Dismemberment rules

[Dalebert]

There are spells for getting back lost limbs but hardly any ways to get dismembered. Would it make sense that you could choose to dismember something with an attack that would have killed it? So that could choose that when you make a killing blow or you could choose to dismember a creature after it's been subdued to 0 hp.

[clash]

You could switch the instant death rules to instead dismember.

Massive damage can dismember body parts. When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and there is damage remaining, you lose a limb if the remaining damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum. Roll a d4 to determine which limb is lost.

It would increase survivability at low levels.

[Dalebert]

I was just thinking if you want to purposefully dismember someone, like for torture or to prevent them from being as dangerous. That's an interesting idea though. If they don't have rez options, a player might go for it if presented as an option.

[clash]

If you want to purposefully dismember someone I might do something similar to the GWM rules. Take a -5 to hit because its harder to pull off, but if you hit you can cut off a limb? Or maybe add a minimum amount of damage rule. If you do more than half a character max hp in one hit you can choose to cut off their limb?

[DragonSorcererX]

No one cares for Variant Rules of the DMG here on this forum but: Injuries, DMG p. 272.

[RickAllison]

No one cares for Variant Rules of the DMG here on this forum but: Injuries, DMG p. 272.

Is there a thread where they've compiled and discussed those variant rules? I was looking at some of them for a new campaign...

[Dalebert]

If you want to purposefully dismember someone I might do something similar to the GWM rules. Take a -5 to hit because its harder to pull off, but if you hit you can cut off a limb? Or maybe add a minimum amount of damage rule. If you do more than half a character max hp in one hit you can choose to cut off their limb?

I was trying to keep it SUPER simple in line with 5e flavor. It's not something I would want to do to gain a mechanical benefit in combat. It's more something that would be done for flavor and role-playing. I have one evil character who might do it as a punishment, interrogation/torture, or as a way to keep a certain character under control and non-threatening. So my thought was to only do it when I have the ability to kill someone. It seems if I have the power to kill someone, e.g. I'm about to drop them to 0 hp, it would be okay to remove a limb instead, or if I have someone completely helpless and it's within my power to coup de gras them, I should have the option to dismember. Adding options to do it in combat has the potential to imbalance the mechanics which is not my goal.

[Slipperychicken]

I like to steal the mortal wounds rules from ACKS. Every time you drop to 0hp and get healed, you get to roll on a fun table that tells you what kind of injury you wake up with, if any. d20+modifiers determine the row, 1d6 determines column. Of course, healing and spellcasting are a lot harder in ACKS (and numbers are generally a lot smaller, if you can believe that), so really the rules are far more merciful when applied to 5e.

I like having more nuanced injuries than simply lopping off a whole limb. Like you can have damaged parts like knees or eyes, that are still usable but just give you a penalty, or even purely cosmetic stuff like losing a few teeth or a finger. Not mentioned on the table is that you get a +1 to the d20 roll for every point of nonlethal damage you had when you hit 0hp (so bad things can still happen when you "just knock him out", but it's less likely). Also, having the trigger (when you hit 0hp) means that clever play can help a player avoid it, as opposed to chopping off a limb every time someone rolls a 20 in combat.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3683/13902423664_45fb2e6569_o.jpg


No one cares for Variant Rules of the DMG here on this forum but: Injuries, DMG p. 272.

I hate them. They're too frequent, simplistic, and arbitrary.

[Arkhios]

I hate them. They're too frequent, simplistic, and arbitrary.

If you think they're too frequent, simplistic, and arbitrary, nobody's saying you can't tune them more to your liking. Variant rules are very close to houserules, and ripe for homebrewing. (You can, of course, use whatever rules you prefer. Just saying)

By the way, this thread reminded me of my recent post on Homebrew sub-forum, regarding the very same rules: Injuries (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?497642-Heavily-Houseruled-5e-Next-setting-Injuries-and-prostheses-In-need-of-evaluation). In my game healing magic is absent, and so raise dead, resurrection, etc. are not available. I thought about alleviating this by giving dismemberment an option when someone is severly injured. As a chance to prevent death. Overtime healing takes longer, but during that time, people can be "fixed" from their missing parts with prostheses.

I'm yet to come up with precise rules on how risk of death would be translated to chance of dismemberment. Maybe I'll grab the suggestion of altering instant death rules for it. Another idea was that when you roll a death save, a natural 1 won't drop you 2 steps further towards death. Instead, a natural 1 means you've lost a body part, after which DM rolls (or alternatively lets the player roll to add some level of excitement) which body part was it.

[Dalebert]

Every time you drop to 0hp and get healed, you get to roll on a fun table that tells you what kind of injury you wake up with, if any.

Ugh. Tedious.

[Slipperychicken]

Ugh. Tedious.

I rolled on it just last week for a PC in my game. It took seconds. Just two dice and a table lookup.

[Dalebert]

Yes, looking something up on a table is something that's been pointedly avoided for almost anything, particularly something that happens so often. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is wild magic sorcerers but there's just no other way to get that kind of intended randomness. Still, I was honestly surprised they did that right away in the PHB as opposed to some other sorcerer option.

But more importantly, dropping to 0 is a very common thing and having permanent debilitating injuries that accumulate and have constant impact on your character would be tedious, not to mention a serious impact on balance, at least until characters reach levels when magical healing is available to address those injuries, like regeneration. That's why I suggest dismemberment or another debilitating injury as a possible alternative to death, and dropping to 0 is not death for a PC, so dismemberment would be a rare thing for PCs. It might be something an NPC purposefully does to someone already at 0 when they would have otherwise attacked them to finish them off, either to be merciful or to be cruel.