How 'bout them Wounds?

[Dsurion]

I looked at the Unearthed Arcana Vitality and Wounds (http://www.dndsrd.net/unearthedInjury.html) section for the first time today, and I really like it, but I really have no idea how it would affect play practically. Does the Playground have any experiences to share?

Also: I was vaguely considering the idea of using it in a low-magic game along with some sort of "second wind" mechanic to make healing up relatively simple.

[Treblain]

I've never used it in D&D, but I played the D20 Star Wars RPG that used the system. It makes critical hits deadly; in the olden days there were stories of Boba Fett or Darth Vader getting one-shotted by a 2nd-level character. In D&D, you fight creatures with higher CON scores regularly, but a lucky Power Attack or Sneak Attack will still take out anything. Critical hits versus undead and constructs do nothing except bypass DR, but they were immune before anyway.

Also, it doesn't work that well with magical healing, but magical healing always tends to bypass whatever complications exist in the healing rules.

As long as you're careful with critical hits, it doesn't have that much of an impact on play on the whole, but you can give it a try if you have an issue with the verisimilitude of HP.

[Ducklord]

I used it in a E6 campaign and I liked it, but I probably wouldn't use it in play above lvl 6, because lucky criticals can really kill a character quickly when monsters do 20+ dmg per hit.

[GreyMantle]

I use a modified version of it for my games, and it works really well.

However, unless you're going really really really really really really really gritty, I strongly warn against letting critical hits bypass vitality points. It's far too easy to get crits in d20. If you really want to use that rule, you should lessen chances.

For example, you might have WPbypassing crits require two (or even more) successive critthreats.

Also, I let characters recover all of their VP if they have a chance to rest for ~5 minutes. This is honestly primarily just to prevent more bookkeeping, and it doesn't affect balance all that much.

[FMArthur]

Hit point damage not doing anything until you die bothers me, but unless I'm playing a video game that automates all of this, a big system to take care of how unwell you are feeling that introduces additional rolls is basically a design catastrophe in my eyes. I also really want to avoid making the system impede one type of class more than another (*cough*creativewaystopissonmeleeclasses*cough*), and also avoid making heroic comebacks too difficult. So it's tricky.


The easy way I figure is to have it impose flat penalties - no extraneous rolls, conditions or checks - by how much HP you're missing. For every X HP you are missing, you get a universal disadvantage by 1 point in all d20 rolls that involve you in any way, and an equal reduction in caster level that has a special exception of still allowing you to cast all your spells. Once a minute (10 rounds) you can choose to ignore the entire penalty for a whole round whenever you want.

But I don't know what that X value should be. Your BAB? Your Con modifier? Some fraction of your HP?

[kardar233]

It worked pretty well in Star Wars d20, as it was a lot harder to boost your crit chance. It's quite possibly to get a 12-20 crit chance in D&D, which will mean you'll likely instantly kill most human enemies.

Of course, Star Wars d20 was broken enough, what with the ability to set the value of a credit chip with a DC45 Computer Use check. Infinite money? No problem.

[Chylde]

I really like the Wounds rules, they worked well in Star Wars, and as long as you keep an eye on metagamers who get their threat range to 12-20, it works well in 3.5/PF. also, it's a much simpler way to determine hp below 0 and at what point a character dies...