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Thread: Hit Points vs. Vitality/Wound.
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07-29-2002, 02:26 PM #1
I`m curious what opinions are about using a Vitality/Wound point system in
BR rather than hit points.
For those of you who aren`t familiar with Vitality/Wound points, its the
system that a few D20 products use that replaces hit points. Essentially,
characters have Wound points equal to their constitution score, and
Vitality points that work much the same way that hit points do. Damage is
taken off of vitality points first, and when a character runs out it is
assigned to would points. Certain attacks (things like critical hits) do
wound damage rather than vitality damage (making them even scarier than 3e
critical hits.) Wound point damage is much more serious than just losing
vitality (or hit points.) Wounded characters behave as if fatigued, and
must make a Fortitude save (DC 5 + amount of wound damage) or lose
consciousness. Wound damage also takes longer to heal, and may require the
attention of characters with better than normal healing abilities to
recover. Wound points don`t increase as a character increases in level,
except if constitution is increased and/or as the result of a couple of
special feats or class abilities, but vitality points are increased just
like hit points. That is, according to a hit die based on character class.
A vitality/wound system is sometimes described as "cinematic" in that
characters take no actual damage as they lose vitality points. From time
to time, however, someone will use an explanation of hit points that is
very much like vitality/wound (that only the last few hit points damage are
real wounds, the rest being abstract psychological, evading, whatever
"damage") so I don`t really think vitality/wound is really all that much
more cinematic.
Anyway, I bring this up on the BR list because I think using a
Vitality/Wound system might be useful in portraying
bloodtheft. Specifically how it might be useful in portraying bloodtheft,
I`m not quite sure, but it seems a bit more apt. Also, the Vitality/Wound
system seems to open up the option of having particular abilities (spells,
class abilities, things like that) with a vitality point cost per
use. There`s no reason why hit points couldn`t be used in the same way,
but "vitality" seems easier to justify. This concept might work in
conjunction with certain blood abilities, for instance.
Anyone have thoughts on this?
Gary
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07-29-2002, 09:43 PM #2
I don`t use bloodtheft, in the sense of kill a scion get bloodstrength, but
I do use a vitality wound system. Mine started out during 2e, and so has
had to endure a revision to 3e. Still, I do have a few more sources of
wound damage.
Falling automatically does as many wounds as it does dice of hip points
(vitality).
The assassin`s Death Attack is a kind of attack the bypasses hit points and
goes directly to wounds with primary damage.
A critical hit does primary damage to wounds, and all bonus damage is
vitality damage.
Undead attacks don`t begin to drain levels until wound points are gone, but
level draining undead have a +4 threat bonus to critical hit probablities.
Especially nasty diseases or poisons can do wound damage.
Unlike the wound/vitality system described in some d20 games (such as Star
Wars) I treat hit points like standard D&D hit points, rather than as the
kind of damage the D&D core rules describes as subdual. Typically vitality
is recovered at a rate of 1 point per level per hour, but I don`t do that.
I recover damage normally as follows:
subdual is one point per level per hour
hit points are one point per level per day
and wounds are one a day.
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
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07-30-2002, 01:11 AM #3
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On Tue, 2002-07-30 at 00:09, Gary wrote:
I`m curious what opinions are about using a Vitality/Wound point system in
BR rather than hit points.
For those of you who aren`t familiar with Vitality/Wound points, its the
system that a few D20 products use that replaces hit points. Essentially,
characters have Wound points equal to their constitution score, and
Vitality points that work much the same way that hit points do. Damage is
taken off of vitality points first, and when a character runs out it is
assigned to would points. Certain attacks (things like critical hits) do
wound damage rather than vitality damage (making them even scarier than 3e
critical hits.) Wound point damage is much more serious than just losing
vitality (or hit points.) Wounded characters behave as if fatigued, and
must make a Fortitude save (DC 5 + amount of wound damage) or lose
consciousness. Wound damage also takes longer to heal, and may require the
attention of characters with better than normal healing abilities to
recover. Wound points don`t increase as a character increases in level,
except if constitution is increased and/or as the result of a couple of
special feats or class abilities, but vitality points are increased just
like hit points. That is, according to a hit die based on character class.
A vitality/wound system is sometimes described as "cinematic" in that
characters take no actual damage as they lose vitality points. From time
to time, however, someone will use an explanation of hit points that is
very much like vitality/wound (that only the last few hit points damage are
real wounds, the rest being abstract psychological, evading, whatever
"damage") so I don`t really think vitality/wound is really all that much
more cinematic.
It`s not new. I introduced it in Noncon 84 (a gaming convention that was
held in Brisbane, Australia 1984) and have used it ever since. Even then
I stole the idea from Gygax`s explanation of hit points and damage below
zero hit points - just rewording and expanding it. (see an original 1st
Edition DMG - about page 76 from memory)
I have notes on changes to poison, falling damage, spell damage, healing
spells and items, regeneration, backstabbing, assassination, monster
wounds, non-lethal combat, special magic weapon (e.g. vorpal sword) and
energy drain as well as a modification to combat resolution that relies
on this system (but not vice-versa). All notes are in 1st Ed/2e rule
sets though. (way too much to post here - but I`ll email anyone that
asks)
When published, I originally used CON as the wound points although Gygax
used a flat 10. But more recently when searching for a better combat
resolution (esp for high level characters), I changed back to the Gygax
10 - but modified it by plus or minus your CON bonus. This changes the
range for wound points from 3-18 to 8-12(14) which is more `realistic`
and makes it less critically important to have a `high` constitution. I
also changed the name to `life points` (because not all losses are
`wounds`).
Anyway, I bring this up on the BR list because I think using a
Vitality/Wound system might be useful in portraying
bloodtheft. Specifically how it might be useful in portraying bloodtheft,
I`m not quite sure, but it seems a bit more apt. Also, the Vitality/Wound
system seems to open up the option of having particular abilities (spells,
class abilities, things like that) with a vitality point cost per
use. There`s no reason why hit points couldn`t be used in the same way,
but "vitality" seems easier to justify. This concept might work in
conjunction with certain blood abilities, for instance.
Anyone have thoughts on this?
Some spells have had such `costs` associated with them - e.g. permanency
when cast on a character - which can affect either vitality or wounds.
Many BR blood abilities mimic other D&D features (regeneration, healing,
wither touch etc).
I`m not sure what you are getting at here though - do you mean some kind
of partial bloodtheft a draining or reducing of bloodline score and/or
abilities ? Or are you thinking of a connection between bloodline and
vitality/wound ? I mean, bloodtheft generally results in death for the
victim.
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07-30-2002, 01:37 AM #4
At 10:37 AM 7/30/2002 +1000, Peter Lubke wrote:
>I`m not sure what you are getting at here though - do you mean some kind
>of partial bloodtheft a draining or reducing of bloodline score and/or
>abilities ? Or are you thinking of a connection between bloodline and
>vitality/wound ? I mean, bloodtheft generally results in death for the victim.
I`m not really sure what I`m getting at here either, I`m afraid. It wasn`t
so much a connection between bloodline and vitality or wound points, or a
partial bloodtheft/draining thing, though. What I was thinking was that
when a character takes wound damage then it becomes pretty obvious he`s
near his end, so a character attacking him could then perform his "called
shot" or whatever is required for a specific type of "stab through the
heart" attack. As to specifics for how that would be done, however, I`m
not so sure.
Gary
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07-30-2002, 03:37 AM #5
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On Tue, 2002-07-30 at 11:20, Gary wrote:
At 10:37 AM 7/30/2002 +1000, Peter Lubke wrote:
>I`m not sure what you are getting at here though - do you mean some kind
>of partial bloodtheft a draining or reducing of bloodline score and/or
>abilities ? Or are you thinking of a connection between bloodline and
>vitality/wound ? I mean, bloodtheft generally results in death for the victim.
I`m not really sure what I`m getting at here either, I`m afraid. It wasn`t
so much a connection between bloodline and vitality or wound points, or a
partial bloodtheft/draining thing, though. What I was thinking was that
when a character takes wound damage then it becomes pretty obvious he`s
near his end, so a character attacking him could then perform his "called
shot" or whatever is required for a specific type of "stab through the
heart" attack. As to specifics for how that would be done, however, I`m
not so sure.
Oh okay.
Well, usually the number of wound points that you have lost starts to
slow you down. Using the old D&D official (1st Ed), -1 to -3 wasn`t such
a horrific deal -- you could still function although at a reduced
ability. From -4 to -6 you were pretty helpless but still conscious,
it`s possible to drag yourself away at this time but you really need to
be binding wounds etc. At this point it`s simple matter to strike
someone through the heart - they can`t resist your efforts - so
bloodtheft at this point is a simple affair. Ditto of course for -7 to
-9, the character isn`t even conscious.
I play that one-third of your life points (LP) aka wound points is a
light wound. Any number of wounds up to and including the one-third
value is a lightly wounded character/creature. Lightly wounded creatures
can still attack and defend but they do so at a penalty of 5% for every
wound point - i.e. 2 wound points and you attack at -2 on a d20. If you
do, then this exertion will aggravate the original wound(s) by one
point. This will happen even if neither the character nor his opponents
score a hit in that round. A character with a constitution of 16 would
have a life point total of 12 (10 + 2 for CON), and a light wound range
of 1-4.
A serious wound is from there up to two-thirds. A serious wound is just
that - serious. For every round unattended the character bleeds
out/worsens by one point - so moving can still be a good idea but get
there fast before you drop unconscious from blood loss. These are the
guys lying on the field of battle moaning and slowly bleeding to death
(dying from shock etc)- sticking your sword right through them is a
piece of cake.
A critically wounded character can`t do anything - someone else must
help them. They suffer the effects of being seriously wounded as well of
course. Most critically wounded characters are unconscious or even
comatose. Recovery, even with a heal spell, will require a complete days
rest - this was once standard in 1st Ed.
Now this ties in nicely with weapon damage too. A dagger does 1-4 point,
using a hypothetical character with 10 wound points - it has only a 25%
chance of inflicting a serious wound. (assuming a start point of 0 hit
points - which I can show is statistically average), while a longsword
does 1-8 points, with 5/8 hits doing serious damage. A backstabbing 5
level thief has (IMC +3 to damage in others triple damage) for either
4-7 or 3-12 respectively - in both case the chance of a serious wound
has increased significantly.
In any case the first wound usually decides the outcome of a combat -
even if the wound itself is not mortal. This is good news for the winner
because now he can gloat at a captive audience - or choose to dispatch
his opponent completely. It`s good news for the loser because there`s
still a chance he can talk or walk his way out. It`s good news for
gaming because players have options beyond simply killing their
opponents.
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