Post/Author/DateTime	Post
anders 04-11-07, 03:52 AM	This question has been bugging me for a while. How exactly is con damage working? There are two ways to look at it; level 20 dude that takes 2 points of con dmage. 1) You have 100 hitpoints total and 80 points of damage. With the two con damage you now have 80 hitpoints total and 80 points of damage.. (0 hp left) Or.. 2) you have 200 hitpoints left, and taking 2 con damage drops your max to 80, but your already under that so you still have 20 hp left. My group has always been playing with 1, but that makes con damage ridiciously overpowered (wounding weapons). Lately i've been thinking that maybe 2 is the way to go. Now, my question is this: - Can the rules be quoted to support either argument? - if the rules support 1, would houseruling it to 2 break balance in any way? thank you for your time
Empiro 04-11-07, 03:57 AM	This question has been bugging me for a while. How exactly is con damage working? There are two ways to look at it; level 20 dude that takes 2 points of con dmage. 1) You have 100 hitpoints total and 80 points of damage. With the two con damage you now have 80 hitpoints total and 80 points of damage.. (0 hp left) Or.. 2) you have 200 hitpoints left, and taking 2 con damage drops your max to 80, but your already under that so you still have 20 hp left. My group has always been playing with 1, but that makes con damage ridiciously overpowered (wounding weapons). Lately i've been thinking that maybe 2 is the way to go. Now, my question is this: - Can the rules be quoted to support either argument? - if the rules support 1, would houseruling it to 2 break balance in any way? thank you for your time No, the rules are clear that it's 1. Wounding weapons are very good, but I haven't found them to be particularly overpowering in my games. They are good in that they scale perfectly with the hit dice of the enemy. If you don't play by the way it is, then con damage is almost useless. Wounding weapons wouldn't be worth anything. All the undead that deal con damage are far weaker. Poisons that deal con damage are all but useless, and so on. Con damage is supposed to be scary.
Leilond 04-11-07, 04:11 AM	The rules is 1) 1 costitution damage lower your total and actual hit point 1/level A 1st level fighter that recive 2 con damage will have his maximum and actual hit points lowered by 1 A 10HD monster that recive 2 con damage will have his maximum and actual hit points lowered by 10 It isn't "overpowered"... it scale its power with the enemy, but there are also "immune to ability damage" monsters out there (constructs, undeads)
Evil DM Mk3 04-11-07, 04:30 AM	Actually I had to ban wounding weapons after the two melee characters in the party where able to kill anything that was not immune in one round flat. TWF with woundings really such the con away, Dervish woundings is EVIL. Remember is the villain has Con 20, they are GUARANTEED DEAD after 20 hits, no matter what DR and magic they have (exept resoration).
tos_shai_hulud 04-11-07, 04:33 AM	The above posters are correct: When a character takes Constitution damage (such as from a wyvern’s poison) and his Con modifier changes, what happens to his hit points? Does it simply lower his maximum hp, or does it reduce his current hit points too? A character whose Constitution modifier changes adjusts both his current and full normal (maximum) hit point totals accordingly. Remember that your full normal hit point total can’t be less than 1 per level (since even a Con penalty can’t reduce your Hit Die roll to less than 1). An injured character who takes Constitution damage can be reduced to 0 or fewer hit points.
Evil DM Mk3 04-11-07, 06:42 AM	BUT that failst to take into acount damadge taken, total hp can never be less than hd, but total-lost hp CAN and is guaranteed to if their Con/2 < hd.
Burgundy Lotus 04-11-07, 08:07 AM	My group uses it as detailed in option 1 and haven't had any problems with it. It only really becomes a good weapon once the fighter gets their third attack in our experience.
Leilond 04-11-07, 08:17 AM	Come on. The faq has been reported by tos_shai_hulud some post above and report this, without possibility of wrong interpretation that 1) Every time your Constitution bonus is reduced by 1 you reduce your max hit point value by 1/HD to a minimum of 1 hit point per HD 2) Every time your Constitution bonus is reduced by 1 you adjust current hit point accordly 3) An injured character who takes Constitution damage can be reduced to 0 or fewer hit points. These are THE RULES. If you don't like you can change them, but if you're looking for official rules (those written by the Wizard of The Costs) that is the answer Examples A 10th level fighter with MAX HP = 80 and CURRENT HP = 60 take 2 consitution damage: his values will be MAX HP = 70 and CURRENT HP = 50 A 10th level fighter with MAX HP = 80 and CURRENT HP = 5 take 2 consitution damage: his values will be MAX HP = 70 and CURRENT HP = -5 (dying) A 20th level fighter with MAX HP = 130 and CURRENT HP = 10 take 2 consitution damage: his values will be MAX HP = 70 and CURRENT HP = -10 (dead) That is what is written on the FAQS
anders 04-11-07, 10:49 AM	thanks for the replies guys :) It was all very helpful.
AQuebman 04-11-07, 01:45 PM	Okay I believe if im correct I understand the if you lose enough con to bring you down a +1 then you take HP damage equal to your Hit dice. My question is does this change depending on what your constitution is. Like if you take a fighter a 10th level. One has a constitution of 20 +5 and one has a constitution of lets say for simplicity sake 12 +1, would the loss be different?
IllyannaFarseer 04-11-07, 02:01 PM	according to the example here is what would happen Character with Con20 takes a single con pt. Now has a 19. This reduces his bonus from 5 to 4. He will loose 1 hp per level from Max and current hps. Character with 12 con takes a single pt bringing him to 11. Same thing it reduces his bonus from 1 to 0. He will loose 1 hp per level from Max and current hps. Character with 19 con takes a single pt bringing him to 18. This doesn't change his bonus of 4 (18 =4, 19= 4). He does not loose any hp from his max/current hps (as I understand the rule). A character with a 20 con takes 5 pts of con damage bringing him to a 15. His bonus goes from 5 to 2. He looses 3 hps per level from Max and current hps.
Empiro 04-11-07, 02:16 PM	Correct on all three. Also to the OP, if wounding is a serious concern, then certain bad guys should have the spell Sheltered Vitality -- the cousin to Death Ward. It prevents all forms of Ability Damage. As a cleric, I always at least keep a scroll of it handy, simply because there are so many enemies that deal ability damage. Don't forget that Wounding is a +2 ability, if instead, your PCs had decided to put something like Holy (or elemental damage twice), then in the course of 20 hits, they would have done an extra 40d6 points of damage, which probably would kill the baddie anyways.
Marcus Majarra 04-11-07, 03:19 PM	That's a good call. If you need 20 hits to take out an opponent with a wounding weapon, this means he's boasting 20 Con. Even for a 20 HD opponent, that's only 100 extra hit points, and the 40d6 average out to 140. As a more universal rule, consider the following: It requires two hits to deal extra damage to your opponent equal to his HD. With an extra 2d6 damage per attack (assuming this damage applies), you deal an extra 14 damage for every two hits, on average. If your opponent has more than 14 HD, you'll fare better on average with a wounding weapon. Still, the wounding weapon can be a better deal in many scenarios: low-Con opponents, friendly casters with Fort-based spells, non-recoverable damage without ways to recover ability damage, able to land lots of attacks. However, as with energy weapons, there are lots of ways to escape a wounding weapon's nasty side-effect.
Xykon 04-12-07, 11:23 PM	Actually I had to ban wounding weapons after the two melee characters in the party where able to kill anything that was not immune in one round flat. TWF with woundings really such the con away, Dervish woundings is EVIL. Remember is the villain has Con 20, they are GUARANTEED DEAD after 20 hits, no matter what DR and magic they have (exept resoration).Hmmm... interesting, i knew it was a deadly enchantment, but up until i read it again now that i realize it doesn't even need to "damage" the target... just hitting it will do... I think im going to house rule that only when the weapon does damage, does the CON loss occur (the description did say blood-loss)...
Xykon 04-12-07, 11:30 PM	My group uses it as detailed in option 1 and haven't had any problems with it. It only really becomes a good weapon once the fighter gets their third attack in our experience. Roughly when it gets to lvl 12-ish, thats when they can afford the weapon anyway... not unless DM provides it before the party reaches that level.
Marcus Majarra 04-13-07, 12:44 AM	Hmmm... interesting, i knew it was a deadly enchantment, but up until i read it again now that i realize it doesn't even need to "damage" the target... just hitting it will do... I think im going to house rule that only when the weapon does damage, does the CON loss occur (the description did say blood-loss)... Actually, he was wrong on that one. Damage reduction can prevent the wounding effect: Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury type poison, a monk’s stunning, and injury type disease. Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack, or energy drains. Nor does it affect poisons or diseases delivered by inhalation, ingestion, or contact. Unless you can argue that making touch attacks against your opponent will deliver the wounding effect, DR can negate the wounding.