D20 System: Revised Hitpoints and Mortal Damage

[Freelance GM]

@ Zale: Ah, ok. My bad. Yes, in this system, taking damage equal to twice your CON would be instant death, unless we throw in the new idea at the bottom of this post, in which case it will only be instant death at lower levels.

@ Tuggyne: I haven't actually used the Vitality/Wounds system in a game, but I am familiar with it. I only have one issue with it: Wound points are only damaged once the character is out of Vitality, or on a Critical Hit. Even though this would be more lethal, my players are expecting anything that is remotely human to die from one good hit from a normal longsword. With the Vitality/Wounds system, they still have to hack and slash their way through a couple dozen hitpoints before they can deal actual damage, unless they get lucky and land a Critical Hit.

Also, I checked out Tucker's Kobolds.... That's awesome. If I can get half of the utterly terrified reaction those players had to Tucker's Kobolds, I'll be content.
Ruthless enemies has been a pretty major theme in this season of D&D Encounters. Our store's three DM's have gotten at least one TPK almost every week. My last session ended with the Drow minion enemies making use of their poisoned hand-crossbows and executing the last two surviving players via firing squad as they frantically tried to lift the iron portcullis between them and their two unconscious casters. I haven't had the opportunity to implement that level of ruthlessness into one of my normal campaigns yet, since we're on break, but I've been planning to.


On another note, I got another idea: perhaps the amount of Mortal Damage players can take could go up with their level? Perhaps by their CON bonus? That would give a CON16 Fighter about 28 Mortal points by Level 4. Perhaps the characters can also subtract their HD from any amount of Mortal Damage they take? That would make it a lot less lethal at higher levels, since you would have to deal at least 22 points of Mortal Damage to instantly kill a Level 12 PC. Perhaps the side-effects listed on "We Burn Down the Inn's" charts could cap out at 5 for anything other than a Critical Hit, or a Massive Damage (with the 50 point minimum) hit?

In Tuggyne's Iron Golem example (a CR13 enemy,) the Golem could deal 27.5 Mortal Damage on a Crit. If I was using the Golem as a boss, alone against the players, then they should all be around Level 10 (The Golem's CR being Average Party Level +3) in which case they take 17.5 mortal Damage instead of 27.5, and will have between 20 (CON10) and 54 (CON18) points of Mortal Damage to lose.