Post/Author/DateTime	Post
CarniL 07-10-04, 08:23 AM	I've been going through Unearthed Arcana searching for any house rules that can make the game(especially combat) more realistic when i read about Vitality and Wound Points system. I think this rule is great in making combat more relistic and random especially at higher levels where any hit you take including criticals can be described as "just a scratch"! With this rule you get to keep your hit points(now Vitality Points) which represents the advancement of your pc through combat experience and also adds the posibility for one lucky shot(which even an Orc can make once in a while) to make you worry-something that happens rarely at high levels! The thing with this rule is that it makes it harder to get killed but easier to get knocked out of combat! I would like to hear what anyone else thinks about this variant,what pros or cons it may have or any comment!
Nifft 07-10-04, 10:54 AM	Elemental Burst Weapons suddenly become good investments, because on a Crit the extra +Xd10 is going right to WP. SPELLCASTING is a big issue -- damage-dealing spells especially. My proposed rule on this is that spells deal 1d6/spell level (so a Fireball deals 3d6 TOTAL, and never improves), but if you fail your save, it's Wound damage. If you make your save, it's merely Vitality damage, and Evasion negates all damage on a save. Some damage spells don't have a save, and these should be looked at carefully. Here are my proposed changes: - Burning Hands: 1d4+1 damage - Magic Missile: add a Fort save to avoid WP damage. - Shocking Grasp: 1d8+1 damage, Crit -> WP (as weapon) - Scorching Ray: 2d6 damage per ray, extra rays as usual, max one ray per target, Crit -> WP (as weapon) - Polar Ray: 8d8 damage, Crit -> WP (as weapon) VILE DAMAGE becomes totally awesome -- on a Crit, you've effectively reduced the poor PC's Con. Be careful with this. ABILITY DAMAGE is fine, except for Con damage, which hurts double (by reducing the PC's Vitality and Wound scores). Be careful with Wounding weapons. -- N
Derren S. 07-10-04, 11:07 AM	Fortification becomes the most sought after armor enchantment. Everyone wants it. Also you probably have to change some of the crit increasing feats/abilities/prcs. I had a simmilar idea a while back (before UA was printed), only that VP did heal at normal HP rate and critical hits only decrease the WP by one (two if the weapon is wounding). In addition the creature woul get -1 to most things for every WP lost to represent the reduced combat ability when wounded. But that was never tested so I don't know how it works.
CarniL 07-10-04, 02:43 PM	I like the suggestion that all extra dice,such as sneak attack,on a critical are just 1 point of damage to wound points per dice.So the elemental burst weapons are not THAT great if you use that variant's variant.
Ranger REG 07-10-04, 04:51 PM	Originally posted by CarniL I would like to hear what anyone else thinks about this variant,what pros or cons it may have or any comment! For the Star Wars gamers, who have been using VP/WP system since it was introduced in 2000, it is considered to be appropriate for cinematic roleplaying. Of course, they stress it should be used in conjunction with Class Defense (or AC) Bonus and "armor as DR" rule, especially if you run out of VP and non-critical damage must then apply toward WP.
Astin_Dextor 07-10-04, 08:03 PM	Another way to use this system and soften it (since softening criticials ALWAYS favours the PCs) is to have weapons deal Con damage on a critical hit equal to their multiplier, and then add strength damage. THen elminate the Energy Burst weapon abilities altogether. THis makes criticals less threateneing, but still dangerous (remember that toughness still adds 3 wound points under this variant, and goes from being a feat that no one take, to one that just about everyone will take at least once)
CarniL 07-11-04, 07:06 AM	Another thing i don't quite get is what happens when you are disabled. Can you only take a move action (and move at half speed) without risking further injury? What happens if you try to drink a potion which is a standard action?Is this considered such strenuous activity that you become dying? And what if someone throws a fireball at you and you succeed at your reflex save (and having evasion avoiding all damage)?Is tumbling out of the fireball's way considered strenuous? And i suppose taking more damage when at 0 WP also turns your condition to dying.
Nifft 07-11-04, 09:20 AM	I don't like the "1 WP per damage die" variant. If you want to play heroic, "I laugh at your arrows" D&D, HP work pretty darn well. You could impose a -1 penalty to all actions for every 10 HP of damage, and skip the VP/WP system entirely. (Then, "negative levels" become double dangerous, because you take -1 from the NL and -1 from the damage... anyway.) IMHO, the fact that one crit really could kill a person is what makes VP/WP an exciting system. Ranger REG: Yeah, the revised SW core rulebook is what I was looking at when I proposed the spell conversion. Force Lightning in particular. :) I'm thinking of adapting that system and calling the Force just plain Magic, or calling the Force "Psionics" and using the Incantations variant of UA for "Magic". -- N
CarniL 07-11-04, 11:56 AM	Originally posted by Nifft I don't like the "1 WP per damage die" variant. Not per damage die.Per extra die such as sneak attacks,energy and energy burst weapons and so on. IMHO, the fact that one crit really could kill a person is what makes VP/WP an exciting system. I totally agree!
Ranger REG 07-12-04, 04:56 AM	Originally posted by Nifft Ranger REG: Yeah, the revised SW core rulebook is what I was looking at when I proposed the spell conversion. Force Lightning in particular. :) I'm thinking of adapting that system and calling the Force just plain Magic, or calling the Force "Psionics" and using the Incantations variant of UA for "Magic". -- N If you're open to third-party d20 products, I strongly recommend trying The Psychic's Handbook by Steve Kenson (published by Green Ronin). The Psychic System uses a similar skill-n-feat system.
Cathon 07-12-04, 09:36 PM	I made some changes to the critical system with VP/WP in my campaign. I keep the normal crit range and multiplier but the multiplier has a new meaning. Damage on a crit is determined like a normal hit with all dice, bonuses, etc intact. This damage is applied as wound damage up to the max weapon damage (so up to 10 on a dwarven waraxe, up to 4 on a dagger). The rest of the damage is divided up between VP and WP damage. If the crit multiplier is x2, 25% of extra damage is applied to WP, x3 is 50% damage, x4 is 75% wound damage. x4 is the maximum in my game. Of course, if their VP drops below 0 from the VP damage on the attack the extra is applied to WP as normal. My world doesn't really have direct damage spells, so I haven't really worried about fitting in spells with this. Perhaps base damage of the die used, treated as a x2 multiplier.
CarniL 07-13-04, 08:08 AM	Cathon your system is a very deadly one!With just one crit you are down!I prefer it the way it is in which it takes an average of two nasty blows to get you out of combat. I would like to hear any comments about my previous question concerning what happens when you are disabled.
Derren S. 07-13-04, 09:05 AM	Originally posted by CarniL Cathon your system is a very deadly one!With just one crit you are down!I prefer it the way it is in which it takes an average of two nasty blows to get you out of combat. I would like to hear any comments about my previous question concerning what happens when you are disabled. The original system is even more deadly. On a critical hit you do normal damage (nut multiplied) to the WP instead to the VP. No dividing, no cap.
CarniL 07-14-04, 06:03 AM	Originally posted by Derren S. The original system is even more deadly. On a critical hit you do normal damage (nut multiplied) to the WP instead to the VP. No dividing, no cap. What Cathon suggests is that the critical damage(not multiplied but for max weapon damage)is applied as wound damage.And then there is even more WP damage when you divide the rest damage! I think this IS deadlier that the original system in which you only take the normal weapon's damage on a crit.
Craith 07-14-04, 10:01 AM	I halve the multiplier to damage, so x2 is x1, x3 is x1.5, x4 is x2 on Critical Multipliers. This does make Combat really deadly, but it adds a lot of suspension to the game. Players will get hurt by lots of small, weak enemies, but it leaves the chance for those one arrow that slays the dragon (or at least weakens it)
+10 holy club 07-15-04, 09:10 AM	i've played starwars RPG for about year and have had some interesting experiance with WP and VP. In one campaign i run, in the final epic battle onbaord the taking off starship, the 12th level PCs (in the first round of combat) criticaled the 16th level elite trooper villian and knocked him uncounciss, just in time for a coup de grace. still, i like the slightly increaed risk facter with WP and VP. using WP and VP in D&D requires a change of Critical multipliers and 15-20 crit range scimitars. for the first, my idea was this- a weapon with a x3 crit gets a +4 bonus on attack rolls to confirm a critical hit, and a x4 crit weapon gains a +6 on the roll (if you are a lazy DM, who for soem reason makes a weapon with a x5 crit, the math for the above is: the crit multiplier -1 x2 equals the bonus the weapon gets to confirm crit hits.) my reasoning for this system is that, you can duck and roll a head-on sword blow, or just tough out a good hit on you, but you can't tough out a 2 feet blade of sharp metal in your arm (scythe). for WP and VP in D&D, second change is simple, all abilitys that double a weapons threat range, just increaes it by 1 (some one may have already posted that change/UA has it in, but i don't have the time to look.) :confused: :b: :b:
Nifft 07-16-04, 07:25 PM	Originally posted by CarniL Not per damage die.Per extra die such as sneak attacks,energy and energy burst weapons and so on. Ahhh, interesting... now I'm thinking that the crit multiplier should feature in somehow. Initial idea (need to do math): x2 => 1 WP/die, x3 => 2 WP/3 dice, x4 => 2 WP/die. -- N
Tsuyoshi500 07-17-04, 07:09 PM	My group and I have recently become fed up with normal DnD, and we've decided to change to the Vitality system. After discussing how that would effect play, we've decided to use a variant of the standard DnD critical system. Essentially, weapons only deal wound point damage on a roll of natural 20, and even then they only do one factor of that damage as wound damage, the rest goes to vitality. Thus, if you rolled a critical will a greataxe, the normal 1d12 + 1.5x str + misc would be dealt to wound points, and the other 2d12 + 3.0 x str + misc goes straight to vitality.
Nifft 07-18-04, 10:00 AM	Originally posted by Tsuyoshi500 Thus, if you rolled a critical will a greataxe, the normal 1d12 + 1.5x str + misc would be dealt to wound points, and the other 2d12 + 3.0 x str + misc goes straight to vitality. How would this work on critters that lack Vitality, or who are out of Vitality? -- N
Tsuyoshi500 07-18-04, 12:16 PM	Well, normally when you run out of vitality, the rest of the vitality damage goes to wound points, right? So the remainder of the damage that would have normally gone to vitality would then go to wound points. As for critters who lack a vitality score, aren't those critters also immune to critical hits? I'm pretty sure that's a moot point. It's thuroughly possible that I'm wrong in this, however, so maybe you should look it up yourself.
Nifft 07-18-04, 02:46 PM	Tsuyoshi: I'm quite familiar with the VP/WP system, and the original VP/WP system pioneered in d20 StarWars. So I'm pretty comfortable with how the base system works. I asked what you do in the situation, because one use of the VP/WP system is to distinguish mooks from "named NPCs". (Mooks have no VP, and thus are either easily killed or heavily armored, since in SWd20, armor only acts as DR for WP.) Dealing up to 3d12+3xMods WP damage on a crit is really quite deadly -- more deadly than the already-darn-deadly normal VP/WP system. Good luck, and be sure to let us all know how your variant works out. -- N
Tsuyoshi500 07-19-04, 04:39 PM	Being a rather nearly-masochistic perfectionist DM, I'm willing to keep track of all the VP and WP of so-called mooks. I don't really see a reason not to give normal people VP because I don't really see the adventurers as special. But more to the point: Is it not realistic to assume that someone who is unable to continue effectively defending themselves will not survive a lucky swing from, as a good friends of mine puts it, a sharpened steel door? Now, if it were a dagger, the weapon would only do 1d4 + mods to WP (usually not enough to kill anyone worth fighting) and the rest would go to VP, leaving the injured wounded and hampered by their injuries. I think the point is, if someone is already down to their wound points, they're basically out of the fight. Considering that in the HP system a character only essentially has VP and then they're dying, I would have to say that the (modified) VP/WP system is much more survivable. Now, the original VP/WP system (as posted in Unearthed Arcanna) lends too much power to high-critical weapons, and that's not something I want (cleansing head of Dervish head-lopping nightmares).
CarniL 07-20-04, 06:42 AM	Originally posted by Tsuyoshi500 Being a rather nearly-masochistic perfectionist DM, I'm willing to keep track of all the VP and WP of so-called mooks. I don't really see a reason not to give normal people VP because I don't really see the adventurers as special. I shared your point of view but after playing a couple of games with the original VP/WP system i realized that if you use the system for low level NPCs and "mooks" it slows combat down a lot(considering that my PCs are all above 13th level). Another variant for this system i came up with is that when you are hit and down at 0WP the DC for the Fortitude save is 15 +1/5 of last damage dealt rather that 15 regardless of being hit with a dagger or a maximized empowered fireball!
Archangel 08-18-04, 09:51 AM	I will be starting a D&D game soon that will use VP/WP instead of HPs and have been contemplating what changes I will need to make. And for extra damage dice on a critical hit I've come with a solution: roll normal damage and divide result of each dice by 5 and round up. So for sneak attacks that yould mean 1-5=1, 6=2 damage, and for Burst weapons 1-5=1, 6-10=2. This means that weapons like a pick with Burst can do from 1 to 6 extra damage on a critical with average being 4. Also I've being toying with an idea to make any die rolls on a succesful critical work that way so when a barbarian hits somebody with a greatsword he will do 1-4+str+other damage and not 2d6+str+other. That would of course be until that enemy loses all VP, then all damage would be normal. And Disentegrate would work in a way that when it drains all VP points from a creature and does at least 1 WP damage that creature is disentegrated?
Archangel 09-02-04, 09:24 AM	Also I changed some of the mechanics for Fort saves to avoid dying status: Now the DC is not always 15 but 10 + damage that would go into minus HP. So a char with 5 WP left is hit for 8 damage. He is now at 0 WP and roll a 10+3= 13 DC Fort save! This makes a high level fights a little more damgerous because those opponent can dish out 20-30 damage and the save can easily go over 20-25 DC! Also once the char is at 0 WP and concious but takes a single WP damage he is going to dying status without additional saves! Same goes for dying chars, one WP damage kills them! Also I made falling damage go to WP directly as is in SW Roleplaying game. But am not sure if that should be changed to half to WP and half to VP?
Archangel 09-02-04, 09:31 AM	Also there is one thing that is stupid in this rules. Once you are dying you make a DC 20 Fort save to one again become concious and stable and can attack or get hit and fall down again. Then you make the same save and do it all over again. It looks like this: an already close to dying guy gets up and gets hit by a sword, and he falls down. Then he gets up again and then is hit by a Fireball, and falls down, then gets up and gets hit by an arrow and falls down and goes to do it all over again! If that is not stupid I don't know what is? So how to make it more realistic? Maybe change WP so there are - ones and they go to -10 and then you are dead. And the Fort save is not for instant death but for losing an additional point. And the DC is not 10 +1 for each round but 10 + the number of minus points the char has?
Tzepish 09-02-04, 05:12 PM	What strikes me as odd is that they used the first draft of the VP/WP rules, instead of those from the Revised Star Wars d20, in which WP did go to -10, and the stabilization rules are basically the same as with HP. This is what I use (for my modern games; I still use HP in DnD). As for critical multipliers, here's my system: A x2 weapon deals x1 damage to WP. A x3 weapon deals x1 damage to WP and x1 damage to VP. A x4 weapon deals x1 damage to WP and x2 damage to VP. etc...
Vanigo 09-02-04, 09:41 PM	My opinion of the VP/WP system in UA is, and has been since it was posted on the site in a preview: It's not quite finished. There are about a dozen niggling little problems (you never die if you never fail a fort save, it's impossible to knock someone out without taking them to death's door, regeneration sometimes makes monsters weaker and is strictly inferior to fast healing, a bunch of other stuff I don't remember) which, put together, make it not quite playable. You can fix it without too much trouble, but it's no good without some house-ruling. Which I suppose is oddly appropriate. The "never dying without failing a fort save" is particularly glaring. It's possible - and not even very difficult, since the DC is fixed at 15 - to survive indefinetly in the Tarrasque's stomach even if you have no acid resistance. And speaking of the Tarrasque, did you know that under this system, you can kill it by hitting it with an axe until it stops moving?
Wrathamon 09-02-04, 09:55 PM	I have been using a system vitality/wound system that works ok on a critical you role normal damage to vitality but in addition you get the critical damage to wounds. That critical damage is equals x2 = 2wp x3 = 3wp x4 = 4wp 1 wp for each additional damage die +1 wp for Burst weapons So if you had a Flaming Burst pick you would do 6 wps on a critical if you had 3d6 sneak also you would do 9 wps. You still can do one hit kills on a critical... if the vitality is reduced to 0 and there is carry over added to the straight critical damage to wounds. So lets say a fighter STR 16 who Power Attacks for 3 criticals and rolls average damage using a +1 Flaming Burst Battleaxe. Would do 48 Vitality and 6 wounds if my math is correct :\ Then I added a Fort save DC = 15+wounds taken Failure means you are injured ( I had it before that you drop to 0 wounds and are dying, but it got to be too brutal) Injured means you are -2 to all your rolls and it stacks every time you fail a injury save. So if you take a wound and fail again you would be at -4. what do others think?
atanhel 09-03-04, 09:15 AM	i've been using the woundpoints system for a while in normal D&D, but now I'm going ebberon, and there you have the warforged, a race that automaticly sabilises when his hp go negative, but i have no idea how i will dobble this with wound points ( giving them +10 wp is not a good idea!) i shall give the presive racial abbility: A warforged responds slightly diffirent from other living creatures when reduced to 0 hp. a warforged with 0 hp is disabled, just like a living creature. He cab take only a singel move action or standard action in each roun, but streaniouse activity does not risk futher injury. When his hp are less than 0 and greather than -10, a warforged is inert. He is unconscious and helpless, and he cannot perform any actions. However and inert does not lose additional hp unless more damage is dealt to him, as with a creature that is stable! what to do?
Grail Quest 09-03-04, 07:05 PM	Properly used, Wounds and Vitality can be great. You can, for example, determine varying levels of disability based on % of wounds left, AND use a different chart for this based on whether a campaign is gritty or heroic. You can dump the existing Massive Damage Rule and instead say that (damage inflicted/CON) points of damage go straight to Wounds. Round down. No save. Drop critical hit damage multipliers, though, as that can make things too deadly. To properly use Wounds with very large or very small creatures, though, you'll probably need Size Damage Reduction--a system where large creatures can ignore small amounts of damage. Otherwise, a creature massing x64 times human size might only have a handful more Wounds. Without Size Damage Reduction, the other way to go is to near-proportionately increase Wounds, resulting in 3-digit or even 4-digit Wounds just to have a "realistic" result. Anyway, for a look at my (free!) integrated set of house rules using Wounds and Vitality, go to www.freewebs.com/d20elements Constructive comments to grail_quest@hotmail.com
Vaneere the Destroyer 09-05-04, 03:36 AM	In my game bursting weapon damage and sneak attacks deal vp damage first. On a crit the base weapon damage still goes to Wp, the rest hits vp then wp. To determine death and dying I dont let WP go below 0 but they keep up with what an attack would have normally put them at using the HP system. This negative number is then added to the fort roll to determine status. In other words if someone has 5 wp then takes 8 points of damage their wp is at 0 but they incur a -3 penalty to their fort roll. The number of rounds you are dying is also added to the fort penalty. Did anybody understand that? Interesting thing i learned in my first vitality point game: CR 1/3 dogs have a 15 constitution. WOW! :mymy:
Cathon 09-07-04, 08:46 PM	I made some changes to the critical system with VP/WP in my campaign. I keep the normal crit range and multiplier but the multiplier has a new meaning. Damage on a crit is determined like a normal hit with all dice, bonuses, etc intact. This damage is applied as wound damage up to the max weapon damage (so up to 10 on a dwarven waraxe, up to 4 on a dagger). The rest of the damage is divided up between VP and WP damage. If the crit multiplier is x2, 25% of extra damage is applied to WP, x3 is 50% damage, x4 is 75% wound damage. x4 is the maximum in my game. Of course, if their VP drops below 0 from the VP damage on the attack the extra is applied to WP as normal. My world doesn't really have direct damage spells, so I haven't really worried about fitting in spells with this. Perhaps base damage of the die used, treated as a x2 multiplier. Hmm, I posted this and then never went back and looked at replies. People seem to have misinterpreted my system. Standard VP/WP: You critical, the target takes normal damage, but takes it off of their wound points. The text says reduce sneak attack damage and other extra dice damage to 1 point per die, but doesn't do anything about power attack damage, strength bonuses, or magic bonuses which can add up to a lot of extra damage (and hurts rogues) My VP/WP: You critical, you total up normal damage. Your weapon has a max base damage(4 for a dagger, 8 for a longsword, etc). If your normal damage is less than your max base damage, they take normal damage to wound points. If it exceeds the max base damage, they take max base damage to wound points plus a percentage of the remainder based on the crit multiplier. So fighter with 18 strength, +1 flaming longsword, and power attack 4 does roll 6 + str 4 + magic 1 + power attack 4 + flaming roll 3 = 18 damage. Base damage is 8, so he does 8 wound point damage, multiplier is x2 so he does 1/4 wound on the remaing 10 points, so 2.5 drops to 2, so 10 points of wound, 8 points of vitality. Average human drops to zero, average PC probably has 2-4 WP left. Normal VP/WP: 18 points of damage, flaming drops to 1 point of damage, all damage to wound, he does 16 points of wound damage and less total damage then he would have done on a normal non-critical attack. 90% of PCs drop to 0 WP Rogue with 12 strength, +2 rapier, and 3d6 sneak attack does roll 3 + str 1 + magic 2 + sneak 10 = 16 damage normally. In my system he does 8 points of wound, 8 points of vitality. In the standard system he does 9 points of wound. My goal is to make the ratio of sneak attack to power attack damage normal, and make a x3 crit weapon more likely to take someone out in one crit than a x2 crit weapon. Note that if you don't reduce the die rolls to one point per die in the standard system the totals are 18 WP and 16 WP respectively. As for fort saves for dying, I have a fairly simple method, if you do damage to someone at 0 WP, the damage is added to the DC of their saving throw to die.
starfire311 09-08-04, 12:02 PM	IMC I use VP/WP and thus it becomes necessary to use armor as DR and add clas baseddefense bonuses, I also had to rework how to handle spell damage as well. IMC we do damage and crits the same as normal, you just subtract from VP before WP. SO essentially everyone has more HP but they seem to go much faster.. because Armor only applies to WP damage. Also the changes we made to spells were that one point of damage per die of spell is applied to WP, unless a successful save is made, then the damage is applied to VP first. We have many more changes due to this system that I havn't covered.
Golem358 09-10-04, 11:04 PM	I don't really relish the idea of forcing all spells into the "1d6 per spell level" catagory, but I'm a bit unsure how to shift non-attack-roll spells into the VP/WP system. Maybe a fireball does 1D6 VP per caster level, but does WP damage if a target rolls a 1 on a save. Maybe only 1/2 damage to WP, for the sake of balance? On the other hand, how would that affect spells that don't allow a saving throw?
starfire311 09-13-04, 08:59 AM	I don't really relish the idea of forcing all spells into the "1d6 per spell level" catagory, but I'm a bit unsure how to shift non-attack-roll spells into the VP/WP system. Maybe a fireball does 1D6 VP per caster level, but does WP damage if a target rolls a 1 on a save. Maybe only 1/2 damage to WP, for the sake of balance? On the other hand, how would that affect spells that don't allow a saving throw? Here is how I do dmage spells. Each spell does one WP per die of the spell and the rest is VP. If the target makes a successful save then all the damage is dealt to VP, in addition to any other benefits of saving for the spell. So, say you get hit by a 10D6 fireball. The Wizard rolls really good say 40 and you fail your save you take 10 WP and and 30 VP. If you make your save you will only take 20 VP.
Wrathamon 09-13-04, 03:29 PM	So, say you get hit by a 10D6 fireball. The Wizard rolls really good say 40 and you fail your save you take 10 WP and and 30 VP. If you make your save you will only take 20 VP. Don't you mean if a Wizards casts a 10d6 fireball spell at a target and you roll 40 on the 10d6. If the target fails the save they take 40 VPs and 1pt per die so a total of 10 WPs. If they succeed, they take half damage... so 20VPs and 5WPS?
starfire311 09-13-04, 05:22 PM	Don't you mean if a Wizards casts a 10d6 fireball spell at a target and you roll 40 on the 10d6. If the target fails the save they take 40 VPs and 1pt per die so a total of 10 WPs. If they succeed, they take half damage... so 20VPs and 5WPS? Nope I said what I meant.... in other words the first point of damage from each die is dealt to wounds if you successfully save then it is all dealt to VP. I did not want to increase the damage dealt by spells... just change how they were applied. I do the same thing with cure spells the first point from each die is applied to WP and the rest to VP first.
Wrathamon 09-13-04, 11:47 PM	ok i understand you better now...