# 5.5/6e - Is it time for Wounds/Vitality?



## Stalker0 (Jul 5, 2022)

Probably one of the biggest "failed promises" of 5e was the notion of a "healing dial", that the system would accommodate many different styles of healing, from super gritty to superheroic. Ultimately what we got was a fine system, but it never really met that promise.

For those who don't know, Wounds/Vitality (W/VP) was a system used in the Star Wars SE edition of d20. Effectively a characters hitpoints were divided into a small pool of "wounds" and a much larger pool of "vitality". Damage was first subtracted from vitality, and once it was empty, damage went to wounds (there were however certain things that would bypass vitality and go straight to wounds, such as critical hits). Vitality recovered very quickly, representing more "stamina" than "flesh points", whereas wounds were considered true bodily injuries and took much longer to heal.

To me, W/VP is probably the best reflection of what dnd players often want in their healing systems. It gives a way to delineate the more vague aspects of hitpoints (stamina/luck) from the meaty "I am actually taking an injury" aspect. It both gives a way to let PCs recover damage quickly AND maintain that injuries take a long time to heal without assistance. And probably best of all.... its easy to turn into a dial. You could have the base system be something like 75% VP and 25% Wounds....and then if you want a superheroic game you could go 100% VP, or if your playing gritty maybe its 100% wounds....or anything in between.

I actually think what ultimately killed the system were the exceptions to the rule, predominately critical hits. The issue in SW was that once you had a lot of low level threats, you were going to generate a fair amount of critical hits (all you needed was a 20 on the roll)....and those would go right to wounds. This meant that as the game got higher level, vitality became less and less relevant as more things just bypassed it entirely in favor of wounds. I think for such a system to truly work, exceptions have to be extremely rare or even non-existent. The point of dnd style games is that players have a pool of hitpoints to tank damage....if you remove that you remove a core aspect of the game. An updated version of VP/W would not have any exceptions, everything goes to vitality first, then you take wounds...and of course dms can always add in their own exceptions for their personal games, as 5e already encourages.


I feel like W/VP would be perfect for the next edition or half edition, solving a long outstanding complaint about hitpoints while maintaining a system that is still easy to use and pretty intuitive. What do you think?


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## payn (Jul 5, 2022)

At first glance, no I think its too convoluted to be worth it. Though, the dial aspect makes me feel like tis more worth giving a shot.


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## Jer (Jul 5, 2022)

No, actually.  As an alternate system in the DMG that can be ignored a Wound/Vitality system is fine, but I don't want to see it in the core of the game.  One of the benefits of the D&D abstract hit point system is that it's easy to use at the table and easy for new players to understand - you also don't need to worry about any death spirals or other knock-on effects that come from wound systems that generally require some level of mastery to figure out what's going on with them (or explicit call-out by the designers in the text if you're really lucky).

I'd really like to see them make a simple, easy to use core of the game and then publish more optional add-ons that can be added to it though.  Back when 5e was being developed they were talking about having a "tactical combat" module that could be added for groups that want that kind of thing - that's the kind of thing I'd rather see them do rather than making the core game more complex.


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## Celebrim (Jul 5, 2022)

I think the big problem over the years has been number inflation.  Hit points on both PCs and monsters have been pretty consistently trending upwards over the editions.  If you add to that that 5e consciously tried to remove all the various ways to bypass hitpoints and consciously tried to make resetting to maximum hit points easy, and you end up with a system where it is very very hard to threaten PC's without a high degree of system mastery and making a conscious effort to overpower the PC's.


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## Steampunkette (Jul 5, 2022)

If I were to do it...

You have a Wound Point value equal to your proficiency bonus. 

Roll HP normally. 

Once you're out of HP you're down to your Wound points. If you hit 0 wound you drop and start making death saves.

Critical Hits deal 1 Wound point in addition to double dice.

_Cure Wounds_ restores 1 Wound point (regardless of slot level). _Heal_ and _Regenerate_ restore all Wound points.

You cannot recover Wound points on a short rest. On a long rest you recover 1 Wound point.

Adds a tiny layer of complexity to health, but small compared to some options. And it doesn't wind up massively inflating your hit point totals. It also makes crits more deadly without making them implausibly monstrous.


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## GMforPowergamers (Jul 5, 2022)

Stalker0 said:


> I feel like W/VP would be perfect for the next edition or half edition, solving a long outstanding complaint about hitpoints while maintaining a system that is still easy to use and pretty intuitive. What do you think?



Yes 100% yes it is time.

BUT you need to give Con or Cha score wounds at 1st level and add a bonus at later levels on top of HD for vitality. 
Saying that HD spending and most low level healing (healing word) can only heal vitality also leaves open space for bigger healing spells that heal BOTH wounds and vitality


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## GMforPowergamers (Jul 5, 2022)

Celebrim said:


> I think the big problem over the years has been number inflation.  Hit points on both PCs and monsters have been pretty consistently trending upwards over the editions.  If you add to that that 5e consciously tried to remove all the various ways to bypass hitpoints and consciously tried to make resetting to maximum hit points easy, and you end up with a system where it is very very hard to threaten PC's without a high degree of system mastery and making a conscious effort to overpower the PC's.



yeah I had proposed 3HD at 1st level but then only HD on odd levels so at 20th a fighter would have 13d10hp... in my orginal suggestion I had even levels get +1/2/3 based on class... but if we went W/V we could do that vitality is con or cha score, you get 1HD at 1st 3rd 5th 7th 9th 11th 13th 15 17th 19th and the bonus of 1/2/3 at even levels goes to wounds


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## John R Davis (Jul 5, 2022)

Keep hp as they are.
Have an option in DMG for something more complex.

I don't mind a complex system ( Indeed my one true gaming love has such a thing) but for DND nice n simple hp please!

PS no star wars game should have a " hp" system IMO.


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## ehren37 (Jul 5, 2022)

Sure, lets punish front line fighters more and further incentivize ranged characters.

Every system I've seen with this screws the folks out front taking hits to protect their allies. This gets a hard pass from me.


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## DEFCON 1 (Jul 5, 2022)

I use the Exhaustion table at 0 HP instead of 3 Death Saves. This is essentially my "Wound Points" table at play. Only difference is that all PCs have "six Wound Points", as I don't change the Exhaustion table based on CON scores or whatnot. 

And the benefit of course is that a loss of a "wound points" actually reduces the PCs effectiveness, as the Exhaustion table has penalties that take effect at each level.


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## Oofta (Jul 5, 2022)

First,  there was like one interview from a guy that only worked with 5E for a short time that even mentioned a modular system. Can we give the "broken promises" trope a rest?

Second, I don't want a death spiral.   Healing works well enough the way it is.   It's simple and easy to implement.  Want some variety? Go from short rests being 15 minutes to being overnight. Enforce hit die recovery or not.  Maximize healing potions and make drinking them a bonus action or make them as rare as hen's teeth and require a free hand and an object interaction to pull on.

There's plenty of options for the groups that want them even without official optional rules.


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## Stalker0 (Jul 5, 2022)

Celebrim said:


> I think the big problem over the years has been number inflation.  Hit points on both PCs and monsters have been pretty consistently trending upwards over the editions.



I would argue this is untrue, especially for PCs. While 5e wizard/rogue types have a slightly higher base hitdie, when you consider the plethora of con boosting items in 3e, 3e character generally had a lot more hps in my experience. 4e characters start with a lot of hitpoints, but since they don't have con scaling it tends to balance out and then actually become less than 3e/5e. So ultimately HPs peaked in 3e and have come back down in 4e/5e.


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## Umbran (Jul 5, 2022)

I don't personally feel that WP/VP gets D&D to give me more of what I'm going to D&D for, so I'd rather they not go that route.


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## GMforPowergamers (Jul 5, 2022)

Oofta said:


> First,  there was like one interview from a guy that only worked with 5E for a short time that even mentioned a modular system. Can we give the "broken promises" trope a rest?



no we can't it was said WELL HE WAS REPRESENTING the company and no one ever said it was changed.


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## Cruentus (Jul 5, 2022)

I think this "death spiral" malarky is just a screen to say "I don't want things to change" or "I like the system the way it is" or "Wounds are fine and 5e is the best thing since sliced bread."

The only way you end up in a death spiral is if you continue to press on when you get injured, or your ability to do what you do.  And you know what you do then, you flee.  You leave the fight.  Not every fight needs to be to the death.  You take a week to recover.  Gee, I'm at 2 Exhaustion, let's keep going deeper into the dungeon!  Let's go fight the BBG.  No, how about you wait and recover first.  And if its impossible to flee or have the time to rest (due to the way ticking clocks and "adventure paths" work now), that's a table issue, not a game issue.  We play older school rules with much lower hit points, non-balanced encounters, etc.  and both monsters and characters flee fights they can't win.  If I'm poisoned, I'm not going anywhere.  If I'm non combat capable in a fight, we're withdrawing, and the game/table accommodates that.  

I like @Steampunkette's suggestion about a critical doing 1 vitality.  5e is simple at its core, it needs more dials to turn, especially around healing.  Their gritty healing seems half baked.


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## Sorcerers Apprentice (Jul 5, 2022)

Nope.


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## UngainlyTitan (Jul 5, 2022)

Edit Deleted


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## payn (Jul 5, 2022)

Cruentus said:


> I think this "death spiral" malarky is just a screen to say "I don't want things to change" or "I like the system the way it is" or "Wounds are fine and 5e is the best thing since sliced bread."



The death spiral was a common complaint about SW saga edition. It's something to be considered in application.


Cruentus said:


> The only way you end up in a death spiral is if you continue to press on when you get injured, or your ability to do what you do.  And you know what you do then, you flee.  You leave the fight.  Not every fight needs to be to the death.  You take a week to recover.  Gee, I'm at 2 Exhaustion, let's keep going deeper into the dungeon!  Let's go fight the BBG.  No, how about you wait and recover first.  And if its impossible to flee or have the time to rest (due to the way ticking clocks and "adventure paths" work now), that's a table issue, not a game issue.  We play older school rules with much lower hit points, non-balanced encounters, etc.  and both monsters and characters flee fights they can't win.  If I'm poisoned, I'm not going anywhere.  If I'm non combat capable in a fight, we're withdrawing, and the game/table accommodates that.



This malarky sounds like an oberoni excuse to force it into the ruleset. 


Cruentus said:


> I like @Steampunkette's suggestion about a critical doing 1 vitality.  5e is simple at its core, it needs more dials to turn, especially around healing.  Their gritty healing seems half baked.



I agree with this.


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## Celebrim (Jul 5, 2022)

Stalker0 said:


> I would argue this is untrue, especially for PCs. While 5e wizard/rogue types have a slightly higher base hit die, when you consider the plethora of con boosting items in 3e, 3e character generally had a lot more hps in my experience. 4e characters start with a lot of hitpoints, but since they don't have con scaling it tends to balance out and then actually become less than 3e/5e. So ultimately HPs peaked in 3e and have come back down in 4e/5e.




I disagree but it's not worth fighting over since I suspect it's going to come down to "in my experience".  Sort of like "damage per round peaked in 1e" is a defensible proposition for a very narrow and specific way of playing 1e, but when you make that proposition it often shocks and angers people who did not in the slightest play that way.

Suffice to say that I believe it's possible to chart a very steady trend of number inflation across the board (PC hp, monster hp) as to how the game is expected to work (as opposed to how it could be made to work), and this gets really clear when you start comparing the hit points of the same monster across editions.  The "plethora of CON boosting items" assumption assumes the existence of the Christmas Tree, which was an artifact of a very specific sort of 3e ("optimized") play and was by no means universal and baked into the rules.  And even then, in both cases it's going to be an artifact of relatively high level of play to overcome the starting advantages in hit points that 4e and 5e characters will inherently have under the rules from having more and larger HD.


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## UngainlyTitan (Jul 5, 2022)

In General no I am not a fan of would vitality systems. The added overhead of tracking the multiple tracks is not worth the payoff. Also what is the point unless the lingering wounds have some consequences which then leads to the death spiral issue.


DEFCON 1 said:


> I use the Exhaustion table at 0 HP instead of 3 Death Saves. This is essentially my "Wound Points" table at play. Only difference is that all PCs have "six Wound Points", as I don't change the Exhaustion table based on CON scores or whatnot.
> 
> And the benefit of course is that a loss of a "wound points" actually reduces the PCs effectiveness, as the Exhaustion table has penalties that take effect at each level.



I am somewhat attracted to this perhaps as an option.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 5, 2022)

Cruentus said:


> I think this "death spiral" malarky is just a screen to say "I don't want things to change" or "I like the system the way it is" or "Wounds are fine and 5e is the best thing since sliced bread."



It's actually a clever, low key way of saying 'I don't want a death spiral'.


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## J.Quondam (Jul 5, 2022)

If you don't like the death spiral, don't get hit.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jul 5, 2022)

It should be easy and fast to be understood by new players. Some times I have thought to use two "pools", one would be the classic "hit points" and the other would be the "health levels", close to the storytelling system. The health levels would be the same for the most of times, but recovering would be harder and slower. Something like the shields by the protos in Starcraft. The classic hit points would be the "shield", and the health leves would be true "lifeforce".


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## DND_Reborn (Jul 5, 2022)

Stalker0 said:


> I feel like W/VP would be perfect for the next edition or half edition, solving a long outstanding complaint about hitpoints while maintaining a system that is still easy to use and pretty intuitive. What do you think?



YES, _YES_, _*YES*_ and a thousand times *YES!!!* It is a _far _superior system to just hit points.

I was so disappointed when I looked into 5E and they did not adopt it....


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## Cruentus (Jul 5, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> It's actually a clever, low key way of saying 'I don't want a death spiral'.



A "death spiral" isn't actually a thing in the game.  There is no reason mechanically or story-wise that a death spiral should occur.  I interpret death spiral to mean "I don't want anything in the game that might limit my character from doing whatever I want."  Heaven forbid we lost hit points, heaven forbid we have any kind of lasting effects (nope, spells re-save every round), injuries? Pfft.  As good as gold at 1hp as at 156hp. 

The wounds/vitality discussion is more about taking something abstract, ie HP, and making them more specific: meat and "luck".  If that level of specificity grates on you, then don't use it.  Some of us might want that included in the rules (optional or otherwise), because it makes the game more interesting to us.

Death Spiral is a conversation/discussion killer.  Its abstract, isn't actually a "thing" in the game, just a buzzword that gets thrown about when someone doesn't agree with something having to do with introducing more challenge to the game.


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## Jer (Jul 5, 2022)

Cruentus said:


> Death Spiral is a conversation/discussion killer.  Its abstract, isn't actually a "thing" in the game, just a buzzword that gets thrown about when someone doesn't agree with something having to do with introducing more challenge to the game.



"Death spiral" is a term in RPG design to describe a mechanic where a character's ability to perform gets worse as they take damage, making it easier for the character to die the more damage they take.  It isn't abstract at all except in the sense that all game design terms are abstractions in some way - it's a description of a type of game mechanic that can be good or bad depending on the kind of game you're playing.


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## GMforPowergamers (Jul 5, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> It's actually a clever, low key way of saying 'I don't want a death spiral'.



I don't think redifineing hitpoints by itself needs to make a death spiral. Although Bloodied mechanics would be nice again


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## Oofta (Jul 5, 2022)

GMforPowergamers said:


> no we can't it was said WELL HE WAS REPRESENTING the company and no one ever said it was changed.



Maybe there was a reason they didn't keep him around?  Maybe he was promising things that didn't sound like a workable product or one that others believed would not target the market they were aiming for?     The so-called "promises" were comments made during an interview, never published as official direction for the product.  What was there to retract?  They had a public play test to give people ideas what the system would be and gave plenty of time for feedback.

In any case it's water that went under the bridge so long ago that it long ago made it's way to the ocean.  The horse is dead and buried, there's no reason to keep beating the grave.


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## Stalker0 (Jul 5, 2022)

Jer said:


> "Death spiral" is a term in RPG design to describe a mechanic where a character's ability to perform gets worse as they take damage, making it easier for the character to die the more damage they take.  It isn't abstract at all except in the sense that all game design terms are abstractions in some way - it's a description of a type of game mechanic that can be good or bad depending on the kind of game you're playing.



Correct, and while a W/VP system can include a death spiral (once you take damage from your wound pool you suffer a -2 to your AC as one example), it certainly doesn't have to. The only penalty to taking wound damage could simply be the difficulty in healing it back, which is not a death spiral.


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## GMforPowergamers (Jul 5, 2022)

Jer said:


> "Death spiral" is a term in RPG design to describe a mechanic where a character's ability to perform gets worse as they take damage, making it easier for the character to die the more damage they take.  It isn't abstract at all except in the sense that all game design terms are abstractions in some way - it's a description of a type of game mechanic that can be good or bad depending on the kind of game you're playing.



the best example I have is WoD.  You have 7 health levels but when down 3 you are at -1 to all rolls, and down 4 is -2... by 6 (almost dead) you are at -5 to all rolls)  now WoD is worse cause you roll to dodge or parry and to soak damage... so you get worse at avoiding damage cause you have damage


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## Jer (Jul 5, 2022)

Stalker0 said:


> Correct, and while a W/VP system can include a death spiral (once you take damage from your wound pool you suffer a -2 to your AC as one example), it certainly doesn't have to. The only penalty to taking wound damage could simply be the difficulty in healing it back, which is not a death spiral.



So you're talking a Palladium-style hit point/SDC distinction?  (I actually prefer that kind of terminology over "Wound Points" if the "Wound" isn't going to actually be a wound and is just special hit points, but YMMV).

I mean, I guess - I'd still like to see it as an optional system because it adds what I'd consider to be an unnecessary layer of complexity to a system that doesn't need it.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 5, 2022)

J.Quondam said:


> If you don't like the death spiral, don't get hit.



I do.

By keeping my character at least three game tables distant from them.


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## Jer (Jul 5, 2022)

GMforPowergamers said:


> the best example I have is WoD.  You have 7 health levels but when down 3 you are at -1 to all rolls, and down 4 is -2... by 6 (almost dead) you are at -5 to all rolls)  now WoD is worse cause you roll to dodge or parry and to soak damage... so you get worse at avoiding damage cause you have damage



Yeah - WOD is one of the worst death spiral type games in that respect.  I remember my hard core WoD friends back in the day defending that design choice as the game making combat extra deadly so you choose to not do it unless you absolutely have to, but it seems like if you want to downplay combat in your game there are better ways to do it than death spirals.


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## J.Quondam (Jul 5, 2022)

I wouldn't want VP/WP as the default, but it'd be nice to have a variant rule, umm, fleshed out for GM use.
Personally, I like something simple, like Steampunkette's approach. Maybe tack on crit fails, to allow for WP damage on botched save v fireball, etc.



Stalker0 said:


> Correct, and while a W/VP system can include a death spiral (once you take damage from your wound pool you suffer a -2 to your AC as one example), it certainly doesn't have to. The only penalty to taking wound damage could simply be the difficulty in healing it back, which is not a death spiral.



Agreed. It could even be implemented as the reverse, along the lines of the "bloodied" condition used in 4e. Eg, if a character drops to half WP, they get some sort of "resolve bonus" or activate a "hard to kill" trait or something to reduce further WP disadvantages-- in effect, forcing the death spiral in the counter direction.

Like every other stat, WP/VP is just another design dimension that can work for or against a character, depending.


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## GMforPowergamers (Jul 5, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Maybe there was a reason they didn't keep him around?  Maybe he was promising things that didn't sound like a workable product or one that others believed would not target the market they were aiming for?     T



you would think the team would communicate that...

Imagine a tech insider speaking for apple said the next Iphone would have X Y and Z, and a month or two later he is fired... if the company didn't come out and say "No it isn't that employee was mistaken/lying/crazy" then yeah... it is still the company.

have you ever heard people on youtube tic tock and the like say "I work for X but I don't speak for the brand or the company" there is a reason they keep parroting that line.


Oofta said:


> he so-called "promises" were comments made during an interview, never published as official direction for the product.  What was there to retract?



a public statement of intent by a current employee that was working on the project. 


Oofta said:


> In any case it's water that went under the bridge so long ago that it long ago made it's way to the ocean.  The horse is dead and buried, there's no reason to keep beating the grave.



yet here we are... with yyou needing us to explain why we believed WotC employees statements.


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## GMforPowergamers (Jul 5, 2022)

Jer said:


> Yeah - WOD is one of the worst death spiral type games in that respect.  I remember my hard core WoD friends back in the day defending that design choice as the game making combat extra deadly so you choose to not do it unless you absolutely have to, but it seems like if you want to downplay combat in your game there are better ways to do it than death spirals.



Yeah... I believe that is the intent too. 'anyone can be shot and die' makes you not want to be in a fire fight.
In practice it just made everyone load up on combat abilities 'if there is a fight I am ready' then that colored the game


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## J.Quondam (Jul 5, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> I do.
> 
> By keeping my character at least three game tables distant from them.



Well, still keep an eye out for that badwrongfun. It's a reach weapon!


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 5, 2022)

J.Quondam said:


> Well, still keep an eye out for that *badwrongfun*. It's a reach weapon!



Another already bad term for cutting off discussion loses all meaning.

RIP


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## grimslade (Jul 5, 2022)

I would love a fleshed-out Vitality/Wound points option. Mainly, it would open the door to more mechanics within bounded accuracy, like a spell casting system that used vitality to fuel powers and a fatigue system that was not so punishing. To ameliorate the impact on melee combatants perhaps an ability to divert wound damage or limited heal/ignore some wound damage. 4Es Bloodied mechanic could be repurposed to Wounded when you suffer wound damage. 
I would love to see a psionics system that used vitality points to replace the concentration mechanic. You spend some of your combat effectiveness to maintain focus on sustaining a power or managing psychic combat during a fight.


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## Oofta (Jul 5, 2022)

GMforPowergamers said:


> you would think the team would communicate that...
> 
> Imagine a tech insider speaking for apple said the next Iphone would have X Y and Z, and a month or two later he is fired... if the company didn't come out and say "No it isn't that employee was mistaken/lying/crazy" then yeah... it is still the company.
> 
> ...




Someone that didn't even work on the product long enough to make it to the playtest (much less actual concrete rules or likely even drafts of the PHB or DMG) had some ideas that didn't pan out.  Meanwhile we have the best selling version of D&D ever released.  I simply don't see what the issue is.


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## J.Quondam (Jul 5, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> Another already bad term for cutting off discussion loses all meaning.
> 
> RIP



Nah, that happened back at  "death spiral".


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## Oofta (Jul 5, 2022)

Different games have different goals. Some want combat to be the last resort option that should be avoided at all costs so death spirals make sense.   Combat being the last resort is not one of D&D's goals and I don't think it would be the same game if it was.


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## GMforPowergamers (Jul 5, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Someone that didn't even work on the product long enough to make it to the playtest (much less actual concrete rules or likely even drafts of the PHB or DMG) had some ideas that didn't pan out.  Meanwhile we have the best selling version of D&D ever released.  I simply don't see what the issue is.



the issue is that he was speaking for the company. Sales has nothing to do with this and you have a whole thread dedicated to weather or not sales=quility


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 5, 2022)

J.Quondam said:


> Nah, that happened back at  "death spiral".



Death spirals are actually a thing in games. badwrongfun is 'stop talking about your preferences'.


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## payn (Jul 5, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> Death spirals are actually a thing in games.



Yeap.


Vaalingrade said:


> badwrongfun is 'stop talking about your preferences'.



Really? I always thought it was stop saying your preference is the only way to play?


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 5, 2022)

payn said:


> Really? I always thought it was stop saying your preference is the only way to play?



Used to be.

Used to be.


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## J.Quondam (Jul 5, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> Death spirals are actually a thing in games. badwrongfun is 'stop talking about your preferences'.



Indeed. And "badwrongfun" bombs are what they are, whether the word itself is used, or whether they're wrapped in snark.


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## grimslade (Jul 5, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Different games have different goals. Some want combat to be the last resort option that should be avoided at all costs so death spirals make sense.   Combat being the last resort is not one of D&D's goals and I don't think it would be the same game if it was.



I think you're right, but I also think you can change the tone without completely decoupling for D&D with V/WP system. D&D is always going to feature a majority of combat, the rules are mostly about resolving combat, so a wound system needs to be minorly punishing or at least recoverable. We are not talking WHF-level limb removal and blinding. Vitality Points are basically hit points in the abstract, but wounds are a new level to show the wear of an entire adventure or chapter. Careful play can avoid wounds altogether, but you can push eyond heroically and bear the weight of a wound


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## GMforPowergamers (Jul 5, 2022)

grimslade said:


> Vitality Points are basically hit points in the abstract, but wounds are a new level to show the wear of an entire adventure or chapter. Careful play can avoid wounds altogether, but you can push eyond heroically and bear the weight of a wound



as much as I am hopeing for a 100% overhaul, just changing HP to VP will end a lot of "but I cut you I did damage" arguments.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 5, 2022)

J.Quondam said:


> Indeed. And "badwrongfun" bombs are what they are, whether the word itself is used, or whether they're wrapped in snark.



Did I turn over two pages at once or something?

Because what I see is:

1) Someone else entirely mocked people for pointing out the issue of possible death spirals and accused them of not saying what they meant.

2) I said people are actually just saying they don't want death spirals.

3) You made a joke.

4) I made a joke back

5) You accused me of badwrongfunning.

What in the seven interlocking hells happened between 4 and 5?


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## jmartkdr2 (Jul 5, 2022)

The idea has been around for a long time but never seems to catch on, despite being re-introduced every few years.

I’d play in a game like that, but wouldn’t request it.


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## J.Quondam (Jul 5, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> Did I turn over two pages at once or something?
> 
> Because what I see is:
> 
> ...



I took it too personal, and I apologize.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 5, 2022)

J.Quondam said:


> I took it too personal, and I apologize.



S'cool.


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## GMforPowergamers (Jul 5, 2022)

The reverse of a Death spiral could be built into choices for some classes... like a fighter that if they are at vitality equal to or less then double there level they gain fast healing of vitality equal to there wis mod. 
Or a rogue that when they are at half or less vitality they gain new uses of canny action


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## Oofta (Jul 5, 2022)

grimslade said:


> I think you're right, but I also think you can change the tone without completely decoupling for D&D with V/WP system. D&D is always going to feature a majority of combat, the rules are mostly about resolving combat, so a wound system needs to be minorly punishing or at least recoverable. We are not talking WHF-level limb removal and blinding. Vitality Points are basically hit points in the abstract, but wounds are a new level to show the wear of an entire adventure or chapter. Careful play can avoid wounds altogether, but you can push eyond heroically and bear the weight of a wound




But the whole point of D&D for a lot of groups is to practically go out of their way to engage in combat because it's fun for them.  On the other hand if I want to make combat, and recovering from combat, so dangerous that it should be avoided when possible I can already do that.

Want a heavy combat game?  Let people rest (short or long) whenever they want.  Short rest, spend HD (hit die) to get back your HP, long rest recover without spending HD.  Want them to avoid it?  Remind your players that you only get half your HD back from a long rest.  Then use the optional rule that you always have to spend HD to recover HP even during a long rest.  For that matter, change a short rest to overnight and long rests to a week or more.  Carefully tracking HD and limiting it's recovery covers a lot of the same ground without the overhead.

I guess I just don't see what a split would buy that we don't already have rules for.  In addition, how does magic fit into all of this?  How does this not just punish front line fighters who tend to take the brunt of the damage in most combats?


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## Mort (Jul 5, 2022)

Cruentus said:


> A "death spiral" isn't actually a thing in the game.



The exhaustion mechanic is a 5e mechanic that causes a death spiral. That's one reason exhaustion is relatively rare. And why the Frenzy barbarian is dinged for having such a brutal mechanic.

But yes, it still exists in 5e.



Cruentus said:


> There is no reason mechanically or story-wise that a death spiral should occur.  I interpret death spiral to mean "I don't want anything in the game that might limit my character from doing whatever I want."  Heaven forbid we lost hit points, heaven forbid we have any kind of lasting effects (nope, spells re-save every round), injuries? Pfft.  As good as gold at 1hp as at 156hp.




But that's not what it means at all. A death spiral (defined above, but I'll reiterate) occurs with a mechanic that imposes cumulative penalties as you take damage. The more damage you take, the less effective you become.

This dramatically affects both the style of play and the type of characters selected for play. The more severe the death spiral mechanic the more combat should be avoided. And the more severe the death spiral mechanic the less frontliners you will see - as they are the most affected.



Cruentus said:


> The wounds/vitality discussion is more about taking something abstract, ie HP, and making them more specific: meat and "luck".  If that level of specificity grates on you, then don't use it.  Some of us might want that included in the rules (optional or otherwise), because it makes the game more interesting to us.




And that's great. But it's 100% worth noting the repercussions and consequences of changing to that kind of system. Depending on how it's done it can dramatically affect everything from the pace of play to the PCs involved in the game - and completely change the adventures had.



Cruentus said:


> Death Spiral is a conversation/discussion killer.  Its abstract, isn't actually a "thing" in the game, just a buzzword that gets thrown about when someone doesn't agree with something having to do with introducing more challenge to the game.




It is a 100% actual thing and imposed by certain mechanics. The worry of implementing a wounds/vitality system is, deliberately or not, ending up with a death spiral mechanic that completely changes the experience at the table.


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## beancounter (Jul 5, 2022)

Whatever WoTC ends up changing in 5.5/6E, it will likely be a move toward the simplification of the rules.


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## Lanefan (Jul 5, 2022)

ehren37 said:


> Sure, lets punish front line fighters more and further incentivize ranged characters.
> 
> Every system I've seen with this screws the folks out front taking hits to protect their allies. This gets a hard pass from me.



We've used a vaguely-similar system* for 40 years now and our number-crunching shows the front-liners are roughly just as mortal as everyone else.  I fail to see how giving all characters, in effect, a few more hit points screws over anyone.

* - body-fatigue points: BP are rolled once ever, on a small die the size of which varies by species; most PCs have 2-5 BP and that number is locked in pretty much for life.  FP are the normal hit points you get from levelling, and go on top of BP.  BP are harder to cure or rest back than are FP.  Death is at -10 and the 0 to -9 range is also BP.  BP are all meat, FP are mostly non-meat with a small meat component to allow poison weapons etc. to work as intended.

Edit to add:

Yes I'm fully in favour of a WP/VP or BP/FP system as long as the number of WP or BP is kept a) small and b) never changes through a character's career.  @Steampunkette hits on a pretty damn good 5e-based compromise idea upthread.


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## Tales and Chronicles (Jul 5, 2022)

DEFCON 1 said:


> I use the Exhaustion table at 0 HP instead of 3 Death Saves. This is essentially my "Wound Points" table at play. Only difference is that all PCs have "six Wound Points", as I don't change the Exhaustion table based on CON scores or whatnot.



I'm curious about this, if you dont mind explaining a little more.

When a PC hits 0 hp, he drops to the floor and gain a level of exhaustion. Right. 
Then what happens? Does he keep making death saves and gain other level each time they fail? Or are they automatically stable?


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## DND_Reborn (Jul 5, 2022)

DEFCON 1 said:


> I use the Exhaustion table at 0 HP instead of 3 Death Saves. This is essentially my "Wound Points" table at play. Only difference is that all PCs have "six Wound Points", as I don't change the Exhaustion table based on CON scores or whatnot.
> 
> And the benefit of course is that a loss of a "wound points" actually reduces the PCs effectiveness, as the Exhaustion table has penalties that take effect at each level.



The plethora of mechanics we've explored/played with/etc. have been:

CON as Wounds (standard)
CON as Exhaustion (when your CON drops to 6, that is the _first_ level of exhaustion)
Exhaustion at 0 HP as Wounds (like you suggest)
HP Maximum as Wounds (see the other thread LOL!)
And variants of the above...

So, with your system @DEFCON 1 does damage reducing you to 0 HP overflow into levels of Exhaustion??? Or, do you do you gain one level of exhaustion when you hit 0 HP, and more levels as you would normally via Death Saves (so, a roll of 1 = two levels of exhaustion, etc.)?


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## ehren37 (Jul 5, 2022)

Cruentus said:


> I think this "death spiral" malarky is just a screen to say "I don't want things to change" or "I like the system the way it is" or "Wounds are fine and 5e is the best thing since sliced bread."
> 
> The only way you end up in a death spiral is if you continue to press on when you get injured, or your ability to do what you do.  And you know what you do then, you flee.  You leave the fight.  Not every fight needs to be to the death.  You take a week to recover.  Gee, I'm at 2 Exhaustion, let's keep going deeper into the dungeon!  Let's go fight the BBG.  No, how about you wait and recover first.  And if its impossible to flee or have the time to rest (due to the way ticking clocks and "adventure paths" work now), that's a table issue, not a game issue.  We play older school rules with much lower hit points, non-balanced encounters, etc.  and both monsters and characters flee fights they can't win.  If I'm poisoned, I'm not going anywhere.  If I'm non combat capable in a fight, we're withdrawing, and the game/table accommodates that.
> 
> I like @Steampunkette's suggestion about a critical doing 1 vitality.  5e is simple at its core, it needs more dials to turn, especially around healing.  Their gritty healing seems half baked.



The rules are simply not set up well to allow fleeing. You start engaged, eat an attack of opportunity, then end up engaged after they catch up. Any slower companions (small or heavy armor wearers) are left behind to die. The chase rules are also awful. 5E (and D&D in general) is simply not set up mechanically well to allow for players to escape without magic or the DM just letting you get away.


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## Shiroiken (Jul 5, 2022)

I doubt we'll ever see it in the base rules. Too complicated and they've never been part of it. HP serve the needs of most well enough, so "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

IMO to do a wound system properly, the number needs to be based on creature size/race, which doesn't change over time. They're the character's Meat Points, and unless they somehow get bigger, that's all they'll ever have. Probably gain a wound the first time you reach half HP after a long rest, when you take a critical hit, when you drop to 0 HP, and when you fail a death save. HP may come back overnight, but wounds take longer.


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## cbwjm (Jul 6, 2022)

You'd need a better system than the star wars d20 W/V system. The main issue with that, from memory, was that a critical hit bypassed vitality and went straight to wounds. Since wounds were generally just your Constitution Score it often didn't matter how powerful you were or if you were at max vitality, a lucky hit could straight up kill you.

Star Wars SE used hit points and a condition track, I don't think they had wounds/vitality and I can't recall how you moved down the condition track, though I assume that critical hits were one of the things that pushed you down it. Things like that always seemed cool, but I'm with others in that I prefer my games without death spirals as they take away from our fun when playing dnd.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 6, 2022)

Steampunkette said:


> If I were to do it...
> 
> Adds a tiny layer of complexity to health, but small compared to some options. And it doesn't wind up massively inflating your hit point totals. It also makes crits more deadly without making them implausibly monstrous.




I think instead of having Wound Points as a separate pool (and having to figure out how many WP monsters of different sizes should have, and having the GM need to track two pools per foe), the easiest way to have a 'modular wound system' would be to make wounds conditions that critical hits can cause instead of extra damage.

One benefit is that if you had a player who wanted to opt out of suffering wounds for safety tool reasons, you could just let them use the normal 'crits do double damage dice' system the core rules have, while everyone else uses 'crits cause wounds but no extra damage.'

*Mechanics*
There are 5 locations that can be wounded, and 4 degrees of severity.

*Locations*
When an attack rolls a natural 20, it causes a wound to a random location. To determine randomly, you roll 1d6:

1 - mobility
2 - primary attack
3 - secondary attack
4 - stamina
5 - sensory
6 - attacker chooses

Mobility wounds affect legs, wings, or whatever worms and stuff use to move. It knocks the creature prone, and for the duration of the wound they're slowed.

Primary attack affects whatever the most threatening attack mode of a creature is (typically the primary hand for a humanoid). The creature drops whatever its holding in that limb, and for the duration of the wound that attack does half damage (or has disadvantage if it doesn't deal damage [or the save to resist has advantage if it both deals no damage and has no attack roll]).

Secondary attacks are any other attack, or just a spare limb (typically the off hand for a humanoid).

Stamina is meant to represent bleeding or some sort of reeling blow. Note the damage dice the attack deals. At the start of the attacker's next turn, roll those dice and the wounded creature takes that damage. This just happens one time. Then, for the duration of the wound, the creature has its maximum hit points reduced by the amount of the wound.

Sensory wounds affect eyes (or other primary sensing organs) and make you count as blind for one round. For the duration of the wound, the creature treats everyone as having concealment.

*Severity*
There are four levels of severity. If the creature struck is at 1 HP or above after the attack deals damage, the default severity is moderate. If they are at 0 HP, the default severity is serious. The creature struck can make a Constitution saving throw (DC 10 + attacker's proficiency mod) to reduce the severity by one level.

Light Wounds last until the end of the encounter or receive 1 die of magical healing. Mostly they just spice things up a bit during a combat.

Moderate Wounds last until you take a short rest or receive 2 dice of magical healing at once.

Serious Wounds last until you take a long rest or receive 3 dice of magical healing at once.

Critical Wounds last forever but can be healed with the (now 4th level spell) _regenerate_. These attacks don't happen randomly, only with special effects like vorpal swords or high-level spells.

*Special Notes*
If a creature is already at 0 HP, you can use an attack to intentionally inflict a wound.

Certain creatures might be immune to wounds (like ghosts). Others might _require_ wounds to defeat - like perhaps zombies only go down when you inflict a stamina crit. Heck, maybe zombies suffer a crit with _any_ attack that deals more than 10 damage. You could have fun with it.

There could be a Rip and Tear sub-variant where the default severity of wounds goes up one step if the attacker's proficiency bonus is higher than the defender's, and goes down in reverse. This lets groups that want really over the top delimbing to do it without the PCs themselves falling apart to hordes of weak minions.

---

And that's all you need. It fits into a page, and allows for the narrative effect of long-term wounds without really having a death spiral, and without requiring tracking a second pool of numbers.


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## Lanefan (Jul 6, 2022)

RangerWickett said:


> I think instead of having Wound Points as a separate pool (and having to figure out how many WP monsters of different sizes should have, and having the GM need to track two pools per foe),



In any system where you don't get into WP/BP until you're out of VP/FP, why would you ever need to track two pools?

WP + VP = HP.  Just track HP as normal, other than rare corner cases e.g. slitting the throat of a defenseless foe.

The biggest complication (and it's really not that bad) is around curing and resting, as WP/BP come back at a different (slower) rate than do VP/FP regardless of the method used.


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## Minigiant (Jul 6, 2022)

Nah.

Damage in D&D increases too fast to bypass VP and no system has made a good enough WP system.


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## DEFCON 1 (Jul 6, 2022)

@vincegetorix @DND_Reborn  The current house rules I'm using for my Theros campaign changes up both the Rests system and the Dying system and what happens when you hit 0 HP (which includes the Exhaustion chart).  For those that care, here are the rules which I'm currently using.  The new Resting rules split up the regaining of long rest class features from full overnight healing (slightly making full healing more difficult).  It also allows PCs to remain conscious and moving while at 0 HP in order to retreat, and removes the conscious to unconscious to conscious ping-ponging of healing at 0 HP by not removing the Dying condition even when given healing.  (Note that these aren't extremely detailed for every little questionable bit because unless stated otherwise anything else is run with the standard death and dying rules.  If there's a question about anything in particular I'd be happy to explain it.) 

*Rests*

A *Short Rest *is 10 minutes, during which you may spend hit dice to regain hit points and regain features that refresh on a Short Rest.
A *Long Rest* is 8 hours of light activity or sleep, after which you regain all of your spent hit dice, regain all features that refresh on a Long Rest, and you lose your level of exhaustion if currently at Level 1 (creatures at any higher exhaustion levels do not lose any.) You _do not_ _automatically regain all hit points_ following a Long Rest. However, the effects of a Short Rest are _included_ at both the beginning and end of a Long Rest. (I.E. you may spend any remaining hit dice you have at the beginning of the Long Rest to regain hit points, and then may spend any new hit dice you just regained following the Long Rest to regain more hit points.)
An *Extended Rest* is 24 hours of uninterrupted bed rest in a safe location and counts as a Short and Long Rest. You regain all hit points, all hit dice, all class features, and may possibly reduce levels of Exhaustion you currently have. At the end of the Extended Rest another character may attempt a WIS (Medicine) check. If the check reaches DC 10 it reduces your Exhaustion level by 1, if it hits DC 20 it reduces it by 2 levels, and at DC 30 by 3 levels.  This WIS (Medicine) check to remove Exhaustion levels may be tried after every Extended Rest the character takes.


*Dying and Exhaustion*


When a creature reaches 0 hit points, they are *Dying*. They remain Dying until they are *Stabilized*.
A Dying creature has the *Incapacitated* condition (instead of Unconscious) and at the start of each of their turns make Death saving throws with a DC 10 to succeed. (An Incapacitated creature cannot take actions or reactions but may still move.)
Every level of Exhaustion a creature has raises the DC by 1.
Each failed Death saving throw causes one level of Exhaustion.
Death occurs at Exhaustion Level 6 as per the Exhaustion chart (and not 3 failed Death saving throws as normal.)
A creature may regain hit points while Dying (via abilities, spells and items as normal), but that _does not_ remove the Incapacitated condition, _does not_ stop the rolling of Death saving throws, and _does not_ adjust or affect their Exhaustion level. _They are still considered Dying even though they are no longer at 0 HP._
To no longer be considered Dying (and thus remove the Incapacitated condition and stop the rolling of Death saving throws) requires the target to be Stabilized.


*Stabilizing a Dying Creature*


A Dying creature that makes three successful Death saving throws or rolls a Natural 20 on a Death saving throw automatically Stabilizes.
Another character adjacent to an Incapacitated character can attempt to Stabilize them by using an Action to make a WIS (Medicine) check with a DC equal to the target’s current Death save DC.
Stabilizing a creature _does not_ remove any levels of Exhaustion or gives them additional hit points.
A Stabilized creature has however many hit points they have received (if any) while Dying. A Stabilized creature who was not healed while Dying is still at 0 HP but can act normally.



*Combat While Dying or Stabilized*


Any successful attack made on a Dying creature immediately results in one automatic failed Death saving throw.
Any attack on a Dying creature that has hit points does not cause hit point damage but rather still causes an immediate automatic failed Death saving throw.
An attack on a Stabilized creature causes hit point damage. If the creature is at 0 HP or the attack drops them back to 0 HP, it immediately ends the Stabilization and they are considered Dying again.
A creature that begins Dying again has their successful Death saving throws reset to 0. Their Exhaustion level is at wherever it was previously.
* 

Exhaustion Chart*


Level 1: Speed halved.
Level 2: Max HP halved.
Level 3: Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws.
Level 4: Disadvantage on ability checks.
Level 5: Unconscious.
Level 6: Death.


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## AnotherGuy (Jul 6, 2022)

Simplicity is key.
I currently use the exhaustion track as a wound metric but ideally you'd like to separate the two.

If you were to separate you'd have to determine
(1) What earns one a wound (it is a crit, is it a failed death save on a critical, falling below 0hp, a failed death save while unconscious, half your hit points in damage, something else)
(2) If a wound "climbs" the wound track or can one have multiple wound levels (i.e. one can have two level 1 wounds) and the effects of having multiple wound levels has.
(3) The mundane recovery process depending on the level of wound (1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year..etc).
(4) The recovery process via magic depending on the level of the wound/s.


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## humble minion (Jul 6, 2022)

For my sins, I ran a long d20 Star wars campaign using VP/WP.

It was a train wreck of a system, frankly.  Among the problems (SWd20 had a LOT of problems and I still personally resent whoever it was at WotC who wrote, tested, and okayed that disastrous system to be sold to the unsuspecting public, but I'll try to stick to VP/WP issues here) were: 

players optimising their characters to fish for crits to hit the wounds of an enemy rather than bothering to chew through the VP.
pretty much no thought given to how things like area effect weapons or persistent effects like being on fire interacted with the new system
as damage inflated at higher level, it made crits into effective instakills on even very tough PCs

A lot of these problems were attributable to the whole VP/WP system being tacked on to standard d20 with profoundly insufficient thought and testing, and to the interaction of VP/WP with all sorts of other, equally broken and dysfunctional aspects of that game.  But not all of them were.

As far as dysfunctional death spirals - I actually don't mind the Bloodied mechanic from 4e to be honest.  Just having a nice simple single threshold that can be used to trigger positive or negative special effects or conditions or whatever - that's a nice extra design feature that spells/monsters/abilities can be designed to key off, without getting too deep into the weeds.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jul 6, 2022)

We already had a wound/vitality system in D&D.

It was in 4e. They called wounds "healing surges." It worked really well. But people decried it as "unrealistic" and weird, so it was abandoned.

Now we have hit dice, which look superficially like healing surges, but at this point people know quite well that hit dice cannot serve as a "wounds" system without heavy rewriting.


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## Ruin Explorer (Jul 6, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> We already had a wound/vitality system in D&D.
> 
> It was in 4e. They called wounds "healing surges." It worked really well. But people decried it as "unrealistic" and weird, so it was abandoned.
> 
> Now we have hit dice, which look superficially like healing surges, but at this point people know quite well that hit dice cannot serve as a "wounds" system without heavy rewriting.



5E's HD system is vestigial and unintegrated. The kindest and smartest thing 5.5/6E could do is just straight-up remove it and replace it with a better system.

Something like Healing Surges would probably be the way to go - a suggestion I made in a previous thread was:



			
				Ruin Explorer said:
			
		

> 1) Each class has 6 healing surges that fully refresh on a long rest (there's little reason to vary this in the way 4E did, and 4E had too many). Definitely_ do not _add CON bonus to this number.
> 
> 2) Healing surges are worth a fixed value, let's say 1/4 of your max HP, minimum 5HP (so they're a bit more useful at low levels).
> 
> ...




The other advantage of a system like this is that it would be relatively easy to remove and replace if someone wanted an entirely different system.


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## DEFCON 1 (Jul 6, 2022)

I had no issue with Healing Surges conceptually in 4E... I thought that they could (and did) work relatively well for what they were trying to accomplish.  And the idea that they were essentially "wounds" (IE the number of Surges you had were basically the number of "wound points" you had) is an interesting idea.  But my two issues I ended up finding with the system when I ran all my 4E games though were that classes had just too many Healing Surges (and thus I never once experienced any of the games I ran in 4E come close to seeing any character run out of them) and that higher level PCs had too many hit points to burn through to trigger enough Healing Surges to treat them as defacto "wounds".  Since none of the PCs in my games ever risked running out of them, the idea of equating Surges as Wounds just never took hold as an idea.  (Not to mention of course the naming antithesis of Healing equalling Wounds-- had they named the different parts of the system differently to fit this thought paradigm it might have gotten ahold of people easier.)

Now to be honest... part of my issue was that my own particular style of DMing only usually produces one or maybe two fights in a day.  So the odds of ever coming close to killing a PC via Healing Surge expenditure was nigh impossible.  For example, say we have a Fighter with 60 Hit Points and 12 Healing Surges (numbers I'm sure are not completely accurate to what it'd actually have).  With each Healing Surge being 1/4 of your hit points, that means those 12 Surges grant the Fighter a potential 180 extra hit points (60 x 1/4 = 15 hp and 15 x 12 = 180) for a complete total of 240 Hit Points this Fighter has at its disposal _per day.  _I could never, ever, ever do that much damage to this Fighter in a single day using normal encounter building rules-- let alone also try and damage the other five PCs in the party, all of whom also had potentially 150 to 250 total potential hit points at their disposal.  For the way I ran the game... thinking of the system in that way where spending Surges was like taking Wounds just never worked.  So instead, the system got treated as normal-- just "knock the PC to 0 and get them to fail 3 Death saves" and they die... with no "wound point system" in play.

Now this all being said... I think that if you were to fundamentally change the whole system in D&D to take this all into account, it could be something that would work better and be really intriguing.  Give me characters whose Hit Points are only their CON score, but then have a pool of 8 to 12 "healing surges" (or whatever you name it) that get spent to heal those pools of 10 to 16 points throughout the day, and you might have something.  I'd be fine trying to knock PCs down 10-16 hit points at a time to create "wounds" at 0, with "surges" then resetting their 10-16 HP for the next drop during the fight.  Something like this might be more usable for more different types of tables.


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## jmartkdr2 (Jul 6, 2022)

cbwjm said:


> You'd need a better system than the star wars d20 W/V system. The main issue with that, from memory, was that a critical hit bypassed vitality and went straight to wounds. Since wounds were generally just your Constitution Score it often didn't matter how powerful you were or if you were at max vitality, a lucky hit could straight up kill you.
> 
> Star Wars SE used hit points and a condition track, I don't think they had wounds/vitality and I can't recall how you moved down the condition track, though I assume that critical hits were one of the things that pushed you down it. Things like that always seemed cool, but I'm with others in that I prefer my games without death spirals as they take away from our fun when playing dnd.



With SE, you had about 5 or six levels on the condition track. So five or six crits would take you out, but that's fine. The downsides were twofold;

1. At low levels, you ran out of hp well before you worried about the condition track. At high levels, you tened to get dropped on the condition track before you were even low on hp. It balanced around level 10 or so.

2. There were feats/talents etc that let you do multiple condition drops (ie two ticks on the condition track.) There were not, however, any feats or talents for gaining extra ticks or otherwise counteracting these feats, so those feats were OP. 

Both of these are pretty solvable.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jul 6, 2022)

There are healing options in the dmg.
I think they deserve to be in the phb, as tgey really set the tone for different kinds of campaigns and actually need to fit yor style, or otherwise balance between classes is way off.


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## GMforPowergamers (Jul 6, 2022)

ehren37 said:


> The rules are simply not set up well to allow fleeing. You start engaged, eat an attack of opportunity, then end up engaged after they catch up. Any slower companions (small or heavy armor wearers) are left behind to die. The chase rules are also awful. 5E (and D&D in general) is simply not set up mechanically well to allow for players to escape without magic or the DM just letting you get away.



yup... I have seen players get SUPER pissed cause they move away, take an Opp attack, just for the attacker to move up on there turn... like there is no point


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## Stalker0 (Jul 6, 2022)

So a number of people have complained that the W/VP system is too complex. There are a few ways to possible mirror that in the current HP system.

Here is just one concept:

*Wounded*: Whenever a creature is lowered to below 25% of their max hitpoints, they become wounded. A wounded creature's max HP is lowered by 25%.

*Removing the Wounded Condition*: To remove the condition, a creature must take a long rest at their max hitpoints.


And then you have hitpoints heal "quickly". So in this example, you can heal hitpoints normally but when you get wounded (aka you have blown through your vitality), you lose a chunk. And of course you can tune the dials, maybe wounded occurs at 50% of your max. Maybe removing wounded takes a week of long rests instead of 1, whatever you want.


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## Ulorian - Agent of Chaos (Jul 6, 2022)

I didn't read past the first few posts, so apologies if someone mentioned this, but I was always a fan of the True20 Toughness save as an outside-the-box approach to tracking damage. I wouldn't mind seeing this (or a variation thereof) as an option in the next iteration of D&D.


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## Ulorian - Agent of Chaos (Jul 6, 2022)

Ulorian said:


> I didn't read past the first few posts, so apologies if someone mentioned this, but I was always a fan of the True20 Toughness save as an outside-the-box approach to tracking damage. I wouldn't mind seeing this (or a variation thereof) as an option in the next iteration of D&D.





			https://freeronin.com/gr_files/d20toTrue20.pdf


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## TheAlkaizer (Jul 6, 2022)

I don't mind hit points that much. But when the numbers get higher, it does tend to become a bit tedious.

However, Starfinder does something very simple. You have your hit points and your stamina points. Any damage is first deducted from Stamina Points, and if depleted, then goes to Hit Points. Stamina Points fully recover after some rest and there's plenty of ways with features to replenish them. Hit Points are a more long-term healing.

It was simple enough that it created no friction during play. I think they did not use the full potential of that system, but it's definitely on my inspiration list for some of my projects.


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## SteveC (Jul 6, 2022)

I played with Wounds and Vitality a lot and have a love/hate relationship with it. The hate part is the critical hits go right to Wounds. It's just something that happens at random, and it really becomes an issue at higher level or with larger combats. The GM rolls a ton of dice when combats have large numbers and the crits just appear all too often in those cases.
Combining that with monsters that cause a lot of damage at higher level means you can go from healthy to dead in a single bad roll. There just isn't any agency in how that works, and it takes something that can be fun (combat) and turns it into something you want to avoid at all costs.
There are alternatives that sort of strike a middle ground, such as Pathfinder2's Stamina system that might do what people want.


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## Gradine (Jul 6, 2022)

The thing about Vitality/Wounds is that it doesn't work super well to port directly into D&D. Star Wars d20 made a lot of additional changes that impacted the Vit/Wounds system, including:

Crits were a range with damage straight to Wounds rather than bonus/extra damage. 
In addition, this was back in d20 where crits had to be _confirmed_, making them relatively rarer
Armor was also completely changed, providing damage resistance rather than AC.
Defense was now a class feature that went up with level
You could theoretically do one or more of these without using _all _of them but they really worked out for the best in tandem with each other.


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## Oofta (Jul 6, 2022)

UngeheuerLich said:


> There are healing options in the dmg.
> I think they deserve to be in the phb, as tgey really set the tone for different kinds of campaigns and actually need to fit yor style, or otherwise balance between classes is way off.



There are some in the DMG, the PHB should be reserved for default behavior IMHO.


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## Stalker0 (Jul 6, 2022)

TheAlkaizer said:


> I don't mind hit points that much. But when the numbers get higher, it does tend to become a bit tedious.
> 
> However, Starfinder does something very simple. You have your hit points and your stamina points. Any damage is first deducted from Stamina Points, and if depleted, then goes to Hit Points. Stamina Points fully recover after some rest and there's plenty of ways with features to replenish them. Hit Points are a more long-term healing.
> 
> It was simple enough that it created no friction during play. I think they did not use the full potential of that system, but it's definitely on my inspiration list for some of my projects.



That is literally W/VP just under a different name


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## SteveC (Jul 6, 2022)

Stalker0 said:


> That is literally W/VP just under a different name



It is similar but removes a key component: you don't go directly to HP when you score a critical hit. That's a huge difference. Stamina has its own issues (namely healing spells only heal HP, which you only take after you run out of Stamina) so it has kind of a limiting effect against larger damaging attacks. You pretty much can't heal at all (in an encounter) until you start taking HP damage. Since the majority of your total HP + Stamina is Stamina, you have a much smaller margin for error once you get to HP damage ... and you can't fully heal back up in combat.


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## Stalker0 (Jul 6, 2022)

I don't actually consider the crit to HP a main function of W/VP, but a siderule....one I agree that practically ruins the system (and why I noted in my OP that dnd would need to remove it if it was adopted).


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## dave2008 (Jul 6, 2022)

we already use a system like this, though we do it differently. not sure if it is baked into the base system if that is a positive or not for D&D in general

ps we use crits and it works well


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## ehren37 (Jul 6, 2022)

Stalker0 said:


> I don't actually consider the crit to HP a main function of W/VP, but a siderule....one I agree that practically ruins the system (and why I noted in my OP that dnd would need to remove it if it was adopted).



Yeah, that's what makes it suck for front liners. You're subject to a bunch more hits, and therefore a lot more nat 20's. It also cuts down on the HP advantage from your class, as it was just based on your Con.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jul 6, 2022)

Oofta said:


> There are some in the DMG, the PHB should be reserved for default behavior IMHO.



As I said in my post above. I know they are in the DMG... maybe you missed that.
I think they deserve to be in the phb, as I don't think there should be a default healing option, instead there should be a choice of classical, gritty and heroic right int the front so everyone can see them.


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## Oofta (Jul 6, 2022)

UngeheuerLich said:


> As I said in my post above. I know they are in the DMG... maybe you missed that.
> I think they deserve to be in the phb, as I don't think there should be a default healing option, instead there should be a choice of classical, gritty and heroic right int the front so everyone can see them.



I did miss it  , but still think it belongs in the DMG with most of the optional rules.


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## Weiley31 (Jul 6, 2022)

Star Wars style!


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## DND_Reborn (Jul 6, 2022)

I don't think you could do W/VP as an optional variant for D&D. There is way too much it impacts IMO and would need to be baked into the system like in d20 SW.


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## Blue (Jul 6, 2022)

I think HPs is one of the sacred cows of D&D that they won't get rid of.  So regardless of the viability or superiority of Wounds/Vitality, I am rahter sure it will not make an appearance in the 2024 books.  It has nothing to do with the system, that is irrelevant to why I don't think we will see it,


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## Stalker0 (Jul 6, 2022)

DND_Reborn said:


> I don't think you could do W/VP as an optional variant for D&D. There is way too much it impacts IMO and would need to be baked into the system like in d20 SW.



If you went with the simplest version of it, the only thing it would change is that PCs and Monsters would all have a W and a VP number..... that's it. Heck for monsters you could just leave them at wounds only if you wanted, since it would rarely have an impact on them.


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## DND_Reborn (Jul 6, 2022)

Stalker0 said:


> If you went with the simplest version of it, the only thing it would change is that PCs and Monsters would all have a W and a VP number..... that's it. Heck for monsters you could just leave them at wounds only if you wanted, since it would rarely have an impact on them.



Maybe. There are a lot of rules/impact of the system in d20 SW that would make things "weird" in D&D if you didn't adjust other things.

FWIW, if we adopt the new system we're considering, HP maximum would basically become Wounds...


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## Oofta (Jul 6, 2022)

Stalker0 said:


> If you went with the simplest version of it, the only thing it would change is that PCs and Monsters would all have a W and a VP number..... that's it. Heck for monsters you could just leave them at wounds only if you wanted, since it would rarely have an impact on them.




If you do that, what are you buying other than overhead and complexity, especially when you include things like magical healing?

Let's say a PC has (arbitrary numbers here) VP: 30, W: 10 and they take 35 points of damage.  There's no difference from HP other than you split up the numbers, right?  So at this point they have VP:0, W:5.  Now suppose you could recover VP but not W with a short rest so they have VP:30, W:5.  They again take 35 points of damage and I assume they drop to 0.

But what about magical healing or bandaids if you have the healer feat?  Do you only recover VP? Recover W first?  Do you have to actually rest to recover VP or does it recover if you're not doing something that not particularly strenuous so you could be walking around and exploring?


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## jmartkdr2 (Jul 6, 2022)

Oofta said:


> If you do that, what are you buying other than overhead and complexity, especially when you include things like magical healing?



A little more clarity in how you describe things. That's all you get, but I'd bet a majority of people who don't like hp as-is would actually be a lot happier with that as the only change.


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## Lanefan (Jul 7, 2022)

ehren37 said:


> Yeah, that's what makes it suck for front liners. You're subject to a bunch more hits, and therefore a lot more nat 20's. It also cuts down on the HP advantage from your class, as it was just based on your Con.



But if you get rid of the idea that crits go straight to WP/BP it then works much more as intended, right?


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## Lanefan (Jul 7, 2022)

DND_Reborn said:


> Maybe. There are a lot of rules/impact of the system in d20 SW that would make things "weird" in D&D if you didn't adjust other things.



I for one am not even considering the SW system as a starting point, other than perhaps using its names for the two types of hit points.

The SW system as written has some good ideas but then neuters itself in a single stroke: crits bypass VP.  Get rid of that one rule and the basis 
for a viable and simple system is sitting right there.  Too many WP, though; needs to be a smaller and unchanging number.

Toss in something like 4e's bloodied mechanic for when one is at half FP (VP) and you're good to rock!


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## DND_Reborn (Jul 7, 2022)

When we tried it before, this is what we did:

Hit points became Vitality.
Wounds (aka Wound Points and also Mortal Wounds) equaled a creature's Constitution score plus its level or CR, as appropriate.
If HP = 0, damage overflows into Wounds.
Critical hits required a confirmation roll. If the roll misses, double damage dice and apply to HP. If the roll hits, roll normal damage and apply to Wounds.
Armor provides DR vs. Wound damage (to a minimum of 1 Wound), DR equals AC value - 10 (e.g. Plate armor would be DR 8).
Whenever you take Wounds, you make a Constitution save to remain conscious. The DC equals 5 + the damage taken.
If you take any Wound damage, you gain a level of exhaustion.

Now, the issue is in d20 SW, "mooks" had no vitality, so a critical hit could drop them IIRC.

IME with the above system, it penalizes PCs much more than enemies because PCs will need to recover from injury (as where the enemies likely won't .

The above was nearly a direction translation of the W/VP system from d20 SW.

For healing:

You recovered 1 Wound per long rest.
Spells and magical healing recovered 1 Wound per spell level. Potions recovered 1-4 Wounds depending on the strength of the potion.

That's all I can remember for now. I probably have an old house-rule doc if anyone wants me to look for it.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 7, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> But if you get rid of the idea that crits go straight to WP/BP it then works much more as intended, right?



What _is _the intention?

I see people saying it's superior, that it's better than HP... but how?

Even having played in systems with W/V or the equivalent that aren't SW like HERO, which has STUN and Body... nothing being described here seems to have little connection to those.

In most such systems, Wounds/Body is something that rarely comes up or it the special ability of things that are hyper-dangerous and those things have a commiserate lower damage because they're going to wounds, not lobbing 2d6 wounds at you on every single crit.

You don't go into Body every fight in HERO for example, and you don't go into wounds from a fist fight in other systems, but the proposed systems here seem to expect everyone to go into wounds every fight.

Plus, most of these systems provide pretty robust Defense abilities to mitigate both wound and vitality damage, something D&D is terrified of.

I'm not sure what's actually being conceived of here.


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## Lanefan (Jul 7, 2022)

Oofta said:


> If you do that, what are you buying other than overhead and complexity, especially when you include things like magical healing?
> 
> Let's say a PC has (arbitrary numbers here) VP: 30, W: 10 and they take 35 points of damage.  There's no difference from HP other than you split up the numbers, right?  So at this point they have VP:0, W:5.  Now suppose you could recover VP but not W with a short rest so they have VP:30, W:5.  They again take 35 points of damage and I assume they drop to 0.



You're making this far more complicated than it needs to be.

For combat purposes the PC here has 40 HP.  When they reach 0 they start dying, or die outright depending on system.

The PC *cannot recover FP* (VP) *in any way* before it is back up to full BP (WP).  So, no need to ever track two sets of numbers.  For monsters, who almost never need to worry about recovering hit points because after the combat they are dead, it works just like normal.

The only added complexity comes in curing and resting, as a PC not at full BP (WP) a) takes longer to recover and b) cures are not as effective until-unless full BP (WP) is reached.

After that, FP (VP) recover as normal for the system in use.


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## Lanefan (Jul 7, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> What _is _the intention?
> 
> I see people saying it's superior, that it's better than HP... but how?



1. Clear delineation between mostly-meat and mostly-fatigue hit points
2. Easy to add in a lingering-injuries or incurability system for when someone goes into BP (WP).
3. Added realism of actual injuries being more difficult to patch up than simple fatigue or  loss of stamina.
4. No more - or at worst very much less - whack-a-mole.


Vaalingrade said:


> In most such systems, Wounds/Body is something that rarely comes up or it the special ability of things that are hyper-dangerous and those things have a commiserate lower damage because they're going to wounds, not lobbing 2d6 wounds at you on every single crit.



With what I have in mind, almost nothing ever goes straight to BP (WP); the only things that do are things that would almost certainly kill the PC anyway e.g. outright assassination attempts.


Vaalingrade said:


> You don't go into Body every fight in HERO for example, and you don't go into wounds from a fist fight in other systems, but the proposed systems here seem to expect everyone to go into wounds every fight.



Only if the fight takes out all your FP (VP), which is something you'd probably want to avoid in any case.


Vaalingrade said:


> I'm not sure what's actually being conceived of here.



About three or four different things at once, I suspect; some directly basing themselves off the SW system and others - like mine - basing themselves off of homebrew systems. 

Edit: typos


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## ehren37 (Jul 7, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> But if you get rid of the idea that crits go straight to WP/BP it then works much more as intended, right?



I think so, if the point is to basically have some specified "meat" HP.


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## DND_Reborn (Jul 7, 2022)

ehren37 said:


> I think so, if the point is to basically have some specified "meat" HP.



in the d20 SW wound points were (more or less) the "meat" because they were represented by your Constitution score only (no addition for higher levels, etc.).

As where Vitality (i.e. hit points) was your energy, skill, etc. used to _avoid_ or turn physical damage aside. Losing vitality would result in sweating, labored breathing, muscle strain, etc. but no actual physical injury IIRC.


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## Stalker0 (Jul 7, 2022)

Oofta said:


> If you do that, what are you buying other than overhead and complexity, especially when you include things like magical healing?
> 
> Let's say a PC has (arbitrary numbers here) VP: 30, W: 10 and they take 35 points of damage.  There's no difference from HP other than you split up the numbers, right?  So at this point they have VP:0, W:5.  Now suppose you could recover VP but not W with a short rest so they have VP:30, W:5.  They again take 35 points of damage and I assume they drop to 0.
> 
> But what about magical healing or bandaids if you have the healer feat?  Do you only recover VP? Recover W first?  Do you have to actually rest to recover VP or does it recover if you're not doing something that not particularly strenuous so you could be walking around and exploring?



All of these questions are easy to define in such a system. The goal is that vitality recovers quickly and wounds take much longer. Magical healing would still fix wounds, you would heal wounds first and then vitality (and you could make it where cure wounds or "restore vitality" might heal 1d8 + 5 vitality or 1 wound (or whatever amount of healing feels right). Vitality might take a full 1 hour rest, or perhaps 5 minutes...whatever makes sense.

But these are a few rules updates in one section of the book (healing), its not a scenario where you rip out entire sections of the PH and have to replace them.


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## Stalker0 (Jul 7, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> I'm not sure what's actually being conceived of here.



These things:

Creating a concrete definition between "Stamina/Luck" type HP and "Meat/Body" hp, which is common confusion and source of argument for people.
Provide both a measure of HP that are fast regenerating (maybe even faster than they are now), but also provide a means for a character to be injured in a way that takes actual time to heal (rather than a single night's rest).... and do it in a way that makes flavor sense.
Design it in a way where its easy for people to tailor to their games (as healing rates seems a common area for house rules). I could have more or less vitality in favor of wounds as a very easy example. I could have all wounds if I want a super gritty game, or all vitality if I want a superheroic.


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## DND_Reborn (Jul 7, 2022)

This is precisely why W/VP is a superior system IMO.

The Vitality aspect is the metaphysical.
The Wounds (Wound Points) aspect is the physical.

A system designed around this distinction would be much better. This is why I started the thread on using Hit Point Maximum to represent the "physical", in essence replacing the Wound component of the d20 SW system.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 7, 2022)

Thanks to those that gave a rundown of their aims.


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## Oofta (Jul 7, 2022)

jmartkdr2 said:


> A little more clarity in how you describe things. That's all you get, but I'd bet a majority of people who don't like hp as-is would actually be a lot happier with that as the only change.



I guess I'm not convinced that it adds much or that there's any significant demand for this. There's never going to be any system that's particularly accurate (whatever that means), I just don't see how breaking up HP into 2 numbers adds much.

But  I also don't see it ever happening outside of house rules.


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## pantsorama (Jul 7, 2022)

Jer said:


> Yeah - WOD is one of the worst death spiral type games in that respect.



Ummm.  Rolemaster?


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## UngainlyTitan (Jul 7, 2022)

Oofta said:


> I guess I'm not convinced that it adds much or that there's any significant demand for this. There's never going to be any system that's particularly accurate (whatever that means), I just don't see how breaking up HP into 2 numbers adds much.
> 
> But  I also don't see it ever happening outside of house rules.



Pretty much this. I played a good but with wounds vitality and I am not convinced of its value. Not every one want gritty danger in their combats.


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## Voranzovin (Jul 8, 2022)

In theory, I love the idea of WP/VP. Hit points and their inconsistency bug the he'll out of me.

In practice, though, I think they're actually even worse for verisimilitude then HP are. HP are essentially fictionless. Their saving grace is that they don't actually mean any particular thing, which papers over a lot of bizarre inconsistencies inherent in trying to make meaningful fiction out of the system of DnD. Once you try to make some kind of concrete sense out of HP by turning them into WP/VP, you immediately have to grapple with these issues too. What does it mean to take poison damage, when you know you haven't actually been hit? Why is a cleric using the awesome and miraculous power of a god to make you slightly less winded? How come they have to use extra powerful healing to make more skilled people less winded? How was that monster able to grapple you when we know you couldn't have actually made contact with its acidic tentacles because you haven't actually been burned? How did you get stunned when a monk's fist didn't hit you? Etc etc.

I wish there was a better alternative to HP, but for me, at least, WP/VP isn't it.


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## cbwjm (Jul 8, 2022)

Voranzovin said:


> How come they have to use extra powerful healing to make more skilled people less winded?



This here is where healing surges were great. If the healing spell heals a surge +X amount then it is always going to be a better amount for higher level PCs.


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## Gradine (Jul 8, 2022)

Gradine said:


> The thing about Vitality/Wounds is that it doesn't work super well to port directly into D&D. Star Wars d20 made a lot of additional changes that impacted the Vit/Wounds system, including:
> 
> Crits were a range with damage straight to Wounds rather than bonus/extra damage.
> In addition, this was back in d20 where crits had to be _confirmed_, making them relatively rarer
> ...



An additional thing I forgot to mention is how much more deadly Star Wars d20 weaponry was. Even a basic blaster pistol was doing 3d6 damage a pop. All of these systems worked together to make Vit/Wounds work incredibly well.


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## Voranzovin (Jul 9, 2022)

Gradine said:


> An additional thing I forgot to mention is how much more deadly Star Wars d20 weaponry was. Even a basic blaster pistol was doing 3d6 damage a pop. All of these systems worked together to make Vit/Wounds work incredibly well.



It's been a while since I played Star Wars d20, so hopefully I'm remembering correctly, but from what I recall, while WP/VP certainly worked better then they do in DnD, they still led to a lot of weird results that were difficult to describe. As an example, lots of big creatures had heaps of both WP and VP. So if you attacked a Bantha with your lightsaber and only did VP damage...does that mean the Bantha _dodged?_ How?

I suppose this problem cuts right to the heart of the interaction between mechanics and fiction. How does one construct a system for tracking "damage" that both produces genre-appropriate cinematic results and works as a game mechanic? Hit points dodge the problem by punting on fiction completely until you hit 0. I find this unsatisfying, and I'd love to have something that could serve both requirements, but I haven't yet seen a system that felt like it could--there are lots of systems that do a better job producing meaningful fiction but they tend to be deadlier and less "cinematic" than DnD. I'm hardly familiar with every RPG ever published, though, and I'm curious what other options are out there that I've missed.


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## Voranzovin (Jul 9, 2022)

cbwjm said:


> This here is where healing surges were great. If the healing spell heals a surge +X amount then it is always going to be a better amount for higher level PCs.



I do like that approach, and am considering using it as a house rule in 5e.


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## DND_Reborn (Jul 9, 2022)

Voranzovin said:


> It's been a while since I played Star Wars d20, so hopefully I'm remembering correctly, but from what I recall, while WP/VP certainly worked better then they do in DnD, they still led to a lot of weird results that were difficult to describe. As an example, lots of big creatures had heaps of both WP and VP. So if you attacked a Bantha with your lightsaber and only did VP damage...does that mean the Bantha _dodged?_ How?







Yeah, it is weird. Part of the problem, however, is also with AC, even in d20 SW. The +10 natural armor for the Bantha above really should be some form of DR. Natural armor should not be "dodging".

But, even so, VP damage is:



So, it wasn't so much the Bantha dodging the blow, but turned with it so the lightsaber just skimmed it, causing minor burns, etc. instead of solidly hitting it.


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## Shardstone (Jul 10, 2022)

Bloodied is the best mechanical idea in 4E imo. Having negative and positive effects key off it, and letting spells, classes, feats, etc interact with it would add sooooooo much to the game imo.


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## DND_Reborn (Jul 10, 2022)

Shardstone said:


> Bloodied is the best mechanical idea in 4E imo.



Having never played 4E, what is _Bloodied_?

As I understand it, it just means below half maximum HP?


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## pantsorama (Jul 10, 2022)

DND_Reborn said:


> Having never played 4E, what is _Bloodied_?
> 
> As I understand it, it just means below half maximum HP?



That's right.  If you are at half or below your max HP you are considered bloodied.


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## DND_Reborn (Jul 10, 2022)

pantsorama said:


> That's right.  If you are at half or below your max HP you are considered bloodied.



So, no other thing about it? I mean, other than descriptive, what would be the point?

I figured there was more to it?


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## cbwjm (Jul 10, 2022)

DND_Reborn said:


> So, no other thing about it? I mean, other than descriptive, what would be the point?
> 
> I figured there was more to it?



Bloodied is often used as a trigger for something else. For instance, gnolls had an ability where they were more effective against bloodied targets. Something g like they deal more damage or can use their reaction to make an attack against someone else who's bloodied. 

Dragons were cool, because when they were bloodied, their breath weapon would immediately recharge and they could use it straight away.


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## DND_Reborn (Jul 10, 2022)

cbwjm said:


> Bloodied is often used as a trigger for something else. For instance, gnolls had an ability where they were more effective against bloodied targets. Something g like they deal more damage or can use their reaction to make an attack against someone else who's bloodied.
> 
> Dragons were cool, because when they were bloodied, their breath weapon would immediately recharge and they could use it straight away.



So, no general "condition" limits like with the conditions in 5E, then?

Thanks for the explanation!


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## Voranzovin (Jul 10, 2022)

DND_Reborn said:


> Yeah, it is weird. Part of the problem, however, is also with AC, even in d20 SW. The +10 natural armor for the Bantha above really should be some form of DR. Natural armor should not be "dodging".




Yeah that seems like importing a DnD mechanic into a genre context it doesn't work in. It makes sense that a dragon's scales can turn a sword thrust. But what is that bantha's hide made out of? Beskar?



DND_Reborn said:


> So, it wasn't so much the Bantha dodging the blow, but turned with it so the lightsaber just skimmed it, causing minor burns, etc. instead of solidly hitting it.



So...in other words, it dodged? 

I mean, try imagining a bantha doing what you just described, as if it was happening in a Star Wars movie. I can't.

Hit points may not help you create fiction, but they don't hinder you either (well they do some times--falling damage comes to mind--but it's rarer). If a PC is going sword to sword with a humanoid opponent and does damage, I can describe that as forcing the opponent to give ground, with the PC taking the upper hand in the fight. If the PC is attacking a dragon, I can describe them plunging their sword jnto the dragon's side. It roars in pain, but keeps coming because it's a @#!$% dragon. Hit points, in my experience anyway, don't produce situations that _can't _be described regularly. WP/VP do.


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## DND_Reborn (Jul 10, 2022)

Voranzovin said:


> So...in other words, it dodged?



No, that would be a complete miss, not a hit.  The description of Vitality literally says rolling with the attack to turn it into a glancing blow.

Which goes to another issue in D&D and similar games. Don't call a successful attack roll a "hit", call it a "successful attack". It forces the target to react to avoid lethal injury, by expending energy (e.g. Vitality) to avoid the brunt of the physical damage.



Voranzovin said:


> Hit points, in my experience anyway, don't produce situations that _can't _be described regularly. WP/VP do.



I find more the opposite to be true, by experiences differ. 

For example, falling in d20 SW makes sense with the WP/VP mechanic:





So, if we assume your typical PC is CON 14, they can take 23 Wound Points of damage before they _die_! At 1d6 per 4 meters, then an average of 7d6 damage (28 meters or just over 90 feet) would kill most PCs if they failed the DC 17 Reflex Save. (For simplicity, I am ignoring the Tumble check option.)

Of course, they make the save and that damage goes to Vitality Points instead, but there are plenty of cases of people in real life who fall great distances and not only survive, but escape serious injury in the process.


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## Voranzovin (Jul 10, 2022)

DND_Reborn said:


> No, that would be a complete miss, not a hit.  The description of Vitality literally says rolling with the attack to turn it into a glancing blow.



I suppose it's a semantic difference--I'd use the term "dodge" to describe avoiding something by moving one's body, even if the avoidance was not 100% successfull. But regardless of the word used the issue is that it presupposes a bantha--a lumbering creature that moves at a snails pace--reacting nimbly to a fast-moving attack. Whether the attack is avoided entirely or not isn't really germain to the point.


DND_Reborn said:


> Which goes to another issue in D&D and similar games. Don't call a successful attack roll a "hit", call it a "successful attack". It forces the target to react to avoid lethal injury, by expending energy (e.g. Vitality) to avoid the brunt of the physical damage.



Yes this would help a lot. I wish the terminogy surrounding damage, in whatever way is tracked, didn't immediately suggest that everything is meat points. "Hit." "Take damage." "Healing." "Cure Wounds." Etc. It's been an issue for the entire existence of the game.


DND_Reborn said:


> For example, falling in d20 SW makes sense with the WP/VP mechanic:



I'll certainly agree that WP/VP make more sense in this instance. Hit points do not do falling well. But I'd say that attacking a monster is a more frequent occurrence, so the issue comes up more often and is more glaring.


DND_Reborn said:


> Of course, they make the save and that damage goes to Vitality Points instead, but there are plenty of cases of people in real life who fall great distances and not only survive, but escape serious injury in the process.



That's exactly how you'd describe it with hit points too--you just have insane heroic luck, so you somehow always make that save. It's awkward but it's also fairly genre-appropriate to a game of heroic fantasy--something or other broke your fall. I don't think it's nearly as difficult to explain as the bantha example.


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## DND_Reborn (Jul 10, 2022)

Voranzovin said:


> I suppose it's a semantic difference--I'd use the term "dodge" to describe avoiding something by moving one's body, even if the avoidance was not 100% successfull.



Fair enough.



Voranzovin said:


> But regardless of the word used the issue is that it presupposes a bantha--a lumbering creature that moves at a snails pace--reacting nimbly to a fast-moving attack. Whether the attack is avoided entirely or not isn't really germain to the point.



Oh, I don't know. There are many large creatures in real life which (while normally slow), can be quite quick/agile when threatened or attacking.

Also, one thing you do not know on the attack roll is even if it _is_ a "hit", how much did it "hit" by? How much effort was really required to turn mortal injury into glancing blow?

(FWIW, in my opinion this is where the damage roll is _actually_ the important roll- and why we developed the concept of _critical damage_ for our 5E game instead of critical "hits".)



Voranzovin said:


> It's been an issue for the entire existence of the game.



Very much agree here! 



Voranzovin said:


> That's exactly how you'd describe it with hit points too--you just have insane heroic luck, so you somehow always make that save. It's awkward but it's also fairly genre-appropriate to a game of heroic fantasy--something or other broke your fall. I don't think it's nearly as difficult to explain as the bantha example.



Actually, I have never had an issue with the abstract qualities of hit points in D&D. I've always been able to accept the idea that hit points are, along with "meat body", luck, skill, divine favor, reflexes, etc.

The issue more (which most people have) is that you can fall hundreds of feet, taking 70 damage, get up, and walk away without issue if you have _any_ hp left. Now, the same is true of vitality, but if you are taking 70 damage, you made one heck of a Reflex save to keep that damage in Vitality instead of Wounds!!! Because as wounds... well, the fall killed you. 

Anyway, I don't see any issue with the bantha (other than the aforementioned AC being too high and needing DR instead...) in regards to avoiding lethal "hits" in the VP/WP dynamic. At least, no more so than such a creature getting "hit" and taking hp damage in D&D...


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## Voranzovin (Jul 10, 2022)

DND_Reborn said:


> Oh, I don't know. There are many large creatures in real life which (while normally slow), can be quite quick/agile when threatened or attacking.



Sure, a charging elephant would be terrifying, but they only move quickly in straight lines. If you ran up and slashed at an elephant with a sword, I don't think it could dodge, even incompletely. Gore you on the way in, yes probably. But that's a different kind of defense.

Now for some genres a dodging elephant could work! There's no obligation that RPGs adhere to any kind of "realism," and there are certainly "cartoony" genres where that could fit. But it's not consistent with the genre conventions of Star Wars, or of most DnD games.


DND_Reborn said:


> Anyway, I don't see any issue with the bantha (other than the aforementioned AC being too high and needing DR instead...) in regards to avoiding lethal "hits" in the VP/WP dynamic. At least, no more so than such a creature getting "hit" and taking hp damage in D&D...



What it comes down to, I guess, is that I really do envision what happens during combat as if it were a movie I was watching and describing to my players--in the case of Star Wars, literally a Star Wars movie. I'm in the animation industry, so this comes naturally to me--I can't really stop doing it. Hit points are agnostic to this approach, since you can describe more or less whatever you want, and retcon it later if you need to (oh, you got healed? Well you did take a nasty scratch across the shoulder in that last combat, forgot to mention it. Oh, you spent hit dice? No scratch, you were just winded). I would like a system that helped me with that description and didn't require the retcons, but for me at least, WP/VP produces results that are instead frequently inconsistent with any kind of genre-appropriate cinematic visualization you might try to apply.


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