Do they exist?
This came up a few games ago when we had a level 5 Orc fighter with 21 strength that we wanted to send back to our home city with a caravan to be our prisoner.
We were worried that no matter how well we tied the Orc up, there was a chance that the Orc would break free and cause us problems.
So my wonderful character suggests we break the Orc's arms and legs - that would remove any leverage he would have to be able to break his bonds, and that the Clerics in the city could just heal him when he got there.
Even the Paladin seemed to think this was a good idea, so we went ahead to do it, but we decided it would be better to break his Clavicle, because that is a wonderful structure point that would completely gimp his strength.
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There are no rules for this though. When, out of character, the guy playing the Paladin was remarking about how cruel it was, my argument was that a simple cure light wounds spell would mend bones, because there were no rules for bone breaking - and so if Cuts were included in wounds to be healed by a first level spell, broken bones must be too.
Or are there any rules? Have you run into this before and how did you handle it?
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Have you looked at the Called Shot rules in Ultimate Combat? It seems like these might be a good starting point.
Honestly, I've looked around. A LOT. All the bone breaking in Pathfinder appears to be wrapped up in the Jawbreaker feat line.
If you happen to get lucky and find anything let us know (thus why I'm dotting). I still want to play my grappler that breaks an opponent once he gets hold of him....
Alternatively, I know there are some 3rd Party stuff on d20pfsrd having to do with limb ripping.... Sadly the site seems to have lost their table concerning it. "Reference table below" ".... What table?"
Breaking bones would have no impact on HP as it should affect ability scores. This is the best way to show the effect of this kind and makes sense as a person with a broken arm/Clavicle will be exactly like you said unable to use his strength.
This also works great for when torturing a PC as you don't affect the characters HP you affect the ability scores instead. Personally feel that breaking bones is torture actually which can then even effect mental ability scores.
In such a case it takes many days or a Restoration (lesser or greater also) spell to get ability damage fixed. Much worse then a simple cure spell can do which again shows how much more sever the damage is.
havent read it yet but ryan costello jr's book Strategist and Tacticians has rules about severed limbs and other rules of that nature. not sure if broken bones are in there though. here
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I came to this thread because an NPC in Wrath of the Righteous starts the adventure with a broken leg. The text suggests that a DC 15 heal check allows a splint to make her able to walk at half speed, she won't recover full speed until she can receive a regenerate spell.
In the NPC's statistics page, it states, "Anevia’s leg was broken in the fall, and as a result she moves at half speed and cannot run. She also takes a –4 penalty on all skill checks requiring movement (Acrobatics, Climb, many Stealth checks, and Swim) and a –2 penalty to her AC. If the damage she sustained in the fall is healed, the penalty on skill checks is reduced to –2 and the penalty to AC is removed, but completely healing her leg requires a regenerate spell."
This seems to me to be a bit harsh, considering regenerate is a 7th level spell. It generally takes 6 to 8 weeks for a bone to heal, assuming it's properly set.
I like the suggestion of treating a broken bone like ability damage, which makes it possible to heal with lesser restoration, but it would not heal naturally as fast as the rules of recovering ability damage would allow. Perhaps a good compromise would be to consider a broken bone to reduce Strength and Dexterity by 2 points and consider this to be a kind of Ability Drain. It could be restored with a restoration spell, which is 4th level, with the damage naturally recovering at a rate of 1 points per 4 weeks if not restored using the spell, assuming appropriate heal spells were made early enough after the break to set the bone. If the bone was not properly set, then the ability damage would be permanent or until a regenerate spell can be obtained.
Sometimes a bone is so shattered that a simple splint/cast won't ever fix it enough; permanent impairment may remain even after the bone heals as much as is naturally possible. Modern medicine makes this unlikely, but even a couple hundred years ago, it was not hard to find people with permanent impairment suffered from something as simple as a broken bone, years ago.
It's funny, but in this game it's just about impossible to break a bone or sever a limb or cause any other permanent physical injury. No item, no spell, not even magic items. Adventurers can get hit with swords and axes and tarrasque bites thousands of times in their life and never lose so much as a toe or a finger or even an ear lobe (even Evander Holyfield couldn't get through his career without losing an earlobe).
Regenerate is a completely useless spell, except for recovering HP, and there are more efficient spells at lower levels for that.
Anevia broke her leg because of story. GM's might assign impairments to PCs because of story.
But the rules never do.
It's true, in game there are no ways to specifically break bones and no rules for how to handle such damage.
I've always felt it's something the game should have.
I regularly have my characters break the fingers of captured spell casters, because a helpless character can offer no resistance we don't worry about it too much and just say they can't cast unless they have still spell. But it would be nice to have some official rules.
It's true, in game there are no ways to specifically break bones and no rules for how to handle such damage.
I've always felt it's something the game should have.
I regularly have my characters break the fingers of captured spell casters, because a helpless character can offer no resistance we don't worry about it too much and just say they can't cast unless they have still spell. But it would be nice to have some official rules.
Maybe.
But there is a fairly significant downside.
It would be weird to make a rule that we can break NPC's bones but they can't break ours. That would be like a rule that we can fireball NPCs but they cannot fireball us; it would totally break any sense of immersion. So if PCs can do it to NPCs, then the same rules can be applied to PCs. Then we have weeks of finger-splints, casts, etc. We have missing eyes, severed limbs, etc.
It's all fine and good to impair an NPC. The PCs finish interacting with him and then the NPC basically disappears from the camera's eye.
But when it happens to a PC, the game grinds to a halt.
"Awww crud, Conan had his foot bit off. Again. And Gandalf broke his hand so he won't be casting any spells for 6 weeks. It's going to take that long to get a peg-leg for Conan's foot and even more time for him to go through all the physical therapy to learn how to walk on it, and I'm sure he just permanently lost his Fast Movement class feature... Oh well, it's only 6 more levels until Cedric can cast Regeneration to fix all this crap."
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Consider how little shattered bones does to you.
LOL.
I never even knew that spell existed.
It seems misnamed. Would be more appropriate if it were called "BoneBruise" or some such.
It's true, in game there are no ways to specifically break bones and no rules for how to handle such damage.
I've always felt it's something the game should have.
I regularly have my characters break the fingers of captured spell casters, because a helpless character can offer no resistance we don't worry about it too much and just say they can't cast unless they have still spell. But it would be nice to have some official rules.
Maybe.
But there is a fairly significant downside.
It would be weird to make a rule that we can break NPC's bones but they can't break ours. That would be like a rule that we can fireball NPCs but they cannot fireball us; it would totally break any sense of immersion. So if PCs can do it to NPCs, then the same rules can be applied to PCs. Then we have weeks of finger-splints, casts, etc. We have missing eyes, severed limbs, etc.
It's all fine and good to impair an NPC. The PCs finish interacting with him and then the NPC basically disappears from the camera's eye.
But when it happens to a PC, the game grinds to a halt.
"Awww crud, Conan had his foot bit off. Again. And Gandalf broke his hand so he won't be casting any spells for 6 weeks. It's going to take that long to get a peg-leg for Conan's foot and even more time for him to go through all the physical therapy to learn how to walk on it, and I'm sure he just permanently lost his Fast Movement class feature... Oh well, it's only 6 more levels until Cedric can cast Regeneration to fix all this crap."
I agree that there would need to be something besides regeneration to handle the damage. Really, we could just make a lesser regeneration that knits together your damaged body over a few days (instead of seconds) and leaves you exhausted during and for one extra day after. It can cure hp, but not as much. And lets give it a 10 minute casting time.
It would be easy to create a rule element to deal with the problem of adventurers incurring broken bones.
It would just be nice to know how to break someone's bone in combat and what the penalties are.
I mean, lets be honest. Regenerate was always a crappy spell since no rule elements cause broken bones or severed body parts. The main function of the spell is to remedy something that can't happen, unless your GM makes it happen for plot reasons.
And then it's stuck behind the black hole of the regenerate spell.
Have it heal less damage, take more time, and have negative effects while it's working.
The abstraction of HP doesn't combine well with specific injuries and penalties. It is debatable if this is a good or a bad thing, but having played other game systems where more specific injury effects occur, I can say that the abstract system does have some upsides as far as play-ability.
I would say though that it makes sense to be able to inflict injuries against a helpless opponent that amount to penalties to physical stats. A heal check to 'get it right' and avoid killing would be appropriate. This is something I think a GM can come up with on the fly in a home game. In PFS it wouldn't be possible of course, but the every episodic nature of that environment also makes it largely irrelevant.
It would just be nice to know how to break someone's bone in combat and what the penalties are.
Sure, but it creates the problem that any combat, even say first level orcs, could impair PCs to the extent that they spend weeks unable to continue adventuring. That could be game-breaking if that happens in the first, third, sixth, and seventh room of a 10-room dungeon. It should have taken 1-2 game days for the PCs to clear the entire place, but now it takes 6 months counting all the healing time.
I mean, lets be honest. Regenerate was always a crappy spell since no rule elements cause broken bones or severed body parts. The main function of the spell is to remedy something that can't happen, unless your GM makes it happen for plot reasons.
And then it's stuck behind the black hole of the regenerate spell.
Have it heal less damage, take more time, and have negative effects while it's working.
In previous editions there was at least a sword of sharpness. I think there were a few monsters with a bite attack similar to the sword. I also recall a 3.x spell that broke bones (causing extended periods of being unable to use that limb) but that might have been 3rd party.
But all of that was rare corner-case stuff, and Regenerate has always been mostly useless.
I prefer to keep it as a story mechanic.
If any rules are applied, I would go to the Massive Damage optional rule and create a smaller version of it, say, an Almost-Massive Damage rule that can cause an impairment if a character takes more than 30 damage from one attack. Or maybe on a critical hit that is confirmed by a second critical hit (instead of just an ordinary hit) - but that would have to be small impairments because it still happens too much.
And then I'd have to turn Regenerate (or a watered down time-consuming version of it) into a very low-level spell, such as 2nd level.
Failing all of that, it's better to keep impairment as a story mechanic. IMO.
I suppose if you were to play in a campaign with rules like these, the ideal thing to do would be to make it an opportunity for a new story element. Maybe the party will have to find an NPC capable of casting Regeneration and willing to do it for a favor, or maybe a creature who can cast it as a Spell-Like Ability. That kind of story shouldn't happen all the time, of course, and such damage should be reserved for very important scenes with a major villain or monumentally poor decision-making on the part of the PC's.
Playing with relatively realistic physical consequences and healing times is certainly a valid play-style, but encounter CR and character tactics would need adjustments to compensate for it, at the very least.
Personally, I would prefer the ability damage route for most circumstances.
Personally I think it could open up interesting things for martial characters to do, currently I can think of a feat that falls in line with what I mean:
The Jawbreaker feat allows you to break someone's jaw, and among other things prevent providing verbal components of spells. I don't care for the improved unarmed strike or specific Stunning Fist attachment, but if it set up as feats with reasonable requirements that would allow access among general martial characters it could be neat.
You could have a Fingerbreaker feat which prevents somatic components.
You could have a leg breaker feat which reduces movement speed.
Perhaps an armbreaker which imposes penalties to attack rolls.
You could make it a bonebreaker style line of feats.
You could even make it able to be healed by a combination of heal check and Cure X Wounds spell, or make a lower level regeneration spell. Anything is possible that could result in balanced material.
But now we've moved from rules to homebrew.
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I think the rules for Fatigue and Exhausted are a good starting point. You subtract from your strength and dexterity and they prevent you from running and half your movement (for Exhausted). These both are a good start for a broken leg(s).
For a broken arm, you could just ignore the movement penalty and state the character can only attack with 1 handed weapon.
Depending on how cruel you wanted to be you could only allow these to be restored with regeneration or until they heal the ability point damage naturally.
I think the rules for Fatigue and Exhausted are a good starting point. You subtract from your strength and dexterity and they prevent you from running and half your movement (for Exhausted). These both are a good start for a broken leg(s).
For a broken arm, you could just ignore the movement penalty and state the character can only attack with 1 handed weapon.
Depending on how cruel you wanted to be you could only allow these to be restored with regeneration or until they heal the ability point damage naturally.
If we're striving to make combat more realistic, then inflicting a half-dozen points of ability score damage that can be healed in a half-dozen days (much faster with competent medical care and full bed rest) then we haven't really achieved anything that seems like a broken bone. At least, in a realistic sense, nobody mends their broken bones in 24-48 hours of bed rest.
Ultimately, we're talking about applying some debuff through combat. It's like Dirty Tricks, or maybe like Stunning Fist, or maybe like any one of hundreds of spells that cause Shaken, Dazed, Confused, etc. But the real difference is that those conditions all have saving throws and/or wear off in a short time.
Having broken bones or other impairments such as severed body parts, missing eyes, knocked out teeth, etc., means debuffs that last much, much longer and might not have saving throws (or maybe they should). Then they require finding a 13th level caster (or house-ruling other variations of spells that fix this stuff).
Those are VERY serious debuffs that can remove the PC from the game. Imagine if that happens in the first room of the dungeon. Now either the rest of the PCs go forward while the crippled guy waits at the entrance, or they all retreat to town and pay someone to fix the PC.
Unless this only happens to characters at high enough levels that they can cast Regeneration. But that just makes it more weird: "Hey, Cedric. That makes 4 fights in a row that Conan had some part of his body ripped off. You've had to regenerate him 4 times today. Why did this suddenly start happening right after your god let you start praying for Regenerate yesterday? In all the months we've been adventuring, Conan never suffered any injury worse than a few bruises and scrapes, but then you wake up one day, feel more powerful, start preparing Regenerate, and now Conan is getting literally ripped to pieces every fight..."
The Paizo critical hit deck can produce a wide range of debilitating injury.
Food for thought.
Food for thought.
Those are misnamed too. I can fully heal that injury in 48 hours of bed rest with a friend who owns a healer's kit. That's hardly a broken bone.
They could easily be called "Gauntlets of Horrific Wounding" and would be a more appropriate name (and match the item's fluff text).
Food for thought.
Those are misnamed too. I can fully heal that injury in 48 hours of bed rest with a friend who owns a healer's kit. That's hardly a broken bone.
They could easily be called "Gauntlets of Horrific Wounding" and would be a more appropriate name (and match the item's fluff text).
I agree with the sentiment (i.e. duration means it doesn't model a broken bone well), but it takes 6 days to heal no matter how much you rest. It's a decreasing penalty, not ability damage.
I agree with the sentiment (i.e. duration means it doesn't model a broken bone well), but it takes 6 days to heal no matter how much you rest. It's a decreasing penalty, not ability damage.Food for thought.
Those are misnamed too. I can fully heal that injury in 48 hours of bed rest with a friend who owns a healer's kit. That's hardly a broken bone.
They could easily be called "Gauntlets of Horrific Wounding" and would be a more appropriate name (and match the item's fluff text).
Hmmm, that's probably true. I read it the first time as damage, and a reminder about how damage heals, but on rereading it doesn't seem to be damage after all. While 6 days is worse than 2, it's only barely worse than a bad sprain.
My point was that Pathfinder is not meant to deal with broken limbs. That's the closest thing I can find to it in game terms, and it's not even close to how it works in real life.
I guess I failed to read your tone. I don't like to speak for others, but I'm pretty sure DM_Blake and I agree with you, then. :-)
We do. I wasn't disagreeing with him in the first place, just responding in kind.
There's always Grendle, which can remove limbs entirely. Not a bad place to start.
Nice, I wasn't aware of Grendel's ability.
Well, now there is one non-story way to actually remove a limb, with real consequences.
Of course, Grendel is CR 19 with 7 Mythic Tiers so you won't find very many adventurers running into him very often. Heck, they run into me more often by far, and I'm unique. Well, except for Mrs. Tarrasque.
I have used bone breaking/limb removal in a home game.
We had a very cinematic fight with some giants, during the fight the magus was beaten to within 1 point of death (literally -13/-14 con), he was hit with a greatclub and then bullrushed down some large stairs, where a winter wolf bit him (after he lodged his rapier in it).
The players and I agreed he had had his arm shredded and his ribs smashed in (thus why he almost died). We roleplayed that a HEAL 30 check set his bones, and restoring HP allowed him 50% move speed and -4 penalties to physical, but with the staggered condition for any action involving his main hand. He then healed naturally with intensive care for 4 weeks.
A second feature was a custom creature we sadly never got to face, it was like a hydra, but the stinger tails regenerated and it had no head. Stingers attacked with called shots to random body parts, and did location flesh to stone, broke bones, or severed the limb depending on the rolls. The idea was that as a campaign ender, there should be serious consequences to engaging it, and lasting effects from the fight.
again HEAL 30 sets the bones to heal right, then they can use it staggered with -4 penalties. I set it as a condition that restoration could remove... or lesser could affect on one limb. IF the bones were set properly, otherwise restoration was wasted.
I had an alchemist with regeneration ready to go to help the "heroes", I planned to give them "donated" limbs for any that were lost.
Bone breaking should be possible, but not as devastating as it is in the real world. As well fractures heal much more quickly than full breaks, and the bones can bear full weight DAYS after an injury, they shouldn't but they can. And yes, a few NPC examples would ensure they knew the risks beforehand.
What I was planning on using:
Called shot on a limb with a B attack should have a chance to fracture (if not break).
Fracture (Break): Staggered for 1 minute, staggered for that limb until healed, drop all held/fall prone/etc.
Become Exhausted and fatigued 2x faster (1/2 as many rounds to gain the condition, reduce total rage rounds by half).
HEAL 20 identify break, 30 set.
Lesser Restoration must heal a total of 10 points to restore a break, 5 to repair a fracture.
Fractures last 4 weeks, breaks 6.
Severed limbs could be reattached with a HEAL 40, but would be considered missing until 4 weeks, then broken after that.
If you really want to see limbs fly, use the called shot rules in Ult.Combat and reduce the threshold for debilitating injury to the characters constitution score or more than half of current hit points(whichever is greater).
That's the recipe i went with at least...flavor to taste :)
It's funny, but in this game it's just about impossible to break a bone or sever a limb or cause any other permanent physical injury. No item, no spell, not even magic items. Adventurers can get hit with swords and axes and tarrasque bites thousands of times in their life and never lose so much as a toe or a finger or even an ear lobe (even Evander Holyfield couldn't get through his career without losing an earlobe).
Only regarding in-combat!
If someone captures you and decides breaking your fingers will make sure you dont pick the lock, you have broken fingers.
Get caught stealing for the 5th time? - Off with his hand.
The Regenerate-Spell is for this kind of situations where stuff happened in background-fluff, out-of-combat accidents or for deliberate mutiliations.
Regenerate has important worldbuilding-fluff things to do. Not so much for professional Heros.
off topic but for uses of regenerate take a look at skinsend.
Thanks for all the thoughtful responses. My take-away is that for practical reasons, broken bones are a normal part of damage in combat and as such are also healed by spells when the hit points are restored. To try to factor it in a special type of injury with specific penalties and methods of healing would bog things down too much. Consider how common broken bones are in sporting accidents. It's not realistic to think that with all the bashing, falling, and slicing that occurs in combat broken bones will never happen.
For the WOTR AP, I'm going to consider that Anevia had a particularly nasty break that for some reason is not healing as normal.
If I need a rule for broken bones, I'm going with some points of Strength and Dexterity damage (-4 to -8) that heals naturally at a rate of one point per week, rather than one point per day, but can be healed magically with lesser restoration.
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Your solution sounds like a plausible solution.
Have you considered how incongruous it is to say that "broken bones are a normal part of damage in combat and as such are also healed by spells when the hit points are restored" while not causing any impediment?
Sure, broken bones are an occasional part of sporting accidents. But you'll note that when an athlete breaks a bone, he immediately stops sporting and is removed from the game. Permanently (as far as that game is concerned).
Are you planning on making broken bones cause a character to be unable to continue fighting until they receive medical attention?
If not, you might get a dialog like this:
GM: Fred, the ogre hits you for 16 damage, breaking your right arm and three ribs in the process. What do you do?
Fred: I swing my greataxe at the ogre. I hit. I do 14 points of damage.
GM: And you broke both of his legs in the process.
Fred: Cool.
GM: The ogre hops up on the nearby boulder, unaffected by his two broken legs, to get the high ground advantage and bashes you with his greatclub for 12 more damage, breaking your other arm in three places.
Fred: Well, unaffected by my two broken arms, I swing my greataxe at the ogre...
You're not envisioning a combat like that, are you?
But the alternative is worse:
GM: Fred, the ogre hits you for 16 damage, breaking your right arm and three ribs in the process. You're incapacitated and cannot continue fighting this battle due to pain and debilitation. What do you do?
Fred: Uh, I guess I just scream in pain and lie there waiting for the coup de grace next round?
I'm not trying to be critical, but neither of these scenarios seems to make for a plausible playable combat. Which is probably why HP are so abstract and broken limbs are a function of story telling, not of combat simulation.