More Long Term Injuries

[Estrillian]

My table uses a variant rule for Long Term Injuries: If you are reduced to 0 hit points by a critical hit, or you take a forced death save failure by being injured when at 0 hit points, you roll on the Long Term Injuries table in the DMG (discarding results that make no sense).

So far this has worked fairly well for us, but the Long Term Injuries table has a lot of unlikely or repeated results, so we end up with "undefined internal injury" far too often.

I'd like to make myself a better table, but I could use some suggestions on new entries.

Some things I've thought of


Bleeding wound: Take 1hp damage at the end of each combat turn in which you take an action, and each time you make a Strength or Dexterity check. (Magical healing cures?)
Festering wound: Reduce HP Maximum by 5. At the end of each day make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw. On a failure reduce HP Maximum by 5. On a success by 5 or more the wound is no longer festering. Recover 5 maximum HP each long rest till back to normal. (Cure Disease ends the checks but doesn't return HP, Greater Restoration returns the max HP?)


Of course the problem with the first is that it is hardly any penalty at all, because the slightest bit of magical healing gets rid of it, and someone reduced to 0 probably gets healed anyway. What I'd really like are effects that will be in play for a few encounters at least, but won't cripple the character entirely.

[mephnick]

I found the same problem with healing and injuries. What I do is give an injury and exhaustion and require a certain amount of magical healing to get rid of an injury instantly.

So say a broken arm is a level 3 injury on my table (which is the highest). Well it also grants 3 levels of exhaustion. To remove the actual injury it requires either a) level 3 healing spell or higher to heal b) 30 hp worth of lay on hands or, c) DC 18 Medicine check on a rest. To deal with the more punishing exhaustion I put on, I also allow Medicine checks over rests to remove an extra level (giving Medicine a reason to exist) and allow the Restoration spells to heal exhaustion more efficiently (Lesser Restoration not healing Exhaustion and Greater only healing 1 level is ridiculous even without my house rules).

Anyway, as to actual injuries, my table is more minor things like:

Blurred Vision: Disadvantage on Attack rolls, Auto-fail perception checks based on sight
Concussion: Disadvantage on Concentration checks. Cannot use Telepathic or Empathetic powers.
Broken Jaw: 50% failure chance on spells with Verbal component
Broken Leg: Cannot Dash or Disengage. Half Movement. Standing from Prone takes full movement.

These go along with the regular exhaustion penalties of course, so PCs are in pretty rough shape if they roll badly. But there's no point in even doing injuries if you don't make it hurt. Using the DMG system the injury table is completely pointless because any healing (which is how they're getting up in the first place 90% of the time) makes the injury go away before the character even regains consciousness. What's the point?

[Estrillian]

These go along with the regular exhaustion penalties of course, so PCs are in pretty rough shape if they roll badly. But there's no point in even doing injuries if you don't make it hurt. Using the DMG system the injury table is completely pointless because any healing (which is how they're getting up in the first place 90% of the time) makes the injury go away before the character even regains consciousness. What's the point?

Agreed. I just removed the "magical healing removes" on the internal injuries results, so that usually keeps people injured until they can reach town and take 10 days to recover.

Do you have Exhaustion 0 injuries? or do all instances of hitting 0 give a level of exhaustion for you?

[mephnick]

Do you have Exhaustion 0 injuries? or do all instances of hitting 0 give a level of exhaustion for you?

Yeah the good rolls on my table are level 0 with a minor effect like a scar. Most are exhaustion 1 or 2, which seem punishing but aren't too bad with the extra ways I've allowed exhaustion to heal. A lot of the time the injury will be healed quickly, but at least it will require a decent resource. Also I have a houserule that death saves are held back until the PC is tended to, then rolled all at once. (I've seen quite a few people pick this up for their games after I posted it a couple years ago), so PCs don't actually know the extent of injuries if they heal from range. So PCs might get up but still have an injury to deal with.

[Hypersmith]

Also I have a houserule that death saves are held back until the PC is tended to, then rolled all at once. So PCs might get up but still have an injury to deal with.

Sounds pretty cool to be honest. Can you elaborate? What happens when they go down? Can they fail all their saves after being treated then die? Magic have any influence on those delayed saves? Can they be killed immediately in combat, or what happens when they're downed and surrounded by monsters?

[Townopolis]

Have you considered using Medicine checks to treat injuries. IIRC, Medicine is not referenced at all by the rules as they appear in the DMG, so you'd have to figure out your own rules. Perhaps give each injury a Medicine DC to treat during a long rest. So every long rest, whoever has the best Medicine modifier goes around tending everyone's wounds and, on average, some are treated quickly while others take a few tries (i.e. days). This could also serve as a way to make some injuries "worse" than others without making them worse. E.g. one injury gives disadvantage on Perception and is a DC 15 check to treat. Another is identical except that the treatment DC is 20.

If nothing else, it would make Medicine less completely useless. Just saying.

[mephnick]

Sounds pretty cool to be honest. Can you elaborate? What happens when they go down? Can they fail all their saves after being treated then die? Magic have any influence on those delayed saves? Can they be killed immediately in combat, or what happens when they're downed and surrounded by monsters?

When they go down I just start tracking death saves round to round, including ones caused by hits. So if you've racked up 4 death saves by the time you're healed/stabilized you roll all 4 at once. Basically it's to stop the "he's got two saves and no fails, leave him there for now" metagame players play. It's kind of abstracted, if they are healed or checked on and fail enough saves to die, then the help didn't come in time and your ally realizes you're already dead. The spell/action just has no effect because they're using it on a dead body.

They can still be killed immediately if they rack up enough auto fails from getting hit while unconcsious. If your ally is down surrounded by monsters you better get over there cause I attack downed players! ( if it makes sense)