Wounding

[SpiderBrigade]

In 3.0 (and I believe earlier as well) this weapon quality caused each hit to continuously do another 1HP of damage per round, until magical healing or a heal check happened. This would stack for each hit by the weapon.

Now in 3.5, it does Con damage instead. It is also now a +2 bonus rather than +1.

What I want to know is, first of all how do people feel about this change. Do you like the new wounding better? Why or why not?

Second, why do you think it WAS changed?

And finally, would it be horrible to continue to use the 3.0 version in a 3.5 game? IE, +1 bonus for 1 bleeding damage/round.

[Turcano]

Con damage is way better than hitpoint damage, in my opinion. If for no other reason, the old wounding took out 1 hp per round (although it stacks with itself), while the new wounding takes out 1 hp per hit die, which also stacks with itself; this means that it effectively either scales with level or drops in usefulness at a slower rate than the old wounding did.

As for why the change was made, I suspect that the writers shifted their conception of hitpoints from the hitpoints-as-damage model to something more akin to the vitality system.

[the_tick_rules]

i think it's better. harder to heal, if you hit a 20 hd monster twice he looses 20 hp, and reduces their fort saves and any con based attacks they may have. I like it.

[Jasdoif]

Small amounts of HP per round isn't particularly effective, is the thing. Combat doesn't normally last long enough for wounding to do appreciable damage to a non-PC, and PCs tend to have easy and fast access to magical healing for hit points. It's more obnoxious then threatening.

Constitution damage is more difficult to handle, even if it takes two hits to have a noticeable effect. Sure, lesser restoration can take care of it, but that takes three rounds to cast; can you really spare that kind of time in the middle of combat? Also, when someone's Con modifier goes down they lose one HP per hit die, and their chances of making a Fort save or Concentration check go down by 5% as well. It can have an effect within the same combat, because its effects aren't so easily dismissed.


I believe the Invisible Blade (in Complete Warrior) has a class ability that does the HP-per-round style of Wounding. Decide what you will about if that makes it balanced as a magic weapon property or not.

[Indon]

Many monsters have huge boatloads of HD for your con damage to siphon health with. It really adds a lot of damage to things like that, and an appreciable amount of damage to anyone else.

Edit: It's also an effect that scales by virtue of its' effect, meaning that you don't need to worry about dealing more damage to increase its' potency. More attacks, however, work great, making it a great TWF strategy.

[Person_Man]

My current favorite Wounding ability is the Psychic Rogue (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723b)'s 11th level Mind Cripple ability, which deals 2 points of Int damage (no Save) whenever you deal Sneak Attack damage.

I've found that most enemies have piss poor Int, and those that have good Int often need it to use class abilities, so even if you don't kill them in one round, you can cripple their ability to do anything. Plus Sneak Attack is very easy to qualify for (Flat Footed, Flanked, Stunned, Paralyzed, Greater Invisibility, Ring of Blinking, etc).

Works even better if you have a friend using Feeblemind.

[Falrin]

As I like to mention it's very nice for TWF-builds. If you can manage to hit 4 times with these (1 full attack at LvL 6) most low-con types need a healing very, very fast.

[Emperor Tippy]

It's even better with ToB.

Swordsage and then into Bloodclaw Master.

Superior TWF with daggers so you get no penalty when TWFing with them.

Add speed on for an extra attack at full bonus and you make 3 attacks at your full AB each round.

You also get Dex to Attack.

There is the Tiger Claw maneuver Wolf Fang Strike which allows you to attack twice as a standard action, allowing move followed by 4 con damage.

Use a swift action to activate Burning Blade and you will be dealing:

1d3+Full Strength Bonus+ Full Dex Bonus+ Full Wisdom Bonus+Your Level+ 1d6+2 con damage with each attack.

And you get 3 attacks at your full bonus.

So:
3d3+3d6+12+18+18+30+6 (con damage) if all attacks hit.

That averages to 16+78+6 (con) damage. So against a level 10 target you would deal 3d3+3d6+108 damage, average of 114.

And you can do it every other round. If you add in 3 levels of Swashbuckler you can get Int to damage as well.