Wound/Vitality in 5E

[Jester David]

I did something on a DMs Guild product:
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/177820/5MWD-Presents-Variant-Rules?sb=1

 

[TheCosmicKid]

But, "I rolled a 20, there was an assassin sneaking up on you, its stealth with expertise beat your passive perception, you're dead" isn't empowering to the players. That's why I think I'd avoid crits going straight to wounds.

If a DM wants to kill off PCs without warning, they don't need to change the hit point system to do it. I don't think the DM should go out of their way to throw highly skilled assassins at the PCs. But it also seems reasonable to me that the party take care to avoid attracting the professional interest of a highly skilled assassin for the same reason that everybody else does. Similarly, the DM shouldn't go out of their way to collapse mountains on the PCs, but the PCs also bear some responsibility not to use high explosives recklessly in abandoned mines.

And now turn it around and imagine that a PC is the assassin. I've seen frustration in some players that, even when they do everything right and catch a bad guy completely unaware, they have basically no chance of dropping the target with a single sneak attack because of the way hit points work.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Save or Die (or suffer a lasting wound) systems could handle that.

Yeah, that's how the assassin worked in 3E. But it seems odd to me that death/debilitation is an effect completely dissociated from the damage. A VP/WP system is much more intuitive: you take damage, the damage wounds you, the wound makes you die.

 

[Xeviat]

If a DM wants to kill off PCs without warning, they don't need to change the hit point system to do it. I don't think the DM should go out of their way to throw highly skilled assassins at the PCs. But it also seems reasonable to me that the party take care to avoid attracting the professional interest of a highly skilled assassin for the same reason that everybody else does. Similarly, the DM shouldn't go out of their way to collapse mountains on the PCs, but the PCs also bear some responsibility not to use high explosives recklessly in abandoned mines.

And now turn it around and imagine that a PC is the assassin. I've seen frustration in some players that, even when they do everything right and catch a bad guy completely unaware, they have basically no chance of dropping the target with a single sneak attack because of the way hit points work.

Well, it depends on who the PC assassin is sneaking up on. If it's a "fair fight" type thing, like 1 member of a 4 v 4 encounter, then an assassin should be reasonably able to take one out. From the new UA articles, here's what would be a "fair fight" for a 1 v 1 for the rogue:

Level: CR
1st: 1/4
2nd: 1/2
3rd: 1/2
4th: 1
5th: 2
6th: 2
7th: 2-3
8th: 3
9th: 3-4
10th: 3-4
11th: 4
12th: 4-5
13th: 5-6
14th: 5-6
15th: 5-7
16th: 5-7
17th: 6-8
18th: 6-8
19th: 7-9
20th: 7-10

A Rogue/Assassin probably has a fair chance of dropping a foe like this in one hit. If they're dropping a Legendary creature in one hit, well, that's anticlimactic.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

A Rogue/Assassin probably has a fair chance of dropping a foe like this in one hit.

You're now talking core rules, not VP/WP rules, right? If so, I have to disagree with this. HD and HP scale faster than sneak attack damage, even when the assassin is doubling the damage with a crit. A CR 2 ogre has 59 HP; a 5th-level assassin with a shortsword averages 28 + Dex damage on an assassination. CR 3 minotaur, 76 HP. 9th-level assassin, 42 + Dex damage. And (like most monsters in the MM) these creatures actually have below the DMG-recommended hit point total for their CR.

If they're dropping a Legendary creature in one hit, well, that's anticlimactic.

Definitely.

 

[Xeviat]

You're now talking core rules, not VP/WP rules, right? If so, I have to disagree with this. HD and HP scale faster than sneak attack damage, even when the assassin is doubling the damage with a crit. A CR 2 ogre has 59 HP; a 5th-level assassin with a shortsword averages 28 + Dex damage on an assassination. CR 3 minotaur, 76 HP. 9th-level assassin, 42 + Dex damage. And (like most monsters in the MM) these creatures actually have below the DMG-recommended hit point total for their CR.

Thanks for checking. I play a lot of lower levels and as more used to CR 1/4ths in large numbers.

Considering that, I likely wouldn't want to suddenly give the Assassin a real death attack until their capstone ability, so I wouldn't want crits to bypass VP. Now, maybe crits will do something to WP. Maybe the extra damage could go to WP, but since all dice are multiplied, we still have a problem with sneak attack and critfishing smites/Superiority dice and what-not.


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[Zargo Games]

If they're dropping a Legendary creature in one hit, well, that's anticlimactic.

I'd imagine that monsters would have more hit points than adventurers, seeing as they're generally meatier.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I've set up a wound/vitality system in earlier editions, and thought I would be porting it to this edition. Instead, I switched to a wound and injury system using the exhaustion track and death save mechanic. The main reason is that my concern wasn't finding ways to kill characters faster. It was to find ways for combat to having lasting consequences (some of the time).

A critical hit causes a wound, or one level of on the exhaustion track. At the start of each of your turns, you make a death save. If you make three successes before three failures, it gets better. There failures first, and it worsens.

An injury, caused by certain things like falling, is more long term. You get one death save per day, instead of per turn.

I also use it for other effects. If you have multiple effects using the track, you suffer the worst effect. Each effect is tracked separately, so you can end one condition, but still be suffering the effects of another.

Of course, you find that once you implement something like this, you need to adjust the rules for healing.

It's worked really, really well, and maintains the abstract nature of D&D very well. You don't have to worry about critical hit tables, etc.

 

[TheLoneRanger1979]

Being able to close wounds with a spell is a longstanding staple of the genre. Nerfing healing magic's effect on WP seems to undermine that.

Closing wounds with spells is not that much of the issue i think. It's not closing them. It becomes a bit of a stretch to imagine a character at 50% "health" fighting at 100%. Even worse, a character at 1 HP. However abstract the HP for a combination of luck, skill, stamina or similar and it makes more sense. At least for parties/settings where this distinction matters.

For a 5e adaptation, you'd probably do well to replace resolve point with HD, and use 5e hp totals as stamina.

5e's death/dying rules could then be replaced by a point sysyem, health or life points or body or something...

Oh, and inspiration could be adapted to restore a little resolve...

Something like this has been on my mid for some time now. I even posted a version of it a couple of days ago in the "rethinking the abilities" thread. What i especially love about it, is that it now neatly binds inspirational, magical and spiritual "healing" under one "umbrella". Because your total DP is a mix of morale, luck, skill, stamina and what not, a bard's song, a paladin's battle cry, a god's divine favor or similar, would all work towards the same goal, delay defeat (knocking a character out of combat) a bit further down the line.

A critical hit causes a wound, or one level of on the exhaustion track.

Seams to work pretty well. I am still to figure out what works better, wounds or health, but either should be "granular" in nature, thus still providing ways to soldier on after some real damage has been sustained. I even went a step further and let damage sustained directly effect how much DP/HP can a character have (wounded characters would have less then maximum even if inspired/healed). The only way to remedy this would be to actually heal he physical damage and restore expended hit dice.