So I'm designing a homebrew campaign, and in the process I've ended up revamping a lot of mechanics and rules. One of them is the health system, and I'd appreciate some feedback. It's aiming to give a grittier feel to the game, similar to the variant rules in the DMG...
HP is not just a measure of health, but also a representation of stamina. For every hit taken, subtract that amount of damage from your current HP as normal (this represents your stamina), and roll 1d10 on an injury table applicable to the type of damage received. Subtract that number from your maximum HP (this reflects your overall health). The injury's effect will remain until it has been healed as stated on the table.
When your current HP reaches 0, you are unable to continue fighting and drop to the floor. If you wish to force yourself to continue, you can expend a single hit die as a reaction and regain that much current HP plus your con bonus, but you will take a level of exhaustion.
If your maximum HP reaches 0, you fall to the floor unconscious and begin making death saves. These are rolled in secret between the player and the DM. This builds tension as the other players will not know how close to death their ally is. You can risk taking another turn to get them up if you want, but who knows if you might be too late?
Only thing I don't like about it is that this seems overly complicated to track. Other than that I like it. Could work really well if your players are diligent and detail oriented to track this much info.
I've always liked the concept of HP representing a combination of stamina/luck and actual wounds, even without any homebrew additions. I mostly just treat HP loss as a representation of stamina until their HP gets low then it is actual wounds. Your combined system sounds really interesting if your players can handle tracking that much info
Agree with overly complicated. Imo just apply the exhaustion table as health decreases and attribute it to whatever injury you want (combine rules vs add yet more). I do like the hidden death rolls although it’s not at all practical. As a player I’d throw at clues because I care about not permadying. Don’t expect anyone to actually follow it.
If by "grittier" you mean "you die more," then certainly this will do that. It might be rougher than you intend though.
What you're doing here is setting up feedback loops where every failure is not only a failure, but also accelerates the rate of failure. We all know the dice can swing, but now that swing doesn't just result in a tough round. That failure lingers on because half the party is injured. Now their ability to come back from that unlucky streak and win the day - a classic adventuring trope if there ever was one - is diminished. A feeling of helplessness can set in due to these types of systems which directly conflicts with player agency. Do their choices even matter if some swingy dice can launch them into a death spiral?
And the death save thing certainly builds tension, but I would question whether it's the right kind of tension. This is PC death we're talking about here. What happens is the player totally breaks out of immersion and starts thinking, "John really likes this character. I better not risk doing what I want to do if it could mean John loses Gamwise Samgee." So they do the opposite of roleplaying - they make decisions totally independent of their characters.
This also feeds into the death spiral by the way. The PCs are already losing and now they have to compromise their tactics due to a lack of information when otherwise they might be able to rally and shift the scales back in their favor.
IMO things are tense enough if people are hitting the floor. Hiding death saves is one of those things that seems really cool from your side of the screen, but I guarantee the players aren't going to dig it as much as you do.
I think you might misunderstand how it works... how do you come to the conclusion that they end up dying more? If anything it's helping to avoid death.
When their current HP hits 0, they have the option to burn a hitdie and keep going, and if they don't have any hitdie left, and no one is able to heal them? Then they're just unable to fight. It's only when their max HP reaches 0 that they start making death saves, so if you've got a character with 50 HP, the enemy has to burn through that twice, effectively giving them a total pool of 100.
As for the secret death saves, Brennan can put it into words better than I can..
What kinds of stuff would be on the injury tables? Because depending on how debilitating the injuries are it could absolutely lead to a “death spiral” as scatterbraind warns.
What kinds of stuff would be on the injury tables? Because depending on how debilitating the injuries are it could absolutely lead to a “death spiral” as scatterbraind warns.
I don't have that down at the moment. I found a table I liked months ago, but looking at it again recently I wasn't entirely happy with it, so I'll probably put one together myself. That said, it would probably be something like this - https://imgur.com/a/3orsIUL
So I'm designing a homebrew campaign, and in the process I've ended up revamping a lot of mechanics and rules. One of them is the health system, and I'd appreciate some feedback. It's aiming to give a grittier feel to the game, similar to the variant rules in the DMG...
HP is not just a measure of health, but also a representation of stamina. For every hit taken, subtract that amount of damage from your current HP as normal (this represents your stamina), and roll 1d10 on an injury table applicable to the type of damage received. Subtract that number from your maximum HP (this reflects your overall health). The injury's effect will remain until it has been healed as stated on the table.
When your current HP reaches 0, you are unable to continue fighting and drop to the floor. If you wish to force yourself to continue, you can expend a single hit die as a reaction and regain that much current HP plus your con bonus, but you will take a level of exhaustion.
If your maximum HP reaches 0, you fall to the floor unconscious and begin making death saves. These are rolled in secret between the player and the DM. This builds tension as the other players will not know how close to death their ally is. You can risk taking another turn to get them up if you want, but who knows if you might be too late?
Only thing I don't like about it is that this seems overly complicated to track. Other than that I like it. Could work really well if your players are diligent and detail oriented to track this much info.
I've always liked the concept of HP representing a combination of stamina/luck and actual wounds, even without any homebrew additions. I mostly just treat HP loss as a representation of stamina until their HP gets low then it is actual wounds. Your combined system sounds really interesting if your players can handle tracking that much info
Agree with overly complicated. Imo just apply the exhaustion table as health decreases and attribute it to whatever injury you want (combine rules vs add yet more). I do like the hidden death rolls although it’s not at all practical. As a player I’d throw at clues because I care about not permadying. Don’t expect anyone to actually follow it.
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If by "grittier" you mean "you die more," then certainly this will do that. It might be rougher than you intend though.
What you're doing here is setting up feedback loops where every failure is not only a failure, but also accelerates the rate of failure. We all know the dice can swing, but now that swing doesn't just result in a tough round. That failure lingers on because half the party is injured. Now their ability to come back from that unlucky streak and win the day - a classic adventuring trope if there ever was one - is diminished. A feeling of helplessness can set in due to these types of systems which directly conflicts with player agency. Do their choices even matter if some swingy dice can launch them into a death spiral?
And the death save thing certainly builds tension, but I would question whether it's the right kind of tension. This is PC death we're talking about here. What happens is the player totally breaks out of immersion and starts thinking, "John really likes this character. I better not risk doing what I want to do if it could mean John loses Gamwise Samgee." So they do the opposite of roleplaying - they make decisions totally independent of their characters.
This also feeds into the death spiral by the way. The PCs are already losing and now they have to compromise their tactics due to a lack of information when otherwise they might be able to rally and shift the scales back in their favor.
IMO things are tense enough if people are hitting the floor. Hiding death saves is one of those things that seems really cool from your side of the screen, but I guarantee the players aren't going to dig it as much as you do.
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(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I think you might misunderstand how it works... how do you come to the conclusion that they end up dying more? If anything it's helping to avoid death.
When their current HP hits 0, they have the option to burn a hitdie and keep going, and if they don't have any hitdie left, and no one is able to heal them? Then they're just unable to fight. It's only when their max HP reaches 0 that they start making death saves, so if you've got a character with 50 HP, the enemy has to burn through that twice, effectively giving them a total pool of 100.
As for the secret death saves, Brennan can put it into words better than I can..
What kinds of stuff would be on the injury tables? Because depending on how debilitating the injuries are it could absolutely lead to a “death spiral” as scatterbraind warns.
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I don't have that down at the moment. I found a table I liked months ago, but looking at it again recently I wasn't entirely happy with it, so I'll probably put one together myself. That said, it would probably be something like this - https://imgur.com/a/3orsIUL
Potential death spiral.
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