Maiming rules showcase and review - OG Myth-Weavers

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Maiming rules showcase and review

   
Maiming rules showcase and review

One of the many things that sets Ælsif (this can also be written as Aelsif when you're feeling lazy) apart from other Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 settings (besides its grimdark industrial fantasy, black comedy and bathos), is its rule modifications. And among those is its interpretation of hitpoints as representing physical resilience instead of invisible luck-magic. So, for Ælsif, I'm trying to write up optional maiming rules since that's a realistic thing that might happen despite a character being able to survive the El Fusilado treatment, an arm ripped off is still an arm ripped off. So, I changed the rules relating to massive damage and knockouts to represent maiming injuries.

Rules:

Massive damage triggers when an injury is received equal to twice your hit dice (so a 5th-level character taking 10 damage or more would receive massive damage). This triggers the dying status and is maimed. Dying status inflicts 1hp/round, stacks, 1% chance to stabilize, cured only by a heal check with a DC of 10 - Remaining HP (so at 5hp, it's 5 and at -5 it's 15) or lesser restoration. This is also triggered when a character is reduced to 0hp or lower directly by a wound (not by poison, dying or other effects), and if a single attack is both massive damage and reduces a character to 0hp or lower, it inflicts two stacks of dying and two of the same exact same maiming effect. Every wound that is inflicted upon a dying character causes another stack of dying, but doesn't maim unless it counts as massive damage.

When a character is maimed by a non-critical hit, roll 1d6 to determine the effect. If the attack is a critical hit, it is either a chest or head wound, the latter of which bypasses the armour DR of enemies without helmets (as criticals do by default) and is different.

1-2: Arm crippled, preventing one arm from being used. This lasts one week and can be cured with restoration. If the arm is already crippled, it is instead permanently dismembered, which can only be cured using regenerate. The closer arm is the arm crippled, and if both are equally exposed than a 1 strikes the off arm and a 2 strikes the main arm.

3-4: Leg crippled, preventing the affected character from running and reducing their speed to that of a character under a heavy load. This lasts one week and can be cured with restoration. If the leg is already crippled, it is instead permanently dismembered, which can only be cured using regenerate and additionally prevents a character from standing, making movement a full-round action. Both legs being crippled causes a character to become overburdened. The closer leg is the leg crippled, and if both are equally exposed than a 3 strikes the left leg and a 4 strikes the right leg.

5. A wound is inflicted to a character's vital organs, inflicting 4 points of ability damage. Roll 1d3 to determine if this is dealt to strength, dexterity or constitution.

6. Roll twice and combine.

Chest wound:
A wound is inflicted to the character's most vital organs in the middle of their chest, inflicting ability drain. Roll 1d3 twice to determine the affected attributes. On 1 drain 4 strength, on 2 drain 4 dexterity, on 3 drain 4 constitution. Choosing this forfeits a critical hit's ability to bypass DR from armour.

Head wounds:
A wound is inflicted to the character's brain, inflicting ability drain. Roll 1d6 twice to determine the affected attributes. On 1 drain 4 strength, on 2 drain 4 dexterity, on 3 drain 4 constitution, on 4 drain 4 intelligence, on 5 drain 4 faith*, on 6 drain charisma.

*In any other setting, that would be wisdom.

So, in translation, any serious enough wound can leave a character seriously impaired and bleeding, and if untreated that bleeding is likely to be fatal.


According to your formula, for 1st level characters, massive damage is receiving 2HP of damage, and for 0-level characters, assuming they have a 1/2 HD, any wound is massive damage wound.

Yeah, effectively any even average hit on any level makes for massive damage. This means that after most fights everyone should be missing arms, legs and other bits and pieces.

So each "stack" of dying has 1% chance to stabilize? Does that mean if I hit 10 stacks of dying I have a 10% chance of stabilizing every round? So if I was just barely knocked out at the end of a long combat, the best way to help my character is to stab him more.

Times like this, I really wish the site automatically subscribed me to threads I create.

Quote:
Originally Posted by AsenRG View Post
According to your formula, for 1st level characters, massive damage is receiving 2HP of damage, and for 0-level characters, assuming they have a 1/2 HD, any wound is massive damage wound.
There's no such thing as a 0-level character in this setting. Even first-level characters are exceedingly rare, because they're the most worthless garbage that has ever been put into a game. A first level character is all too often killed by a 10-foot fall, a single combat round with a house cat, barely touching a campfire, stepping on a nail or a particularly nasty papercut. The idea of an untreated knife wound causing them to bleed to death is not anywhere near as ridiculous. In fact, it's not ridiculous at all, a knife wound IS a life-threatening injury, and not just to people made of tissue paper and balsa twigs.

This is intended to be a grim n' gritty optional rule for a setting where most NPCs are 3rd level (see the example, even the receptionist is a 3rd-level expert) and most PCs start at 5th level. That means the massive damage barrier is 6 for most random NPCs and 10 for starting PCs. That's not hard to inflict, but it's not like most hits will reach that mark. Especially not in a setting with AC+DR armour. Even then, the injury is quite nasty but it doesn't put you completely out and it's ludicrously easy to treat for a typical party if they are prepared for it. I mean, a broken arm or a punctured lung can be healed immediately with lesser restoration, and that's a 2nd-level spell. That, and it's only when you take two serious hits on a single body part that dismemberment even comes into the picture, and if somebody with a sword gives you two good chops to the arm you can expect it to come off.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Actana View Post
Yeah, effectively any even average hit on any level makes for massive damage. This means that after most fights everyone should be missing arms, legs and other bits and pieces.
"At any level"? What exactly are you doing where a 20th-level character takes 40 damage for each individual hit? And if they're taking 40 damage per hit, how many do you really think they're going to hold up to? And if they do because they're being healed a lot, which is the main way a 20th-level character doesn't get totalled in two or three rounds, do you really think that healer can't also use lesser restoration to fix their broken bones?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Raveled View Post
So each "stack" of dying has 1% chance to stabilize? Does that mean if I hit 10 stacks of dying I have a 10% chance of stabilizing every round? So if I was just barely knocked out at the end of a long combat, the best way to help my character is to stab him more.
Scrubbed
No, you have a 1% chance to stabilize, period. Whether it's one stack or a hundred. You also are stabilized fully no matter how many stacks by a single successful heal check or by lesser restoration, so those would be the smart things. If you don't have lesser restoration, the heal check can be made a LOT easier by casting a simple cure spell to raise a character's hit points before making a heal check.

A level 10 fireball deals 10d6 damage in a rather large AoE. That's 35 damage average at level 10. 15 points more than the threshold. In an area. At level 10. Fireball is a 3rd level spell.

A Tarrasque (a notoriously badly designed enemy for the CR) deals 4d8+17 damage (average 35, again) with a single attack, at a +57 bonus. It has power attack. It can afford to use that Power Attack. With just 5 points off its attack bonus, it can get to that 40 threshold. A CR 20 Old Silver Dragon can use a breath weapon for 16d8 for an average damage of 72, 36 if you succeed at the save. Again, in an area.

A level 20 Fighter with a Greatsword can easily deal that amount of damage as well. Power Attack alone can give them a +40 base damage bonus if they want to, but add to that all the various damage modifiers they have (strength, enhancement, buffs, weapon properties, charge multipliers, etc) it's not even difficult to come close (and reduce the amount of PA you need so you hit more often). And they will likely have multiple attacks as well.

As for casting lesser restoration in combat, I'm sure the person playing the cleric enjoys running around casting a single spell all day for everyone during every round in combat.

Your idea isn't horrible, but the math is way off and is overly punishing. What will happen with these rules is that people will play classes who don't go into combat and take damage to begin with, because the chances of getting irrevocably maimed in the first battle are way too high. It also doesn't make too much sense that Fighters and Wizards have the same threshold. Consider using the Fort Save in some capacity.

But in all honesty, if you want a grim and gritty experience in combat, look somewhere else than D&D. D&D does not do what you want. Something like Warhammer Fantasy or its successor Zweihander, or Shadow of the Demon Lord might be more up the alleys of what you're looking for.


Oh, and you can actually set up an automatic subscription to all threads you create and post in. It's in the user settings somewhere. Putting Notification Type at "no email notification" as the default adds them to your subscribed threads list.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Actana View Post
Your idea isn't horrible, but the math is way off and is overly punishing.
Are you considering that Aelsif, as the demonstration shows, has vastly superior armour to most other settings? It also has helmets, by the way. And shields that are worth your time. You know, stuff that D&D otherwise doesn't have because it's horrifically unbalanced?

Quote:
What will happen with these rules is that people will play classes who don't go into combat and take damage to begin with, because the chances of getting irrevocably maimed in the first battle are way too high.
Or they'll wear armour, since it actually works. Though they will have to do one of the two. You may also have noticed Aelsif has guns, that affects things as well. The party fighter wearing a breastplate and a helmet, taking cover and peeking out to fire shots with his musket is much less exposed than a party fighter charging naked into open battle with a greatsword tied to the end of his massive throbbing erection. The former is unlikely to receive massive damage very often. The latter deserves to die a swift death, and they will.

Quote:
It also doesn't make too much sense that Fighters and Wizards have the same threshold. Consider using the Fort Save in some capacity.
Does it not? Remember, this is a HP as physical resilience model, not a HP as invisible luck magic model. More hit points doesn't make a character automagically avoid serious injury or receive tiny papercuts, it just allows them to survive receiving injuries. A 10-damage slash inflicts the exact same wound to a fighter and a wizard. Why would the wizard bleed and the fighter not? It makes sense that the fighter could survive the injury and the resultant bleeding more easily than the wizard, but it doesn't mean they won't take it.

If the fighter's ability to block or parry is the reason, that really should be AC, and why would that affect a fireball? If the fighter's armour is the reason, than why would it apply when not wearing the armour? (And shouldn't that difference go to the armour itself?)

Quote:
But in all honesty, if you want a grim and gritty experience in combat, look somewhere else than D&D. D&D does not do what you want. Something like Warhammer Fantasy or its successor Zweihander, or Shadow of the Demon Lord might be more up the alleys of what you're looking for.
The problem with those is they're more complicated game systems I've never played and most people are completely unfamiliar with, and they have a single specific setting where D&D both has a metric assload of them and is easy to make new ones for.

I wanted a system with a large audience that a new setting, even one with a darker tone, would be accepted for. I also wanted a system that has a huge number of editions where each is houseruled and homebrewed for massively, such that I can reach the point where it's basically an entirely new edition and it isn't a problem with the community. I also wanted a system with a ridiculous amount of content available that I can draw from to populate my setting, so that I can play the game without having to make every single thing from scratch and I can just focus on making the unique stuff. That left me with two options.

Those were D&D and GURPS. GURPS is a complete pain in the ass, I don't know how to use it and it's so profoundly unfun that I'm too turned off by it to put in the time to learn to use it. It's the fiddliest game system to ever get mainstream appeal, and I hate it. So I chose D&D. Is it a perfect fit? No. But it's really my best option short of creating an entirely new game system.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Avianmosquito View Post
There's no such thing as a 0-level character in this setting. Even first-level characters are exceedingly rare, because they're the most worthless garbage that has ever been put into a game. A first level character is all too often killed by a 10-foot fall, a single combat round with a house cat, barely touching a campfire, stepping on a nail or a particularly nasty papercut.
Come on, tell us how you really feel about first-level characters!
Also, I remember the times when 1st level characters were considered beginning heroes. Don't know why some people think that just because there's so much room to grow, a 1st-level character is somehow inept.
I'm not sure I'd be interested in a setting where the average wizard has Fireball.

Quote:
The idea of an untreated knife wound causing them to bleed to death is not anywhere near as ridiculous. In fact, it's not ridiculous at all, a knife wound IS a life-threatening injury, and not just to people made of tissue paper and balsa twigs.
Sure, but HPs are also your ability to avoid that damage, at least in D&D. That's why the fighter gets more than the wizard, and not just because he has bigger...muscles.


Quote:
This is intended to be a grim n' gritty optional rule for a setting where most NPCs are 3rd level (see the example, even the receptionist is a 3rd-level expert) and most PCs start at 5th level. That means the massive damage barrier is 6 for most random NPCs and 10 for starting PCs.
So, a raging enemy Barbarian will kill PCs right and left?
You have 18 str, 22 str until end of rage, for a +6 bonus to attack and damage. The average hit with a greatsword is 13 hp, meaning that only one out of 6 hits from this guy won't cause a critical wound. In my book, 5 out of 6 is "most hits".
And that's before Power Attack and charging, BTW!

Mind you, I'm not telling you it's a bad idea. I'm telling you "your math is off".


Quote:
Originally Posted by Actana View Post
A level 10 fireball deals 10d6 damage in a rather large AoE. That's 35 damage average at level 10. 15 points more than the threshold. In an area. At level 10. Fireball is a 3rd level spell.

A Tarrasque (a notoriously badly designed enemy for the CR) deals 4d8+17 damage (average 35, again) with a single attack, at a +57 bonus. It has power attack. It can afford to use that Power Attack. With just 5 points off its attack bonus, it can get to that 40 threshold. A CR 20 Old Silver Dragon can use a breath weapon for 16d8 for an average damage of 72, 36 if you succeed at the save. Again, in an area.

A level 20 Fighter with a Greatsword can easily deal that amount of damage as well. Power Attack alone can give them a +40 base damage bonus if they want to, but add to that all the various damage modifiers they have (strength, enhancement, buffs, weapon properties, charge multipliers, etc) it's not even difficult to come close (and reduce the amount of PA you need so you hit more often). And they will likely have multiple attacks as well.

As for casting lesser restoration in combat, I'm sure the person playing the cleric enjoys running around casting a single spell all day for everyone during every round in combat.

Your idea isn't horrible, but the math is way off and is overly punishing. What will happen with these rules is that people will play classes who don't go into combat and take damage to begin with, because the chances of getting irrevocably maimed in the first battle are way too high. It also doesn't make too much sense that Fighters and Wizards have the same threshold. Consider using the Fort Save in some capacity.

But in all honesty, if you want a grim and gritty experience in combat, look somewhere else than D&D. D&D does not do what you want. Something like Warhammer Fantasy or its successor Zweihander, or Shadow of the Demon Lord might be more up the alleys of what you're looking for.


Oh, and you can actually set up an automatic subscription to all threads you create and post in. It's in the user settings somewhere. Putting Notification Type at "no email notification" as the default adds them to your subscribed threads list.
Basically, all of this could have been my answer, except the notifications part. Because I didn't know that, either!

Quote:
Originally Posted by AsenRG View Post
Come on, tell us how you really feel about first-level characters!
Also, I remember the times when 1st level characters were considered beginning heroes. Don't know why some people think that just because there's so much room to grow, a 1st-level character is somehow inept.
I'm not sure I'd be interested in a setting where the average wizard has Fireball.
Because a 1st-level character IS inept, so inept that in full armour with a giant sword they will consistently lose a fight with a stray dog. So inept that half a second touching a campfire somehow manages to burn them to death. So inept they can't handle a fall that doesn't even hurt in real life. So inept that a stray cat is a lethal danger. There is no excuse for 1st-level characters, they are complete garbage.

Quote:
Sure, but HPs are also your ability to avoid that damage, at least in D&D. That's why the fighter gets more than the wizard, and not just because he has bigger...muscles.
I addressed this in the OP. This isn't an invisible luck magic model, you don't get more hit points because attacks just automagically fail to harm you a completely arbitrary number of times until you instantly die.

Quote:
So, a raging enemy Barbarian will kill PCs right and left?
You have 18 str, 22 str until end of rage, for a +6 bonus to attack and damage. The average hit with a greatsword is 13 hp, meaning that only one out of 6 hits from this guy won't cause a critical wound. In my book, 5 out of 6 is "most hits".
And that's before Power Attack and charging, BTW!

Mind you, I'm not telling you it's a bad idea. I'm telling you "your math is off".
See the note about armour and the example of such in the OP.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Avianmosquito View Post
Are you considering that Aelsif, as the demonstration shows, has vastly superior armour to most other settings? It also has helmets, by the way. And shields that are worth your time. You know, stuff that D&D otherwise doesn't have because it's horrifically unbalanced?

Or they'll wear armour, since it actually works. Though they will have to do one of the two. You may also have noticed Aelsif has guns, that affects things as well. The party fighter wearing a breastplate and a helmet, taking cover and peeking out to fire shots with his musket is much less exposed than a party fighter charging naked into open battle with a greatsword tied to the end of his massive throbbing erection. The former is unlikely to receive massive damage very often. The latter deserves to die a swift death, and they will.
How could I have considered that armor gives DR when the only references to that in the OP are oblique and entirely uninformative about the matter. But sure, let's consider armor. You'll have to provide us with the stats to be able to consider that though, because right now we have no idea how much what affects where. I saw a DR of 6 in the examples. That's nothing. A level 5 Fighter with Power Attack can deal around 2d6+15 damage on a swing (+6 str modifier, +1 weapon, up to +10 from power attack (and I'm not even going that high there), and add in miscellaneous bonuses for an extra bonus), 17-27 variance, average 22. Even with DR 6 the damage goes from 11-21 damage, which is still enough to provide a maiming strike on every single hit.

But, that said, DR doesn't affect magic, so that fireball will still somehow make everyone's limbs fall off.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Avianmosquito View Post
Does it not? Remember, this is a HP as physical resilience model, not a HP as invisible luck magic model. More hit points doesn't make a character automagically avoid serious injury or receive tiny papercuts, it just allows them to survive receiving injuries. A 10-damage slash inflicts the exact same wound to a fighter and a wizard. Why would the wizard bleed and the fighter not? It makes sense that the fighter could survive the injury and the resultant bleeding more easily than the wizard, but it doesn't mean they won't take it.

If the fighter's ability to block or parry is the reason, that really should be AC, and why would that affect a fireball? If the fighter's armour is the reason, than why would it apply when not wearing the armour? (And shouldn't that difference go to the armour itself?)
The Fighter who is more durable than the Wizard shouldn't be more durable than the Wizard? The guy with the muscle and fitness and strength shouldn't be more resistant to having his big sinewy and tough arms chopped off than the dude who spends his time in a library and has the physique of particularly dry twig? I'm not sure I follow the logic here.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Avianmosquito View Post
The problem with those is they're more complicated game systems I've never played and most people are completely unfamiliar with, and they have a single specific setting where D&D both has a metric assload of them and is easy to make new ones for.

I wanted a system with a large audience that a new setting, even one with a darker tone, would be accepted for. I also wanted a system that has a huge number of editions where each is houseruled and homebrewed for massively, such that I can reach the point where it's basically an entirely new edition and it isn't a problem with the community. I also wanted a system with a ridiculous amount of content available that I can draw from to populate my setting, so that I can play the game without having to make every single thing from scratch and I can just focus on making the unique stuff. That left me with two options.

Those were D&D and GURPS. GURPS is a complete pain in the ass, I don't know how to use it and it's so profoundly unfun that I'm too turned off by it to put in the time to learn to use it. It's the fiddliest game system to ever get mainstream appeal, and I hate it. So I chose D&D. Is it a perfect fit? No. But it's really my best option short of creating an entirely new game system.
You should read the systems anyway because they can give you a lot of insight in how games can do things and help with overall design, even if you do it in D&D. And not every game is ridiculously complex. Shadow of the Demon Lord is actually really simple, especially compared to D&D. It's also d20 based so anyone with experience with D&D should be able to pick it up with little trouble.




 

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