Wounds/Vitality too Deadly?

[kitsune9]

I made wound damage go down into negatives like regular D&D hit points, so characters are easy to drop but harder to actually kill. The system also requires a number of other interpretations (healing magic, crits, polymorph, etc.). That said, I don't think it's too deadly and I like the flavor a lot better than the conventional system (i.e. not too deadly IMO).

Cool, this works too.

 

[Kalthanis]

Well I'd like to answer the concern that it is entirely too deadly. I agree that it is too deadly the way it worked in Star Wars because the weapons did a lot of damage. I was thinking that a 'crit' would be normal weapon damage against Wound Points without the maxing part, but I was starting to lean towards a condition effect for it instead. I did like the suggestion of a crit applying a Dazed or Stunned effect.

But as far as making things rough and by chance, that's kind of what I want. I don't want players to be able to say, "Well, we're level 7 and that's a level 5 challenge so we should be able to get through it without Dailies." I don't want good thinking or clever planning to EVER completely overcome the danger of combat if combat is decided upon. Greatly reduce? Perfect. But never overcome. I never want the characters to flippantly decide things in a fight, or to ever think that they are so superhuman that "It doesn't matter, I have 70 hit points and the most he can do is 20 even if he hits me." I don't want combat to be simply a matter of numbers and a calculated risk, I want the threat of the single shot taking down the tough warrior.

The whole point of a grittier system is to put the fear of combat back into the players, which puts it into the characters. I want them to think that combat can and does have repurcussions, that way they think of solutions that expand beyond their physical weapons. The archer who takes his shot next to a marked melee guy and incurs an Opportunity Attack simply so the Fighter can get in his free swing thinking, "Well, the enemy's attack will only do 12 hit points" is what I'm looking to avoid.

But I'm also not looking for TPKs, which is what would happen if I just sent them up against stronger enemies. I'm looking for that small off-chance flavor that makes combat something to truly think about. Maybe I could go for a SuperCrit kind of thing. If you crit, roll another attack roll and if you crit on that, then something miraculous happens. Target dropped to 0 hit points or something.

I know, the easiest solution is probably "Don't run it in 4th".

 

[Achan hiArusa]

I use the standard crit system. You only take wound damage if you take more than Level + Constitution in damage and I give a +3 bonus to this value to anyone with a good Fort Save. Anything above that is wound damage. So if you are 10th level and you have a 16 Con, you take 26 points of damage before it comes out of your wounds (you will have 16 WP). So if you take 30 hit points of damage, 26 come out of your VPs and 4 come of your WPs. If you want to use armor as WP resistance like in Star Wars, just add your AC to this threshold value, but only if its an armor bonus (deflection, shield, dodge, natural armor, and other bonuses do not count). So if that character were wearing chain mail he would have to take 29 points of damage before suffering wound damage.

A friend of mine pointed out that its about like the 50 hp damage threshold in D&D at sufficiently high enough level.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Hello Everyone,

I'm in the process of developing a ruleset where the core of it is a Hit Point/Combat Point System (read Wound/Vitality). I've developed the basic engine which revolves around Damage Reduction but with an elegant twist. I thought it important to separate out the probability of hitting a target and the probability of damaging a target rather than blending the two together - the problem you're finding with critical hits and the race to roll a 20. Scoring criticals is based on hitting a particular AC, thus allowing reactive opportunities to increase this AC (and thus negate a critical). The better the character, the more ways they have of avoiding a critical - and also scoring one.

Anyway, when I have an alpha ready of my rules, I'll post it up here on EN World first. Suffice to say, I think I have a number of the solutions to problems with the vitality/wound point system. It makes combat deadly but in a good way (in my opinion). For example, if a character has 4 loaded crossbows pointed at them, their response is NOT going to be "I charge the closest enemy".

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[kitsune9]

Hello Everyone,

I'm in the process of developing a ruleset where the core of it is a Hit Point/Combat Point System (read Wound/Vitality). I've developed the basic engine which revolves around Damage Reduction but with an elegant twist. I thought it important to separate out the probability of hitting a target and the probability of damaging a target rather than blending the two together - the problem you're finding with critical hits and the race to roll a 20. Scoring criticals is based on hitting a particular AC, thus allowing reactive opportunities to increase this AC (and thus negate a critical). The better the character, the more ways they have of avoiding a critical - and also scoring one.

Anyway, when I have an alpha ready of my rules, I'll post it up here on EN World first. Suffice to say, I think I have a number of the solutions to problems with the vitality/wound point system. It makes combat deadly but in a good way (in my opinion). For example, if a character has 4 loaded crossbows pointed at them, their response is NOT going to be "I charge the closest enemy".

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

Cool Herremann. When you get a draft ready, post it. I would like to read it.

 

[LordPsychodin]

just so you know, the idea of "putting the fear of combat back" is either there, or not. it doesn't matter a damn thing if the rules support it, only if the players have their characters act within that. I've played both 3.5 D&D as quite a many wizard and a cleric, and several characters in shadowrun. And if you think my attitude of the way the character goes varies is based on the grittiness of the combat, not one bit. That's mostly because I play smarter, but if need to, I don't worry. Its not hard to make a new character, and that's exactly my same attitude in D&D. in D&D, I like being a badass, in the scope of D&D itself, not according to the world of the DM, etc. If I die, I need to work a little bit harder, next time. (not necessarily avoid combat, just be smarter about it. best way to win combat, make even natural 1's irrelevant.)

 

[Aus_Snow]

just so you know, the idea of "putting the fear of combat back" is either there, or not. it doesn't matter a damn thing if the rules support it, only if the players have their characters act within that.

Nope. Rules really do matter.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

just so you know, the idea of "putting the fear of combat back" is either there, or not. it doesn't matter a damn thing if the rules support it, only if the players have their characters act within that.

I disagree with this in that even though there is roleplay involved, the rules dictate the limit of what can be achieved - and this is something the players will have their characters react to and base their actions upon. If a character can survive a charging horde of orcs without risk of being killed ruleswise, why would they retreat and what fear does this present? [Even though roleplaying wise, this fear would/should be a likely reaction]. Most players react as much to the rules as the roleplaying situation. If they know that by the rules, their character is going to be severely challenged, it will re-inforce the roleplaying of fear. Without this rules-based reminder, the player will most certainly not feel and perhaps question the fear their character is supposed to be displaying.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise