Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 psyguard Jan 24, 2009 22:43:42	This is kind of an idea I am toying with after playing a trial of Lord of the Rings Online. In this game the HP stat is Moral. You run out of Moral you are defeated (hasn't happened to me yet so I don't know if you fall down run off or what) but mechanically is no different then HPs. The Abstract nature of D&D HPs, particularly in 4E with Healing Surges etc. is similar. HPs aren't how much damage you can take just an abstraction of if you can keep fighting or not. Some people want something less abstract, in fact it's one of the things that is keeping 4E stuffed in a corner for my group as the "Emergency One Shot game for if nobody has anything else ready" Anyway. In the LoTR game you occasionally get a status effect to reprisent actual injuries. They fade away after a while depending on how bad they were but while you have them your character is limping around the place and looking a little more roughed up then normal. I was thinking of using something like that to add an injury system to 4E. Grabbing a tip from the Star Wars SAGA system I came up with this. how dose this look for an injury house rule Rule -If you suffer more damage from a single attack then your Fortitude Score you suffer an injury. -An injury imposes a Status effect on your character, depending on the type of damage recieved. Things like Slowed, Dazed, Weakened, etc.... -The Severity of an injury depends on the amount of damage that caused it.. a Light injury lasts until a successful Save, Medium Injury until you take a Long Rest and Sever injury either between adventure or until you are treated with a Repair Injury Ritual. I'm still working out thresholds for Light, Medium and Sever Injuries. I thought it should be kept simple, no complex charts or anything like that and no extra dice rolls to clutter up combat. If you suffer a nasty hit from a club you get a limp until you patch yourself up. Suffer a big dose of Psychic damage and you need some time to clear your head. I'm looking for opinions and ideas to flesh this out. What do you guys think?
#2 fabius_maximus Jan 25, 2009 7:42:01	This looks interesting. Thread is bookmarked. You could include that a medium injury can also be repaired through a ritual, or a high level healing power (but only out of combat).
#3 Rustmonster Jan 25, 2009 17:39:33	Some people want something less abstract, in fact it's one of the things that is keeping 4E stuffed in a corner for my group as the "Emergency One Shot game for if nobody has anything else ready" Wow, that must be where you kept every edition of D&D, because each and every one of them had the exact same concept of abstract HP.
#4 psyguard Jan 25, 2009 17:53:56	Wow, that must be where you kept every edition of D&D, because each and every one of them had the exact same concept of abstract HP. For 1st and 2nd we had a critical hit chart from a Dragon Magazine. Later we had the Blood and Steel system from a 3rd party publisher. For 3rd we had the system in the Unearthed Arcana where getting hit resulted in a saving throw against injuries. The more injuries you got the harder the save became until if you failed by too much you went down. The Healing Surge system seems to annoy my group, just kind of drives home the unreality of the HP system. They are still willing to play 4E just only when there is nothing else to do. I happen to think there is a lot of good things with the system and am trying to come up with things to apease their sense of realism.
#5 psyguard Jan 25, 2009 21:18:37	To Score an Injury the attack must do damage greater than the Target's Fortitude score. System Analysis; 1st level characters are going ot have starting Fort Scores ranging from around 12 to maybe as high as 18. Looking at this plus the damage done by most of the monsters in the MM I though about basing the threshold on the Fort Score without the Base 10. Giving it a starting threshold of 2-8. Not a good idea when you put Minions in the mix who have a fix damage level and would end up scoring an injury with every hit on all but the toughest PCs. Then I look at monsters like the Goblin Skullcrusher (Good Old Irontooth) and figure the original threshold of the full Fortitude score is probably best. At higher levels the Fortitude Scores aren't going to be that much higher either even though the damage of the mosters starts climbing into the 3 to 4 dice range or higher. Result: At low levels PCs will only be in danger of an injury against more powerful monsters, particularly Brutes. More Frail PCs might be in danager from a lucky Crit but by and large Injury won't be a threat unless it's a Monster that posses a serious threat. PCs on the other hand are likely to be scoring injuries on the monsters particularly with High Damage Encounter or Daily powers. Strikers in Particular will be scoring a lot of injuries. At Higher levels I think the chance of injuries will increase a little but I don't think it would be to an overwhealming degree. A 16th level Fighter probably has a Fort in the mid to high 20s while a Wizard of the same level is probably around 18-20. Max Damage for most monsters in that Tier seem to be in the low 20s. Brutes and Artillery Monsters remain the main threat for injuries At the Extreem End of things. Level 30 characters will be looking at Fort Scores in the 30s while thier most extreem enemies have Max damage in the 30 to 40s and a few able to hit in the 50s. I thought this could result in lots of injuries at the EpicTier, However the attacks are usually 4 to 6 dice with a bonus around 10-12 in all. The Average damage is generally going to be below the Injury threshold and even enemies like Ancient Red Dragons and Orcus will need above average damage rolls to cause injuries. The Main sources of Injuries will be High damage dealers like Brutes and Artillery Monsters or Skirmishers with Sneak attack type bonus damage. Elites and Solo Monsters especially should be viewed as dangerous sources of injuries. Minions will never cause an injury. PCs are more likely to score injuries at low levels then the monsters are, especially Striker PCs. Option: More Deadly - If you set the threshold at the Fort bonus with out the base 10, like I had considered, then you are looking at injuries being scored by almost every attack. Personally I think this is more likely to bog things down, but on the other hand it would lead to a game style where the PCs face a battle of atrition, growing weaker and weaker as the adventure progresses under the weight of so many injuries. It could ad a gritty more realistic feel to your game but you need to take into consideration that they may be fighting the final encounter with a half dozen or more lingering effects.
#6 caul Jan 26, 2009 21:24:41	What I'm going to try is a little different. It will depend on cinematic description (from me as the DM, as well as from the players). If I decide the players are being descriptive enough, then when a character becomes Bloodied by an attack, the attacking character or monster may make an attack against the Bloodied character or monster's Fortitude using the stat that the original attack used, thus inflicting an appropriate condition (depending on the description, sutible conditions would be Dazed, Weakened (to simluate injuries of some sort), Slowed, etc.). This condition may not be saved against, and is actually treated as a Disease that must be recovered from. It hurts, yes, but it could be fun. I also allow this to follow a Critical roll, even if the target is not Bloodied.
#7 axleleft Jan 26, 2009 21:56:17	This reminds me of a developer quotation on HP (can't remember who). Basically it was that HP represent the character's combat stamina: their ability to stay in a fight as they are wore down by glancing blows, close parries. Eventually you react just a bit too slowly and the enemy gets in a downing blow. Rule -If you suffer more damage from a single attack then your Fortitude Score you suffer an injury. How about if you suffer more damage from a single attack than the defense score the attack was made against? This keeps all types of defense equally valuable instead of making Fort more important for overall safety. -An injury imposes a Status effect on your character, depending on the type of damage recieved. Things like Slowed, Dazed, Weakened, etc.... Possible options: Acid - ongoing 5 acid damage (save ends) Cold - Slowed (save ends) Fire - ongoing 5 fire damage (save ends) Force - Dazed until the end of your next turn Lightning - Dazed until the end of your next turn Necrotic - Weakened (save ends) Poison - ongoing 5 poison damage (save ends) Psychic - Dazed until the end of your next turn Radiant - Blinded until end of next turn Thunder - Prone until end of next turn -The Severity of an injury depends on the amount of damage that caused it.. a Light injury lasts until a successful Save, Medium Injury until you take a Long Rest and Sever injury either between adventure or until you are treated with a Repair Injury Ritual. Light = as above Medium if 2x defense score damage and the durations are doubled, the ones with saves get a -2 penalty. Sever if 3x defense score and the durations are tripled, ones with saved get a -4 penalty This keeps things more in line with effects not lasting out of combat.
#8 psyguard Jan 27, 2009 8:35:07	What I'm going to try is a little different. It will depend on cinematic description (from me as the DM, as well as from the players). If I decide the players are being descriptive enough, then when a character becomes Bloodied by an attack, the attacking character or monster may make an attack against the Bloodied character or monster's Fortitude using the stat that the original attack used, thus inflicting an appropriate condition (depending on the description, sutible conditions would be Dazed, Weakened (to simluate injuries of some sort), Slowed, etc.). This condition may not be saved against, and is actually treated as a Disease that must be recovered from. It hurts, yes, but it could be fun. I also allow this to follow a Critical roll, even if the target is not Bloodied. Descriptive combat dose open a lot more doors. I had a GM a few years ago in a WoD game who was fantastic on that point, but that was a differnet group of players in a different city (I move around a lot for work). My current group is friends I have been playing with since high school and they have always been a little more mechanic driven for that style of playing. They have always liked a game style where a bad roll could ruin them. HPs out of the box just don't give them any tension (Sort of "It's only a Cliff we have plenty of HPS we'll just jump and heal up at the bottom") Different Players, Different Playstyle. Add or Subtract the Tools you need for the players you have.
#9 psyguard Jan 27, 2009 8:44:46	How about if you suffer more damage from a single attack than the defense score the attack was made against? This keeps all types of defense equally valuable instead of making Fort more important for overall safety. Hmm... Maybe At the very leaset I was thinking that Phsychic damage would be vs. Willpower instead of Fort. Possible options: Acid - ongoing 5 acid damage (save ends) Cold - Slowed (save ends) Fire - ongoing 5 fire damage (save ends) Force - Dazed until the end of your next turn Lightning - Dazed until the end of your next turn Necrotic - Weakened (save ends) Poison - ongoing 5 poison damage (save ends) Psychic - Dazed until the end of your next turn Radiant - Blinded until end of next turn Thunder - Prone until end of next turn I'm a little reluctant to do ongoing damage effects because several attacks already have such components. It dose make sense in a few cases but I'm going to try and come up with non-HP affecting effects. I mean a main component of an Acid Burn is that it hurts like a SOB. Like in the Aliens movie, getting splattered by Acid Blood was enough to put a hardened Marine down for the count screaming.
#10 psyguard Jan 27, 2009 8:59:55	• The duration of the Injury depends on the severity. Severity is determined by how far above the Fortitude score the damage was. o Dmg > Fort Score = Minor Injury o Dmg> Fort Score +5 = Moderate Injury o Dmg > Fort Score +10 = Major Injury • Minor Injuries impose a Status effect based on the type of damage received (Save Ends) • Moderate Injuries impose a Status Effect and a -1 Injury Penalty. They last until a DC: 15 Heal Test is performed during an extended rest. Each point of success above 15 treats one additional injury. Any injuries that go untreated remain until the next extended rest. EX: A character has sustained 3 Moderate injuries. The DC to heal them during a long rest is 15+2 = 17 The Heal check result is a 16. Two of the three injuries are removed and the third injury remains until the group takes another Long Rest where it can be treated again. • Major Injuries impose a status effect and a -2 injury penalty. They last until the adventure is over. • All Injury Penalties or Cumulative and apply to all Attack, Skill and Initiative rolls. I am not at all sure on these numbers. Compairing Fort scores to monster damage they seem like they should work. Something like Irontooth (a Goblin Skullcleaver) can potentially do a Wopping 25 damage vs. a Low Fort Characer that is a devastating blow even if it doesn't drop the character right out. At the same time it is still pretty dangerous to High Fort characters. Going by the Dmg by Level chart in the DMG Damage at low levels should range from 4 to low and mid 20s. On the other hand in the Paragon Tier the damage ranges go from 8 to low 40s vs. Fort scores in the 20s. Maybe a Tier bonus to the Injury thresholds might be a good idea. As to the Durations. 4E has gone to a great extent to avoid fixed durations of any kind so I would like to follow that trend. Minor injuries are something that only get in your way for a short time, something you can Grit your teeth and push past. Moderate injury needs a bit of treatment, Splinting, Bandaging, etc.. Major injuries are the only ones that are truely longterm but there isn't really much point extending them beyond the adventure. They shouldn't happen very often which is why I am hoping the Fort+10 threshold is good enough to make them a rare thing. When getting rid of Moderate injuries I intend to let the PCs decide which ones to get rid of first. One it lets them get rid of the effects they least like and it would make sense that they would treat the wounds they percieve as being worse. Also I plan to ad a Ritual that healers can use to get rid of an injury before it's duration is up.
#11 caul Jan 27, 2009 14:59:32	• The duration of the Injury depends on the severity. Severity is determined by how far above the Fortitude score the damage was. o Dmg > Fort Score = Minor Injury o Dmg> Fort Score +5 = Moderate Injury o Dmg > Fort Score +10 = Major Injury This I like and will work into my own system, but rather basing it on Fort Defense and the success of the attack against it, as follows: Success => Fort Minor Injury impose a Status effect based on descriptive attack and type of damage, save ends. Success => Fort +5 Moderate Injury impose a Status effect based on descriptive attack and type of damage, save ends after extended rest. A Heal ritual will also remove the injury Success => Fort +10 Major Injury impose a Status effect based on descriptive attack and type of damage, handle as a disease with a difficulty of appropriate level and 4 stages: Healed Injury is healed Initial Stage Status effect continues Secondary Stage Status effect continues and lose one healing surge Tertiary Stage Status effect and healing surge loss is permanent until a Heal ritual is used. How does this sound?
#12 psyguard Jan 27, 2009 17:47:36	Like treating it with the same rules as Diseases. hmmm... That could work
#13 Rustmonster Jan 27, 2009 18:33:03	Like treating it with the same rules as Diseases. hmmm... That could work The disease track has actually been brought up in the past as a potential method for including injury rules. It does sound like it would be interesting, and as well it uses an established mechanic, so you don't have to fumble around with potentially broken new subsystems.
#14 psyguard Feb 13, 2009 12:42:53	ok, so Different levels of injuries with different durations is actually bogging things down and getting in the way. I have since revised the system as follows • When a Character suffers damage from a single blow higher than his Fortitude score that character will suffer an Injury. • Number of Injuries depends on the severity. Severity is determined by how far above the Fortitude score the damage was. o Dmg > Fort Score = 1 injury o Dmg> Fort Score +5 = 2 injuries o Dmg > Fort Score +10 = 3 injuries, etc... • A Blow that causes injuries (regardless of how many injuries it causes) impose a status effect (Save Ends). • Each Injury imposes a -1 injury penalty • To heal injuries you must make a Heal Test during an extended rest. The Base difficulty to heal 1 injury is 15 and for each point you score above 15 you heal an additional injury. • Injuries can be healed during a short rest using a Ritual of Healing. • Push past the Pain; Once per encounter as a Minor action during combat, a character can spend a Healing Surge without regaining any HPs, to ignore all Current Injury penalties for the rest of the encounter. New Injury penalties are not ignored. • All Injury Penalties or Cumulative and apply to all Attack, Skill and Initiative rolls. Injury Status effects Slashing; Bleeding wound 5 ongoing damage Blunt; Dazed from heavy blow Piercing; Bleeding wound 5 ongoing damage Acid; Stunned from the painful acid burns Cold; Slowed from frozen limbs Fire; caught fire 5 ongoing Fire damage Force; Dazed from the force of the blow Lightning; Dazed Necrotic; Weakened Poison; Weakened Psychic; Dazed Radiant; Blinded Thunder; Deafened New Ritual Ritual of Healing Level: 1 (Clerics may select this ritual instead of Gentle Repose) Catagory: Healing Time: 10 minutes Duration: Instantaineous Component Cost: 10 gp Market Price: 50 gp Key Skill: Heal This ritual can be used to treat the injuries of others. The number of injuries removed from a character is dependant on the Heal Skill check. The Base Difficulty is 15 and for every 5 points above 15 you can remove 1 additional injury. Injuries removed by this ritual can be removed from one character or the effects can be spread out amongst several characters at once. The net result so far has been decent. The Injuries do build up over time but so far not to a point of cripelling the group. The Status effects caused by injury inflicting blows have been a problem once or twice but the people I've been testing it one so far feel they add enough to the fights that they don't mind them. The Push past the Pain rule is something we added in when penalties on once character started to get excessive in a Final Battle. This system dose impose more of a battle of attrition on the party, penalties start to build up as the game goes on particularly with any encounter that includes a Brute. I've only tested it over 3 levels so far and it has been well recieved, but it probably still needs fine tuning and tweaking
#15 fabius_maximus Feb 14, 2009 10:10:42	Looks good. The only concern I have with the injury threshold that in higher levels, damage output is higher. So the number of injuries will be overburderning. (I could be wrong, though. I don't know how damage output scales in 4e)
#16 psyguard Feb 14, 2009 12:55:55	Looks good. The only concern I have with the injury threshold that in higher levels, damage output is higher. So the number of injuries will be overburderning. (I could be wrong, though. I don't know how damage output scales in 4e) I might apply a Tier bonus to the threshold if it looks nessasairy( Paragon; Every 10 above Fort = +1 injury, Epic; Every 15 above Fort = +1 injury). It might not though. Been using the character creator to compair numbers at various levels to the damage monsters in hte MM put out and the scaling seems pretty good over all. Brutes and artillery monsters are the biggest threats when it comes to injuries but then more damage = more threat regardless. It dose apply an extra burden on the PCs though. No matter how you look at it they will be getting weaker from injuries as the adventure progresses, so it is important to take that into account when designing adventures. I'm planning to make some higher level Injury healing rituals as well as Potions that deal with them as the games go on. One Player asked if he could make up a Sado-Masichist feat for his warlock where he gets a bonus on attacks for his injuries. I'm still thinkning it over. If I allow it I'll only be a once per encounter gain +1 damage for every injury you have, sort of thing.