Non-Magical Healing

[FreakyCheeseMan]

So, prepping up for a game in which there will be few if any sources of magical healing, so wanted another system for the players. How's this sound:

With even a short rest (enough to bandage wounds and catch breath), all HP damage is healed, instantly, and replaced by ability score damage. A healing check made at the time will prevent some or all of the damage, depending on the results of the roll.

Still working on the specific mechanisms/ratios (I'm imagining something like 10 HP = 1 ability score point, with multipliers if the character was reduced far enough.)

Thoughts?

[Urpriest]

Ability score damage is harder to heal and enough of it means that players have to rewrite their character sheets constantly. This makes things really really cumbersome.

[Carth]

I'd say a healing check could be allowed to make them ignore the penalty functionally (up to a max of say 4 per stat), but not make it go away. So if they keep getting knocked around without healing fully it'll catch up to them.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

I think that most of the calculation is done automatically with myth-weaves, which we'd be using - they'd have to update their HP and individual attacks manually, but saves, initiative, skills, AC, would all be automatic.

I could see that being more of a problem in IRL games, though.

[RFLS]

I'd recommend just completely reconsidering how you're dealing with hitpoints. If magical healing is rare, then appropriate measures should be taken by the people in the game world to prevent HP damage. So, you've got a few options:


Call HP "Endurance." This is sloppy and doesn't mesh well with what happens at negative hitpoints.
Count armor as DR, as well. If something gets through it, it should hurt.
Find another system. D&D does not really lend itself to a world where magical healing isn't a thing. I understand that this isn't what you're looking for, though, given your previous posts about this game.

[Psyren]

Give everyone healing surges imo

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Well, I like the idea of wounds lingering, and being something a player has to put up with for a while, for a couple of reasons. First, I feel it's beneficial to role play, by making characters more identifiable - none of us instantly bounce back from being hurt, they shouldn't either.

Second, this game is probably going to have Permanent Death (no raise/reincarnate), which to me means Significant Death, which in turn means Rare Death - I may even expand the range of negative values a player can go into. So, if death's gonna be rare, something else needs to make combat risky - and the idea of a lingering wound that will slow you down for the next few fights feels like it fits the bill.

[Deadline]

You could go with negative levels to represent this, rather than a trifling of ability damage. Maybe even scale it using the various conditions. i.e., every time you "heal" you wipe out HP and take on an escalating condition (Fatigued, Weakened, Exhausted, etc. all the way up to and including negative levels) that only goes away or downgrades with sufficient rest or the rare magical recovery. Having the eventual status be a negative level will lead to potentially dying from sheer trauma/exhaustion/whathaveyou. It could also lead you to the classic situation where the hero slays the villain, and then succumbs to his wounds.

I would also recommend that if you are going to stick with your idea, you should base your "ratios" off of a percentage of the character's hitpoints, not a flat rate. In other words, don't say "you can heal 1-10 points of damage in exchange for 1 point of ability damage", because this just punishes characters who have lots of hitpoints. Something like "you can heal 1/4 of your hitpoints in exchange for stress x" would be better.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

You could go with negative levels to represent this, rather than a trifling of ability damage. Maybe even scale it using the various conditions. i.e., every time you "heal" you wipe out HP and take on an escalating condition (Fatigued, Weakened, Exhausted, etc. all the way up to and including negative levels) that only goes away or downgrades with sufficient rest or the rare magical recovery. Having the eventual status be a negative level will lead to potentially dying from sheer trauma/exhaustion/whathaveyou. It could also lead you to the classic situation where the hero slays the villain, and then succumbs to his wounds.

I would also recommend that if you are going to stick with your idea, you should base your "ratios" off of a percentage of the character's hitpoints, not a flat rate. In other words, don't say "you can heal 1-10 points of damage in exchange for 1 point of ability damage", because this just punishes characters who have lots of hitpoints. Something like "you can heal 1/4 of your hitpoints in exchange for stress x" would be better.

Negative levels really does seem like it would be too much work.

Status effects might be something to consider, though.. that might be a "For the rest of the day" thing, I dunno.

Technically, it punishes people who take a lot of damage, not who have a lot of HP, but that is something I considered - my idea for that was to put a multiplier on it if you dip below a certain level (so if you drop beneath 10 HP, you get twice the ability score damage, or somesuch.)

[Deadline]

Negative levels really does seem like it would be too much work.

Just spitballin'.


Status effects might be something to consider, though.. that might be a "For the rest of the day" thing, I dunno.

Sure, much like ability damage (which presumably heals with a night of rest like normal, yes?).


Technically, it punishes people who take a lot of damage, not who have a lot of HP, but that is something I considered - my idea for that was to put a multiplier on it if you dip below a certain level (so if you drop beneath 10 HP, you get twice the ability score damage, or somesuch.)

I'm still going to disagree with you here a little, though it may be a minor quibble. You system punishes people who lose lots of hitpoints, no those who take lots of damage. To put it into perspective, who is the more injured, the fighter with 200 hitpoints who has just taken 50 hitpoints of damage, or the wizard with 65 hitpoints who has just taken 50 hitpoints of damage? That's why I suggested a percentage. It seems like higher hit point pools are supposed to represent a tougher individual. Punishing those individuals more than the "less tough" ones seems odd.

Psyren's suggestion of using the healing surge mechanic from D&D 4th ed is potentially workable as well. Whenever you use a surge to recover (a surge recovers 1/4 of your hitpoints), you get stress X (ability damage, status effect, etc).

Maybe you could make up a set list of Stresses that a player can choose every time they "take a short rest to heal" (i.e. the adrenaline wears off and they find they have a sprain or the like)? Mechanically they could be things like -X to hit, -X to damage, -X to Spell save DCs, -X to Speed, -X to Saves, -X to AC, etc.? All of which go away after a good night's rest?

[Greenish]

Have you considered Vitality and Wound Points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm) variant? Taking Wound damage makes you Fatigued for the day.