System Hack for 'Grittier' 'More Realistic' combat

[Nerdynick]

I've had this idea bouncing around my head the past couple of days. A common complaint about d20 is the abstraction of the hit point system being unrealistic. Most of us just accept it as a concession for playability, but for those who don't want to, here's a new system of tracking wounds inspired by the exhaustion system and Darkest Dungeon that doesn't keep you perfectly functional when you're on death's doorstep.

Table 1: Wounds


Level
Effect


1
Disadvantage on ability checks


2
Speed halved


3
Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws


4
You suffer the effects of one condition from Table 2 until you are reduced to 3 wounds or less


5
Speed reduced to 0


6
You fall unconscious and begin making death saving throws until you die or are stabilized



Table 2: Wounded Conditions


d100
Condition


1-30
Prone


31-60
Deafened


61-90
Blinded


91-100
Unconscious



Table 2 needs a lot more stuff, but I'm just jotting down concepts right now.

Dealing Damage: On a hit, a character inflicts 1 wound on the target of their attack. Weapons with the Heavy property, or the Versatile property when wielded in two hands, inflict 2 wounds on a successful hit.

Critical Hits: On a critical hit, a character inflicts twice as many wounds as they normally would.

Healing: For every hit die spent healing, a character may make a Constitution saving throw at DC 10 + current level of wounds. On a success, the character heals one wound. Healing magic heals one wound per spell level.

At Higher Levels: Every four character levels, a character gains an additional wound. These additional wounds are lost before the character begins suffering negative effects due to wounds.

My big hangup at the moment is how to work spells into this and how monsters would work. Off the top of my head, I might suggest 1 wound per spell level for spell attacks and half that for spells requiring saves. For monsters and NPCs, there'd probably need to be a table connecting CR with the number of wounds they can take, and have a category for soft, medium, and hard targets (i.e. casters, rogues, and warriors).

The system is super-underdeveloped, but I wanted to get it down on paper.

[Hrugner]

It may be simpler to have your wounds give levels of exhaustion, if for no other reason than to have fewer tables. Also, given greatweapon's advantage over single handed weapons, I wouldn't give more wounds to the two handers.

[Nerdynick]

My reasoning behind great weapons was to maintain the idea that they deal more damage and to give people a reason to choose them in a system that encourages people to avoid getting hit much more than taking hits.

[Mellack]

I like the goal, but I think it would be too much changing to make work in D&D. For example, right now you have a thrown dart from a level 1 wizard do the same effect as a level 20 thief sneak attack. There are so many things that just add extra damage, from hex to collosus slayer to a cleric's divine strike. All of that would need to be reworked. I think at that point, you are probably better off using a different system.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I like the goal, but I think it would be too much changing to make work in D&D. For example, right now you have a thrown dart from a level 1 wizard do the same effect as a level 20 thief sneak attack. There are so many things that just add extra damage, from hex to collosus slayer to a cleric's divine strike. All of that would need to be reworked. I think at that point, you are probably better off using a different system.
I'm inclined to agree with this. I'd suggest basing "wounds" more off hit points. Say that you suffer a wound when

You take more than half your total health worth of damage in a single attack
You get dropped to zero health
An opponent scores a crit on you

With each wound taking away a hit die and inflicting some other minor penalty, or perhaps Exhaustion.

[Laurefindel]

I'm inclined to agree with this. I'd suggest basing "wounds" more off hit points. Say that you suffer a wound when

You take more than half your total health worth of damage in a single attack
You get dropped to zero health
An opponent scores a crit on you

With each wound taking away a hit die and inflicting some other minor penalty, or perhaps Exhaustion.

that's what I'm intending to do in my next campaign: losing hit point simply means losing your "edge" in combat. It represents in-extremis parries and dodges and minor scrapes, and no serious effects comes out of losing hp. basically, hp is your last line of defense against receiving a lethal blow. The only lethal blow you receive are the ones dropping you to 0 hp. they have the consequence of sending you unconscious and potentially killing you (death saves). Basically RAW so far.

receiving a critical hit and failing a STR/DEX/CON save with a result of "1" results in a wound, and so does going to 0 hp; blood has been drawn, bones have been broken, muscles have been strain etc. A wound = 1 level of exhaustion (cumulative) that cannot be removed until the character is brought back to full health (meant to be played with gritty realism variant healing rule).

The houserule is not perfect (low-level healing spells can remove wounds of low-level characters but not high level characters), but it is the simplest hack I found that marries with D&D relatively well without too much disruption.

[Vogonjeltz]

that's what I'm intending to do in my next campaign: losing hit point simply means losing your "edge" in combat. It represents in-extremis parries and dodges and minor scrapes, and no serious effects comes out of losing hp. basically, hp is your last line of defense against receiving a lethal blow. The only lethal blow you receive are the ones dropping you to 0 hp. they have the consequence of sending you unconscious and potentially killing you (death saves). Basically RAW so far.

receiving a critical hit and failing a STR/DEX/CON save with a result of "1" results in a wound, and so does going to 0 hp; blood has been drawn, bones have been broken, muscles have been strain etc. A wound = 1 level of exhaustion (cumulative) that cannot be removed until the character is brought back to full health (meant to be played with gritty realism variant healing rule).

The houserule is not perfect (low-level healing spells can remove wounds of low-level characters but not high level characters), but it is the simplest hack I found that marries with D&D relatively well without too much disruption.

Losing hit points already reflects losing ones stamina/luck/will/etcetera.

There is a maiming/lingering wounds option in the DMG for anytime a character takes a critical hit or is reduced to 0 hit points and the like.

[Laurefindel]

Losing hit points already reflects losing ones stamina/luck/will/etcetera.

There is a maiming/lingering wounds option in the DMG for anytime a character takes a critical hit or is reduced to 0 hit points and the like.

lots of people associate hp with meat (i.e. characters get bloodied and wounded with lost of hp). I simply state that I don't. As I said, first part is pretty much RAW.

as for DMG variant, I'm not interested with the nature of the wound or permanent maiming (too technical, D&D works better in abstract IMO); I just want a status in between 100% functioning and 100% disabled.

[Armok]

This is fairly close to something I houserule at my table, which I may have even lifted from these forums not too long ago. (So as elegant of a solution as it is, I can't claim credit for it, much as I'd like...)

Basically, when a PC drops to 0 HP and is brought back through HP restoration, they gain one level of exhaustion to represent the wounds and strain combat places on them. They can recover one level of exhaustion per long rest, so repeated combats per day feel more realistic and dangerous while also addressing the fact that exhaustion doesn't really come up much as-is.

There were a bunch of expansions on what inflicts exhaustion as well. I'd link it if I could even remember where I found the original post about it. The unfortunate side effect of DM prep at two in the morning...

[Dr. Cliché]

Here's a suggestion - how about dropping wounds entirely? Instead, base the effects on what % of their maximum hp a character is on.

[Nerdynick]

I'm not interested with the nature of the wound or permanent maiming (too technical, D&D works better in abstract IMO); I just want a status in between 100% functioning and 100% disabled.

This is the major design goal of my proposition. Keep it abstract, so things run quickly (rather than tracking dozens of hit points, you're tracking what you can count on your fingers).

As an alternative, instead of basing wound penalties off a table, you could do like shadowrun and apply a flat penalty to all dice rolls per wound. Due to bounded accuracy, that keeps things pretty serious as the wounds pile up.

[BillyBobShorton]

The 2e Combat & Tactics was excellent, and mostly translates easily to 5e. The PDF is online free if you dig enough for it. I still use the epic critical hits chart. Makes 20's a big fun thing, for sure.

[BW022]

Nerdynick,

Ignoring the massive amount of rules, spells, abilities, etc. which you would need to adjust in order to make such a system viable or balanced (how are you going to deal with barbarians being as weak a wizards, spells like quickened magic missile instantly dropping anything within two rounds, etc.)... other games systems have tried this. There is a reason why D&D, virtually every computer game, etc. doesn't use a wound-based system -- it's boring.

Characters become paper cannons. They'll immediately rest after any combat since no one would willingly continue adventuring after even a couple of hits (especially rogues or skill based characters). Further, it isn't any more realistic. They game the wound system also -- resting repeatedly, always taking a class with healing, using a fighter/wizard as a tank (since they can take more wounds before they can't cast spells), etc. Nor do they make much sense when applied to non-humanoids -- undead, oozes, etc.

I would recommend you play games like Shadowrun, Fate, Deadlands, or many firearm based wound games. You may discover that wounds removes any type of epic fantasy or high-adventure.

[Steel Mirror]

I've been working on a similar sort of rule for a Modern game using the 5E rules. It's not really meant to make anything more realistic, but it is meant to make certain big injuries feel more gritty and consequential. I have a thread on it in the Homebrew forum (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?511013-Wounds-Houserule-for-a-5E-Modern-Campaign-(PEACH)) that you can look at.

The basic idea is, everyone gets 3 wounds. When you take damage, any amount of damage, you can take a wound instead of marking off the appropriate amount of hp. You then roll on a table to see what random injury penalty applies to your character (the more damage the wound took, the higher you roll on the table and the more serious the penalty). You roll a Con save to recover from a wound during each long rest, with the DC to recover equal to the amount of damage the wound prevented.

It's not an especially punishing way to handle injury and wounds, but I think it does help give a more tangible feel to the really big hits and make you feel like the bad stuff that happens to your character is a bit more serious and risky than the pure hp system does. Check out the link for the full version, including the random injury table which I'm sort of proud of. :smallwink:

[Malifice]

Make your damage dice explode (open ended).

Bring back death at -10 HP

[Laurefindel]

Make your damage dice explode (open ended).

Bring back death at -10 HP

A valid suggestion to make the game more lethal, but it still leaves a character either 100% functional (with 1 hp or more) or 100% disabled (0 hp). I believe the original poster was attempting to allow a character to be wounded and somewhat impaired but not yet unconscious.

[Contrast]

At present your system seems to heavily favour casters over martials (particularly melee combat orientated ones).

A wizard can be prone, deafened, with zero move and disadvantage on skill on ability, attacks and saving throw rolls and still be throwing out spells with no worry.

Plus spellcasters are much more able to avoid damage than martials by their nature.

[Grod_The_Giant]

This

Here's a suggestion - how about dropping wounds entirely? Instead, base the effects on what % of their maximum hp a character is on.
is a much better way of doing this

This is the major design goal of my proposition. Keep it abstract, so things run quickly (rather than tracking dozens of hit points, you're tracking what you can count on your fingers).
than rewriting the entire combat system to have single-digit hit points. There are a lot of things that slow down combat in RPGs, but "tracking dozens of hit points" has never been one of them. Have something like:

50-100% health: No penalty
25-50% health: -2 to all rolls/DCs or one random wound
0-25% health: half speed -5 to all rolls/DCs or another random wound

Simple, abstract, and doesn't require tracking anything but your current hit point total.

[Thrudd]

Use vitality and wounds system from d20 Star Wars, rename vitality to HP. When you lose HP, you are not really taking damage, it is more like exhaustion and luck. You also have a number of wound points equal to your constitution score. When HP is gone, or on a critical hit, damage goes to wounds instead of HP. When you take wound damage, you could have penalties and conditions imposed that remain until you are healed. You will need to decide if you will change how healing magic works - is it only vitality? Can it do either vitality or wound points, but at a lower number? Like possibly a healing cantrip can only heal vitality. A level 1 cure spell can do the 1d8 vitality, or heal 2 wounds or remove 1 condition. A level 2 cure does 2d8 vitality or 4 wounds, etc. This system can have high level characters get killed in a single critical hit, and wounds can take a long time to recover from.

You will also need to think about how some damaging spells work - spells that don't require attack rolls can never deal a "critical hit", so you will need to look at each one to decide how deadly you want them to be. Spells which have a way of going straight to wounds will be very dangerous and powerful. For instance, a fire spell may deal mostly vitality damage, but on a failed save it also deals a wound point and causes a burned condition.

Additionally, magic items and equipment in general will need to be thought about - are there magic items which protect against wound damage specifically, or potions which heal wounds? Maybe armor gets broken or damaged before wound points get applied to the character, for example light armor takes one wound point before being broken, medium armor takes two, heavy armor takes three, a shield takes another one or two.

Monster and NPCs will need to be adjusted as well. Low level threats and normal people probably shouldn't have any HP/vitality at all, only wounds. A single hit will either kill them or drop them into a status where they can't fight anymore.

you'll need to think of other mechanics that interact with the wound points, as well. Champion fighters might need to be adjusted, they will be very powerful with this system, maybe too powerful.

[CursedRhubarb]

You would need to rebuild the whole game system to really get it to work with a more "realistic" feel. Something like basing health on the hit die but keeping it minimum.

D6 = 1hp
D8 = 2hp
D10 = 3hp
D12 = 4hp

And then attacks deal 1-4 damage per hit or 1 damage per x number of die the attack would normally do. Crits dealing double.
AC, avoidance, and mitigation would be key because if you get hit, you probably will die and high level encounters become very deadly with things like dragon breath being save-and-suck/fail-and-die.