Wound-Vitality systems and death risk

[delericho]

I'd just like to point out that the rule originated in 2nd edition. An 8th level fighter would need to roll a 10 or higher to avoid death.

It was one of the legacy rules in 3e that wasn't properly updated to the new system.

Indeed. In highlighting the weakness in the 3e rules, I wasn't clear that the rule also existed in the previous edition.

Incidentally, both Call of Cthulhu d20 and d20 Modern used the same rule with the thresholds adjusted. One of these had a flat threshold of 10 (CoC, I think), while the other had the threshold set to the character's Con score (d20 Modern, IIRC).

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

In the one and only session* of that game that I ran, what should have been the climactic encounter of the adventure was rendered a major anti-climax when the PC Jedi won initiative, charged, scored a critical hit, and killed his opponent outright. (My players are making a habit of this - three times now they've one-shotted what was intended to be a significant opponent, in SW d20, D&D 3.5e and now WFRP.)

We had two similar experience in the original SW D20 game, but neither were anti-climactic in the least.

The first was when our Jedi squared off against a Dark Jedi in a one-on-one duel. Round one, our Jedi scored a critical, cut off the dark Jedi's arm, made a witty one-liner, and we all escaped. The GM intervention of maiming with a classic Star Wars trope (instead of killing the dark Jedi) made the encounter all the more memorable.

The other was when a scoundrel tossed two thermal detonators at a Hutt crime lord (and major boss of the story) during round one. Both were critical hits and Hutt was killed out right. Had the GM fudged the double crits, we wouldn't have had the night that Joe won Star Wars.

The dice produce funny results. In my experience, it's best to run with these quirky results instead of forcing GM will on the issue. Because the GM did not intervene to make a battle "more epic," our group was left with two classic role-playing moments we remember to this day.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Besides the ease of death from certain damage sources and the disabling effect of wounds, the other major effect of vp/wp is that it makes healing more difficult. This is another area where the rules presented in UA need to be massaged, but I'm very happy with how it's affected my game.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

This, exactly.

In the original version (Star Wars d20), critical hits went directly to WP. Combined with blasters doing 3d6 to 3d10 damage, and especially with Jedi getting lots of extra dice of damage with lightsabers, this made critical hits absurdly lethal.

Now, the thing is that that doesn't actually matter - I can always get another NPC. But if it happens to a PC, then it's a major problem.

Following to 0 wound points doesn't mean the character has to die, anything from falling unconscious to maiming fits nicely. In Star Wars, the loss of a limb or some other grievous bodily harm can be repaired via technology and fits nicely into the game world.

The important thing is to manage player expectation. If the GM encouraged detailed backstories, killing off characters left and right will probably make for unhappy players. The player will feel robbed of a chance to resolve the issues they put forth into the game world with their character. Better to maim / knock out in this case.

 

[Dausuul]

<Moving my reply from the original thread...>

Yes. It's hard to have a system where there is meaningful risk and 0 chance of death. But typically WP/VP systems tend to generate fairly high risks of death in a wide variaty of situations.

Well, that depends on how it's implemented, doesn't it? Nothing in the core concept of WP/VP says you have to include things like "crits go straight to wound points." Just decide what hazards you want to pose a non-level-adjusted risk of arbitrary death, and what hazards you want PCs to have a level-based ablative shield against. The former go straight to wound points, the latter have to go through vitality.

Personally, I'm a fan of the WP/VP approach for another reason: It performs the same function as 4E's healing surges--most of your resources replenish after a fight, but attrition over multiple encounters remains a concern--but in a way that maps directly to game-world concepts. WPs represent a character's physical integrity, VPs represent her ability to defend herself. (Although I prefer to call them "life points" and "defense points" respectively, which I feel does a better job of explaining what they do.)

In general, I strongly favor having mechanical elements correspond closely with specific game-world elements. It eases the burden of narrating events and encourages immersion. There is of course a tension with the competing goal of having compact, efficient mechanical systems, but in this case I don't think WP/VP is significantly less compact or efficient than hit points/healing surges.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I introduced vitality and wounds to my 1e game very successfully back in about 1983

Everyone had hit points as normal, but they also had wound points equal to 10 + Con bonus.

Small and less creatures had 1 wound point. Large and bigger creatures had all their hp as wounds instead of as hp.

Damage when to hp, and then wounds once hp were exhausted. hp could be recovered at a rate equal to your level per 10min rest. Wounds needed magical healing or days to recover.

A critical hit (20 plus a confirming roll) did damage straight to wounds. A fumbled save (1 plus a second roll that also fails) also did damage straight to wounds. This meant that everyone showed appropriate amounts of caution when faced with a dozen or so crossbowmen.

Worked very well for us.

Never had a problem with the orginal starwars vitality/wounds since you didn't die at 0 wounds. the revised edition ended up with more fatalities since they moved to a more 3e-ish dying rule IIRC.

Cheers

 

[Dykstrav]

I've actually been using vitality/wound points in my Pathfinder games and it's worked very well for us.

The single biggest advantage that I've seen has actually been narrative. Players seem a bit more accepting of how different things could hinder their character when I recast damage to represent a character's growing fatigue. I can also use vitality damage to represent why performing certain actions is not necessarily a good idea--like having a hangover from a long night of drinking or carrying too much gear.

The only real disadvantage that I've seen is that it sometimes encourages players to bite off more than they can chew. They actually took on a nabassu demon that I had intended to be a major recurring villain at third level--despite the fact that they lacked cold iron or good-aligned weapons. The reasoning was entirely metagame: they reasoned that since crits bypassed DR and that two or three crits could drop it (they didn't realize that it had 22 WP), they had a great chance of defeating it if they just stayed alive long enough and made enough attack rolls.

 

[Dausuul]

The only real disadvantage that I've seen is that it sometimes encourages players to bite off more than they can chew. They actually took on a nabassu demon that I had intended to be a major recurring villain at third level--despite the fact that they lacked cold iron or good-aligned weapons. The reasoning was entirely metagame: they reasoned that since crits bypassed DR and that two or three crits could drop it (they didn't realize that it had 22 WP), they had a great chance of defeating it if they just stayed alive long enough and made enough attack rolls.

Well, to be fair, that's not an unreasonable idea in-game. If you know that demons are usually near-immune to weapons that are not cold iron or good-aligned, but it is possible to drop one with an ordinary weapon if you score a hit in just the right place, then "let's tackle this demon and try to stay alive long enough for one of us to hit its weak spot" is a valid (if risky) approach.

Of course, like I said, it is risky, and one of the risks is that the demon's weak spot might not be as weak as you thought... as, in this case, it wasn't.

 

[LostSoul]

In my old 2e (converted to 3e) game I used something like VP/WP. It was driven by the fact that I didn't want Clerics in the game, so I needed some other way to heal PCs.

The rule was that you'd heal your VP at a rate of level per hour unless you had some WP damage; WP damage came back like normal. WP were set at Con, and only after your total HP gained from levels exceeded that would you get VP. Crits did at least one WP damage - if you had 33/16 and took 6 from a crit, 5 would go to VP and 1 to WP.

 

[Lanefan]

I introduced vitality and wounds to my 1e game very successfully back in about 1983

Everyone had hit points as normal, but they also had wound points equal to 10 + Con bonus.

Small and less creatures had 1 wound point. Large and bigger creatures had all their hp as wounds instead of as hp.

Similar to us, though you give out more WP. (would make a big difference at very low level, that's for sure!)

Damage when to hp, and then wounds once hp were exhausted. hp could be recovered at a rate equal to your level per 10min rest. Wounds needed magical healing or days to recover.

Again similar, though you're more generous on your VP resting than we are. We also have cures work differently when curing BP (WP) than FP (VP): BP cures always give back less points. For example, yer basic normal Cleric usually rolls a d8 for a Cure Light Wounds; but if curing BP she'd roll 2d3 instead.

Oh, and we have the death point at -10; all points below 0 are always treated as BP.

A critical hit (20 plus a confirming roll) did damage straight to wounds. A fumbled save (1 plus a second roll that also fails) also did damage straight to wounds. This meant that everyone showed appropriate amounts of caution when faced with a dozen or so crossbowmen.

We somewhat intentionally stayed away from this, to cut the lethality a bit.

That said, you have a valid point about the bowmen. I'll have to give that some thought. And the fumble-on-a-save is a good one, though it opens up a messy can of worms regarding crits and fumbles elsewhere.

Lan-"another hit-point laden body dives into the fray"-efan