Bleed damage has me thoroughly vexed.
Option 1) Leave bleed damage as regular readiness damage (unless dealt by an attack that caused injury damage), even if it breaks immersion a bit. Mechanically speaking, bleed damage is simply ongoing damage for "X" reason; you don't need to be actually loosing blood, although that is one of the possible reasons.
Option 2) An attack that doesn't produce a connecting hit cannot carry secondary effects, such as bleed damage.
In order to be consistent, this should also be applied to poison, disease and the such. While this can be cool, it opens a Pandora box where the effects like trip (from improved trip), energy drain, ability damage etc need to be reconsidered. Even some touch spells become iffy.
But since 'avoiding the attack' isn't the only definition of readiness, a few things can be rationalised. A wolf could still be able to use its improved trip effect; it bites, it deals damage, the character lose readiness (armour saves from serious wounds) but still has a grip and can still attempt to trip. The same can be reasoned with spells and necromantic 'spell-like' effects of undead and other creatures (energy drain, ability damage, paralysis etc). You would have to draw the line as to what requires a connecting hit, and what doesn't.
That would become very close to my own hit points variant rules. I love the hit points variant I came-up with, but I also admire the simplicity and unobtrusiveness of your readiness/injury houserule (mine is many good things, but it isn't unobtrusive nor that simple). I wonder if this option 2) would take much of that away...
'findel
I'm glad to see people taking inspiration from the idea!
I have thought for a long time about using Fatigued and Exhausted as damage penalties, and how they might work with this system. It's neither here not there, as far as the scope of this rule, but I am definitely thinking along the same lines about damage penalties in general.
A full-round action to regain some non-injury HP is also something that's crossed my mind. It's a pity that there's no analagous rule in the RAW... but a LOT of people seem to have adopted some kind of "healing surge" in their own games. That's great, because the injury rules give that concept a good explanation! I'd say if you're already using healing surges, maybe they shouldn't apply to injuries.
Within the context of the rules you've presented, you should try to be careful to avoid thinking of rules in a anthropocentric manner. How does your -4 penalty to deal intentional injury interact with natural armor and the like? Or very large creatures who have natural armor more to represent their sheer mass than anything?
The Bleed Problem
Non-injury damage represents:
When the enemy hits you (no miss, no crit) then you are forced to interact with the attack, depleting some of these defensive resources in the form of hit points. None of these defenses require "treatment" that replenishes HP by the rules.
But then there are Bleed attacks, which on a succesful hit (no miss, no crit) create a condition that requires treatment. Unlike poison, where you can make the case that a puncture wound might heal without treatment if the poison is dealt with (superficial prick) bleed... pretty much needs to be explained as a wound.
The only way around this, I think, is to make Bleed attacks a 4th condition for Injury:
On the face of it, that's not so bad. But I really find myself wanting to avoid additional Injury conditionals...
Help!
(perhaps 'Findel will arrive and explain my rule to me again)
I have thought for a long time about using Fatigued and Exhausted as damage penalties, and how they might work with this system. It's neither here not there, as far as the scope of this rule (...)
I find that fatigued/exhausted as damage penalties meshes very well your rules, as you already know.
My preferred version is that a character is fatigues at 1/2 hit points or when injured, whichever comes first.
The beauty of using fatigued/exhausted as damage penalty is that their effects improve but do not stack, therefore leading to a synergistic penalty.
Thus a character becomes exhausted when injured AND below 1/2 hit points.
Another potential explanation.
Bleed requires a DC 15 Heal skill check or magical healing to staunch. It requires treatment, just like an injury.
Can we describe this as an attack that creates its own kind of injury — on top of the normal attack form (which may crit or not) that is intercepted in the same way as normal attacks?
Meaning, successful bleed attacks (not crits) are always described as physical wounds, even though Bleed attacks do not cause Injury damage?
I think I'll stick with this for a while, rather than adding a 4th conditional.
(perhaps 'Findel will arrive and explain my rule to me again)
Did you see post #350? (you may have missed it as the last post down the page)
Relevant part: "Mechanically speaking, bleed damage is simply ongoing damage for "X" reason; you don't need to be actually loosing blood, although that is one of the possible reasons."
you can still consider that avoidable by equipment and dumb luck (dented armour pokes you in the ribs)
[edit] re-red your post #352.
losing readiness doesn't require treatment
bleeding requires treatment.
that is something to consider.
let me wrap my mind around this...
'findel
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I'm glad to see people taking inspiration from the idea!
I'd say if you're already using healing surges, maybe they shouldn't apply to injuries.
Within the context of the rules you've presented, you should try to be careful to avoid thinking of rules in a anthropocentric manner. How does your -4 penalty to deal intentional injury interact with natural armor and the like? Or very large creatures who have natural armor more to represent their sheer mass than anything?
As for healing surges yes they will only heal non-injury damage.
I assume with natural armor you are finding gaps in the scales, aiming for joints, going for the mouth or eyes, much like with heavy armor. I'm ok with it being abstract. No worse than doing non-lethal damage with a piercing weapon at least!
Thanks for the feedback.
I did miss your post!
Option 1) Leave bleed damage as regular readiness damage (unless dealt by an attack that caused injury damage), even if it breaks immersion a bit. Mechanically speaking, bleed damage is simply ongoing damage for "X" reason; you don't need to be actually loosing blood, although that is one of the possible reasons.
Well, my greatest hope here is this: the relevant fact about Injury damage is that it requires treatment (Heal Skill or magic). Bleed damage requires treatment (Heal skill or magic).
Basically, if we do nothing, but describe Bleed damage as physical wounds, we're fine. We don't need to add any sort of clause changing that (although it would be good to give GMs a head's up in the rule). The attack always creates a descriptive wound, and sometimes (on a crit) it creates Injury damage too.
Option 2) An attack that doesn't produce a connecting hit cannot carry secondary effects, such as bleed damage.
In order to be consistent, this should also be applied to poison, disease and the such. While this can be cool, it opens a Pandora box where the effects like trip (from improved trip), energy drain, ability damage etc need to be reconsidered. Even some touch spells become iffy.
But since 'avoiding the attack' isn't the only definition of readiness, a few things can be rationalised. A wolf could still be able to use its improved trip effect; it bites, it deals damage, the character lose readiness (armour saves from serious wounds) but still has a grip and can still attempt to trip. The same can be reasoned with spells and necromantic 'spell-like' effects of undead and other creatures (energy drain, ability damage, paralysis etc). You would have to draw the line as to what requires a connecting hit, and what doesn't.
I really considered this when trying to deal with poison and bonus elemental damage. It is a good idea, and simple enough. What stops me from embracing it outright is that it changes combat balance. In the present form of the rule, I can honestly claim that it won't change how combat unfolds, just between-encounter healing (which changes for the better IMO). If the rules step in and say that poison/bonus damage/etc. only works on crits, we've changed MANY mechanics.
It's an admirable solution, still. But in light of the fact that I've managed to wriggle out of changing poison and Bleed (see above), it looks like we don't need it.
At the end of the Injury Writeup, I intend to use that "Damage Interpretation" section as a sort of a description dictionary for GMs. It's sort of a guarantee for those who adopt this rule that we've really covered the corner cases, and you won't be stuck mid-game trying to figure out what you're describing.
the relevant fact about Injury damage is that it requires treatment (Heal Skill or magic). Bleed damage requires treatment (Heal skill or magic).
Basically, if we do nothing, but describe Bleed damage as physical wounds, we're fine. We don't need to add any sort of clause changing that (although it would be good to give GMs a head's up in the rule). The attack always creates a descriptive wound, and sometimes (on a crit) it creates Injury damage too.
So far the best way to approach bleed. Quite rational; I like it.
I sympathize with the urge to declare other sources of damage as "injury".
But keeping in mind the fact that injury damage requires treatments to heal, it should be easy to find the source of damage that RaW requires a heal check to cure and only make those injury like bleed.
'findel
But keeping in mind the fact that injury damage requires treatments to heal, it should be easy to find the source of damage that RaW requires a heal check to cure and only make those injury like bleed.
So in short, bleed attacks do not deal Injury damage (unless they deal crits). Bleed attacks create their own kind of descriptive wound that already requires treatment under the rules, so the GM may feel free to describe the Bleed damage as a physical wound.
But the base damage dealt by the attack is still subject to the normal criteria for Injury damage.
If Bleed damage didn't require the Heal skill or magic for treatment, we'd be in a real pickle...
has someone a link explaining the "parry rules" mentioned here?
has someone a link explaining the "parry rules" mentioned here?
"Parrying" is Hit Points.
When a character is "hit" (but not crit), they are taking some action to avoid being wounded even though the incoming attack was "good enough to hit them." This is actually how HP are defined in the book, we're just taking the extra step of tracking which damage is which.
Running out of Hit Points, even if you have no Injuries, means your character has run out of defensive options. He's too tired to dodge or parry, or his armor is riddled with dents and slashes, or his luck has run out. With no defenses, the attack that puts you below zero (the "final blow") will be an Injury.
Parrying is just an action-packed way to describe where your hit points went, if they aren't Injuries. In my opinion, it is the coolest way to explain non-injury Hit Point damage, because the game really wants parries thematically. Also, it is very easy to envision how a character who parries three giants in one round is about ready for a final blow.
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But keeping in mind the fact that injury damage requires treatments to heal, it should be easy to find the source of damage that RaW requires a heal check to cure and only make those injury like bleed.So in short, bleed attacks do not deal Injury damage (unless they deal crits)...
I understand the original attack might not cause Injury Damage, but why wouldn't the actual ongoing bleed damage be injury damage? Sorry if I missed something.
I understand the original attack might not cause Injury Damage, but why wouldn't the actual ongoing bleed damage be injury damage? Sorry if I missed something.
It should! Happily, since the Bleed effect already requires treatment, no further definition is required. Bleed by the RAW behaves like a wound already, I will make a note that GMs shouldn't have a problem describing it as wound-like. But we don't actually need to define anything about Bleed as Injury Damage in the rule, because it already has its own injury-like rules (it already needs Heal skill or magic to treat).
EDIT: Or did you mean the HP lost each round to Bleed should be Injury hp? I think you could argue that either way... and since one way is less complex, I will argue for that. Injury damage doesn't heal without treatment, but blood loss does heal without treatment. Injury damage exists so that I don't have to explain characters sleeping off deep wounds and 2nd degree burns in a day or two. Blood loss isn't as much of a problem for me, conceptually.
Of course, it really could go either way — so please don't imagine I'm being dismissive of the idea.
It really could go either way without being dismissive.
You could see the DC 15 heal check not as a way to heal the damage but as a way to stop the condition of losing X hp per round (bleeding).
In that regard, bleeding is almost like condition whose effect is losing X hp/round, similarly as to how heat metal is a spell whose effect is losing X hp for 5 rounds. It just so happens that the method for stopping bleeding is the same as treating injury damage, while the condition for stopping heat metal is different (dispel magic).
Narratively, treating bleed as injury is just much easier to envision however.
'findel
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Yes I think I see where you are both coming from. In my eyes it would involve a lot less tracking if it did regular damage on the hit with Injury Damage on the bleed each round. Healing check would stop the loss each round but you couldn't heal the damage already done without magic or long term rest just like any other Injury Damage. Seems to me to be very advantageous to only have at most two pools of hit points to keep track of. For similar reasons I will favour wrapping non-lethal and stamina or regular damage all into one category with consistent rules.
But you could of course handle it many different ways and they wouldn't be wrong ways of doing it.
For my part, I intend for the attack to deal non-injury damage (unless, of course, it is a crit) and for the bleed itself to deal non-injury damage. Even so, it still requires treatment to stop, and so it can be freely described as a bleeding wound.
That way, I don't need to add "oh yeah and bleed damage too" to the list of Injury sources.
Of course, you should each do what makes the most sense to you. It may happen that playtesting gives you an insight that you can bring back here and convince me to write it into the "rule".
Cool. One of the things I like about this specific house rule is that it is simple.
Don't let anyone talk you into making it too complicated! Abstract is still fine as the rule is a significant improvement to me as it is.
As a brief tangent... I also see this thread as an experiment. I'd really like to see a "house rule culture" evolve that was very methodical and empirical when constructing rules.
There have been almost a dozen times in this thread where I have had an idea I know would work for me, but it isn't necessary to deal with the core problem. I tend to self-censor those ideas before they make it into the thread (but not always! Damage Penalties!) ... but don't think it isn't a struggle for me.
I was pleasantly surprised to see this thread resurface after about six months. I'm thrilled at the level of interest and I'm really trying to make something that anyone can just drop into their game without worrying about how it ripples out to the other rules.
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I was glad to see it resurface because I missed it the first time around!
I do have one question which may have already been asked: why did you choose to allow injuries to be healed first when receiving magical healing?
I ask because when I explained this to my players today they thought it should be the other way around. I guess they are gluttons for punishment!
I could see going either way or even leaving it as "healer's choice" (I picture the priest laying his hands directly on the broken arm) but I wondered if this was already discussed earlier and I missed it.
I do have one question which may have already been asked: why did you choose to allow injuries to be healed first when receiving magical healing?
I ask because when I explained this to my players today they thought it should be the other way around. I guess they are gluttons for punishment!
It doesn't really matter which heals first if you're healing in combat — both Injury and non-injury damage are equally important to victory. The difference only really arises between combats, when non-injury damage rapidly recovers.
So I guess giving Injury damage priority when healing in combat was just a way of being nice to the players and making sure they get a return on their spells rather than wasting spells on damage that won't matter after the combat first, then the damage that requires magic.
Thinking about it now, I still believe it's the right way to do it. Upthread a fellow was talking about "parrying" and I gave the example of parrying three 14-28 point club hits from a giant leaving you a little vulnerable. Imagine one of those hits was an Injury. What is the cleric curing first, the broken shoulder, or the fact that the PC is defensively divided between all of those attacks?
Not a definitive answer, but so much of this rule is wrapped up in the individual attack descriptions...
So is it fair to say that if the attack doesn't crit, or isn't the result of a failed save then any bleed damage is pure hit points... and if the attack does fulfill the injury criteria, only then its treated as an injury?
That is correct.
To further clarify, if a flaming burst longsword strikes a crit, all the bonus crit fire damage is a part of the injury. Likewise for the bleed damage — on a crit all of the resulting bleed damage should be counted as Injury.
This makes confirmed critical bleed attacks a b———h to heal. I don't expect anyone to argue that it ought not be.
Even considering all of this, any normal bleed damage should still be described as a bleeding wound, even though it is not specifically Injury damage. The bleeding effect and Injury damage have the same requirements for treatment, so this won't seem that strange.
I love this thread.
The update to healing after a 5 minute rest is a good one. Less to track, symmetry with the tome of battle if you use that and a very reasonable abstraction of having some time to collect yourself and catch your breath. Much better.
Should there be non-lethal injury?
It seems wrong that a boxer who just lost about as badly as can be is feeling ready to go again by the time the TV people ask him what went wrong. It also seems to me like the descriptions of non-injury lethal damage are less severe than non-lethal damage, which is weird.
If we stop excluding non-lethal damage from the rule, then we have to explain what it means to have a non-lethal injury, but then again the rule itself gets a tiny bit simpler.
I can see non-lethal injury representing black eyes, split lips, chipped teeth, broken noses, twisted ankles, bruised bones and superficial cuts.
I love this thread.
Me too! It gives me the warm fuzzies. Not only do I finally get a solution to this long regarded problem, I get help with all of the corner cases AND a sense of camaraderie with all the folks who are also bothered by the same issue. *bro-grab*
The update to healing after a 5 minute rest is a good one. Less to track, symmetry with the tome of battle if you use that and a very reasonable abstraction of having some time to collect yourself and catch your breath. Much better.
This was kind of a stealth update, good catch. What happened: When playtesting the rule with healing rates (20% for 20 mins, etc), I found myself estimating how much time the players would take to rest, and I realized that as the GM I either chose to interrupt this (with the next encounter) or not. So I just enshrined that in the rule. It makes it much easier to manage and allows us to claim that our variant is simpler than the RAW.
It does undermine the simulationist appeal of a healing rate, but I think we have much to offer simulationists in the form of a class of injuries that require treatment not sleep.
If I had to put a time on it, I would say rest and refit takes five minutes. That's enough time for the GM to exploit with NPC response if desired.
Should there be non-lethal injury?
We differ here. At least, in the context of the variant;I'm likely to agree in the RAW.
Non-lethal damage exists to cover a hole in the system where taking prisoners is nearly impossible. As such, it represents fighting in a way as to capture the enemy without killing. If I had my druthers, it would still be "subdual", because it really is meant to subdue the opponent.
As it stands, if an attacker chooses to make a non-lethal attack and it is dealt as a final blow, the opponent is subdued. Again, in my own game, I'd be happy to call this auto-pinned rather than unconsciousness, but a good old knockout smack is at home in the genre. If that attack is a crit, all it really ought to do is bring the target to unconsciousness/subdual that much faster.
Conversely, there maybe a place for non-lethal wounds. I certainly have no trouble imagining what that would be like, I get non-lethal wounds all the time. Definitely piqued my interest here, mort.
you could even say the 'bleed' damage for standard HPs is stuff like a "corked" thigh that just stiffens worse and worse until someone gets a chance to relax/rub down the muscle.
You could, but we don't have to.
Because bleed comes with its own bleedy-wound-type descriptive rules (Heal DC 15 or any magic) — it gets to have the same kind of bleedy-type description as is normally reserved for injury damage. It's not necessarily injury damage, but let's look at it as two different rules describing the same thing.
That said — a corked thigh would be an excellent and valid interpretation. I think the ability to come up with diverse things like that will probably make you an excellent executor GM for this rule.
(I know I'm being repetitive, but I'm warming up for the "official" bleed explanation)
So taking my House Rule regarding armour - you can use armour/shield to cancel a critical but reduce the armour/shield to Broken status (a + armour reducing a crit removes a + until the armour is repaired, when reaching +0, the above rule applies - its a low magic game so +1 armour is likely the best you can get) would you:
a) Negate the critical - its just treated as a non confirmed hit
OR
b) Take the critical but it inflicts HP damage only, and avoids injury damage
My answer would be c) take armor degradation out of the injury variant's domain of discourse.
You've gone to the effort of modeling armor degradation (which is awesome, btw). I would remove armor degradation from the list of non-injury HP descriptions if I was using your rule. "Rest and refit" would just become "rest".
You've changed combat balance slightly by allowing creatures to avoid crits with armor... I would personally avoid changing it further through an interaction with the Injuries variant; at least until it became evident that you wanted an interaction. That way you can use both rules but judge each on its own merits.
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On the issue of non-lethal damage. I am wondering what is the big concern with more hits being knockouts than kills? Maybe if your group has issues with the prisoner dilemma? Could you clarify why you did not just merge regular and non-lethal into one pool of non-deadly damage?
I am sorely tempted to just treat all non-injury damage as non-lethal (with the same recovery times as you have suggested).
One way to represent the risk of death is to alter the threshold for gaining the dying condition. I would be inclined toward something like requiring creatures to make stabilization roles if they have any untreated injuries when they are knocked unconscious. Might take a little longer to bleed out if they only have a lesser wound (total injuries would still have to reach the -con threshold to die) but it could be a simpler (and perhaps more realistic) way of doing it.
What do you think of doing it this way? Not trying to change your mind but looking for the problems I may have missed.
Way upthread there was some long discussion about the role of non-lethal damage. Basically, there are legacy rules that depend on non-lethal damage, and we didn't want to fuss with that.
I am wondering what is the big concern with more hits being knockouts than kills? Maybe if your group has issues with the prisoner dilemma?
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this.
Could you clarify why you did not just merge regular and non-lethal into one pool of non-deadly damage? I am sorely tempted to just treat all non-injury damage as non-lethal (with the same recovery times as you have suggested).
To be honest, there's no reason not to. At least, if there was, I've forgotten it. As long as Injury HP requires treatment and "non-lethal" doesn't, using the non-lethal healing rate should be okay. I'll try rewording it that way (since it might be easier for new users to parse) and let you know if I rediscover a good reason that it shouldn't be.
One way to represent the risk of death is to alter the threshold for gaining the dying condition. I would be inclined toward something like requiring creatures to make stabilization roles if they have any untreated injuries when they are knocked unconscious. Might take a little longer to bleed out if they only have a lesser wound (total injuries would still have to reach the -con threshold to die) but it could be a simpler (and perhaps more realistic) way of doing it.
Well, for starters, all dying creatures have untreated Injuries when they are knocked unconscious, because that is the definition of the final blow. (The possible exception here is a non-lethal final blow, which puts you at zero, so it doesn't grant the Dying condition anyway).
I do think there is merit in changing the way dying works — The Alexandrian has an article about uncoupling "dying" from "unconscious" which I found particularly insightful. And yes, I do think that having a large number of Injuries (vs a single 3hp Injury that put you below 0hp) should alter the rate of bleed-out and also the rate of stabilization.
We're on shaky ground as far as the scope of the rule, I don't think these changes are necessary to address the stated issue. This may be one of those things that works for me but doesn't belong in the rule's presentation. However, they might make a really great peripheral house rule... and the descriptive nature of it might be enough to tip me in favor of its inclusion in the writeup. How would you approach it?
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The text re-written to combine Nonlethal and Non-Injury damage completely.
I found myself removing redundant clauses — that's a good thing.
I had to redefine the healing rate for non-lethal damage. That's bad and good. Bad because it's creeping into other rules, but good because the old rate (1hp/hour) makes absolutely no sense to me.
It certainly does make the rule a little easier to grok. What do you think?
What Hit Points Represent: Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.
-Pathfinder RPG Core RulebookWhen using this variant rule, many attacks deal nonlethal damage to reflect that they are not actually causing physical harm. Nonlethal damage recovers very quickly between encounters, and actual physical injuries do not heal unless treated.
- Nonlethal damage represents tiring and , , , and ; a creature’s various defenses get worn down after many intercepted attacks, and this leaves them vulnerable to a more devastating hit.
- Nonlethal damage results from any Hit Point damage that does not qualify as an Injury. Nonlethal attacks (such as a sap or an attack made at a -4 penalty to become nonlethal) never cause Injuries, and deal only enough damage to bring the target to zero HP, at which point they become unconscious.
- Nonlethal damage recovers completely with a few minutes’ rest and refitting (not 1 hp per level per hour as in the CRB).
- An Injury represents real physical harm, such as , , and .
- An Injury results from any confirmed critical hit, any failed saving throw, or the "final blow" that inflicts the dying condition.
- An Injury does not recover without mundane or magical treatment. Injuries are healed instantaneously by magic, and can be recovered through use of the Heal skill’s Treat Deadly Wounds option. Mundane or magical treatment cures Injury and nonlethal damage at the same rate, but injuries are always healed first.
*drip drip drip*
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Way upthread there was some long discussion about the role of non-lethal damage. Basically, there are legacy rules that depend on non-lethal damage, and we didn't want to fuss with that.
I am wondering what is the big concern with more hits being knockouts than kills? Maybe if your group has issues with the prisoner dilemma?I'm not quite sure what you mean by this.
Ha sorry yeah that was clear as mud. From what I recalled about the long discussions around making "normal" damage equivalent to "non-lethal" damage the main concern was that it would be very difficult for characters to die in combat. I was intending to ask the question of whether this was really a problem, as they can still be killed by good old fashioned massive critical hits or failed saving throws. Seems to fit the "heroic" style of Pathfinder and if characters are not killed as often through the means of death by a thousand cuts I have no problem with that.
Sorry if I am asking questions that were already asked before- I read through the thread but some things were maybe not clear enough to me after wading through it all! :-)
From what I recalled about the long discussions around making "normal" damage equivalent to "non-lethal" damage the main concern was that it would be very difficult for characters to die in combat. I was intending to ask the question of whether this was really a problem, as they can still be killed by good old fashioned massive critical hits or failed saving throws...
I think it was just a holdover from a point where the theoretical and practical definitions of non-lethal and non-injury damage overlapped less than they currently do.
If we're going with a definition of Injury damage as:
and non-injury damage as :
Then it becomes fairly obvious that non-injury HP and nonlethal HP should be the same thing. It wasn't always that way, but it is now, and I think it's a change for the better. Pending any trouble I don't yet realize, I'm going to retire the term Stamina/Non-injury/Readiness/etc. and just use nonlethal. It will make the whole concept easier for new users to grasp.
With the combination of easy description, simpler rules, and the inclusion of concepts that other games have felt improve the gameplay experience (like healing surges), if I were a designer working on a followup edition of the Pathfinder RPG I would want to take a good look at what has been done here.
IDEA
At some point I realised what an injury does in effect is lower maximum hit points until it is healed.
NICE.
I'm going to use it that way.
IDEAAt some point I realised what an injury does in effect is lower maximum hit points until it is healed.
NICE.
I'm going to use it that way.
Cool! Be careful when you're explaining it, though. Make certain it is understood that injuries subtract from both maximum AND current HP.
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The text re-written to combine Nonlethal and Non-Injury damage completely.
I found myself removing redundant clauses — that's a good thing.
I had to redefine the healing rate for non-lethal damage. That's bad and good. Bad because it's creeping into other rules, but good because the old rate (1hp/hour) makes absolutely no sense to me.
It certainly does make the rule a little easier to grok. What do you think?
Hurray! That is more or less the point I was trying to make.
...
What Hit Points Represent: Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.
-Pathfinder RPG Core RulebookWhen using this variant rule, many attacks deal nonlethal damage to reflect that they are not actually causing physical harm. Nonlethal damage recovers very quickly between encounters, and actual physical injuries do not heal unless treated.
- Nonlethal damage represents tiring and , , , and ; a creature’s various defenses get worn down after many intercepted attacks, and this leaves them vulnerable to a more devastating hit.
- Nonlethal damage results from any Hit Point damage that does not qualify as an Injury. Nonlethal attacks (such as a sap or an attack made at a -4 penalty to become nonlethal) never cause Injuries, and deal only enough damage to bring the target to zero HP, at which point they become unconscious.
- Nonlethal damage recovers completely with a few minutes’ rest and refitting (not 1 hp per level per hour as in the CRB).
- An Injury represents real physical harm, such as , , and .
- An Injury results from any confirmed critical hit,
I like it.
On the point of how quickly non-lethal recovers, I will be merging it with my existing "second wind" rules and saying that characters may regain the same number of non-lethal hp damage as a second wind in my game (1\4 of their total hp) by resting for 20 minutes. Why 20 minutes? Because that is the approximate length of the intermission in hockey during which the players recover most of their fatigue. As a Canadian, that is the best proxy for sustained combat I can imagine. ;-)
As for dying or bleeding out, I would try and keep it as simple as possible. Even after reading the whole thread I am still not sure what it means to say that the "final blow" does injury damage. That is not meant as a criticism as I think you have done an amazing job of creating a rule adjustment that doesn't screw with the basic system.
I would favour eliminating the "final blow" clause and replace it by saying that if the player has any injury damage when they fall unconscious they will start dying. The regular rules for non-lethal apply (ie the non-lethal damage does not add to their likelihood of dying) so it could take them a long time to die by bleeding 1 hp per round (which I would treat as Injury Damage) if they were mostly knocked out by superficial non-lethal damage, or a much shorter time to die if most of their damage was received in the form of critical injuries.
As for my earlier comment saying it should be only "untreated" injury damage that led to dying, I was trying to make a distinction between injuries caused in the current combat and injuries that may be days old but not healed. Kind of like how the bleeding rules work. I might still like to do it this way, but it probably makes it too complicated for the generic rule you are creating.
On the point of how quickly non-lethal recovers, I will be merging it with my existing "second wind" rules and saying that characters may regain the same number of non-lethal hp damage as a second wind in my game (1\4 of their total hp) by resting for 20 minutes.
This absolutely makes sense. The synergy with Healing Surge-type houserules is one of the great advantages of this rule. I don't think they make much sense on their own, but when combined with Injuries I think it makes great sense. I'm not crazy about the per-day part, but to each their own
I'm open to arguments that "rest and refit" requires a defined span of time. In the end, though, I feel that it comes down to the GM deciding whether you get your nonlethal damage recovered or not. You can either get your s——t together before the next encounter, or you have to power through. Why make it more complicated? I want to hear the case.
As for dying or bleeding out, I would try and keep it as simple as possible. Even after reading the whole thread I am still not sure what it means to say that the "final blow" does injury damage...
The Final Blow clause says that any attack which causes you to start Dying (the condition) deals Injury damage. I think it's pretty straight forward... once all your defenses are gone, there's nothing stopping the enemy from Injuring you (except perhaps if they use a nonlethal attack, which is modeled). Otherwise, we have a situation where nonlethal damage causes you to start Dying, which is a contradiction in terms.
Will heavier armor subsequently have a nonlethal damage reduction attribute? Otherwise a guy in no armor is no more damaged by glancing blows and the like than a guy in full plate.
If a character is flatfooted or helpless would any damage done automatically be Injury damage?
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I am thinking now I will use these rules as a form of "hero" rules.
I am thinking I will apply this variant hp rule only to characters who have either substantial armour (as I mentioned earlier) or have a BAB of at least +2 (to cover the combat monks etc.) to reflect a hero's ability to avoid the worst of otherwise nasty hits through skill and superior equipment.
I know this may not matter to most people but I LOVE the fact that you can reflect a difference between an armoured warrior and a peasant with a pitchfork in terms of the severity of wounds they recieve from getting hit by a sling stone or a spear thrown at them by an angry troglodyte.
This way non-lethal damage can reflect minor wounds and blows that are absorbed or otherwise turned into less serious injuries by the combination of armour and martial skill. They may involve cuts (solving the poison problem) to non-vital areas, bruises or having the wind knocked out of them. Combat skill or armour allow you to convert most hits that would be serious into non-lethal damage through the use of parries, blocks and absorbing impact with your armour.
Serious Injuries reflect just that, wounds that will cause long term problems for the character if not healed. I will allow these to heal at the rate of 1hp per level for each week of full rest, otherwise they can only be magically healed. These would include serious cuts, sprained or broken bones, concussions or other potentially debilitating or even life threatening injuries.
I know many people won't want to go to this level of detail, but I am all over inserting this into my campaign.
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As for dying or bleeding out, I would try and keep it as simple as possible. Even after reading the whole thread I am still not sure what it means to say that the "final blow" does injury damage...The Final Blow clause says that any attack which causes you to start Dying (the condition) deals Injury damage. I think it's pretty straight forward... once all your defenses are gone, there's nothing stopping the enemy from Injuring you (except perhaps if they use a nonlethal attack, which is modeled). Otherwise, we have a situation where nonlethal damage causes you to start Dying, which is a contradiction in terms.
Okay thanks for trying to explain it to me. Perhaps I am "slow of mind" because it is the weekend! Let me illustrate why I am confused with an example:
Valeros has 30 hit points. In his battle with Rainbow the My Little Pony he receives 25 points of non-lethal damage from a variety of kicks and bites. Rainbow then kicks him in the head for a final blow causing 10 hps of damage, which is automatically considered Injury Damage (if I understand the rule correctly).
He has now taken 25 points of non-lethal damage and 10 points of Injury Damage, meaning he falls unconscious because his non-lethal damage exceeds his current remaining hps but he is not dying because his Injury Damage does not exceed his total hp value. He may wish he was dead because Rainbow is about to steal his kidney.
The only circumstance in which someone will gain the dying condition would be if all the damage they sustained was Injury Damage, correct?
I feel like I am missing something blindingly obvious. Please help a brother out in understanding what you propose.
Will heavier armor subsequently have a nonlethal damage reduction attribute? Otherwise a guy in no armor is no more damaged by glancing blows and the like than a guy in full plate.
The actual description of the nonlethal damage is left fluid for this reason. As a GM, I can describe nonlethal damage as intercepted by armor more frequently for heavily armored characters, and I can describe parries and dodges more frequently for less- or un-armored characters. The goal here is to distinguish between "abstract defense" and "actual wounds" as defined under Hit Points, but not distinguished by RAW under healing.
Of course, if you like the simulationist aspects, and you want to use this as a jumping-off point for that kind of rule, I'm quite happy to hear how it works for you!
If a character is flatfooted or helpless would any damage done automatically be Injury damage?
Dumb luck, strained morale, superficial injury, and armor damage can protect a flat-footed character just as well as dodges and parrys can protect the alert. As a GM, if a flat-footed character was hit but not crit, I would fall back on armor first if it were there, or one of the others if not.
The reason for the fluidity of all this is that it keeps us from needing to add more rules that may bog down play and change combat balance. Even if you prefer something more concrete, it's a really good jumping-off point.
Valeros has 30 hit points. In his battle with Rainbow the My Little Pony he receives 25 points of non-lethal damage from a variety of kicks and bites. Rainbow then kicks him in the head for a final blow causing 10 hps of damage, which is automatically considered Injury Damage (if I understand the rule correctly).
So far so good. The first 25 points were either absorbed by armor, or dodged, or parried or what have you. Since most fights only last on the order of 24 seconds (or 1 minute for "long" fights) you can imagine that each time you are attacked it detracts from your ability to react to later attacks in the same fight.
He has now taken 25 points of non-lethal damage and 10 points of Injury Damage, meaning he falls unconscious because his non-lethal damage exceeds his current remaining hps but he is not dying because his Injury Damage does not exceed his total hp value.
This is where you have gone wrong, at least according to my version. In all, he has taken 35 points of damage, which puts him at -5. By the normal rules, he now gains the Dying condition. And that is what makes the final blow require treatment for healing.
Injury and Nonlethal both deplete the same pool of Hit Points. So if Injury + Nonlethal > Total HP, then the character is dying. Otherwise, the rule would be changing an awful lot about how Hit Points affect combat, I think.
Feel free to continue with clarifications, it helps me to strengthen my explanation.
EDIT: I think you may have become confused by my "side-track" dying rule under the spoiler. That's where I said you'd need to bleed out more than your total HP... but that's not actually the rule. Sorry for the confusion.
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This is where you have gone wrong, at least according to my version. In all, he has taken 35 points of damage, which puts him at -5. By the normal rules, he now gains the Dying condition. And that is what makes the final blow require treatment for healing.Injury and Nonlethal both deplete the same pool of Hit Points. So if Injury + Nonlethal > Total HP, then the character is dying. Otherwise, the rule would be changing an awful lot about how Hit Points affect combat, I think.
Okay so if I understand properly Non-Lethal damage in your system does not behave like regular Non-Lethal damage as per RAW.
as per the rules (not savvy enough to link so I will include the rule in text):
"Do not deduct the non-lethal damage number from your current hit points... when it exceeds your current hit points you fall unconscious"
From Dying:
"If your hit point total is negative but not equal to or greater than your con score, you are dying"
My point is basically that either way you have to change a core rule. Either you change how non-lethal works or you change how dying works. It seems to me that less disruption would be caused by doing the latter, but maybe there is more to it that I am still missing.
Either way this is an awesome improvement on the standard way of dealing with hit points in my books.
about tentative dying rules
That could be really nasty (unless I got it all wrong). Lets see a pessimistic (yet realistic scenario).
Johnny (4th level character with 40 hp) gets crit'ed for 30 points of damage in round 1. In round two, he gets hits for 12 damages and acquires the dying condition. Johnny received 42 points of injury damage (30 crit, 12 final blow) and is currently at -2 hp.
Johnny would have to make a DC 42 save or receive 42 points of damage at the end of the round, bringing him down to -44 hp. He died when he reached -40.
Even if the negative hit points don't count, he would have top make a DC 40 Fortitude save or receive 40 points of damage, bringing him down to -42.
yikes...
'findel
@Findel: Could be too rough. It was a top of the head thing.
@The ShadowShackleton: Yes, I have entirely screwed up the way nonlethal (RAW) damage works. This might take some re-wording.
Maybe this is why we had them separate before. :)
EDIT: Overall, I like the method that I outlined better than the way nonlethal RAW actually works. :/ Trouble is, now I need to document it. If the intention here is to outright replace the way nonlethal RAW works, we should still call Stamina/Readiness/non-injury damage nonlethal damage, although that introduces a bit of confusion, dunnit?
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@The ShadowShackleton: Yes, I have entirely screwed up the way nonlethal (RAW) damage works. This might take some re-wording.Maybe this is why we had them separate before. :)
EDIT: Overall, I like the method that I outlined better than the way nonlethal RAW actually works. :/ Trouble is, now I need to document it. If the intention here is to outright replace the way nonlethal RAW works, we should still call Stamina/Readiness/non-injury damage nonlethal damage, although that introduces a bit of confusion, dunnit?
Ok that's cool. My bad for messing with your non-messy system! I just wanted to be sure that was what you were intending to do and to point out the confusion it could cause for some who don't know the whole deal with regards to how non-lethal would be effected.
For my own game I really want to keep it as simple to understand and as consistent across the board as possible. I am sorely tempted just to have all Injury Damage cause a bleed effect until treated or a fortitude save is made. That way I don't have to replace dying with anything different or non-lethal with anything different (as the dying mechanic will still happen via the bleed effect if untreated). Whether someone falls unconscious or not an untreated wound (heal check, fort save or magical healing) will eventually bleed out.
I totally get that the way non-lethal works by RAW is not your cup of tea though! It is the one part of hit points I don't really have a problem with, funnily enough. Different strokes etc. and I am the threadjacker here after all with all my questions!
Why are you buffing AM BARBARIAN?
Why are you buffing AM BARBARIAN?
Nobody is, unless by "buffing" you mean not having AM BARBARIAN rely on magic to regains hit points outside of combat?