Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Eye of the Beholder 08-28-06, 01:35 AM	Hit Point Variant: Minor and Major Injuries Determining Wounds Whenever hit point damage is applied, roll the damage as normal. (No converting to damage values or changing critical multipliers or anything like that.) Such wounds are considered minor injuries. The character suffering the injuries must then roll two of its hit dice (use most prevalent hit die type for multiclass characters, or one of each die type if of roughly equivalent levels) and add its Constitution score. (This roll is hereafter called a wound check). If the result is higher than the character's minor injuries, nothing happens... for now. But if the character suffers another hit, the new damage roll is added to existing minor injuries, so the wound check to shrug off the damage gets harder. Example: An 8th level paladin with 15 Constitution gets hit by fireball and suffers 21 points of damage. She makes a wound check, rolling 2d10+15, and gets a 26 - success. Then a rogue stabs her from behind, inflicting another 12 damage. The paladin rolls 2d10 +15 to try to shrug off the injury again, this time against a difficulty of 33 (12, +21 from existing injuries). If the wound check is failed, the character erases all minor injuries and instead suffers a major injury. Each major injury inflicts a -1 penalty on all rolls modified by ability scores (so all ability and skill checks, saves, attack rolls, and damage rolls except from crossbows, spells, and other outside cases). For every ten points by which the wound check is failed, an additional major injury is suffered. Example: A frail sorcerer rolls an 11 on his wound check after suffering 42 points of damage from the critical hit of a giant's greatclub. His minor wounds drop to 0, but he gains three major injuries and suffers a -3 penalty to attacks, skill checks, etc. Incapacitation and Death When a character has suffered as many major injuries as he has levels/2 (round up), he is disabled. As usual, disabled characters can only a single standard or move action per round. If the character takes a strenuous action while disabled, or if he suffers another major injury, he falls unconscious (if a PC) or dies (if an NPC). Unconcious or otherwise helpless characters die if they suffer another major injury, or if subjected to a coup de grace. Nonlethal damage is handled exactly like lethal damage, but the two types of damage are tracked separately. If a character fails his wound check when suffering nonlethal damage, the major wound is likewise nonlethal. An NPC incapacitated by a major nonlethal wound falls unconscious until brought back by healing or dramatic necessity. A PC incapacitated by nonlethal damage likewise falls unconscious, but without the risk of dying if another major wound is suffered (Coup de grace attacks still work, however). Instant death effects, or any other effects that paralyze, petrify, or otherwise destroy a PC with a single failed saving throw, instead inflict two major injuries on a failed save. Monsters and NPCs Monsters roll twice their hit die type plus their Constitution score for wound checks, just like PCs. Likewise, they can suffer a number of major wounds equal to half their hit dice before being disabled. Creatures and NPCs with challenge ratings significantly less than the PCs' still suffer automatic death (rather than two major wounds) from auto-kill effects, and DMs may wish to rule that suitably weak opponents automatically die or become incapacitated after a single major wound (the 'extra' rule). Healing Characters recover from any minor wounds suffered at the end of each encounter, if given a minute's rest. Major wounds are healed naturally at a rate of one per day, or two per day with full bed rest. DMs may wish to rule that some major wounds from unusual (typically magical) sources can only be healed under specific conditions (for example, the two major wounds inflicted by being partially petrified by a gorgon can only be healed after receiving a stone to flesh spell). Magical healing can be used to heal minor injuries on a point for point basis (that is, one hit point healed = one point of minor injuries removed). The following spells and abilities have been changed as follows to allow the curing of major injuries: Cure Moderate Wounds: Cures one major injury. Cure Serious Wounds: Cures one major injury, plus cures minor injuries as cure moderate wounds. Cure Critical Wounds: Cures up to 2 major injuries. Heal: Cures up to 5 major injuries plus all minor injuries. Regenerate: Cures up to 3 major injuries and removes all injury penalties. Lay on Hands/Wholeness of Body:Can cure a total of one major injury per day per four class levels, rounded down. Balance Issues, Etc Disclaimer 1: This rules variant works under the assumption that player death is a very bad thing, and that coming back from the dead is a rare and miraculous event. If you're the sort of DM who likes a high body count, or if you're comfortable with the idea of players dragging their friends' corpses back to town for resurrection on a regular basis, you'll likely find these rules to be on the gentle side. Disclaimer 2: Multiclass characters get a little confusing under these rules... no more complicated really, but requiring a judgement call on the DM's part. The players in my campaign mostly just stuck to one class (and avoided prestige classes entirely) so it wasn't a big issue, and when it was I just eyeballed it ('Mostly Fighter levels and a few of Rogue? Eh, have a d10 plus a d8'). Since everyone can sustain half as many major injuries as they have hit dice, and characters can expect to shrug off (on average) the result of two hit dice plus their Constitution scores (which are twice their Con modifiers, plus ten) before receiving a major injury, player durability should stay the same... except everyone has the equivalent of five extra hit points per level. If you don't like this you can change the wound checks from 'two hit dice plus Constitution score' to 'two hit dice plus twice Constitution modifier'. But adding the score means players are less likely to be hosed by a bad roll, and it also prevents the 'death by a thousand cuts' attack from dual wielders and the like from inflicting unnaturally huge numbers of major wounds in a single round. Plus the added durability helps make up for the loss of strength from wound penalties. Why an extra major injury for every 10 points the wound check is failed? Honestly, I don't know... this part needs playtesting. I needed some way of keeping the 'big scary attack' big and scary, or else all those extra minor wounds would just drop away and the greataxe would be even more of a joke than it already is. But as I say, 10 may not be the number I want to go with. It just felt right. If someone was really a stickler for accuracy they could have characters make a wound check against the minor injuries, subtract the result from the injuries if not already higher, and then make another wound check against the remainder (so a wound check result of 20 against 30 damage would result in one major wound and then another check against 10 damage to prevent another wound), but this strikes me as a whole lot of dice rolling. (My players don't seem to mind rolling in response to damage, but multiple rolls with addition/subtraction between each one seemed a bit much.) As always, YMMV. Oh, and if you see a certain similarity between these rules and the injury system of 7th Sea... guilty as charged.
LordPendragon 08-28-06, 02:48 AM	I'm far too lazy to read the whole thing right now... I'll probably come back to it later. However, from what I actually, read, it looks similar to a system I've seen before. I'll post the actual info on it when I come back later.
Tisner44 08-28-06, 09:50 PM	Hit Point Variant: Minor and Major Injuries Determining Wounds Whenever hit point damage is applied, roll the damage as normal. (No converting to damage values or changing critical multipliers or anything like that.) Such wounds are considered minor injuries. The character suffering the injuries must then roll two of its hit dice (use most prevalent hit die type for multiclass characters, or one of each die type if of roughly equivalent levels) and add its Constitution score. (This roll is hereafter called a wound check). If the result is higher than the character's minor injuries, nothing happens... for now. But if the character suffers another hit, the new damage roll is added to existing minor injuries, so the wound check to shrug off the damage gets harder. I actually like this, it's not too bad. If the wound check is failed, the character erases all minor injuries and instead suffers a major injury. Each major injury inflicts a -1 penalty on all rolls modified by ability scores (so all ability and skill checks, saves, attack rolls, and damage rolls except from crossbows, spells, and other outside cases). For every ten points by which the wound check is failed, an additional major injury is suffered. What do you mean when you say failing the wound check? How many minor injuries can a character take? A -1 is pretty extreme especially if it gets cummulated, but I guess it's okay... Example: A frail sorcerer rolls an 11 on his wound check after suffering 42 points of damage from the critical hit of a giant's greatclub. His minor wounds drop to 0, but he gains three major injuries and suffers a -3 penalty to attacks, skill checks, etc. The reseting of the Minor wounds sounds okay. Incapacitation and Death When a character has suffered as many major injuries as he has levels/2 (round up), he is disabled. As usual, disabled characters can only a single standard or move action per round. If the character takes a strenuous action while disabled, or if he suffers another major injury, he falls unconscious (if a PC) or dies (if an NPC). Unconcious or otherwise helpless characters die if they suffer another major injury, or if subjected to a coup de grace. So a first and second level character dies after one major hit? Seems a little rough for the low level characters. Nonlethal damage is handled exactly like lethal damage, but the two types of damage are tracked separately. If a character fails his wound check when suffering nonlethal damage, the major wound is likewise nonlethal. An NPC incapacitated by a major nonlethal wound falls unconscious until brought back by healing or dramatic necessity. A PC incapacitated by nonlethal damage likewise falls unconscious, but without the risk of dying if another major wound is suffered (Coup de grace attacks still work, however). A little complicated, but okay. Instant death effects, or any other effects that paralyze, petrify, or otherwise destroy a PC with a single failed saving throw, instead inflict two major injuries on a failed save. This weakens these spells as well loses the flavor of some of them...like Petrify. I think I would leave this out, unless you were trying to avoid the save or die effects. Monsters and NPCs Monsters roll twice their hit die type plus their Constitution score for wound checks, just like PCs. Likewise, they can suffer a number of major wounds equal to half their hit dice before being disabled. Creatures and NPCs with challenge ratings significantly less than the PCs' still suffer automatic death (rather than two major wounds) from auto-kill effects, and DMs may wish to rule that suitably weak opponents automatically die or become incapacitated after a single major wound (the 'extra' rule). Healing Characters recover from any minor wounds suffered at the end of each encounter, if given a minute's rest. Major wounds are healed naturally at a rate of one per day, or two per day with full bed rest. DMs may wish to rule that some major wounds from unusual (typically magical) sources can only be healed under specific conditions (for example, the two major wounds inflicted by being partially petrified by a gorgon can only be healed after receiving a stone to flesh spell). The Stone to Flesh used to heal is kinda interesting and might be okay to ofset the lose of flavor from the petrify spell. Magical healing can be used to heal minor injuries on a point for point basis (that is, one hit point healed = one point of minor injuries removed). The following spells and abilities have been changed as follows to allow the curing of major injuries: Cure Moderate Wounds: Cures one major injury. Cure Serious Wounds: Cures one major injury, plus cures minor injuries as cure moderate wounds. Cure Critical Wounds: Cures up to 2 major injuries. Heal: Cures up to 5 major injuries plus all minor injuries. Regenerate: Cures up to 3 major injuries and removes all injury penalties. Lay on Hands/Wholeness of Body:Can cure a total of one major injury per day per four class levels, rounded down. Seems okay Overall it seems okay, but HP is a number representing the amount of damage a character brush off without becoming disabled...so technically it is like your system except you actually track scratches and flesh wounds with the minor damage...seems a little messy and the result is not that much different. But to completely judge I need to know if the minor amount of damage a character can take is equal to the normal HP or is there another way of creating those.
Wayside 08-29-06, 04:31 AM	This is by far the most interesting system I have seen for a hit point/damage system. It needs a lot of work in balancing for higher and lower level characters, but looks like a solid system for moderately leveled characters (around 6-8). The problem is at low level characters will be immortal unless minor wounds have some consequence or you crush them with large numbers or overly powerful creatures in which case they are one hit wonders, i'm not too sure from reading your description what the minor wounds do, do you still take damage? At high levels it seems that characters will drop way to fast due to the fact the difficulty to make the wound checks keeps getting higher and higher, but the bonus to the check stays the same.
LordPendragon 08-29-06, 10:16 AM	As far as I can tell, it's balanced against current HP rules in its own way. Sustainable hits still scales with HD, Con, and HD size, so nobody's getting shafted. The thing I don't think fits very well is the adding up of previous minor wounds. If you let attacks stack that easily, then it's basically just HP, except with some penalties thrown in for losing too much of it. In your system... Effective HP = HD * (Con + HD size + 3) / 2 That's an approximation, based on the probability of getting overlap on what's needed to inflict a major wound, and the way all the stats interact. It actually works out fairly even with the current HP rules, incidentally. I'd suggest counting minor wounds as only half when adding them all up to determine if a major wound is inflicted. That way it becomes less like HP and more like you're actually suffering a traumatic hit when you take a major wound. It also keeps big scary attacks big and scary. Also, the other RPG this reminded me of was The Riddle of Steel. It has an arbitrary wound system where every hit causes a wound with severity level ranging from 1 to 10, based on the rolls of the characters involved. A 10th level wound to the head is not something you want to see :tongue: Tisner... about low-level survivability, remember that a major wound requires damage equal to the character's Con score. Compare that number (usually 10 or better) to the average first level PC's HP and you'll notice a distinct increase in durability at first level.
Thelon Fairblade 08-29-06, 03:18 PM	Repeating what Lord Pendragon said, this is most HP with some extra mechanics. Right now, 5th level fighter has 32 hp with 10 CON. He takes 31 hp without effect (any source, any quantity), the 32 puts him disabled, and the 33 starts to kill him. Dead at 42 total damage. In your system, he has a "Soak" of 2d10 + 10, or about 21. So at 21 damage, he's fine, at 22 he now has a major wound. He can take another 20 and be fine, but 21 (-1 for the first wound) = Major Wound #2. He can take another 19 and be fine, but 20 (-2 for second wound) = disabled. Our example fighter just took 63 damage to reach Disabled. Did I miss something? Another example... Our hapless fighter angers a stone golem. The monster smacks him and crits for 43 damage. Normal Fighter = dead. Your fighter: disabled (avg roll of 21 = missed by 22 = 3 major wounds). if he's lucky, though, he might Soak 24, and only take 2 Major wounds, and thus not only not be dead, but still be up and active. [To be fair "if he's lucky though" could apply to the "normal" fighter, resulting in him having say +6 hp.... and being disabled and dying instead of outright dead.] Definately more friendly, less character death. Auto-kills: baleful polymoph -- you're half-a-toad, 2 major wounds. you can take 4 by that level (7th), so you are -2 to hit and likely to die with less damage due to the unnatural position of your half-transformed organs. But a second failed auto-kill still won't even kill you-- just disabled. And by 9th level, it takes *three* auto-kill failures to take you out. What about Harm? 3 major wounds? seems wimpy -- I'd rather see you make the Wound roll against the 110 damage! What about Damage Reduction? Does it reduce the "minor injury" total from each hit (as it does with hit points)? Or apply as a modifier to the wound roll? or both? What about toughness, Improved toughness, or other direct hp increase (aid spell, Righteous might, vigor, other temporary hp increases)? Add to the Soak total? What about CON bonuses like rage, Heroism, bardic song? Just a flat increase to Soak? --> If so, what is the penalty to the barbarian when his rage ends? -- a normal barbarian must make sure he won't be disabled or dying when the bonus hp go away! Do negative levels (i.e. -5 hp) apply to the soak roll? Your healing spells seem a little whacked out. On the other hand, I like that a mage with 3 major injuries takes just as long / as much effort to heal as the fighter with 3 major injuries --- it was just much harder to inflict the 3 major injuries on the fighter. Part of me says Major Injury threshold should be fixed, with level increasing your Soak total instead. So 5th level fighter guy has the same 3 major wound threshold as 20th level fighter guy ... 2 failed auto-saves, and they are both dead. One Heal spell, and both are in great shape. But 5th level fighter-guy has a soak of 26 (2d10+CON10+LVL5), while 20th level hero-guy has a soak of 41 (15 more levels). You could even base it a little more on class. Like Fighters get +1 Soak per level, Other 1/1 BAB classes get +1 per 2 levels, 3/4 BAB classes get 1/3, everyone else is 1/4. (the barb already gets d12s for Soak, and DR for minor injuries). Edit: Sorry, another thought. You are in more trouble if the nasty scary hit comes after the minor injuries than if the minor injuries come after the nasty scary hit. Why? You are more likely to fail the save by more than 10, getting multiple Major Wounds. Otherwise, the damage washes away, and you get to try to ignore up to your Soak rating again before another Major Wound comes along...
Eye of the Beholder 08-29-06, 07:34 PM	Thanks for the thoughts/feedback, it's good having some more eyes to find the holes and such. To clarify some points: Damage reduction reduces minor wounds just like hit points. Constitution bonuses help by adding to wound checks, letting you absorb more damage before taking a major wound. Letting characters survive instant death effects was likewise intentional, though I agree it could make high level fights considerably longer/less frightening. One possible compromise fix: save-or-die type spells inflict one major wound per two spell levels, rounded down (baleful polymorph puts you two major wounds closer to frogdom, disintegrate inflicts 3 major wounds, wail of the banshee inflicts 4). Hit point adders... crap. I hadn't thought of that. Okay, how 'bout this: the Toughness feat gives you a +2 bonus to wound checks (not quite as good at 1st level, but it stays useful forever, since it's basically an extra hit point per level). Temporary hit points grant a 'buffer' before you start suffering minor wounds - so an aid spell lets you ignore the first 1d8+1 points of damage completely. A variation to this system, possibly more appropriate for high level play, would have characters roll their hit die type + Constitution modifier once for every two character levels, rounded up (so a Con 15 fighter would roll 1d10+2 at first and second level, 2d10+4 at 3rd and 4th, etc). A character's capacity to take major injuries would then stay constant through all levels, as follows: One major injury: -2 wound penalty Two major injuries: -4 wound penalty Three major injuries: -6 wound penalty and partial actions only Four major injuries: Helpless (or dead if an NPC) Five major injuries: Dead This makes low level characters less likely to avoid taking major injuries, but able to withstand more of them (albeit with penalties). It also means high level characters have more of a chance to shrug off the great amounts of damage inflicted by high level foes, and less chance to be significantly lucky or unlucky in their wound checks (more dice = closer adherence to the average). Magical healing becomes an issue though, since one major injury is, well, major no matter what your level. I'd go with having Cure Moderate or Serious Wounds heal one major injury, Cure Critical heal two, and Heal heal three (or they can heal minor injuries just like hit points) but I realize that changes the mechanics of the spells quite significantly, and leaves low level characters a bit in the lurch. (Or maybe it will just mean - gasp! - some characters will want to stop and rest to heal, rather than just to recover spells.)
Thelon Fairblade 08-29-06, 10:04 PM	I like the variation, with Major Wounds being set. (Base it on size, btw... Large creatures can take more Major Wounds than Tiny creatures.) Cure Light Wounds can't restore a character to full status? Oh darn, how realistic! On the other hand, your system will ensure that many fewer healing spells are actually necessary. Remember, your system washes away all minor injuries at the end of a fight (perhaps you should mnake that something more like current nonlethal rules... LEVEL per hour or 10 minutes, or something... so a really banged up character still needs a small break between fights. Anyway, all the cure spells that normally patch up characters after fights won't be needed. One Cure Moderate essentially washes away the entire Soak rating of a character (1 Major Wound that got through), instead of healing just 13 damage. Did I mention I like the way healing spells interact with characters, regardless of class or level now? :-) Things to consider, though, are the blaster spells --- a 45 point empowered fireball is noticed when you have 200 hp, but not too much. The same character probably (without a level modifier) has Soak of 21 = 2 or 3 Major Wounds! (this does make the blasters competitive again)