that "lying on the ground bleeding your life away" point, which actually gives a lot of drama and immediacy to melee.

Cheers

 

[Wrathamon]

the amount of damage in a normal D&D game causes havok with VP/W system

I used one but I had to modify it a lot to make it work.

Criticals didnt go straight to wounds for one.

I used the Massive Damage Threshold from D20 Modern with the VP/W

when you failed your fort save you took wound damage.

So criticals went to Vitality and would almost always cause a Fort save for massive damage that would then require a fort save. If that failed the character took wound damage minus the characters MDT rating.

Wounds were equal to the characters Con score. When the character's wounds hit 0 they had to make fort saves per level or die (that was the dying part).

it worked okay... but people died a lot easier, but they also healed up a lot faster.

 

[Raflar]

I used it for a while in my campaign (which Robberbaron plays in) and from my point of view the main reason that we ditched it was because it robbed the game of one significant element - the "down and dying, life bleeding away", "do I save my friend or hit the bad guy" moments.

I have to disagree on this in my campaign at least. One good critical can really hurt a character now. Even if they survive it, they don't want to chance another without healing first. I like W/VP alot more. Granted you heal Vitality much quicker but that saves you from having to play a walking band-aid (Cleric). And the grittiness of Criticals on Wounds can be a lot of fun to role-play.

 

[reanjr]

One of the biggest problems with using them in D&D is that more damage gets thrown around than the case in Star Wars - and if it goes straight to wounds on a crit, there is a lot of dead PCs.

I used it for a while in my campaign (which Robberbaron plays in) and from my point of view the main reason that we ditched it was because it robbed the game of one significant element - the "down and dying, life bleeding away", "do I save my friend or hit the bad guy" moments.

The wound/vitality points never gives you that "lying on the ground bleeding your life away" point, which actually gives a lot of drama and immediacy to melee.

Cheers

Wound is health = Con score. Vitality is stamina = non-con-modded Hit Dice. Vitality rolls over to WP. Crits only 1x on Wound, rest goes to Vitality. Heal 1 WP + Con Mod per night of rest. Heal 1 VP/level per hour of rest. At 0 VP, unconscious (if you have even 1 VP you are conscious even if you have 0 WP). Each round if at 0 VP you have WP left, you may make a Fort save DC 15 to take a WP and turn it into a VP, staying or regaining consciousness. At 0 WP, Fort save DC 10 or dying (when you begin dying you lose all VP). While at 0 WP, every hit causes an additional Fort save DC 10+Damage dealt. Every action causes Fort save DC 15. If you fail, you begin dying. While dying, Fort save DC 15 +1/round spent dying to stabalize and DC 5 +1/round spent dying to avoid death. Healing/Wounding spells (cure/inflict) cause vitality damage for the dice rolled and wound damage for the additional points per level. Toughness adds WP. Improved Toughness adds VP. Undead and Constructs use their VP scores as their WP (Undead add their Charisma to this). Penalties for not being at max WP (injured): 1/2+ = -2; 1/4-1/2 = -4; <1/4 = -6. These penalties apply to any D20 roll and do not apply to Undead and Constructs. There are several other rules to clean up some inconsistencies, but that's the majority of it.

[edit] This system causes people to fall a little easier, but it's MUCH harder to kill them. TPK is generally the only way people died (or dying left behind and killed while unconscious). Clerics become wonderful bonuses rather than required members of the party. Lots of fun and I summarized the majority of the rules in a paragraph from memory (we haven't played with this system for 6 months or so).

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I prefer using standard hit points... with a really nasty MDT. Allows the same worries about one gruesome hit, without relying on criticals, and usually with less of a chance of just flat dying. (Characters go to negative hit points equal to the amount they missed the Fort save by. Fort save scales by damage in excess of MDT, but MDT increases with level.)

You get characters bleeding out, you lose the slow attrition of hit points... and every once in a while, the puny kobold with his puny spear can reach out and ruin your day.