Quote from: DavetheLost;1000565Why are you trying to use a screwdriver to carve steak? It just isn't the right tool for the job. D&D, and 5 in particular from what I have heard of the system, just isn't set up to model combat the way you want.  Look to a different game or be willing to perform major surgery on the combat and healing rules.

I realize that might be where the end of this discussion leaves me but Ill reserve judgment a bit longer.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1000589There is also this to consider:  If the players want to play D&D 5E, then if you change it enough, you aren't giving them what they want.  In fact, there may be somewhere in the middle where you aren't happy and they aren't either.  So that brings up the question of what they expect to get by playing 5E?

Thats a good point. Ive changed the XP system and couple other minor things and ran them by one of the players. He was a little concerned, took some convincing but came around but your point is very valid.

Quote from: estar;1001072Rather than post objections explain what you want to happens when a character is unconscious and stabilized after getting nearly killed. Not in terms of D&D 5e or your flavor of the month but in terms as if I was standing there watching this play out in the setting for the campaign you plan to run.

For example characters in Middle Earth. There are numerous examples in the novels where it takes the characters reach a safe haven where they could get a solid rest and recover from their injuries. And no example where they fully recover over night. So when the designers of Adventures in Middle Earth adapted 5e, they altered the long rest so that it could only be taken during a Fellowship phase which can only occur at a Sanctuary i.e. while the PCs are in-town.

Nobody will be able to help you unless you tell us how this supposed to work in the settings you are planning to use for your campaign.

I would expect the character to be woozy, sore, weak and require some assistance just to move. Fighting would be extremely hindered and possible only as a matter of extreme need and adrenaline and then not very effective. There would be chances of making their wound worse too. Basically they would be pretty much a burden until they healed some (naturally or magically). This when someone comes that close to actually dying, not just getting knocked around, bloodied and beat up on.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1001254What "serious injury"? In the versions of D&D that I am familiar with a Fighter fights just as well at 1 HP as he does at 50 HP. He could take 49 HP in a single blow and mechanically nothing would change. It is as if only that last hit point actually counts.

This does not atch well with real combat. Even in sport combat like boxing fighters become less efficient as they take solid hits.

The serious injury mentioned in the post I was responding too. They used the term, I was just following up.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1001258OP seems very much like he doesn't want the problem resolved, but he's right in that if he's not satisfied with the answers we've given, he's not satisfied with the answers we've given. It's verisimilitude, it's an inherently subjective quality.

I absolutely would like to find a solution, even a compromise. Im not certain Ive seen all the possibilities yet or considered every angle, but Im getting there.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1001316Then he's in for a very hard time, and that appears to be the case.

Im realizing that. If its any consolation Im no longer looking for a perfect fit just a reasonable compromise. Ive worked up a house rule that I intend to test that might do the trick. Time will tell.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1001724I don't get why you're disappointed. Everyone gave you good answers.

This was in direct reply to the 3 or so responses before. Those calling my questions rhetorical, not really looking for an answer etc.

Quote from: estar;1001801To make it easy to reply.

Original Post
Can you please give us an example of a game you have played where you liked the wound system, and how you narrated the blow-by-blow in it?

Original Post
So that brings up the question of what they (Rgrove's players) expect to get by playing 5E?

Original Post
Want do you want to happen when a character is unconscious and stabilized after getting nearly killed?

If anybody else has question that didn't get answer I will add them just give the post number where it appears.

I think I answered these but just to make sure..

I mentioned Rolemaster where a hit loss would only be described as a flesh wound, bruise, breath knocked out of you etc. Something worse was described in more detail and the system allowed for the game mechanics to reflect it pretty realistically.

Playing D&D is bringing several of us back to our roots. We understand we, and the hobby, have come a long way but there is something nostalgic and comfortable in D&D that we would like to embrace for a time.

I think I answered the stabilized and recovered question sufficiently

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1002250Which is why my answer is "come to terms with D&D as it is" or "realize you cannot and thus don't play this particular campaign" or "talk the players into playing something else."  I really like 5E, and think it can be modified to get something approximating what you originally said you want, but ... It is going to involve some serious compromise on your part to accept a different way of looking at play that is more like D&D, rather than fighting the spirit of the game.  If you can't do that, then despite my belief, I agree with the rest that you would be better of picking something else.  That's the circle you have to square.  You can make D&D more low magic and more deadly and more resource intensive.  You can't turn it into GURPs or Runequest or something similar.  At that point, you might as well buy a copy of the 5E PHB, cut the cover off, and attach it to Runequest.

Well said.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1002273I would expect the character to be woozy, sore, weak and require some assistance just to move. Fighting would be extremely hindered and possible only as a matter of extreme need and adrenaline and then not very effective. There would be chances of making their wound worse too. Basically they would be pretty much a burden until they healed some (naturally or magically). This when someone comes that close to actually dying, not just getting knocked around, bloodied and beat up on.

Rule
1) A Long Rest can only take place in a secure location like a town.
2) After a character is knocked to zero hit points and is stabilized, he gains one level of exhaustion until he takes a long rest. Note that a single long rest only removes one level of exhaustion.


Does this cover what you are looking for? Are you looking for something more severe, less severe? Occurs more times?

Quote from: rgrove0172;1002281Playing D&D is bringing several of us back to our roots. We understand we, and the hobby, have come a long way but there is something nostalgic and comfortable in D&D that we would like to embrace for a time.

Then embrace it.  No, I'm not being flippant.

I came back to OD&D after twenty or so years.  I'd tried to turn D&D into Pendragon, I'd tried to turn it into Fantasy Hero, Crom knows what else I'd done.  But after I returned to it, I realized that the way to have fun with D&D is stop trying to turn it into something else and let it be what it is.

D&D is full of goofy shit.  I suggest you learn to let go and embrace the goofy.  ("I didn't say she was crazy, Mickey, I said she was fucking Goofy.")

There is a ton of shit in D&D that makes no sense at all.  For instance, in OD&D, doors in the dungeon automatically open for monsters, and monsters can see in the dark.  If monsters get hired by a PC, it explicitly says they lose those abilities.  That makes absolutely no fucking sense in any kind of "world simulation" view.

HOWEVER, if you look on D&D as "Explore the Fun House from Hell, groan at the deliberately bad puns, curse at the referee for the damn deathtraps, and collect loot," it makes total sense.  AS A GAME RULE.

D&D is a resource management game.  (Personally, I suspect all wargames are resource management games, but I'm not going into that now.)

D&D is about managing resources.  Hit Points are the most important, most vital resource of all.  That's why XP for Gold so that if you steal the money you get full XP -- because you get the goodies, but do not deplete your scarcest resource.

In CHAINMAIL a Hero fights like four men and takes four hits to kill.  Levels and hit dice clearly derive from this.

Hit points act the way they do because they are a vital resource, and there must be a cost for losing a resource.  Say two 8th level fighters, each with 42 HP, go into the dungeon.  When they return, Abelard has 38 hit points left, but Bertram is down to 16, having taken 26 points of damage.

Bertram has lost a greater share of the vital resource called hit points, therefore Bertram must pay a greater cost than Abelard to restore that resource.

That's why, even though "hit points" are mostly fatigue and other et ceterae, Bertram doesn't just sleep for a day and a half and bounce up out of bed ready to go.

IF YOU LOSE MORE OF A RESOURCE YOU HAVE TO PAY A GREATER COST.

That's why HP work the way they do.  It's all about managing resources and paying a cost for lost resources.

After reading Gro's post, makes me wonder how many game's play would be improved if you just took the rules for what they were and went with it.

Quote from: RunningLaser;1002311After reading Gro's post, makes me wonder how many game's play would be improved if you just took the rules for what they were and went with it.

I think, at least for me at least, the takeaway is to judge a game based upon the field it intends to play on, as it were. We don't judge yoga for it's value as a cardio workout or bbq for it's value as a diet food, yet at times we do judge TTRPGs for how well they do something we want them to do, instead of what they are designed for. OTOH, the audience is also under no obligation to like the direction a game takes.

Theoretically, the optimal situation is for people to find (or make) games which match whatever it is that they expect from their games and/or consider the most important. OP has the problem that most of his players want to play D&D, even though its design conceits do not match his own particular verisimilitude needs. There's really not a perfect solution to that conundrum, although we can hopefully find a set of healing rules (of the many available for D&D), and mental image of that healing, which better smooths over this problem for them.

" the audience is also under no obligation to like the direction a game takes."

Exactly.  I'm just trying to save Grover from the frustration and agony of essentially attempting to make a plastic explosive out of cottage cheese.

Quote from: RunningLaser;1002311After reading Gro's post, makes me wonder how many game's play would be improved if you just took the rules for what they were and went with it.

That's my approach to 99.9% of games. I start with the assumption that the writer had a reason for writing what he wrote and then use it to see how it works. Usually it works fine.