Long-term wound rules?

[Dire Panda]

My group will be starting a post-apocalyptic 3.5 campaign in the next few weeks, and for both thematic and mechanical reasons I'd like to make physical injuries longer-lasting and more visceral than "you lose six hit points." Have any of you Playgrounders had success with an alternate damage system (official, third-party, or homebrew) that allows for long-term or semi-permanent consequences for the sort of injuries adventurers would realistically accumulate through their battles?

Preferably these injuries would require long-term care to treat, putting more pressure on the characters to get their weakened characters out of the dungeon and to a (fairly rare) safe settlement before their wounds get worse. Healing magic is rare but not nonexistent in this setting, so it'd be best used as triage until you could get the wounded out of the dungeon.

(I'm aware of UA's wound/vitality system, but its effects are no longer-lasting than the traditional hit point. I'm looking for a balanced system that assigns specific penalties, perhaps rolled on a chart, for certain types of damage.)

[Flickerdart]

You probably want ability damage. There are many mundane ways to deal it - poisons, diseases, the rogue's Crippling Strike...

[jedipilot24]

Unearthed Arcana has an Injury system.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/injury.htm

[Lord_Gareth]

You probably want ability damage. There are many mundane ways to deal it - poisons, diseases, the rogue's Crippling Strike...

I suggest this.

[limejuicepowder]

I've never used a system like that before so I can't really answer your question, but I'd advise you to keep the penalties very small, even if you think they logically should be terrible.


Make the penalties even a little too harsh and melee character in particular will become extremely tedious and potentially unplayable. I recommend staying away from across-the-board penalties and sticking to situational stuff, like penalties to specific skills or movement speed.

[Dire Panda]

I probably should have mentioned that every PC in this campaign is going to have caster levels, so casters-vs-mundanes isn't so much of an issue. (Besides, I'd think a caster who suffers a concussion might temporarily lose a spell slot or two)

Ability damage is nice as a special ability, but it'd get dicey trying to justify why every creature in the world was suddenly poisonous or picked up rogue levels. I'm looking for more of a balanced way to inflict long-term injury through ordinary combat hits ("You just dropped below half your max hit points/took wound point damage? It was a piercing attack? Roll on this chart to see what organ got hit and what that does to you.")

[Lord_Gareth]

I probably should have mentioned that every PC in this campaign is going to have caster levels, so casters-vs-mundanes isn't so much of an issue. (Besides, I'd think a caster who suffers a concussion might temporarily lose a spell slot or two)

Ability damage is nice as a special ability, but it'd get dicey trying to justify why every creature in the world was suddenly poisonous or picked up rogue levels. I'm looking for more of a balanced way to inflict long-term injury through ordinary combat hits ("You just dropped below half your max hit points/took wound point damage? It was a piercing attack? Roll on this chart to see what organ got hit and what that does to you.")

Trust me, even if you homebrew a solution Ability Damage is going to end up being your thing. Besides, you can also inflict it with Tome of Battle material, which means that they just need a feat (or two) ^_^