D&D 5E Wounds - when would you give them?

[MatthewJHanson]

My house rule is that when a character drops to 0, they make a Con save with a DC equal to half the damage from the hit that dropped them, and if they fail they roll on the lingering injury table.

In the first adventure of the campaign, the breath weapon from a red dragon dropped 4 out of 6 characters, and two of those lost their feet.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Consistency is what makes a setting believable. Without it, you're lost.

Where to me consistency and believability go a long way toward making the game functional and playable at all.

I did say they were important. However, consistency is not synonymous with believability.

Imagine if you will a hypothetical game where characters have 100 HP. Falling causes 1 damage per 10 feet, so any character at full HP can walk away from a 990 foot fall with 1 HP. Is it consistent? Absolutely. Believable? Hardly!

In the end, the game part is very important, IMO. If you put consistency and believability uber alles, then you're better off playing without rules. No ruleset is going to model reality to 100% believability. Heck, the dice are there to create inconsistency and will certainly introduce unbelievable events from time to time (the character who rolls a Nat 20 and pulls off a 1-in-a-million stunt). If you really want consistent and believable, then just have whatever makes the most sense to you happen, no rules or dice needed.

For you, perhaps. Not for everyone, regardless of what the marketing blurbs might say; and one of the true beauties of the D&D system is that it can and does handle lots of other styles quite well.

It does, but I was referring to RAW. 20th level characters can challenge gods and beat up giants for their lunch money. Even by 3rd level they're routinely taking on massive creatures that should be able to smear them into paste with relative ease (ogres). That's heroic fantasy, or at least a close relative thereof.

Certainly you can fiddle with the settings, such as capping levels, or simply not playing high levels, to modify the default. 5e makes that very easy.

I agree, and it doesn't make for a functional game if every level 1 character sustains a crippling injury from every attack. Scaling thresholds don't work, because low-level characters have too few HP compared to the damage of low-level enemies. If you set the threshold at half of maximum, then low-level characters may suffer multiple lasting injuries per day, while high-level characters never have to worry about it. There is no fraction which is reasonable for both groups.

I never said anything about a percentage. I said that if you use a threshold then it should scale with level.

A low level character should have a chance to suffer an injury, even if it's only on a crit. A high level character should not suffer the risk of injury from an average hit. Doing otherwise isn't believable.

There's a table in the DMG that indicates monster damage relative CR. The way I would do it is to base the threshold on the high end (maybe even 150%) of potential damage from a creature of CR equal to the PC level.

This way, there's a risk of it for any character, and 20th level characters don't have to save against taking injuries every time they get hit.

Personally, I wouldn't (and don't) use a threshold at all. I don't think it's a great fit for a game with HP scaling like 5e uses. You still end up with the issue of a high level hero whose arm can't be broken by a guy with a club, but at least that's reasonably in genre for a game where a high level fighter can take on a dozen low CR mooks and win without breaking a sweat (much less his arm).

 

[jgsugden]

Where I'm leaning now:

When you drop below 0 hp or take damage when at 0 hp, there will be a chance you are injured. You'll make a Con DC25 con save. If you make it, you are awake and concious with 1 hp and no injury. If you fail by up to 5, you'll be concious, but there will be a 50% chance you're injured. If you fail by 6 or more you'll be unconcious and there will be a 50% chance you're injured. When you repeat this save before a long rest, the DC rises by 5.

These rules give us a few things - an attack waking up a downed foe being one of them.

Additionally, when you have a chance to do a coup de grace, you can forego the bonus damage to select an injury location and attempt to injure the target rather than follow the normal cdg rules.

When you're injured, you'll genrally roll a location for the injury (unless it is part of a cdg) and then roll a save. If you make it, the injury will be minor. If you fail, it will be major. If you fail by a lot, it will be dire.

Rolled locations will be similar to the DMG locations table for lingering wounds, but the DCs and ramifications will be a bit more complex.

Thoughts on this rough idea?

 

[Garthanos]

I think I may make up something like wound cards.
You hand them to the player when the character is wounded (however that happens).
They can have effects on them like (Trying to cast this as 5e wish me luck)
If you roll a 1 to 4 on your first attack roll any turn during combat or if you use a dash action, make a con or wis save if you fail temporarily lose 15 feet of movement til you subsequently succeed in throwing off the impairment (you may make a save each round till you succeed).

Removing wounds is a non-combat activity of some sort. (in 4e a ritual or martial practice) and you can similarly suppress the wound for longer periods with different practices and rituals.

 

[Li Shenron]

The DMG suggests lingering injuries could occur when a creature takes a critical hit, when it drops to 0 hp but isn't killed outright, or when it fails a death saving throw by 5 or more.

The DMG suggests lingering injuries could occur when a creature takes a critical hit, when it drops to 0 hp but isn't killed outright, or when it fails a death saving throw by 5 or more.

Indeed that's the official suggestion.

However I do not think it's very well thought. Because all of them happen too often. They are ok for a one-shot game because there are less rolls but also players won't care too much because... it's a one shot game! Thus 'lingering' means until the end of the evening.

On a typical game I think it's fair to expect a PC being targeted by e.g. 10 attacks per adventuring day. That means 1 wound every 2 adventuring day. It's quite a lot, so then the DM may be tempted to make it lasts too short or be too easy to remove.

IMO it might be already better to either only have a chance of lingering would on a critical, or to trigger a wound more rarely when a PC is for example dropped to 0hp. I prefer this last option because the first one is entirely random while the second depends on how close to 0hp you take your risk to be.

 

[iserith]

Indeed that's the official suggestion.

However I do not think it's very well thought. Because all of them happen too often. They are ok for a one-shot game because there are less rolls but also players won't care too much because... it's a one shot game! Thus 'lingering' means until the end of the evening.

On a typical game I think it's fair to expect a PC being targeted by e.g. 10 attacks per adventuring day. That means 1 wound every 2 adventuring day. It's quite a lot, so then the DM may be tempted to make it lasts too short or be too easy to remove.

IMO it might be already better to either only have a chance of lingering would on a critical, or to trigger a wound more rarely when a PC is for example dropped to 0hp. I prefer this last option because the first one is entirely random while the second depends on how close to 0hp you take your risk to be.

Yeah, I mean it really just depends on the game. I can see a place for the level of butchery of having all three triggers suggested by the DMG in play. But it wouldn't work in every game in my view.

 

[5ekyu]

Indeed that's the official suggestion.

However I do not think it's very well thought. Because all of them happen too often. They are ok for a one-shot game because there are less rolls but also players won't care too much because... it's a one shot game! Thus 'lingering' means until the end of the evening.

On a typical game I think it's fair to expect a PC being targeted by e.g. 10 attacks per adventuring day. That means 1 wound every 2 adventuring day. It's quite a lot, so then the DM may be tempted to make it lasts too short or be too easy to remove.

IMO it might be already better to either only have a chance of lingering would on a critical, or to trigger a wound more rarely when a PC is for example dropped to 0hp. I prefer this last option because the first one is entirely random while the second depends on how close to 0hp you take your risk to be.

To me the issue with the DMG and many other options is the focus on random applications.

Did you roll a natural result? Did your die roll fail by 5? Did you drop to zero?

I would want in a game lingering effects to have dome element of "causality" that established the risk as more than just dice. To me they should be arrived at by a combination of factors where the "higher risk" was established not by flukey roll but by in-game aspects. To me it's not unlike on a basic level how a journey into a fetid swamp might expose you to diseases on many wounds - especially if left uncured.

This let's that threat effectively be built up, an escalating danger, not some sudden bouncey whammy. It also might allow them to be countered and dealt with through costly expense.

So, for instance, it could be that an environment creates a growing risk of lingering effects. It could be that "helpless" represented as paralyzed or unconscious opens the door for a maiming effect.

That said, whatever keys to these added effects one chooses, a lot of things in the gsme might need to be reassessed. If paralysis opens the door to maiming, does that move hold person, sleep and other effects be raised in level?

 

[Garthanos]

That's what the hobgoblin keeps telling me.

That which fails to serve should be abandoned but hobgoblins are loyal buggers.

 

[Garthanos]

Indeed that's the official suggestion.

However I do not think it's very well thought. Because all of them happen too often.

This was why I suggested a self selecting method where the wound isnt a punishment... but rather mostly an annoyance you may choose.