Wounded Characters

[ysp]

I think wounded characters should take a penalty in some stuff that it tries to do. It's hard to imagine a character with one hp having to same abilities as someone in full health.
I think a character that took damage should be something like fatigued (-2 dex -2 str can't run)
I would like to hear other opinions in this mater.

Thank you.

Edit: I wasn't sure if this should be in gaming are here,I sorry if it's in the wrong place.

[Hazkali]

That's an interesting variant. You could scale it so that the negatives match up with the penalties for being on 0 hp anyway.

[ysp]

That's an interesting variant. You could scale it so that the negatives match up with the penalties for being on 0 hp anyway.

I'm sorry I don't understand, what negatives are you referring to? And what penalties of being on 0 hp? Being unconscious?

[Somebloke]

4e looks to be introducing a similar system, whereby you become 'bloodied' at 1/2 hp.

The problem with this system is that you might end up with the chacters withdrawing after every little scratch, which would detract from the fun of the game.

[nerulean]

I'm running a world with no healing magic next year and I've had a look at linking injuries to critical hits, which is not specifically what you asked for, but might give you something to go off. I'll put in all the changes to standard healing rules, since that may affect what you think:

Hit points heal naturally at a rate of 1 per level per hour as long as a character has at least 1 HP remaining. Below this level, hit points heal at the normal rate of 1 per level per night (8 hours) of rest, or 2 per level for a whole day (24 hours) of bed rest. As normal, a successful heal check doubles the amount healed, and significant interruptions prevent healing.

Whenever a character takes a critical hit, he must make a fortitude save or sustain a lasting injury. The DC of the save depends upon the proportion of the character’s remaining hit points that the critical hit removed. He must also make a save if he is reduced below 0 HP by an attack that is not a critical hit.

{table=head]Proportion of the character’s remaining HP removed|DC

Half or less|15
More than half|20
Reduced below 0 HP|25[/table]

Injuries are randomly assigned to a body part and given an injury point value of 2 +1 for each five points by which the character failed the fortitude save, or an arbitrary 8 if the character rolled a 1 to save. This number applies as a penalty for all actions involving the body part, including but not limited to attack roles for injuries to the arm, open lock checks for injuries to the hand, and move silently checks for injuries to the leg.

An injury heals naturally by 1 injury point per 24 hours in which the injured body part is not used strenuously. Once per day per injury, a character can attempt a heal check to heal an additional injury point.

[Combatant]

As an experiment, I ran a game that the only HP the PCs had was there first hit die, and there con bonus. Every lvl up, they only got the con bonus. It worked really well. The players learned really quick to use tactics, and to avoid fights.

Something else I came up with,(but haven't done yet) was divide your HP pool into fourths, round up. At 1/4 you are scratched, -2 to all rolls. 2/4's you are wounded, -4 to all rolls, movement at 1/2. 3/4's you are critical, -6 to all rolls, an additonal 1/2 movement rate penelty, loss of dex bonus. And at 0, normal rules apply. At -1 HP, your bleeding to death.

Also, no healing magic? yuck...now your looking at improperly healed injuries, and dieases, infections, and all kinds of nasty things. Unexpected death from gangrene, after a few weeks with the fight with a singular ork, or some horrible infection of the urethra from mucking in a sewer.

One of the problems that I came up with is that, with before hand knowlege, players might try to twink the charactors. ie, taking a lvl of barbarian for the d12. First lvl feats will be things like endurence, die hard, etc.

I am looking foreward to 4e. I've seen the things that were confirmed, and have to say, if its true, then rock on! However, I haven't seen anything about how the HP pool and combat are changed, just that it will be. (Other then attacks of opportunity being simplified. I suppose Roy Greenhilt will be happy, he didn't do so well with those in school.)

[AstralFire]

Star Wars SAGA Edition's Condition Track would be great for this.

[ysp]

Something else I came up with,(but haven't done yet) was divide your HP pool into fourths, round up. At 1/4 you are scratched, -2 to all rolls. 2/4's you are wounded, -4 to all rolls, movement at 1/2. 3/4's you are critical, -6 to all rolls, an additonal 1/2 movement rate penelty, loss of dex bonus. And at 0, normal rules apply. At -1 HP, your bleeding to death.

great idea thanks. Of course there is still the fact that the PCs' might run of after every scratch but it's much more realistic that way so I'm willing to take the risk.
I'd love to have more idea's!

[Kenbert]

PCs running after every little scratch isn't such a bad thing ... it might slow things down, but it'll also make them stop and think before they get into fights. In my book, anything that makes a party stop and think about alternate ways of doing things, planning ahead before battles, and using creativity is a good thing.