TL;DR:  Think there's too much auto-healing in 5e?  This might help:  http://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2014/07/5th-edition-hit-points-grievous-wounds.html

Quote5th Edition Hit Points & Grievous Wounds

Damage and healing is a polarizing issue among the 5e crowd.  We have one camp believing hit points should be fatigue while another believes hit points are actual injuries.  For those somewhere in the middle, who don't want to house-rule away the HD healing baked into the system's core rules, I propose this...

Instead of the standards double damage crit, the DM may elect to apply a grievous wound instead.  Grievous wounds do not heal at the same rate as other hit points.  They represent an arrow to the gut, slash upside the head, or taking a morning star to the spine.  The kind of physical devastation that won't disappear after a good night's rest.  Such damage takes 1 day to heal 1 hit point. *

For instance, a slathering orange and aqua scaled beast that normally does 1d10 damage lunges at the 4th level fighter (GM rolls a natural 20).  The GM chooses to make this a grievous wound rather than doubling the damage.  He rolls a 7.

The fighter loses 7 hit points which will take 7 days to fully heal.  This means whatever the fighter's hit point total, he can eventually self-heal that number minus 7 until tomorrow, at which point his total available hit points will be the usual number minus 6.  The day after it's minus 5 and so on...

I thought about the difficulty some 5e gamers are having with healing damage quickly.  Rather than shouting, "This is terrible!" or sweeping it under the rug with justification after justification, I decided to try and fix the problem.

On the way home from work yesterday, I remembered aggravated damage from one of my favorite old school RPGs, 1st edition Vampire: the Masquerade.  Those who know V:tM will remember that being chewed up by a werewolf doesn't go away after drinking a little human blood.  Aggravated wounds are persistent.

Though it will only happen approximately 5% of the time (not counting advantage), I think this is a reasonable compromise for those, such as myself, who feel that not all injuries should alleviate swiftly.  Disagree?  Send me your feedback.  I want to know what you think?  Is this something you might use?  Why or why not?


VS


*  It's up to the GM whether drinking a healing potion or a cleric's cure light wounds will have any effect on grievous wounds.  Personally, I'm of two minds about it.

Quote from: VengerSatanis;766105TL;DR:  Think there's too much auto-healing in 5e?  This might help:  http://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2014/07/5th-edition-hit-points-grievous-wounds.html

Well it is confirmed there will be modules for variable healing rates, lingering wounds (like the above) and a complete Wounds/Vitality system in the DMG. So by the end of the year this should be a complete non-issue.

Quote from: Marleycat;766109Well it is confirmed there will be modules for variable healing rates, lingering wounds (like the above) and a complete Wounds/Vitality system in the DMG. So by the end of the year this should be a complete non-issue.

I'm sure they'll present many options in the upcoming books.  But for right now, there's this.

VS

And that's cool. Was just letting you know they know it's something that there is no general consensus on so will be providing multiple options many that people keep mentioning. So I think they went with the 4e version as a baseline yet made it pretty easy to adjust in multiple directions at least as a stopgap if nothing else.

Quote from: VengerSatanis;766131I'm sure they'll present many options in the upcoming books.  But for right now, there's this.

VS

It's actually quite elegant! I like it.

You can make things as complicated as you like. For myself, I'm happy with the decades-tested method of simply applying handicaps when they seem warranted. Most of the time, that's not the case unless HP are down to zero. Then, it's a question of how they got down to zero.

In keeping with pulp-fiction tradition, a knockout punch doesn't carry the same potential for long-term disability or death it does in real life. A guillotine blade on the other hand might lop it off (or at least some fingers). In between, you can have torn muscles and  broken bones, bleeding wounds and infections, etc., that take time to heal regardless of HP recovery. Magic to treat those may be higher level than Cure Light Wounds.

for any real damage in my game of DCC i go for stats. when you roll 3d6 in order stat dmg can get you out of fight very quickly.

If a character runs into a string of bad luck and gets hit with a slew of piddly crits in one afternoon it could become a bookkeeping nightmare.

A 65 HP fighter goes adventuring and gets critically hit for 7,6,2,8,4,5,6 during the day.

How many HP does our fighter recover 3 days after this?

You would need to make a grievous wound amortization spreadsheet to track this.

The player would be spending more time updating his Rain Man serious injury notebook than playing.

I like the grievous wound concept because a way to represent serious injuries is a cool addition to the game. I will think about some implementations with less overhead and report back if I think of anything.

Quote from: Marleycat;766136And that's cool. Was just letting you know they know it's something that there is no general consensus on so will be providing multiple options many that people keep mentioning. So I think they went with the 4e version as a baseline yet made it pretty easy to adjust in multiple directions at least as a stopgap if nothing else.

Right on.  And what the PHB and DMG come up with will probably be better or more easily adopted than this, but it came to me in a flash and it was either post it or forget it time.  If WotC wants to borrow it, well... have at it, hoss!

QuoteIt's actually quite elegant! I like it.

Thanks, trechriron.

QuoteYou can make things as complicated as you like. For myself, I'm happy with the decades-tested method of simply applying handicaps when they seem warranted. Most of the time, that's not the case unless HP are down to zero. Then, it's a question of how they got down to zero.

Yes, that's good.  I do that, too, sometimes.

Quotefor any real damage in my game of DCC i go for stats. when you roll 3d6 in order stat dmg can get you out of fight very quickly.

Yeah, I like DCC.  Ability score drain is very effective.  Are you aware of The Baleful Sorcerer of Tsathag'kha?  It's a free PDF on DriveThru.  His spells are based on Con drain instead of fire and forget.

QuoteIf a character runs into a string of bad luck and gets hit with a slew of piddly crits in one afternoon it could become a bookkeeping nightmare.

A 65 HP fighter goes adventuring and gets critically hit for 7,6,2,8,4,5,6 during the day.

How many HP does our fighter recover 3 days after this?

You would need to make a grievous wound amortization spreadsheet to track this.

The player would be spending more time updating his Rain Man serious injury notebook than playing.

I like the grievous wound concept because a way to represent serious injuries is a cool addition to the game. I will think about some implementations with less overhead and report back if I think of anything.

Very good point!  Didn't consider that.  

Ok, how about this... grievous wounds are not cumulative.  If you get hit for 6 points of aggravated damage and then 4 points the next round, your grievous damage stays at 6.  If, however, a battle later in the day knocks you for 8 points of such damage, your grievous wound total is 8 until healed.

Or perhaps the GM can't deal out another grievous wound until the original is healed, in which case it's back to double damage or whatever the normal crit effects are.

Of course, allowing clerical healing to soak up that damage might also alleviate the bookkeeping nightmare... unless the party had no cleric and were a ways from civilization or something.


Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

VS

Quote from: Marleycat;766109Well it is confirmed there will be modules for variable healing rates, lingering wounds (like the above) and a complete Wounds/Vitality system in the DMG. So by the end of the year this should be a complete non-issue.

This is great to hear. Until now I had assumed that the DMG would simply be adding more levels of complexity to move the basic rules away from the OSR vibe, but hadn't considered that it might actually contain options for making the basic rules even more OSR.

Pundit, if this isn't already being done/considered, can you have a word in Mearl's ear?; optional rules can also be effective to strip DOWN the basic rules into a simpler set. I'd really like to see that in the DMG.

OK. After thinking about a lingering wounds system without too much to track I have come up with an idea for mechanics to handle this.

Disclaimer: This comes straight outta my ass. It has been thought about but not playtested in any way. Please pick it apart, tell me why it sucks, or even throw rotten fruit if you think it deserves it.

LINGERING WOUNDS FOR 5E D&D

1)Critical hits operate as per the basic rules.

2)When a critical hit is scored OR damage from a spell is sustained and a natural 1 is rolled on the saving throw, OR maximum damage is scored with a spell that does not permit a save, there is a possibility of a lingering wound.

3) The damage from such an attack expressed as a percentage of maximum HP determines the severity and thus duration of the lingering wound.

4) The severity of a lingering wound can be moderate, serious, or grievous. The percentage of maximum HP in damage required to cause such a wound is as follows:

Moderate- 20% of max HP
Serious- 40% of max HP
Grievous- 60% of max HP

5) Effects, duration, and healing:

Each type of lingering wound has a duration, an effect, and a level of magical healing required to cure the wound. They are as follows:

Moderate- effect: may recover 80% of max HP, duration: 1-6 days, cure: 1st level healing spell or greater.

Serious- effect: may recover 50% of max HP, duration 2-12 days, cure: 3rd level healing spell or greater.

Grievous- effect: may recover 30% of max HP, duration 3-18 days, cure: 6th level healing spell or greater.

The stated effects stay in effect until the duration expires (DM should roll in secret) or an effective cure is used to remove the wound. The percentage of max HP effect is the maximum amount of natural or magical HP recovery the character can benefit from until the wound is cured.

6) Multiple instances of the same severity do not stack. Roll duration for each occurrence and use the longest. If the character is still recovering from a moderate wound, for example, with 3 days until recovery and he/she gets hit with another moderate wound and a 5 is rolled for duration then the moderate wound status ends in 5 days not 8.

7) Sustaining a lingering wound of a higher severity while still affected by a lower severity of wound moves the character to the higher severity effects and ADDS the duration of the new wound to the old one.

Sustaining a lingering wound of a lower severity while still affected by a higher severity of wound has no appreciable effect.

9) A cure spell or effect used to remove a lingering wound does not heal any HP. Instead it removes the wound and allows the character to recover normally. Any healing magic used after that will work as described in the basic rules.


This is a first draft, just spitballing the idea.

 I was thinking that the cure levels required might inspire lower level adventurers to spend some cash on higher level healing resources and also that the old periapt of wound closure would be a great item that would prevent such wounds.

Thoughts?

Quote from: Exploderwizard;766616OK. After thinking about a lingering wounds system without too much to track I have come up with an idea for mechanics to handle this.

Disclaimer: This comes straight outta my ass. It has been thought about but not playtested in any way. Please pick it apart, tell me why it sucks, or even throw rotten fruit if you think it deserves it.

LINGERING WOUNDS FOR 5E D&D

1)Critical hits operate as per the basic rules.

2)When a critical hit is scored OR damage from a spell is sustained and a natural 1 is rolled on the saving throw, OR maximum damage is scored with a spell that does not permit a save, there is a possibility of a lingering wound.

3) The damage from such an attack expressed as a percentage of maximum HP determines the severity and thus duration of the lingering wound.

4) The severity of a lingering wound can be moderate, serious, or grievous. The percentage of maximum HP in damage required to cause such a wound is as follows:

Moderate- 20% of max HP
Serious- 40% of max HP
Grievous- 60% of max HP

5) Effects, duration, and healing:

Each type of lingering wound has a duration, an effect, and a level of magical healing required to cure the wound. They are as follows:

Moderate- effect: may recover 80% of max HP, duration: 1-6 days, cure: 1st level healing spell or greater.

Serious- effect: may recover 50% of max HP, duration 2-12 days, cure: 3rd level healing spell or greater.

Grievous- effect: may recover 30% of max HP, duration 3-18 days, cure: 6th level healing spell or greater.

The stated effects stay in effect until the duration expires (DM should roll in secret) or an effective cure is used to remove the wound. The percentage of max HP effect is the maximum amount of natural or magical HP recovery the character can benefit from until the wound is cured.

6) Multiple instances of the same severity do not stack. Roll duration for each occurrence and use the longest. If the character is still recovering from a moderate wound, for example, with 3 days until recovery and he/she gets hit with another moderate wound and a 5 is rolled for duration then the moderate wound status ends in 5 days not 8.

7) Sustaining a lingering wound of a higher severity while still affected by a lower severity of wound moves the character to the higher severity effects and ADDS the duration of the new wound to the old one.

Sustaining a lingering wound of a lower severity while still affected by a higher severity of wound has no appreciable effect.

9) A cure spell or effect used to remove a lingering wound does not heal any HP. Instead it removes the wound and allows the character to recover normally. Any healing magic used after that will work as described in the basic rules.


This is a first draft, just spitballing the idea.

 I was thinking that the cure levels required might inspire lower level adventurers to spend some cash on higher level healing resources and also that the old periapt of wound closure would be a great item that would prevent such wounds.

Thoughts?

It's cool but a lot to remember, especially since 5e is supposed to be a streamlined no-brainer in game design (while still being recognizably D&D).

I think I have something that's way simpler than both our suggestions - exploding damage!  Healing will stay the same but there will be a need for more of it because now a dagger can potentially do 12 points of damage.

VS

Quote from: Stainless;766524This is great to hear. Until now I had assumed that the DMG would simply be adding more levels of complexity to move the basic rules away from the OSR vibe, but hadn't considered that it might actually contain options for making the basic rules even more OSR.

Pundit, if this isn't already being done/considered, can you have a word in Mearl's ear?; optional rules can also be effective to strip DOWN the basic rules into a simpler set. I'd really like to see that in the DMG.

A month or two ago, I wrongly inferred that basic 5e D&D would be the most OSR version and the PHB and DMG would only facilitate later edition play.  Nope.  basic is right in the middle with the PHB (mostly the DMG, I think) giving DMs and players options for scaling their game back to the 70's or late 2000's.  

I can just imagine the conversation between RPGPundit and Mike Mearls.  "Hey, Mearls, you know that book that's going to the printers in two weeks and the other one coming out in a couple months?  Yeah, I'm gonna need you to take out a bunch of stuff and put in all new junk.  Don't worry, my tribe has been playtesting this shit for decades.  It's solid.  BTW, also needs more cowbell.  Oh, and tentacles.  Cause Venger said so."

VS

Quote from: VengerSatanis;767133It's cool but a lot to remember, especially since 5e is supposed to be a streamlined no-brainer in game design (while still being recognizably D&D).

Yeah. I tried to make as much of it be pre calc (the percentages) so in actual play the player already knows the thresholds for the wounds and their max hp at each severity level leaving only the duration as the variable to track.

Quote from: VengerSatanis;767133I think I have something that's way simpler than both our suggestions - exploding damage!  Healing will stay the same but there will be a need for more of it because now a dagger can potentially do 12 points of damage.

VS

Neat idea. Please elaborate!

Quote from: Exploderwizard;767139Neat idea. Please elaborate!

Basically, any damage (probably excluding bludgeoning damage and stuff like fireball... maybe) that results in the top number for that die gets re-rolled and added to the total.

So, a dagger does 1d4.  You roll a 4 and get to roll again.  The result is another 4 and then a 2.  

4 + 4 + 2 = 10, and that's before any modifiers like strength are added in.  

The increased lethality (is that not a word?) mitigates the problem (ok, my problem) with all the free healing that seems to grow on trees in 5e.

But, in my opinion, the grievous wound idea is still kinda neat.


VS