Thursday, June 20, 2013

Permanent Wounds Instead of Death

In my current campaign I've been playign with any time a character would be knocked below 0 hp they have to make a save vs death modified by their current HP score.
Make the roll and one's demise is beign preemptively considered, they actually have 0 hp and are simply unconscious.
Miss the roll by 1 to 5 points and lose a randomly determined ability point.
Miss the roll by 6 to 10 points and lose 1d4 ability points from a randomly determined ability point.
Miss by 11 or more points and the character is dead

So far 1 point of STR had been lost, as has one point of Wisdom and 4 points of CON, all among 3 different characters.

The permanent wounds are records on the off chance one discovers magics or artifacts able to cure such mangling.

Getting the stuffing knocked out of a PC is serious business even when bandaging allows a generous hp restoration and death isn't always certain.

4 comments:

  1. I -really- like this. I might fly it past my own group and see what they think. (Although death in my games is rare and usually of the "plummet from a cliffside" variety.

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  2. I probably should note PCs get a bonus ability point every 3rd level so some of the wounds of old will become but distant traumas.

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  3. I've been working on something very similar to this method, using the old rolemaster Crit tables....he he he

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  4. Just found the blog, love this mechanic. Will be using this immediately, but I'm running a different edition, so forgive me a daft question.

    What is the target number for the save vs death? Eyeballing it, I'd guess a 10, but I'm really not sure.

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