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View Full Version : "Ow, my arm!" -Making Pain Viable in Combat



Lappy9000
2009-07-27, 01:27 PM
I've been thinking of how to make pain into an actual tactic in D&D combat. Typically, things like Inflict Pain just bestow a penalty to certain skills, attacks, etc. However, I was looking for a way to reflect actual pain in battle.

Does anyone have any ideas/Has played any systems that are good at this sort of thing?

Mongoose87
2009-07-27, 01:29 PM
Shadowrun gives you penalties according to how much damage or stun damage you've taken.

Catch
2009-07-27, 01:33 PM
The condition track in SW: Saga is a catch-all for debilitating effects, and pain certainly fits.

LibraryOgre
2009-07-27, 01:40 PM
You might also check Apocalypse Prevention, Inc. It's designed to work with an HP system, and is fairly easy to implement.

valadil
2009-07-27, 02:19 PM
Some systems making being hurt more of a penalty, but it's pretty rare for characters to actually feel pain.

Swordguy
2009-07-27, 02:21 PM
I still say the best methods of finding a way for players to accurately RP pain in combat are the best ones:


http://www.geocities.com/bond_films/still35.jpg


...but I suppose people might consider that LARPing.

potatocubed
2009-07-27, 03:18 PM
The Silhouette system (Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles) worked kind of like this:

When you got hit, you took either a surface wound (no penalty), a light wound (-1 penalty), or a deep wound (-2 penalty). There were no hit points as such, but you got KOed when your wound penalty was equal to... some value or other. And you died when the wounds went to a somewhat higher number.

(I'm doing this from memory, so things are a little sketchy.)

However, all the wounds you had taken added together to apply a penalty to all your actions, which meant you were often incapacitated long before you were knocked out.

Applying this to D&D, here's a very basic wound system for 3.5:

When you take damage, compare the number rolled to your Constitution score. If it's higher than 50%, you suffer a light wound. This is a -1 penalty to all d20 rolls (attacks, saves, skill checks). If it's higher than 100% you suffer a deep wound, which is a -2 penalty. Penalties stack.

Option 1: Get rid of hit points entirely. When you've got a penalty equal to your Con score you pass out. When it's equal to 2x your Con score you die.

Option 2: For a (much) higher chance of sudden death, if you take more than 150% or 200% of your Con in one hit, you die.

Healing is done similarly: for every 5 hp a cure spell or other healing effect cures 1 point of wound penalty (as well as any hp it restores if you're layering the systems). Likewise, every 5 hp of hp recovered through rest removes a point of penalty.

With this system in place, you can tack 'pain effects' onto any spell you like. Have it roll 'imaginary damage' and compare to the victim's Con score. For things like symbol of pain you can just apply an arbitrary penalty until the pain fades.

So... yeah. I think this system needs a bit of refinement, but it's not bad as a starting point.

AstralFire
2009-07-27, 03:19 PM
Condition track! Making HP damage a viable combat strategy in a status-effect-filled-gameworld since 2007.

SethFahad
2009-07-28, 12:54 AM
Vitality and Wound points variant fron Unearthed Arcana p.115


Taking Wound Damage
The first time a character takes wound damage—even a single point—he becomes fatigued. A fatigued character can’t run or charge and takes a –2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity until he has rested for 8 hours (or until the wound damage is healed, if that occurs fi rst). Additional wound damage doesn’t make the character exhausted.
In addition, any time an attack deals wound damage to a character, he must succeed on a Fortitude saving throw (DC 5 + number of wound points lost from the attack) or be stunned for 1d4 rounds.
(During that time, any other character can take a standard action to help the
stunned character recover; doing so ends the stunned condition.)

AstralFire
2009-07-28, 12:55 AM
Nooooooo. Nooooooooo.

VP/WP is a good system in games designed for it. It's approximately as well thought out as truenamers in D&D past about level 5.


Creatures capable of dealing a large amount of damage on a single hit become significantly more deadly in this system, since a lucky attack roll can give a deadly blow to almost any character. For critical hits, consider reducing the additional damage from bonus damage dice (such as a flaming sword or a rogue’s sneak attack) to only 1 point per die. (Such attacks deal normal damage on noncritical hits.) That’s still pretty scary when fighting a high-level rogue, but not quite as terrifying as facing the possibility of an extra 5 or 10 dice of wound point damage with a successful sneak attack critical hit. You may find other places where damage needs adjustment in this system as well; don’t be afraid to tinker when needed to keep your game fun and exciting.

This really means


Creatures capable of dealing a large amount of damage on a single hit become significantly more deadly in this system, since a lucky attack roll can give a deadly blow to almost any character. For critical hits, consider reducing the additional damage from bonus damage dice (such as a flaming sword or a rogue’s sneak attack) to only 1 point per die. (Such attacks deal normal damage on noncritical hits.) That’s still pretty scary when fighting a high-level rogue, but not quite as terrifying as a Power Attacking Barbarian with a Keen Scythe. You may find other places where damage needs adjustment in this system as well; good luck making this variant remotely work.

Indon
2009-07-28, 09:44 AM
Replace HP with a toughness save system? (such as from Mutants and Masterminds)

One game I played in ran with a toughness save system supplimented with wound levels.

Basically, it'd go like this:

Whenever you take damage, make a Con check modified by what would be your character's HD (high HD, bigger bonus to check). If you outroll the damage taken, you tough it out and nothing happens. If you marginally fail, you take one wound. For every additional amount failed (like 10 or somesuch), you take an additional wound.

Each wound provides a -1 to all actions, and you have wounds equal to 5+your Con modifier (a higher-power game could go with Con score).

Sinfire Titan
2009-07-28, 03:15 PM
Vitality and Wound points variant fron Unearthed Arcana p.115

Never, ever use this variant if you like playing melee classes. All it does is nerf them into suck territory. It becomes even more of a caster's game. Seriously, it's so easy for a caster to become immune to Stunning and Fatigue that it isn't funny (never mind the fact that most encounters you throw at them may very well be immune to both naturally).

Croverus
2009-07-28, 03:28 PM
I use the whole, once your character's HP is down to 80% you start tkaing -1s to attack and damage rolls and to skill checks. At 60% it increases to -2. At 40% its -4 and -10 Ft to Speed. At 20% its -6, the -10 ft to Speed, and your character is fatigued. At 0% you are unconcious (for those with Die Hard or similar feats/abilities, you're taking -8, - 10 ft for Speed, and are exhuasted.)

It's worked decently well in my games, makes people think more about letting themselves get whaled on.