WP/VP more dangerous or less?

[feydras]

Thanks E-B that is exactly what i was looking for. You brought up a couple issues i hadn't considered and highlighted some i had.

my comments:
1. I am leery of the overdependence on Con, Fort saves, and the feats Great Fort and Toughness. Your suggestion is interesting, i'll have to consider it.
2. This will be somewhat less of an issue IMC as i am running in the Iron Kingdoms and it is low magic, particularly how i run it. Noone will be running around with a +3 flaming greatsword and Girdle of Giant Strength so the damages should be a bit more reasonable.
3. I agree completely. 4 rounds is too long to be knocked out. 1 seems perfect. Good suggestion.
4. The fatigue is probably my favorite thing about this system. I will keep it as written. The only thing i see with fatigue is the bookkeeping hassle.
5. My gut reaction when i first read the rules was the same as yours. However, i got to thinking about the large battle scenes in the LOTR and decided to keep it as written. I like that warrior enemies can be highly skilled and dangerous but still taken out by a couple blows by the heros. I don't see the heros taking multiple foes lightly ever with this system as any foe could crit you and cause serious trouble. Suddenly the town millitia or local orc tribe is a threat.
6. Hadn't thought of these. They sound like good changes.

Your discussion of the differences between various weapon damages is interesting. I hadn't considered this much. I suppose i'll have to deal with a bunch of scimitar and falchion wielders. Well, it will be a change from all the min-maxers choosing greatswords at least. What do you think about just eliminating the scimitar and falchion as crits are so valuable in this system? Or making them just sytlistic (rule identical) versions of the longsword and greatsword.

Thanks again for your indepth critique.

- Feydras

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I've found that what's really murderous about VP/WP(beyond the obvious stuff) is the fatigue that occurs once you take WP damage. Its a minor thing when you think about it, but those ability penalties really hurt the character at a dangerous time.

I enjoy VP/WP much more than the HP system. I've seen that it makes players much more nervous and careful in fights. One good shot and you're down, as opposed to one good shot and OW that was a lot of damage. Of course, I'm too lazy to change my D&D games to VP/WP.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Thanks E-B that is exactly what i was looking for. You brought up a couple issues i hadn't considered and highlighted some i had.

my comments:
1. I am leery of the overdependence on Con, Fort saves, and the feats Great Fort and Toughness. Your suggestion is interesting, i'll have to consider it.
2. This will be somewhat less of an issue IMC as i am running in the Iron Kingdoms and it is low magic, particularly how i run it. Noone will be running around with a +3 flaming greatsword and Girdle of Giant Strength so the damages should be a bit more reasonable.

Low magic or high magic doesn't make a difference in this regard. A bog standard 4th level half-orc barbarian (starting strength 18) with a masterwork falchion, weapon focus, and power attack does: 2d4+9 points of damage on a hit without power attacking. If he power attacks for 4 points, that's 2d4+17 and he still has an attack bonus of +8. If he charges, that's +10 to hit. With a bless or bardsong, that's +11. Make him the only slightly more min-maxed Bbn 1/Ftr 4 and he's now doing 2d4+11 points of damage without power attacking and power attacks for 2d4+19.

That doesn't involve any magic at all. Wound points/vitality points as written means that after first or second level, characters go down on the first crit. Period. It also means that they will regularly take out even larger foes on a power attack crit.

3. I agree completely. 4 rounds is too long to be knocked out. 1 seems perfect. Good suggestion.
4. The fatigue is probably my favorite thing about this system. I will keep it as written. The only thing i see with fatigue is the bookkeeping hassle.

I liked the fatigue angle too. However, my players regularly have trouble counting their attack bonus as soon as bard song came into play and I have one player who still can't really wrap his head around AoOs. I had to make a compromise. I simply couldn't get them to keep track of the fatigue rule as written. If you can, I imagine it'll work well.

5. My gut reaction when i first read the rules was the same as yours. However, i got to thinking about the large battle scenes in the LOTR and decided to keep it as written. I like that warrior enemies can be highly skilled and dangerous but still taken out by a couple blows by the heros. I don't see the heros taking multiple foes lightly ever with this system as any foe could crit you and cause serious trouble. Suddenly the town millitia or local orc tribe is a threat.
6. Hadn't thought of these. They sound like good changes.

Your discussion of the differences between various weapon damages is interesting. I hadn't considered this much. I suppose i'll have to deal with a bunch of scimitar and falchion wielders. Well, it will be a change from all the min-maxers choosing greatswords at least. What do you think about just eliminating the scimitar and falchion as crits are so valuable in this system? Or making them just sytlistic (rule identical) versions of the longsword and greatsword.

It's not just the falchion, scimitar, and kukri. The light pick, heavy pick, and scythe also have an 18-20 crit range in this system. Making the high crit weapons mechanically identical to the more common weapons would work but takes some of the interest out of the system. Simply accepting that they will be the best gives the game the wrong feel as far as I'm concerned. It would work fine in Al Quadim where the PCs are supposed to be carrying scimitars and falchions. However, in a more LotR-esque, king arthur style, norse saga inspired, or classical game, characters are supposed to carry swords, lances, battle axes, spears, gladii, etc. Weapons like scimitars and falchions are exotic and unusual weapons--perhaps used by orcs, perhaps used by foreigners. If all of the PCs pick weapons that none of the NPCs use then they won't really fit with the campaign area. If all of the NPCs use effective weapons too then the campaign has a different feel than the one it should. (Knights are supposed to use longswords, lances, and bastard swords darn it).

I don't think there's really an easy way out of the dilemma short of reducing the crit=death nature of the way power attack works with the system. Eliminating power attack would probably work as well but there will still be some difficulties with the system--especially with fighter/barbarians wielding two handed weapons (Remember, average damage from the previous unbuffed fighter/barbarian would drop a 16 con character even without power attack. Give him Prayer, Bardsong, a magic weapon, or a better strength (easily possible since 18 strength 4th level half-orcs only started with a 15 strength before stat bumps and racial adjustments; 22 strength is conceivable for half-orcs at 8th level without magic; 24 strength is doable for real orcs)

 

[Tzarevitch]

I want to add the Wound Point / Vitality Point system into my next campaign instead of standard hit points. I've read it over and want to know what people think, if it is more or less dangerous for the PCs than default hit points. For reference i am using the version printed in the Unearthed Arcana by WOTC.

Arguement for less dangerous: no negative hit points. blows that would normally take a character into the negatives, including death, instead put the character at zero. From here they save to stabilize or begin dying, which takes awhile.

Arguement for more dangerous: with criticals more effective, a few lucky blows could put out of commision the party's main fighters making a TPK (total party kill) more likely.

I see comments here and there (including the sidebar of the system) saying this system is more dangerous, but i just don't see it. It seems to me that the benefit far outweighs the danger.

Am i missing something? Could players/DMs with experience using the system voice their views? I'd like to hear how it has played out in your group.

- Feydras

I tried this once before in my OA Rokugan campaign. It works tolerably so long as you are facing humanoids who have fairly regular strength. Once you start facing large, strong monsters wielding two-handed weapons and power attacking you, a single crit hit is deadly. You functionally have at chance of instant death any time there is a hit no matter what level you are.

The system works OK in Star Wars because combat is primarily with blasters which may do up to 3d8 or so (most are 3d6). Even if you take a crit, you have a decent chance of remaining standing (better than decent if you have some armor on) and one hit will almost never kill you outright. About the only melee weapons that PCs or NPCs use often are lightsabers (which are usually in PC hands). A skilled lightsaber user can kill you in a hit as they can be doing up to about 8d6+ 1 1/2 strength but that is only at very high levels with a lightsaber user who is skilled in wielding one.

In AD&D a storm giant with 39 strength striking you can easily do 21 damage before you even include the weapon's own properties and damage dice or anything else it may have. That WILL put you down if not kill you every time and there is really no stopping it; and that doesn't even include any power attack. Give the giant an axe or a falchion or some weapon with a large crit range and great cleave and it can shred an entire party.

Another problem comes from the spells. If ray or touch spells score a crit hit, the target is probably DEAD. An Otiluke's Freezing Ray (or whatever they call it in 3.5) can do over 15d6 points of damage at MINIMUM (8th level spell in 3.5e). Even if you get 1s on all dice that will almost always leave you bleeding to death. A sub-average roll will still kill you. The Harm spell in 3.5 is instant death on a crit, even if you save.

Honestly, I cannot recommend using the WP system for D&D. It simply doesn't work very well. The system wasn't designed to handle it and it takes a LOT of work to shoehorn it in and correct the problems so it is not monstrously lethal.

Tzarevitch

 

[RuminDange]

I've read over the rules for WP/VP and everything everyone is saying is what I concluded about them. IMC characters would be dropping like flys using them as written.
Some of the changes I thought about to make it deadly but less of the one crit kill would be:
1: Leave the critical threat ranges alone. Keep the multiplier (just not as multiplier)
2: Add Level + Con as WP.
3: On a critical hit, the multiplier of the weapon goes to WP everything else goes to VP. Thought about multiplying the VP damage still but figured against it.
4: Drop the stunning to 1 round after taking WP.

Can't remember any other changes at the moment.
Also haven't gotten a chance to test this out as my players won't buy off on it yet. But I will try it out one day just to see if I like it better.
I've gotten a little tired of players that don't know when to run from a fight when they are getting beat. They haven't figured out I will kill the characters if they play stupid. You start doing negative energy levels, attribute damage etc and they start looking for a way out, but they will continue to fight down to 0 HP because they have no penalties.
I had one player (level 33) fighting 4 trolls (barb 10, Rgr12, Sor10, cleric10) and getting his butt handed to him. He had lost all but 5-10 HP's, hadn't killed a troll only downed 2 of them, and was still going, even though he could teleport out. It took another player transporting him to save him. She stopped the fight, the trolls were scaried off. But he just kept going. Never did find out why he thought he would win.

So I figured give'm penalties and they might run once an while. Now if I can only get them to try it.

RD

 

[Squire James]

If you want a less brutal version of the VP/WP system, just keep the crit system as is (multiply the damage and apply to VP first). The WP "buffer" is still there to keep the character alive, but the penalties for losing WP retains some of the "realistic" feel.

Another alternative rule is: any lethal damage die that rolls max damage also inflicts 1 WP. This makes daggers and sneak attacks very deadly, since the system doesn't care how many sides the dice have or where they came from. Wounding weapons would, in addition to other effects, inflict 1 WP per successful hit.

This system (with or without my modification) definitely has impact on healing magic that must be considered. The biggest concern is how you handle healing WP magically. I think a good "middle of the road" is to treat 1 WP as 5 HP for healing purposes, and lost WP are always recovered first. So if a victim has lost 10 WP and 40 VP, and gets a Cure Serious Wounds for 42, he regains 8 WP and 2 VP. The almighty Heal spell is still pretty mighty, but it won't necessarily restore an almost-dead character to full combat readiness anymore!

 

[feydras]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. A few more thoughts...

Most posters keep referring to instant death with a critical hit. You may be thinking of Star Wars or some other version. The way the rule is written in the UA (read my quote in a message above) you cannot "instant die". It is impossible to die the round you are hit. If your hit points are all wiped out you make a save to stabilize, if failed you save on the next round or die. So you get two, not too difficult, saves to keep you butt alive and the soonest you could die is round two. You will however likely be taken out of the combat which may be deadly to the whole group. "Instant death" is not accurate.

This certainly still makes the WP/VP system more deadly, but more to the whole party then to individuals i think. Maybe it would work best with a large group of intelligent, cautious players. I too tend to DM for players who are overreliant on hp and tend to ignore strategy. Bringing the fear of combat into the game is a major goal of mine. You should be frightened of that giant swinging a huge halberd no matter what level you are instead of mentally calculating how many blows you can safely absorb before your cleric has to run in to heal you.

On power attack. It seems this system makes it too powerful. That said, it makes a certain amount of sense that someone power attacking would have a much better chance of dropping thier target if they hit. They sacrifice accuracy for that one solid blow hoping to connect. Remember that the negative to power attack counts for the crit confirmation role as well. Still, if i was that frontline fighter i would be torn between choosing Power Attack, Great Fort, or Toughness. This kind of sucks for the finesse fighter style.

New suggestion. How about this for a fix to the system...
Your armor bonus, in addition to functioning normally (adding to your AC) functions as damage reduction/- for wound point hits only.
Ex... Ray wearing a chainshirt with 14 Dex, and no shield or any other bonuses. His AC is 16. He also has DR 4/- for wound points only. So if he takes a regular hit that does 8 points of damage he takes 8 VP. If he is hit with a critical for 8 damage he takes only 4 WP.
For this system, i don't think i would give DR for shields as a critical hit would likely blow past a shield. Natural armor would likely count as this makes sense, but not deflection, dodge, or any other.
I've never read the Star Wars version but i understand it uses armor as DR. How does it work? I realize armor is rarer in SW.

WP/VP seems to put melee combatants at greater risk. With the armor as DR for WP addition this may swing the balance back enough to keep them alive longer. But maybe not enough. What do you all think?

Oh, btw - i am definitely using the optional rule that extra dice of damage count only as 1 extra WP during a crit.

- Feydras

 

[feydras]

This is a shameless bump as i want more feedback...

What do you all think of the armor as DR suggestion as stated above used with the WP/VP?

- Feydras

 

[Simon Collins]

So rumour has it, the armour as DR system you outlined above could be the same system the SWRPG uses for VP/WP.

Simon Collins

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Thanks E-B that is exactly what i was looking for. You brought up a couple issues i hadn't considered and highlighted some i had.

my comments:
1. I am leery of the overdependence on Con, Fort saves, and the feats Great Fort and Toughness. Your suggestion is interesting, i'll have to consider it.
2. This will be somewhat less of an issue IMC as i am running in the Iron Kingdoms and it is low magic, particularly how i run it. Noone will be running around with a +3 flaming greatsword and Girdle of Giant Strength so the damages should be a bit more reasonable.

Dragons? Giants? SPLAT!