Wounding OP?

[LaughingRogue]

Several players in a game I am in have expressed that the wounding property may be OP, just curious what the playground thinks?

[Ernir]

Good for some builds, but hardly OP. If you have enough build flexibility left to make this truly deadly, you could probably have used the same flexibility to make a direct damage build more effective than the one relying on the enhancement.

In my experience, it's just nice extra damage for those who already have lots'o attacks with one manufactured weapon for some reason.

[CigarPete]

I've always avoided it as most enemies are downed within a few rounds, and those few additional HP of damage wouldn't really make that much of a difference.

[Yora]

At pricing at a +2 bonus, it indeed seems quit good. However, it deals only 1 Con damage per hit. To get that to really become a problem for a target, you'd have to hit at least 4 or 5 times. In many cases you won't get that many hits against the same enemy before he's out of hp from hits by other party members.

However, as a DM I don't want to go through the work of re-calculating hit points and Fortiude saves several times each rounds, so I wouldn't introduce any such weapons to the game, balance or not.

[NeoSeraphi]

Automatic Constitution damage with no saving throw that works against creatures immune to poison? All for the cost of only a +2 enhancement? It's certainly strong, in my opinion, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it was overpowered. It's one of those things that helps the warrior classes fight against tough opponents better.

[CTrees]

However, as a DM I don't want to go through the work of re-calculating hit points and Fortiude saves several times each rounds, so I wouldn't introduce any such weapons to the game, balance or not.

And this attitude towards inconvenient-but-fun items is the single strongest argument I've seen for making a character with item creation feats.

Just sayin'.

[Telonius]

It's pretty good. It's best with lots of attacks. TWF, archery, that sort of thing. It's one of the few enhancements that has (somewhat) scaling damage with level, since you're usually fighting foes with a larger number of hitdice as you level up. Things like Frost and Flaming are capped at a static bonus.

There are some significant weaknesses to it. It doesn't work on Constructs, Undead, or anything without a Con score. If a creature is immune to critical hits, Wounding doesn't work.

Yeah, it's on the high end of +2 weapons, but it's not as useful as something like Speed or Dancing.

[Darrin]

Several players in a game I am in have expressed that the wounding property may be OP, just curious what the playground thinks?

This sentiment sounds very much like the whole "Melee isn't allowed to have nice things."

I think the general consenus around here is, if it's not a twinned splitted fell-drained flashfrost substituted searing empowered maximized ocular mindrape, it's probably not nearly as OP as they think it is.

[The Glyphstone]

And this attitude towards inconvenient-but-fun items is the single strongest argument I've seen for making a character with item creation feats.

Just sayin'.

So, if a DM didn't want the extra work that a Wounding weapon would cause, your answer is to create an item-crafter for no purpose other than to troll him and force him to do that extra work?

[Big Fau]

Automatic Constitution damage with no saving throw that works against creatures immune to poison? All for the cost of only a +2 enhancement? It's certainly strong, in my opinion, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it was overpowered. It's one of those things that helps the warrior classes fight against tough opponents better.

For comparison, the Collision enhancement gives a flat +5 bonus to damage for the same +. Wounding deals 1/HD for every 2 hits, so it averages out to twice the damage against enemies with 20HD. You can be immune to it though, whereas no one is immune to the extra damage from Collision without being likewise immune to attacks period.



Really, what does it matter if you kill the 50HD Dragon with Con damage or HP damage if they both require the same method of delivery?

[CTrees]

So, if a DM didn't want the extra work that a Wounding weapon would cause, your answer is to create an item-crafter for no purpose other than to troll him and force him to do that extra work?

Nononono. If there's an item you specifically want, and your DM is of the sort that would have a decent chance of looking at it and saying, 'umm... nah, you can't find one for sale. Anywhere. Even if you get to sigil, or contact mercanes,' being able to fall back on simply crafting it is convenient. 'You simply can't find one, in the entire multiverse' just, well, irritates me.

Mind you, things being banned up front? I'm okay with that (there are things which simply should be banned), but that's drastically different-if you're told about the fiat ahead of time, you can plan for it and it's not going to screw you over. If it's sprung later, that... irks my sense of fairplay.

EDIT: Also... if I'm completely honest, some DMs I've had? I'd just want to troll. Actually, post hoc nerfing a facet of a character pushes so many buttons with me it may as well be trolling if it happens repeatedly, so... yeah, in that case, I very well might use it as a way to counter-troll. However, that's a secondary reason, not a primary, and it's entirely dependent on the specific DM in questions.

[Marnath]

For comparison, the Collision enhancement gives a flat +5 bonus to damage for the same +. Wounding deals 1/HD for every 2 hits, so it averages out to twice the damage against enemies with 20HD. You can be immune to it though, whereas no one is immune to the extra damage from Collision without being likewise immune to attacks period.



Really, what does it matter if you kill the 50HD Dragon with Con damage or HP damage if they both require the same method of delivery?

Because when it gets to 0 con it dies immediately even if it still has like 500 hp left?

[Big Fau]

Because when it gets to 0 con it dies immediately even if it still has like 500 hp left?

Right, but it takes much longer to actually do that because you can only do 1 Con/attack (and you may just kill them with the first attack anyway depending on the type of melee build you are using).


It's actually harder to use Wounding unless you can ensure 30+ attacks/round or are using Tombstone Mountain Strike.

[Knaight]

Wounding is really nice in low optimization games which are also low on undead and constructs, and high on humanoid enemies. A change in any of these things renders it pretty null. High optimization games tend to involve rocket tag, where save or dies are common, and mundane characters kill things in a few rounds. Undead and Constructs are outright immune to wounding, and monsters tend to have incredibly high constitution scores, though the extra effective damage is nice.

[Telonius]

Because when it gets to 0 con it dies immediately even if it still has like 500 hp left?

If it's got a huge number of hitpoints, it either has a massive amount of hitdice or a gigantic CON score. If it's got a gigantic Con score, it's going to take a lot of 1-Con hits to take it down.

If it's got a massive amount of hitdice, it's also got a lot of feats, BAB, and bonuses to saves, meaning it's probably very dangerous to engage the thing in a full-round melee attack.

[Captain Caveman]

I once played a no wizard campaign; however, the DM still allowed all magic items out of the DMG. So our entire party of 5 all made TWF characters all with the wounding property. Each of us had 6 attacks a round by the time we got the wounding property. So that's a potential of 30 Con to be lost a round. So i don't think wounding is Op in small doses, but in large quantities you can pretty much swarm 1 round kill any opponent.

[Knaight]

So i don't think wounding is Op in small doses, but in large quantities you can pretty much swarm 1 round kill any opponent.

If someone closes to melee with 5 opponents who are good at it, and sucks enough for all 5 opponents to hit them with every attack they aren't going to survive anyways.

If, however, said opponent has solid AC, gives itself a miss chance, and can prevent everyone from closing, only a few attacks are landing a round, which brings Wounding back in line.

[FMArthur]

I once played a no wizard campaign; however, the DM still allowed all magic items out of the DMG. So our entire party of 5 all made TWF characters all with the wounding property. Each of us had 6 attacks a round by the time we got the wounding property. So that's a potential of 30 Con to be lost a round. So i don't think wounding is Op in small doses, but in large quantities you can pretty much swarm 1 round kill any opponent.

See, that's just normal for any strategy. You should be able to kill someone you all focus on, and is expected of you. Big damage dealers like charge multiplication builds are expected to be capable of this alone. Anyone you should not be able to one-round-kill with a hyper-specialized team strategy (such as a 'boss' monster or BBEG) is not going to find it any more difficult to negate the strategy than any other. A single Druid summoning bears all battle is just as effective and about as elegant as 5 melees with Wounding weapons.

[Big Fau]

I don't believe summoning bears is exactly elegant, FMArthur.

[Socratov]

I don't believe summoning bears is exactly elegant, FMArthur.

congratulations, you just discovered the whole point...

[ericgrau]

As said foes drop to HP long before they run out of con. Compared to other enchantments you break even when fighting 14 HD monsters. Some things are immune. You're unlikely to fight anything above 20-30 HD. It's one of the better weapon enchants at high levels, but weak at low levels and not OP at any level. I'd usually get holy first in most campaigns.

[Keld Denar]

Wounding almost never kills a foe for having 0 Con. Thats not it's purpose. Its purpose is that it is scaling damage, and reduces fort saves. On an average 10 HD creature (assuming even stats), one hit is 5 HP lost, and a -1 on fort saves. That means that a caster's Finger of Death/Disintegrate/DoomyDoom is 5% more effective. Subsequent hits result in killing the foe from both ends, lowering max HP by taxing the Con score and lowering current HPs by adding damage. Generally with Wounding, a foe dies somewhere in the middle.

Lets look at a base case study of a 10 HD foe who is vulnerable to Wounding, the Vrock.

10 HD, 115 HP, 25 Con

A vanilla fighter8 with a +1 Wounding Greatsword and a 22 Str (after bumps and items) is going to deal 2d6+12 (average 19) damage per hit with Weapon Spec with no Power Attack.

Hit 1:
115-19 = 96 HP, 24 Con

Hit 2:
96-19 = 77 HP, 23 Con (loss of 10 HP) total 67

Hit 3:
67-19 = 48 HP, 22 Con

Hit 4:
48-19 = 29 HP, 21 Con (loss of 10 HP) total 19

Hit 5:
19-19 = 0 HP, 20 Con

Dead, more or less

5 hits for a totally unoptimized fighter to take down a foe 2 CR above his level, something that should be a likely foe at his level. Wounding accounted for an extra 20 damage (20/115=17.4% of total damage) over the course of the combat. Now, as base damage goes up, it takes fewer and fewer hits for the foe to drop, making Wounding less valuable, accounting for less than 10% of the damage required to drop the foe if only 3 attacks are required. As base damage goes down, however, Wounding's value increases, accounting for more rounds to place more hits. Against this foe, Collision accounts for the exact same proportion of damage. Against a foe with more HP, Wounding would result in more lost HP, and against a foe with fewer HD (or immunities) Collision would result in more damage.

So yea, using Wounding to kill a foe to death purely through Con damage is pretty unlikely, considering that Con damage rides on the back of HP damage. Its best to not think of wounding in that fashion, but rather as scaling +damage that has conditional applicablility.

Oh, and Wounding wouldn't multiply on a crit, would it? Thats another point for Collision, since if a foe is immune to crits, they are immune to wounding as well.

[Glimbur]

There's a little synergy between Wounding and abilities that require Fort saves. However, most Fort saves are from spells... offhand I can name Stunning Fist (hard to combine with wounding, monk issues), that mountains style with the stunning, poison (which you would have to re-apply midfight to benefit from wounding)... and even if you solve all that even 4 points of Con damage is only -2 to fort saves. It could make a difference, but plans which slowly kill foes are generally weaker than plans which rapidly disable foes.

[ffone]

It's hard to drop a foe by Con damage without also dropping them via HP. Con 1 is a -5 mod, so even a d12 dragon or barbarian will be down to 1.5 HP per HD, and your party and the wounding weapon's base damage may have done that already.

It's basically 'their HD in points of damage per 2 hits.' Easy for the DM to keep track of that way. I'm currently campaigning with a wounding TWFer and it's no prob.

Better than flaming+frost for most foes with 14 HD or more (which is more common, energy Res or ability damage immunity? anyone know?). But not OP.

[ericgrau]

At the high levels where you'd use wounding, energy resistance is slightly more common. But holy resistance is much less common, as most adventurers fight evil things. I'm also a big fan of spell storing. I might get wounding 3rd after spell storing and holy.


Wounding analysis
It takes 2 hits to reduce a target's fort save by 1. By the time you kill something it's at maybe a -2 to fort saves. At which point you don't want to cast a SoD anyway b/c it'll waste all the damage. Heck finishing it off with a much more reliable empowered magic missile would be better, and I'm not saying that's the best choice.

[Amnestic]

I don't believe summoning bears is exactly elegant, FMArthur.

I'd go as far as to say it's unbearably gauche.

[Amphetryon]

There's a little synergy between Wounding and abilities that require Fort saves. However, most Fort saves are from spells... offhand I can name Stunning Fist (hard to combine with wounding, monk issues), that mountains style with the stunning, poison (which you would have to re-apply midfight to benefit from wounding)... and even if you solve all that even 4 points of Con damage is only -2 to fort saves. It could make a difference, but plans which slowly kill foes are generally weaker than plans which rapidly disable foes.

Very true. That said, if you know your party's Wizard and/or Cleric like Fort SoLs more than Will SoLs, a Tank with a Wounding weapon is making the Wiz or Cleric's job consistently easier while not losing any efficacy himself.

[ffone]

I don't believe summoning bears is exactly elegant, FMArthur.

It's barely bearable.

[Big Fau]

GiantITP Rule 463: Mentioning bears outside of the PbP forums will result in puns for 8 pages.

[Keld Denar]

It takes 2 hits to reduce a target's fort save by 1. By the time you kill something it's at maybe a -2 to fort saves. At which point you don't want to cast a SoD anyway b/c it'll waste all the damage. Heck finishing it off with a much more reliable empowered magic missile would be better, and I'm not saying that's the best choice.

On average. If a foe has an even starting Con, then the first point of Con damage reduces it to the odd number below it, which is a whole -1 beneath it.

The example Vrock I gave has an odd Con bonus, but a Babau (same type of foe), has a 20 Con. If you hit a Babau once with a wounding weapon, it'll lose 7 HP and immediately suffer a -1 on Fort saves.

[John Campbell]

My runesmith had a lot of fun a couple of times with combining an implacable wounding longspear with the bloodstar spell.

"I hit you with my spear. You take damage, and lose a point of Con. Because you took damage, you need to make a Fort save against the bloodstar or lose another point of Con. You are now bleeding two HP a round for the next five rounds, and that's damage, so they each require another Fort save or lose another point of Con. Oh, and did I mention that your Fort save bonus keeps going down because of the lost Con? Meanwhile, I'm wraithstrike/Power Attacking you with my spear for more damage, more Con loss, and more bleed damage, which means more Fort saves, with worse and worse bonuses, against more Con loss... and the damage is going up while your max HP are going down..."

[KillianHawkeye]

On average. If a foe has an even starting Con, then the first point of Con damage reduces it to the odd number below it, which is a whole -1 beneath it.

The example Vrock I gave has an odd Con bonus, but a Babau (same type of foe), has a 20 Con. If you hit a Babau once with a wounding weapon, it'll lose 7 HP and immediately suffer a -1 on Fort saves.

Then the average is -0.5, since every other attack reduces it by 1.