Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Setzer_G Aug 14, 2014 7:01:23	Talking about the new edition last night with someone over coffee, I had a thought about a variant rule. In an edition of d20 Star Wars, they used a Vitality and Wounds system. Essentially, Vitality was like current HP where you had a bunch of it and it went steadilly down the more you got hit. Wounds were actual, physical meat, equal to Con score. ?You took damage off of vitality first until you were out (too exhausted) and then it wen to wounds. No multiplying damage for crits, those just went right to wounds instead of going to vitality first. Thinking about it, wouldn't that help in a couple of ways?   * Help with some of the squishiness at low levels * Add a bit more threat later on with crits taking people out of the fight quickly * Easier to describe narratively to players   Now I haven't gotten to play the edition yet, so I'm not sure how high level play plays differently than low level. This is just a thought exercise, in a sense.    Are there some unforseen issues a rule like this would have that don't work themselves out normally. You might need to add something to boss fights in order for the BBEG not to be taken out with a lucky crit.   I'm interested to see what people's thoughts are. Thanks for the time in reading and replying.
#2 Goober4473 Aug 14, 2014 11:25:07	If you wanted to do something like this, I would recommend basing wounds on hit points, not straight up Con, since damage is one of the main things that scales with level. That way, a lucky crit won't kill the huge dragon with tons of hit points, but a few might.   The main thing though that I ran into with using vitality/wounds in 3.x is that characters had no buffer zone between "conscius but injured" and "dead." They could keep fighting, if at penalties, until they're dead. Few monster will ignore them liek they might a character who has fallen unconsciosu due to beign at 0 hit points. This increases lethality quite a bit. But if you're using negative wounds, or you are knocked out once you've taken X% of your wounds, then why bother with wounds at all? They may as well be bonus hit points.   Personally, I've created a "wound" system that, rather than providing an extra buffer of hit points, is just a way to cause injuries to limbs and other body parts, and adds in a sort of negative hit points tracking in palce of the normal "one hit = one failed death save" rule. It's done pretty well in adding interestign and dangerous effects to critical hits, on top of its original purposes of getting knocked out having lasting penalties and makign sure three 1-damage rat bites won't kill any unconscious character.
#3 Setzer_G Aug 14, 2014 11:31:31	Is there a way you can pm me that info so I can adapt it? My groups love hit location, and adding it might be handy
#4 Goober4473 Aug 14, 2014 12:47:03	Setzer_G wrote: