PDA

View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Significant Wounds (PEACH)



Mjolnirbear
2019-04-26, 12:52 AM
I had reviewed Man_Over_Game's Pain brew a while ago. One of my players regularly asks to make a called shot, to which I usually say no (and they are very accepting of my reasoning). I had previously tried, then scrapped, an effort to make a serious wound system, which simply did not work.

Today on Reddit, someone asked about how to make Medicine relevant, one of my particular pet peeves of this edition. All of a sudden, all these things combined to form CAPTAIN PLANET a new way for me to kill all these birds with one brew.

It modifies Man_Over_Game's brew (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23622972&postcount=1) a bit and adds some details. Any errors or misunderstandings regarding his brew are my own.

SIGNIFICANT WOUNDS (Working Name)

Called Shot: 1 Special Attack Action
Make a weapon attack roll with Disadvantage. When you take the attack action, if you have advantage on the roll, you can make a called shot once per turn. If it hits, it does damage as normal, but do not include "additional damage" sources such as Sneak Attack, Smite, Sharpshooter, or Rage. If *both* results would hit, you inflict a Significant Wound in addition to your damage.

Note: I'd done a lot of homebrewing in the past, and most of it ended up too complicated. I wanted something simple. I considered a contested roll, but that's solidly on the side of the PCs. Man_Over_Game's version struck me as not simple--action economy wise, and numbers-in-your-head-wise. However, I'm not great at judging balance, and this is where I would appreciate the most input. Yes, I know this could get gamey in things like Darkness, but I'm not actually sure that's a bad thing.

Significant Wounds:

While cosmetically a Significant Wound can be described as a disorienting blow to the head, a heavily bleeding wound, a sprained or broken bone, a strike to the groin or kidney, or something else, practically it has a measured effect, which replicates (and stacks with) the Exhaustion mechanic (except that if you reach level 6 and they are not all levels of Exhaustion, you fall unconscious instead of dying). Thus, if you have 2 Significant Wounds and 1 level of Exhaustion, it affects you as though you had 3 levels of Exhaustion.

Other sources for Significant Wounds:


Reviving from 0 HP or coming back from the dead.
Critical Hits (you can choose to deal normal damage and the enemy automatically suffers a Significant Wound, or deal extra damage as normal.)
Massive sources of damage (Falling, crushed under a boulder, etc).




Treating a Significant Wound:
A Significant Wound is too complicated to treat while fighting. A character proficient in Medicine can make a DC 15 Medicine check to remove a Significant Wound during a short rest, which represents sewing up a cut, setting a break, reducing swelling, reapplying a poultice or bandage, or the like. A Healing Kit grants advantage on this check. A Long Rest while under the care of such a person removes all Significant Wounds.

Additional Medicine Skill uses:
* A Medicine check is used to see how badly a creature is wounded (DC 10, Bonus Action to look the enemy over).
* Find Weakness: Make a Medicine Check as a bonus action to look over a wounded creature, contested by your target’s Constitution (Deception). Until the beginning of your next turn your next attack has Advantage, or their save against your Called Shot has disadvantage. Note: this is intended to make Medicine a worthy choice for all characters. If it allowed you to point out the weakness to others, which is logically not a problem, Medicine would become a must for support characters and no one else would need it.

MrSandman
2019-04-26, 02:35 AM
Silly question, but if you roll at disadvantage, wouldn't you need both rolls to be a hit for you to actually hit anyway?

Zhorn
2019-04-26, 02:53 AM
Called Shot: 1 Action
Make a weapon attack roll with Disadvantage. If it hits, it does damage as normal. If *both* results would hit, you inflict a Significant Wound.
Silly question, but if you roll at disadvantage, wouldn't you need both rolls to be a hit for you to actually hit anyway?

This struck me as a bit odd too.
Can still be salvaged.

Instead of imposing disadvantage, have it require advantage, then play out as you were intending.
Would still need work, but would be in the direction originally intended.

mephiztopheleze
2019-04-26, 02:54 AM
'scuse my ignorance, what's "PEACH" in your headline mean?

Zhorn
2019-04-26, 03:06 AM
Please
Evaluate
And
Critique
Honestly

mephiztopheleze
2019-04-26, 03:26 AM
Please
Evaluate
And
Critique
Honestly

sweet, thanks!

DeTess
2019-04-26, 04:56 AM
Additional Medicine Skill uses:
* A Medicine check is used to see how badly a creature is wounded (DC 10, Bonus Action to look the enemy over).
* Find Weakness: Make a Medicine Check as a bonus action to look over a wounded creature, contested by your target’s Constitution (Deception). Until the beginning of your next turn your next attack has Advantage, or their save against your Called Shot has disadvantage.

I don't think called shots have saves in your version?


This struck me as a bit odd too.
Can still be salvaged.

Instead of imposing disadvantage, have it require advantage, then play out as you were intending.
Would still need work, but would be in the direction originally intended.

That'd make taking a called shot better than a normal attack for things like rogues though. I can't really come up with a way to describe this ability that doesn't make it way more complicated. Maybe add a clause stating that you can't add any bonus damage to a hit with a called shot (so no smite, sneak attacks and similar).

Bjarkmundur
2019-04-26, 07:30 AM
I've always liked the idea of these Wound systems, but shouldn't there be a different set of mechanics for monsters and players?

The conditions for your Called Shot seem off. To start with, it seems weird trying to wound the creature you're trying to kill. I'd rather rule that you could make a called shot to apply a limited list of conditions. Such as

Called Shot
When you hit a creature with a ranged or melee weapon attack that has advantage, you can choose to deal half damage and apply one of the following conditions. The condition lasts until the end of your next turn.

The target has disadvantage on Attack rolls.
Creatures have advantage attack rolls against the creature.
The target's movement speed is halved.


This results in a far more meaningful wounding mechanic against monsters. Seeing how monsters are with us for 6 rounds or less, and players have an average of 5 levels of play.

Regarding PC Wounds, I like the rest of your rules :)

Mjolnirbear
2019-04-26, 06:17 PM
Ugh, yes, particularly bad brain fart with regards to disadvantage needing both rolls to hit.

The reference to the save is a typo referring to a previous version that was much closer to the original brew by Man_Over_Game. Will have to edit.

For Bjarkmundr in particular, I want it to work the same for both monsters and PCs. Not every combat need be to the death, and not every scuffle need have a lethal intent.

The wound system is (intended to be) versatile. You maybe don't want to kill the monster, but need to take it down to relocate it. Your player has annoyed a gang and they want to beat you unconscious as a message. You need to cripple the monster to make the fight easier and take less damage. You're running a Chase, and Half Speed would give (someone) a distinct advantage. Your Grappler can grapple without having to go rogue/bard for Expertise. You beat the paladin just enough to make the curse more likely to stick. It's supposed to have the annoyance of long-term damage (like a broken arm) without weeks or months of healing. It can simulate a concussion, a sprain, or internal bleeding while still enabling HP abstraction as luck/stamina points.

I'll rewrite it, thank you all.

Zhorn
2019-04-26, 11:38 PM
Figuring out the trigger conditions is probably going to be the trickiest hurdle in applying called shots.
Going by the '2d20 both hit' method works in a vacuum, but as Randuir points out, classes like rogue who LIVE off advantage roll would make called shots the go to for almost every round of attacks (which would thematically this the idea of rogues, but could unbalance combat in their favour)

For smaller minion type creatures it needn't get so complicated. Usually sitting around ~10 hp, declaring a non-lethal attack it enough to knock them unconscious at 0 hp without killing them.
Off the top of my head, I can't recall the official method, but at my table I've been ruling non-lethal attack to be melee only, and it striking with the butt/pommel of a weapon (or a monk pulling their punches) for 1d4 bludgeoning damage, representing a strike to the temple or a winding gut punch, etc.

On players and creatures with significant hp pools is where thing get tough.
A thread a while back was talking about combats to first blood rather than to the death, and it was mentioned the PHB had a good metric for that already.

Describing the Effects of Damage
Dungeon Masters describe hit point loss in different ways. When your current hit point total is half or more of your hit point maximum, you typically show no signs of injury. When you drop below half your hit point maximum, you show signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises. An attack that reduces you to 0 hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious.Using that as a the first benchmark could be a reasonable starting point before called shots could come into effect. A creature not yet bloodied has not sustained enough damage for a called shot to have a noticeable effect.

After that, there's working out the trigger.
Simple methods could be using the 2d20 method with a player calling when they want to go for a called shot. If both numbers would have hit, then it's successful. However, what's to stop EVERY shot from being a called shot? How is it different from trying to attack the target normally, looking for an opening to strike and trying to take them down? With the restriction you currently have preventing bonus damage would reign it in from being a called shot spam.
Alternate method, damage threshold. Unless the player (or creature) is able to deal a particular amount of damage in a hit (or round if you want to be more generous) then their called shot just results in a regular hit.

(shameless plug) A thread I posted a while back was looking at a house rule for lingering injuries and massive damage (play testing it in my current campaign).
Might not be what you're looking for, but their could be some scraps of thoughts that you might take and rework for your own.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?576343-Lingering-Injuries-Massive-Damage-in-place-of-Crit-Tables&p=23580854
Based on adapting the optional rules for
Lingering Injuries (Dungeon Master's Guide p272)
Massive Damage (Dungeon Master's Guide p273)