Mith
2018-05-13, 09:47 AM
Hello everyone,
With the current couple of threads regarding specific fixes to the HP system, here is one that I have bouncing around in my head that shouldn't be too difficult to use.
1) HP becomes like the standard VP of a Wound Point system, and is restored with standard healing spells, with rest (probably not up to full), or by burning Hit Dice. At 0 VP, all attacks go to Wounds. If an attack reduces a target to 0 VP, they deal a number of wound points equal to the number of excess dice. So if a Goblin at 7 HP gets hit with a greatsword for 2d6+2 damage, and the attacker rolls a 5 and a 1, the Goblin takes 1 wound as the 5 damage + the 2 from Strength bonus takes out their VP, leaving 1 die left over to go to wounds.
2) Wound Points become your Hit Dice + Con modifier. After you take more than your Con mod in Wound damage, you lose a Hit Dice for every Wound point you lose. This also effects the number of Hit Dice you regain on a long rest.
3) On a critical hit, an attacker can choose to roll dice and do that much damage to the targets' VP, or damage Wound Points for the number of dice rolled. So a Greatsword crit can do 4d6+Str damage to VP, or 4 Wound points.
5) At 0 Wounds, you take a level of exhaustion, and roll Death saves. You can still fight in this condition, but you have all the risks of Death saves (any hit against you is a failed save, a crit is 2). Every failed save earns you 2 levels of Exhaustion. A 1 counts as 2 failed saves. Every successful save counts towards stabilising you at your current state, with 3 successes or a 20 stabilising you. Any last stand mechanic (Half Orc Relentless, Barbarian feature, Samurai) will kick in at 0 wounds before Death Saves start.
4) Hit Dice expended to heal VP are taken from your Wounds total until they are restored. You regain Wound Points at Con modifier/long rest. Negative Con lengthens the number of long rests required.
Immediate thoughts are that this makes Greatswords better Wounding Weapons then Greataxes, which irks me a little bit, but there is the trade off between burning through your enemies vitality (great axe spike damage) vs. stable damage with devastating wounds.
This also makes Paladin critical smites doubling dice fairly brutal (it can be up to 10d8 with a 5th level slot, if I recall correctly, plus the 4d6 if a Greatsword is being used). A critical Sneak attack can also do similar damage as well.
The idea of the "keep fighting during death saves" is to keep characters doing interesting things during a fight.
Things I am not certain on is that while using a number of dice = wounds damage works well, I don't know if that number is too low. A solution with this is probably to maximise VP , since a 5% chance of critical hits on average still makes VP the primary defense. An option is to have Wound Points scale with Hit Dice size (d6 HD = 1 WP, d8 HD = 2 WP, d10 HD = 3 WP, and d12 = 4 WP). Then you burn an equvilent number of wound points to heal yourself, regardless of your class HD. So a wizard can restore 1d12 VP if they sacrifice 4 WPs, but it is a bigger drain on resources.
Thank you for you thoughts on this idea.
-Mith
With the current couple of threads regarding specific fixes to the HP system, here is one that I have bouncing around in my head that shouldn't be too difficult to use.
1) HP becomes like the standard VP of a Wound Point system, and is restored with standard healing spells, with rest (probably not up to full), or by burning Hit Dice. At 0 VP, all attacks go to Wounds. If an attack reduces a target to 0 VP, they deal a number of wound points equal to the number of excess dice. So if a Goblin at 7 HP gets hit with a greatsword for 2d6+2 damage, and the attacker rolls a 5 and a 1, the Goblin takes 1 wound as the 5 damage + the 2 from Strength bonus takes out their VP, leaving 1 die left over to go to wounds.
2) Wound Points become your Hit Dice + Con modifier. After you take more than your Con mod in Wound damage, you lose a Hit Dice for every Wound point you lose. This also effects the number of Hit Dice you regain on a long rest.
3) On a critical hit, an attacker can choose to roll dice and do that much damage to the targets' VP, or damage Wound Points for the number of dice rolled. So a Greatsword crit can do 4d6+Str damage to VP, or 4 Wound points.
5) At 0 Wounds, you take a level of exhaustion, and roll Death saves. You can still fight in this condition, but you have all the risks of Death saves (any hit against you is a failed save, a crit is 2). Every failed save earns you 2 levels of Exhaustion. A 1 counts as 2 failed saves. Every successful save counts towards stabilising you at your current state, with 3 successes or a 20 stabilising you. Any last stand mechanic (Half Orc Relentless, Barbarian feature, Samurai) will kick in at 0 wounds before Death Saves start.
4) Hit Dice expended to heal VP are taken from your Wounds total until they are restored. You regain Wound Points at Con modifier/long rest. Negative Con lengthens the number of long rests required.
Immediate thoughts are that this makes Greatswords better Wounding Weapons then Greataxes, which irks me a little bit, but there is the trade off between burning through your enemies vitality (great axe spike damage) vs. stable damage with devastating wounds.
This also makes Paladin critical smites doubling dice fairly brutal (it can be up to 10d8 with a 5th level slot, if I recall correctly, plus the 4d6 if a Greatsword is being used). A critical Sneak attack can also do similar damage as well.
The idea of the "keep fighting during death saves" is to keep characters doing interesting things during a fight.
Things I am not certain on is that while using a number of dice = wounds damage works well, I don't know if that number is too low. A solution with this is probably to maximise VP , since a 5% chance of critical hits on average still makes VP the primary defense. An option is to have Wound Points scale with Hit Dice size (d6 HD = 1 WP, d8 HD = 2 WP, d10 HD = 3 WP, and d12 = 4 WP). Then you burn an equvilent number of wound points to heal yourself, regardless of your class HD. So a wizard can restore 1d12 VP if they sacrifice 4 WPs, but it is a bigger drain on resources.
Thank you for you thoughts on this idea.
-Mith