Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Polymorph 05-10-05, 06:37 PM	I have just made my first experiences with the injury system from UA. I hoped that it would make my players more cautious because they COULD die at every hit, however this turned out the other way arround! A group of npcs, clearly stronger than the PCs and fighting rather clever, attacked them and fought for 5 rounds - with no casulties on either side!! In my calculations everything looked fine, because i saw "getting disabled" as euqal to "being reduced to 0 HP", but there is a huge difference: When you get disabled, a friend can hop over to you, give you a potion of cure light wounds and you are in perfect fighting shape again - all you need are 5 points of healing, compared to hundreds of points that would be neccessary normaly! (the PCs are rather highlevel) Another problem appeared when the barbarian tried to finish of a downed enemy to prevent him from being healed up again. He made all his attacks against the enemy on the ground, but he only had 1 wound for being diabled and survived the assault just taking another wound, sending him into "dieing" state just to be completely healed by his clerics lowlevel magic. Another probelm was the paladins lay on hands ability: Everytime he was disabled, which happens statistically when a normal paladin would be reduced to 0 HP, he used lay on hands on himself for mere 5 points to be back up again. He could have kept fighting for days like this! well, no one ever died and after a few hours of comabt the enemies retreated, because it was really pointless... Do you have any suggestions on how to fix this? (like taking multiple wounds when disabled, etc.)
Ulorian 05-10-05, 08:07 PM	I think there is something you're missing.. Are you remembering to apply the cumulative Fortitude save penalty for every hit? Remember that being healed from the Disabled condition doesn't automatically wipe out this Fort save penalty. You say your party is high level, meaning the fighters have multiple attacks. It is more than conceivable that an opponent would go down in a single round due to a few blown saves, before a cleric can get to them. And just how many spells do your clerics have anyway? How can a combat last for hours? The spells would have been depleted long before then.
PaladinKD 05-11-05, 10:23 AM	We are planning a game this week with the injury system modified thusly... Scaled Injury Save Failed by 5 = Stunned and 1 hit. Failed by 10 = Disabled and 1 hit. Failed by 15 = Disabled and 2 hits. Failed by 20 = Dying and 2 hits. I agree that something needs to be done about the healing. Just not sure what yet. We're also planning to use the simplified HD to Injury Save option discussed in the other Injury Save thread on this forum. (d4 = bad save, d6, d8 = average, d10, d12 = good.) Do you think the above scaled injury save would help with your problem? It allows for getting someone on the ropes so-to-speak. With the increased likelihood of dazed and stunned results, the opponent can't do anything but take more abuse. One good hit is likely to lead to more without a good save or outside intervention. No chance to magically heal either.
Polymorph 05-11-05, 07:27 PM	How can a combat last for hours? The spells would have been depleted long before then. the fight lasted for hours in real time, not play time :) Are you remembering to apply the cumulative Fortitude save penalty for every hit? Remember that being healed from the Disabled condition doesn't automatically wipe out this Fort save penalty. Sure, we also considered this. But so what? You got 4 wounds in the course of a few rounds of battle? healing 20 HP aint that hard to do for a level 10 cleric. My players really started thinking of the new system like "So my save is basically just like HP, i have fewer but i dont loose them so fast and only if iI drop to 0 i am in any serious danger"... :( We're also planning to use the simplified HD to Injury Save option discussed in the other Injury Save thread on this forum. (d4 = bad save, d6, d8 = average, d10, d12 = good.) We even use a diffrent save progression for every HD type so thats not really the problem. I like your scaled injury save thing, but i think that being stunned whenever you take a wound would make it way too easy for rogues to strike dozens of sneakattacks. What do you think about this? Scaled injury system: Failed : 1 wound Failed by 5: 2 wounds failed by 10: disabled However when you get disabled, your save vs injury (we call it toughness) is decreased to 0+constitution modifier, just as if you got so many wounds. So if you attack someone who is disabled, he is very likely to be sent into dieng state and doesnt just eat the blows like usual. What do you think? Also healing downed teammates takes a lot more "spellpower" than 5 points of healing. It is not as extensive as healing a normal HP character from 0 to full health, but it takes some effort at least.
PaladinKD 05-12-05, 10:44 AM	I like your scaled injury save thing, but i think that being stunned whenever you take a wound would make it way too easy for rogues to strike dozens of sneakattacks. What do you think about this? Scaled injury system: Failed : 1 wound Failed by 5: 2 wounds failed by 10: disabled However when you get disabled, your save vs injury (we call it toughness) is decreased to 0+constitution modifier, just as if you got so many wounds. So if you attack someone who is disabled, he is very likely to be sent into dieng state and doesnt just eat the blows like usual. What do you think? Also healing downed teammates takes a lot more "spellpower" than 5 points of healing. It is not as extensive as healing a normal HP character from 0 to full health, but it takes some effort at least. As far as the rogues sneak attacking too often, I think you're right. My first thought is to simply change the Stunned condition to something where you keep your dex bonus to AC. Call it "Rattled" perhaps. The save jumping down to 0+Con I'll have to reserve comment on until we test the system. Characters were shrugging off Disabled conditions to easy? On the healing thing, how about some kind of chart that takes into account the characters level. Maybe a Caster level check (modified by -1 per Hit remaining) vs. DC10 (+ injured character's level.) to "up" the character's current condition. Otherwise the healing simply gets rid of hits but the character remains disabled/dying. ex. A 5th level fighter has 6 hits and is disabled. The 5th level cleric casts a Cure Serious Wounds and rolls 17 points of healing (heals 4 hits leaving 2) . The cleric rolls a caster level check (rolls a 12) and modifies the roll +5(lvl)-2(hits remaining) =15, vs. DC15 (10+Fighter's level of 5). He just made it and the fighter is now "rattled" til his next turn. This makes it harder to heal the higher level combatants (thus accurately reflecting the fact that it would be harder to get their hit points back up) and is certainly a lot more difficult than 5 points and you're all better. Thoughts?
PaladinKD 05-12-05, 11:36 AM	Even simpler on the healing thing (and without that bit on higher level characters being harder to heal.) Magic Healing Removing the disabled condition from an injured character requires a Caster level check vs. DC15 + character's remaining hits (after spell). ex. In the sample above the DC would be 17 and the caster check would have been 17.
Arcade 05-12-05, 04:12 PM	I'm just pulling this off the top of my head, but what if you changed it so disabled was more rare and dying was more common? In the normal game, you end up as disabled very rarely- only if your hit points reach 0 exactly. Otherwise they're dying. So here, you could say if the player rolled exactly what they needed to be disabled, they are disabled. But otherwise they are dying. Just a thought.
PaladinKD 05-13-05, 01:17 PM	So we played last night with these rules. • Injury Save separate from Fortitude save. Based on HD. • Class Attack and Defense Bonuses (UA) • Armor as Damage Reduction (UA) • New Injury Save chart DAMAGE SAVE CHART Lethal(Nonlethal) Succeed = 1 nonlethal Hit. Failed = 1 Hit. Failed by 5 = Dazed and 1 Hit. Failed by 10 = Rattled* and 1 Hit. Failed by 15 or more = Disabled(Staggered) and 2 Hits. Failed by 20 or more = Dying(Unconscious) and 2 Hits. *Rattled is like stunned without the loss of dex bonus to AC. Notice here that we made all successful attacks do 1 NL hit, regardless of the save. The players were all a little displeased to make many successful attacks with no effect. This had the added benefit of limiting combat lengths. • Magic Healing Alterations. Removing the disabled condition from an injured character requires a Caster level check vs. DC15 + character's remaining hits (after spell). Didn't get a chance to use this rule yet. No healer in the party. _______________________________ Things seemed to go well once we initiated the "1 hit regardless of save" rule. The effects of the system really became apparent when we ran into the first trap. Even the heavy fighter was leery of setting off the lightning, knowing that a low roll on his Damage save could mean bad things.
HailSpork 05-13-05, 04:46 PM	So, what's the difference between rattled and dazed? Just dropping your stuff in hand? Or are you keeping the -2 penalty to AC that accompanies the loss of dex?
PaladinKD 05-13-05, 05:00 PM	So, what's the difference between rattled and dazed? Just dropping your stuff in hand? Or are you keeping the -2 penalty to AC that accompanies the loss of dex? Keeping the -2AC. The only difference Rattled has to Stunned is that you keep your dex bonus, as Polymorph rightly pointed out that denying the dex would allow rogues to sneak attack too often. I forgot to mention that the conditions stacked, so when you're disabled you still drop your stuff and have have the -2AC.
Polymorph 05-18-05, 09:09 PM	Extremely nice suggestions... (stil slightly modified) Whenever someone makes his injury check so he would recieve no wound, he still recieves a nonlethal wound. When an injury check fails the save by 10 the target is disabled. If failed by 11 or more, he is dying. ... however, in how far would a nonlethal hit be less devastating than a lethal one? Aside from the fact that every 5 points of healing cure 1 lethal AND one nonlethal wound.
PaladinKD 05-19-05, 10:09 AM	... however, in how far would a nonlethal hit be less devastating than a lethal one? Aside from the fact that every 5 points of healing cure 1 lethal AND one nonlethal wound. Just quicker healing really. It's healed in hours instead of days. We might even make it only last the battle. Sort of an exhaustion meter.
Arcade 05-19-05, 10:33 AM	The non-lethal wound thing seems OK- you wear your opponent down with little hits here and there until you're ready to pull off the big haymaker to finish them off. You may want to consider letting people who make their saves by a large amount (say 10 or 20) to ignore the non-lethal wound as well. They are not even winded from such a meaningless attack. Otherwise, characters have no incentive to cause larger amounts of damage until they know their opponent has been hit multiple times with meaningless wounds.
shiffd 06-11-05, 11:36 AM	I'm bumping this cuz I'm looking for good discussions about combat and teh screwy HP system. I hear your pain on trying to make people play to risk, when there is not risk. Thus two hour battles, craploads of rules and rolls and nothing really interesting ever happens. YAWN right? OK heres the idea. Give HP at first level. The ndon't give any after that unless COn is raised, maybe toughness feat (1HP a pop) or class change. Also I raise spellthrowers to 6 and rouges to 8 (bards stay behind-sorry but musicians and poets can't argue unless they want to put the training into toughness over their singing ability) Anway there is a lot more too it than that BUT what you can do is remove rules as you go. REMOVE rolls, remove burdens and systems. Add HUGE amounts of risk. Reduce battle times by 90%. If you go with all those HP and somekinda weird critical/wound whatever system I am convinced you'll only end up with rules on rules on rules. WIth tables and bonuses. Things to calculate (Lots of scratchpaper) but thats good for WOC cuz they can make more books about it and feats and stuff to sell. In the long run you'll just spend more time on the rules in-game and die rolls and caclulations. Was teh -5 or -6 on that last fortitude? What only 12 dam on 112 total has to be 15, what kinda weapon again, oh it was poisoned and its bleeding, that's right forgot the save onthat other one. GEEEEZ.