Creating a Wounded condition

[Yora]

Hit points have always been somewhat unclear and ambiguous in what they represent and in what actually happens in the fiction if you lose them.

One approach that I find the most sensible is to treat hit point damage as minor cuts and bruises. Things that you will feel for a couple of days, but that don't require medical attention and don't significantly impair you in the heat of the action. A hit is a hit, but it might not actually penetrate the armor or not get a solid impact. But it adds up and reduces your ability to get your weak spots out of the way until eventually an enemy gets a good hit.
At 0 hit points, you got a serious injury. One that could be fatal without treatment. I feel that this is something that shouldn't get away with a short rest or a minor spell as if nothing was ever wrong.

I think the idea of having a wounded party member who is still mobile but incredibly fragile and not much help in a fight is really fun. It's a great complication to take the game into an unexpected direction and get the players to improvise and change their plans on the spot.

Probably the best way to handle this would be with a condition. The big question is what effects that condition should have, and what it takes to end it.
Any suggestions how that might look? Disadvantage on everything would be a quick and dirty solution that doesn't require adjusting the character's stats, like penalties to ability scores would. But maybe there's more sophisticated ways.

[some guy]

Maybe a variation of the Exhaustion condition? Or just a point of exhaustion to fit it more easily in the system.

[Yora]

I also considered that. Though I think a single level of exhaustion would be too little. Perhaps 1 level when you drop to 0 hp, and another level when you make your first and second death saving throw.
The other thing is that I'm not sure if losing one level of exhaustion per long rest might be too fast. But while having to evacuating a wounded ally from a battle or dungeon might be fun, waiting a couple of weeks for that ally to recover probably really isn't. So maybe that level of realism isn't worth it.

[NorthernPhoenix]

You can take a look at the rules for lasting injuries in the DMG! That should cover most of what you want without being too granular.

Especially when combined with exhaustion like others have mentioned.

[some guy]

Perhaps 1 level when you drop to 0 hp, and another level when you make your first and second death saving throw.

I think there are plenty of people who use this as a house rule. I have no experience with it, but yes; one level of exhuastion is too low.


The other thing is that I'm not sure if losing one level of exhaustion per long rest might be too fast. But while having to evacuating a wounded ally from a battle or dungeon might be fun, waiting a couple of weeks for that ally to recover probably really isn't. So maybe that level of realism isn't worth it.

If wounds can stack with exhaustion it might work. There is the gritty variant in the dmg (pg 267), but at the point of resting several weeks an osr game might be a better fit.


Maybe a table of wounds / hit locations for more specific disadvantages and if a player rolls the same wound twice more severe penalties (and with third identical wound, loss of that hit location or organ or death).

[Dungeon-noob]

The PHB has a description of what hp represents actually. Don't know the page number of the top of my head, somewhere in the second half obviously, but it mentions how the first half of hp is actually luck and dodging, hits getting closer. The second half is supossed to be minor cuts, bruises, superficial wounds that don't hinder or impair. 0 hp is where you take a serious, lethal wound, like a stab in the chest, serious blow to the head, or suchlike.

I was really glad when i found they had spent a bit of time detailing what it looks like in-game, really helps me visualize and describe combat better.

[some guy]

You can take a look at the rules for lasting injuries in the DMG! That should cover most of what you want without being too granular.

These are also fitting. Pg 272 btw.

[Imbalance]

Our DM has critical hit and miss decks that fulfill this purpose. Yeah, it's harsh and gritty, but there's nothing like str damage to reflect a pulled muscle and fractured arm, or how a gorgon horn to the guts drops your con, or having to speak with a lisp for three sessions because a giant maggot thing critted your face, giving you a big, wet, sloppy poisonous kiss.

[Chad.e.clark]

The Bearded Devil also has an interesting rider on its Glaive attack. A Con Save vs a "grievous injury" which does 1d10 damage per turn until HP is restored. Maybe look at something like that for inspiration?

[SkipSandwich]

Ive been playing around with replacing Death Saves with Wounds for a while now.

Each time your hp drops to 0 or less you suffer a Wound, which has two immediate effects, the first is that you gain 1 level of Exhaustion which lasts until the Wound is cured. You then recover hit points equal to your current maximum, if this healing is insufficient to bring you up to 1 or more hit points than you suffer an additional Wound and the process repeats.

You can suffer up to 3 Wounds, after suffering 3 Wounds you will die the next time your hit points are reduced to 0 or less.

When describing a characters overall condition it may be helpful to use the following scale: Healthy>Lightly Wounded>Badly Wounded>Critically Wounded>Dead

Recovering from a Wound requires 1 Week of Bedrest per Wound, during which you must be attended to daily by a character with a Healer's kit Proficiency (you may tend to yourself if needed). You are limited to only light activity during this time(talking, eating, walking slowly, reading, ect.), up to 8 hours daily, the rest of your time must be spent sleeping and relaxing.

(Due to stabilization no longer being a thing, Healers Kits are now a Tool Kit instead of a consumable item.)

DIFFICULTY --: The Greater Restoration Spell can also be used to treat Wounds, healing 1 of the target creature's Wounds per cast.

DIFFICULTY ++: Reduce the size of all class hit die by 2 steps (1d12>1d10>1d8>1d6>1d4>1).

The idea is similar to other systems which impose penalties as your health drops to certain thresholds, but its 1) easier to keep track of as you dont have to calculate anything and 2) the penalties cannot be removed by simple hp healing.

My idea was to make combat more painful, with lasting consequences for injury, while also removing some of the risk of Random death at lower levels. I want there to be a risk of death in combat yes, but also for facing that risk to be a deliberate choice on the part of the player and not simply "eat a random crit and die". I also wanted to get rid of "Whack-a-Mole Healing" which this system does, as you need to heal BEFORE dropping to 0 in order to avoid Wounds.

[Laserlight]

We said "each time you drop to zero, you gain a level Exhaustion." After That Guy ran out ahead and ended up with 3 x Exhaustion, I don't think anyone let themselves quite get to 0hp; they'd pull back around the corner or something.

[Calimehter]

But while having to evacuating a wounded ally from a battle or dungeon might be fun, waiting a couple of weeks for that ally to recover probably really isn't. So maybe that level of realism isn't worth it.

This is always the problem with introducing any version of such a rule, and I'm still struggling with it right now myself. It really comes down to what kind of game you want to run and how gritty you want to get. I ran an E6 campaign once with the old Wound/Vitality point option . . . this worked really well for the style of game I was aiming for, but even then the enforced bed rest that came up from time to time was not always easy to work into the story in an entertaining fashion.

For 5e, the default recovery from 0HP seemed a bit too easy. I looked hard at Lingering Injuries, but that can lead to a 5th level party with only 2.5 limbs per character if they don't have some way of acquiring Regeneration during downtime. The consequences were a little too long term for my tastes (however realistic and gritty they may be).

Instead, I've started out my campaign with a rule that going to 0hp gets you 1 level of exhaustion.

I'm thinking of swapping it out, though. Partly because it is going to likely interfere with the likely subclass choice of my soon-to-be 3rd level barbarian (forcing the penalty to be worse for her than anyone else) but also because it doesn't actually stop pop up healing, since the first level of exhaustion doesn't do much to your non-grappling abilities. I'm not sure I can recommend it, though my experience so far is limited.

[OvisCaedo]

The PHB has a description of what hp represents actually. Don't know the page number of the top of my head, somewhere in the second half obviously, but it mentions how the first half of hp is actually luck and dodging, hits getting closer. The second half is supossed to be minor cuts, bruises, superficial wounds that don't hinder or impair. 0 hp is where you take a serious, lethal wound, like a stab in the chest, serious blow to the head, or suchlike.

I was really glad when i found they had spent a bit of time detailing what it looks like in-game, really helps me visualize and describe combat better.

the only issue is that this doesn't really mesh with a lot of actual game mechanics. There's all kinds of on-hit rider effects that wouldn't HAPPEN if it was a "narrow miss" on the top half of your HP bar. Poisons, for example. Or things that really don't make much sense to have somehow narrowly but completely avoided injuring you, like failing a save against a fireball exploding on your face. Or the bizarre capability of healing spells to not only recover you from injuries, but somehow also restore a tangible luck-pool?

Though you could probably make a case for the WHOLE hp pool being minor injuries and glancing blows until you take a big one. That has a lot less issue.