Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Polymorph 04-24-05, 08:05 PM	In the injury system presented in UA, a Fortitude safe is made against every damage taken - the higher the damage the more difficult the DC. How wel you do on that roll determines if you take any damage at all, are wounded or disabled etc. My problem is, that the very idea of a HD disappears in this system. There is only a difference between "tough" (good fort save) and "fragile" (bad fort save) characters. Also the great fortitude feat (+2 fort) would be incredibly potent, while the toughnes feat (which would be only +1 on fort) doesnt look so good in comparrison. For example, a Monk would be just as hardy as a barbarian (even though a barbarians's HD is much higher). So i though of making a special save especially for dealing with damage taken. Lets just call it "toughness" for now. Basically it advances like a "bad" save, but you get bonuses on it depending on the HD of your class(es) in addition to the constitution modifier, which is also added. HD: d4 => no bonus HD: d6 => +1 every 6 levels HD: d8 => +1 every 4 levels HD: d10 => +1 every 3 levels HD: d12 => +1 every 3 levels and +1 every 9 levels This would result in numbers like these: Level 6 Sorceror: 2 +con Level 6 Rogue: 3 +con Level 6 Monk: 3 +con Level 6 Fighter: 4 +con Level 6 Barbarian: 4 +con Level 12 Sorceror: 4 +con Level 12 Rogue: 6 +con Level 12 Monk: 7 +con Level 12 Fighter: 8 +con Level 12 barbarian: 9 +con +1 (for having damage reduction) Level 18 Sorceror: 6 +con Level 18 Rogue: 9 +con Level 18 Monk: 10 +con Level 18 Fighter: 12 +con Level 18 barbarian: 14 +con +1 (for having damage reduction) Comparing these numbers with the "usual" fort save a character would have to resist damage, i hope youll find them to be a steady increase for d4 up to d12 insead of the "all or nothing"ness of the UA variant. Of course the great fortitude feat will only increase fortitude by 2 not the toughness value - remaining its usefulness without interfering with the wound-system. The toughness feat would be replaced by the "improved toughness" (for naming issues), which would increase your toughness value by one. note that this feat can not be taken multiple times like the normal toughness feat would, for the sake of balance. What do you think about this?
Sonn Athion 04-24-05, 11:58 PM	I like the idea.. not sure I grasp it 100% but I only skimmed through it.. I agree that the Variant in UA needs to be altered to accomodate different Hit Dice and perhaps be toned down a little... too easy for the 20 CON Fighters to shrug off every blow
Lina_Inverse 04-25-05, 01:16 AM	my change to it.was the following. charecters with d4 have poor saves. d6/d8 medium and d10/d12 good. for damage saves.
Polymorph 04-25-05, 12:23 PM	charecters with d4 have poor saves. whats a medium safe like? I agree that the Variant in UA needs to be altered to accomodate different Hit Dice and perhaps be toned down a little... too easy for the 20 CON Fighters to shrug off every blow Do you have any experience with the wounds-system as written? Does it work well? Does anyone have another idea on how to represent the 6 steps of ruggedness the HP system offers for the UA wound-system? What do you think about the formula i made up? Do you think the barbarian's toughness is too high?
PaladinKD 04-26-05, 04:36 PM	I like Lina Inverses modification. Polymorph: I believe Lina Inverse meant a medium save to be the middle save progression table. In Mutants and Masterminds (where this system came from as far as I can tell) it's called a Damage save. Has anyone seen this system at high levels? I'm curious if there's a problem with spells at the upper levels. Imagine a max fireball at 10d6 damage (60 points) DC27. Those not rolling at least an 18 are instantly disabled - but not slain. Actually this points out another interesting thing. People simply can't die right away with this system. Should an additional rule be in place to call for instant death? Such as "Fail by 15 automatically dying. Fail by 20 Dead. Just thoughts. I'm thinking of trying an adventure using this system and wanted to get ideas.
Polymorph 04-26-05, 05:41 PM	I still dont get what a medium save is. I only know "good" saves (12 at level 20) and "bad" ones (6 at level 20), so please enlighten me. :) Actually, i think its nice that you can not slay someone instantly! Usually the Dm has to be dangerous, but still he must try to keep the players happy, so they shouldnt die too often (IF they dont act foolishly of course) So if the worst thing that can happen is a PC getting disabled, the DM can go all out and play his monsters as effective as he can! of course the players will have to be even more on their toes than ever before even though they cant die instantly, like before! :D i just calculated the "60 damage fireball" szenario with some level 12 characters. I assumed level 12, because thats roughly the level you need to be able the cast maximised fireball. A usual mage (assuming a con bonus of +1) would have a Fortitude/toughness save of 5 and the DC for just getting a wound would be 18, as you mentioned, so he would have to roll 13 or higher. So there are 12 numbers (1-12) wich would yield the rsult : disabled; hence he has a 60% chance to go down. the same mage using HP would have an average HP of 43,5. So the 60 damage fireball would send him right below -10 and he would be dead :) A usual Figther (assuming a +3 con bonus) would have a Fortitude/toughness of 11, with the same DC of 18 to avoid being disabled - So he would have to roll 7 or more. This results in a 30% chance to be disabled. Using the HP system, the fighter would have an average of 96,5. Taking 60 damage, he would loose about 62% of his HP total. This is twice as drastic as a 30% chance to be disabled! As you can see, the injury system generally helps to stay alive. It is also MUCH easier to heal a disabled character than to ressurect a fallen one :) In the examples above, you can see, that people who usually have less HP profit a little more from this increase in durability than fighter types. You should not forget however, that the monsters are a bit harder to kill too, resulting in combat lasting longer. Also the element of luck becomes more important. With HP, you know how many hits a fighter can take before he goes down. with the injury system, he could do so after a few hits or he could last much longer than he usually would. Even though there are more rounds of combat now, i dont think that it will eat up more time, because there will be less people running arround half dead, who still want to act and more of a "one enemy down, one PC down". So the longer the combat lasts the faster it will go, because the characters should grow less quicker. Clerics and healer types might become even more important than they were before, because they can heal someone who went down after the first hit with very little effort and he will be as good as new - so actually they can give back the power to act, which will probably also make them the primary target more than they have ever been.
PaladinKD 04-26-05, 06:09 PM	Thanks for the testing Polymorph. You're right about the medium save progression. It's not in the book is it? I think it would be maxing at +9 like this... 1 - +1 2 - +2 3 - +2 4 - +2 5 - +3 6 - +3 7 - +4 8 - +4 9 - +4 10 - +5 11 - +5 12 - +6 13 - +6 14 - +6 15 - +7 16 - +7 17 - +8 18 - +8 19 - +8 20 - +9 As for the ability to die, that is what I wanted to go for in getting away from hitpoints. I realize this might not be what everyone is looking for however. Again drawing from Mutants and Masterminds, I was thinking of this system. Failed by 1-4 = 1 Hit. Failed by 5-9 = *Stunned* and 1 Hit. Failed by 10-19 = *Disabled*. Failed by 20 or more = *Dying*. Altered Slightly Failed = 1 Hit. Failed by 5 or more = Stunned and 1 Hit. Failed by 10 or more = Disabled and 1 Hit. Failed by 15 or more = Disabled and 2 Hits. Failed by 20 or more = Dying. Note that dying still allows a Fort Save to stabilize. The character is simply unconscious. Depending on the situation, this could be as good as dead, but also allows for characters being passed over as dead, only to limp off later. __________ On another note, I thought of using exploding damage dice as someone else mentioned on these boards. A max roll on the damage die allows another identical die to be rolled. You would then divide by 5 as normal. These are definitely deadly rules. You could somewhat offset the deadly factor by allowing limited use of character points to automatically stabilize when dying. Thoughts?
Quoriil 04-26-05, 06:36 PM	I'm not clear on the system so please pardon these questions if the answers are obvious. :embarrass So everyone will have to be an armor monkey or die? Damage munchkins will now one-hit even more often? (100+ damage every hit would make for a nasty save DC) Ring/vest/cloak of resistance = unbeatable damage reduction? How much healing does it take to move someone from dying to full? While I'm not certain about the wound system as written I do like your modifications, Polymorph, some consideration must be taken for the HD.
PaladinKD 04-26-05, 06:53 PM	So everyone will have to be an armor monkey or die? Armor doesn't effect this system (unless you go further and use the Armor=Dmg reduction rules.) Damage munchkins will now one-hit even more often? (100+ damage every hit would make for a nasty save DC) Those doing 100+ damage with one attack are already too nasty in my opinion. They would be nastier tis true but it's important to point out that each individual attack gets a separate save. Ring/vest/cloak of resistance = unbeatable damage reduction? A minor ring of resistance subtracts 10hp from energy attacks. So it would subtract 2 from the damage save Difficulty. If the attack did less than 10 points, it would negate the need for a damage save. How much healing does it take to move someone from dying to full? Each 5 points of healing done gets rid of 1 "hit" to the character and stabilizes a dying character automatically.
Polymorph 04-27-05, 04:29 PM	Ring/vest/cloak of resistance = unbeatable damage reduction? I know what you mean. With some cheap items you can make your fort save skyrocket, which would pretty much mess the whole system up! That's another reason why i like to introduce the new "toughness" save. Fort would become far too important with the unchanged system from UA and it is too easy to boost. Toughness is harder to increase. In fact the "improved toughness" feat would increase it by 1 (which is already a lot!) and magic items that increase toughness would not boost it as much as, say, a cloak of resistance. Also they would be much more expensive and harder to get. So everyone will have to be an armor monkey or die? The hits may potentially disable you right away, which is pretty scary, but if you calculate it through, a hit that would take away 30% of the HP of the fighter pretty much results in a 30% chance to die with the injury system. So eventually you will probably die after taking the same number of hits +/- a few. As for wearing armor, everything stays just the same: a ranger still wears only light armor to be effective and a barbarian doesnt need to wear heavier armor because his toughness is higher to compensate (just like his HP are usually higher). I realized that my toughness progression ideas were absolute crap! Most classes would get +2 toughness from level 5 to 6 and then it wont increase for 3 levels... how stupid! So i made a new table, that is a lot more reasonable, the Players can easily read it without even needing to understand the math behind it and it feels very much like the "original" ones. Level d4 d6 d8 d10 d12 01. +0 +0 +2 +2 +2 02. +0 +1 +2 +3 +3 03. +1 +2 +3 +3 +4 04. +1 +2 +3 +4 +4 05. +1 +2 +4 +4 +5 06. +2 +3 +4 +5 +5 07. +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 08. +2 +4 +5 +6 +6 09. +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 10. +3 +4 +6 +7 +7 11. +3 +5 +6 +7 +8 12. +4 +5 +6 +8 +9 13. +4 +6 +7 +8 +10 14. +4 +6 +7 +9 +10 15. +5 +6 +8 +9 +11 16. +5 +7 +8 +10 +12 17. +5 +7 +8 +10 +12 18. +6 +8 +9 +11 +13 19. +6 +8 +9 +11 +13 20. +6 +8 +10 +12 +14 i really like those numbers a lot more :) You' ll notice that all HD of d8 and above have the +2 "bumb" at level 1. I have noticed that all classes of d8 and higher have strong fort saves, so i found it appropiate and fitting the spirit of the injury system presented in UA. This makes the classes that are supposed to be tough, tough in the beginning. (My previous system had ALL classes start with +0 ... oh my god...) The saves improve smoothly and use simmilar mechanics as the original "bad" and "good" save do. What do you think?
PaladinKD 04-27-05, 05:29 PM	It seems workable, and has the advantage of differentiating each HD. When you consider a high level barbarian will probably have a 20+ Con, does the save get too high?
Arcade 04-28-05, 09:20 AM	The barbarian is pretty much built like the original injury system. As had been pointed out before, the injury system at those levels means that normal melee combat is just waiting to see who the first character to roll a natural 1 is- and that's just to get a hit so you're at -1 on your next save. A 20th level raging barbarian can have a CON of 30, giving a +10 bonus to save. His new save is now +24 which means a roll of 2 will keep him safe from damage up to and including 80 points. Even spells can have trouble breaking through that barrier. One way I considered accounting for this was to allow characters with multiple attacks to sum up all their damage from their full attack and force a single roll, instead of having separate rolls for each attack. So if a character can do 30 points of damage per attack and hits 3 times, he can force a single roll of DC 28 instead of 3 rolls of DC 16. If you feel this isn't enough, you can allow characters to ready an action to time their attack with another character and let these two attacks add up together. This is a solution for higher levels, but I don't know if it becomes too deadly at lower and mid levels.
Quoriil 04-28-05, 11:20 AM	Thanks Polymorph, those were my questions. The AC thing just seems more important in this system because of the 1-in-20 chance you're going down every time a goblin child throws a rock at you. (even if he doesn't have 5 levels of Rogue to back him up...). Paladin, sorry I wasn't very clear about what I was actually asking, thank you for your answers anyway.
PaladinKD 04-28-05, 12:13 PM	This is just a thought, but what if you took CON mods out of the damage save formula? Barbarians are still the best due to their HD and Damage Reduction, but their saves don't get so high due to pumped up Con scores. It would devalue the CON boost when raging, but I can't think of a way around that yet. _____________________ As far as combining damages during a full attack for the purposes of one high damage save, you could make it a feat only attainable at higher levels due to prereq's. Even impose a negative mod to the attack for give and take sake. _____________________ Quoriil: Not a prob. I have been known to misread a question before *grins* As for your goblin child/rock scenario. Do you think the injury system might work better with the class bonuses to Defense from UA? One thing with the system as it stands is that at higher levels everybodies still hitting everybody. It becomes all about the Injury save and that you're going to hit is a given.
Polymorph 04-29-05, 08:20 PM	The AC thing just seems more important in this system because of the 1-in-20 chance you're going down every time a goblin child throws a rock at you. A goblinkid with a stone would likely not even get a roll against a highlevel character. Encounters are meant to be challanging, so battles against enemies more than 4 or 5 CR below the party are not played out like usual battles. they are just "roleplayed" instead. This is just a thought, but what if you took CON mods out of the damage save formula? Barbarians are still the best due to their HD and Damage Reduction, but their saves don't get so high due to pumped up Con scores. Taking away con from the formula would be an easy solution, but it would also have soe negative effects... 1) Without the additional con boost to your toughness, lowlevel combat can be increadibly deadly. Even if just hit by a usual hit of 8 damage, a rogue without a con bonus would be instantly disabled 35% of the time and take a hit 80% of the time, which is just a bit too deadly. 2) It would make Con practically a dumpstat. The only things it would increase would be Fort saves and a few skills. 3) This would take away the ability of the Player to make a hardy PC, which wouldnt work well with some playing styles. 4) Also this would severely punish high Con creatures like Dragons and giants, who would be much easier to kill and their CR would no longer be apropiate. One way I considered accounting for this was to allow characters with multiple attacks to sum up all their damage from their full attack and force a single roll, instead of having separate rolls for each attack. So if a character can do 30 points of damage per attack and hits 3 times, he can force a single roll of DC 28 instead of 3 rolls of DC 16. I think the "add up all melee attacks" variant is cool, and since the number of attacks increases slowly while advancing levels i dont think it would unbalance lowlevel combat. btw 3 hits for 30 damage would mean three hits of DC 21 or one of DC 33. The formula is 15 + (damage/5 rounded up) as far as I know. To think things through i have thought of this example: A Fighter attacking with a 26 STR and a +5 flaming greatsword with a haste spell on him would hit 4 (out of 5) times for 31,5 damage (2d6 + 12str + 4weaponspecialisation + 5enhancement+3,5flaming) for a total of 126 damage. So the DC would be 41 (15+26). the Barbarian has a base safe of 14 + 10 con (raging) +1 for damage reduction +1 for the "great toughness" feat - resulting in a toughness save of 26. So he would have to roll 15 or more to avoid being wounded and would be disabled on a 6 or less. Thats a 30% chance to be disabled and an additional 40% chance to take a wound. A normal barbarian (with the dragons toughness feat) and 30 con would have an average 324 HP. So 126 damage would take away about 38,9% of his HP. Consicering the 30% chance to be disabled and the additional chance to take a wound, this system seems to be incredibly precise!