There are no such rules. You can get infinite damage without any permanent consequences.
How long they take to heal non-magically is left up to your discretion. Magically should be up to the description of the spell.
However, if you want some houserules for debilitating injuries, a game I am currently playing in has a table. Link (you will have to scroll down a bit).
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For a permanent injury system I would look at the Skull and Shackles Player's guide, available for free download off this site. It features a table of random injuries that can result off of massive damage if the player fails a fort save. That's really the only RAW material on permanent injury, and in my experience it has worked rather well for past campaigns.
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I agree with CampinCarl, giving realistic permanent wounds to up front fighters is inherently unfair.
The Wizard in the back already has huge benefits from his spells that cause world ending damage. Now the up front fighter is not only at a massive disadvantage for that, but now he has one eye, no hearing in his right ear and a missing fingers on his left hand.
If I were paying the upfront fighter, I'd be pretty pissed.
I agree with CampinCarl, giving realistic permanent wounds to up front fighters is inherently unfair.
The Wizard in the back already has huge benefits from his spells that cause world ending damage. Now the up front fighter is not only at a massive disadvantage for that, but now he has one eye, no hearing in his right ear and a missing fingers on his left hand.
If I were paying the upfront fighter, I'd be pretty pissed.
I would agree that in a normal game, it can be very unfair to give such injuries.
However, that being said, if you want to run a deadly and realistic game, you should absolutely feel free to do that as long as you talk with the players about it beforehand.
I would also give opponents and other NPCs some serious injuries as well. Anything that applies to PCs should also apply to NPCs.
Another suggestion I would have is making divine magic either nonexistent or very hard to come by. Spells like heal and regenerate and raise dead get rid of such mundane injuries, making the game far less gritty and realistic.
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In answer to the opening question,... Never. Debilitating damage is not fun, and the game is supposed to be fun.
If realism is unfun, screw realism.
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Also, I think it would be a good bit of advice to remind everybody of this: We are here to help the OP understand the rules of what he is trying to do. Not suggest to him to run a different style of game. If he wants to run a gritty, dark, brutally realistic game, I say go for it. I like those kinds of games myself. Just make sure your players know what is coming to them and that NPCs suffer the same penalties.
I would definitely not suggest running a typical Pathfinder game (such as a written adventure path) with these rules, because the players (especially the frontliners) will be at a severe disadvantage and will have to spend a lot of resources on significant magical healing.
Any advice would be amazing as I go for realism in this new campaign.
If he wants to run a normal Pathfinder game with these new brutal rules, my advice is "don't do it".
If he wants a run a homebrew Pathfinder game in his own universe with its own stories and rules, then I say go for it.
In fact, I have done exactly this in the past. I tried to run a normal (if homebrew) game with some debilitating injury rules. My front liners were very quickly unhappy and I took away the houserules. Unless you plan on being in a very custom universe where other NPCs are also effected by these penalties, I would suggest to not give the front liners such a debuff.
Any advice would be amazing as I go for realism in this new campaign.If he wants to run a normal Pathfinder game with these new brutal rules, my advice is "don't do it".
If he wants a run a homebrew Pathfinder game in his own universe with its own stories and rules, then I say go for it.
I agree with you -- up to a point.
The point of disagreement being, of course, "if he wants a run a homebrew Pathfinder game in his own universe with its own stories and rules," then I still say "don't do it."
There are some times when people should not be encouraged to do stupid/harmful things even if they want to.
Inviting people over for a game that you know will not be fun for them to play is one of those things.
And if you don't "know" that it will not be fun for those people to play,... well, there's the advice bit. It will not be fun. Now you know. So don't do it.
There are some times when people should not be encouraged to do stupid/harmful things even if they want to.
Unnecessarily harsh.
Inviting people over for a game that you know will not be fun for them to play is one of those things.
Which is why I said he should talk to his players beforehand so they are all clear on what is going to happen in the campaign. If the player's responses are "That sounds brutal and unfun", then don't do it. Simple as that.
Personally, I think such a brutal and realistic game could be very fun if run properly. And that is why he is here. To see how to make it run properly. Instead of shooting down his idea, either make some suggestions to support it or take your advice to another thread.
Something I've always liked in game systems is the idea of "Magic comes at a price." And I don't mean 25 gp in gems. I mean, stuff like casting from Hp, mental sanity, or even years off your life.
In a realistic gritty game, that still has magic, I'd say that can be the countermeasure for making mages feel the pain too. Make it where dropping all the buffs in one go threatens to overstrain the body/mind, and unleashing round after round of devastating magic inflicts backfires, and instability.
As for the wounds themselves; a good idea would be to set conditions, such as; being crited, being reduced to 25% or lower, or even being crit INTO 25% or lower. Whatever frequency seems to work best for your game.
You might also look into the Called Shot system, to give more opportunities to determine where trauma happens.
Other games have done this before (the old Warhammer Fantasy RPG - 1st edition, Rolemaster). My experience is that after four or five brutal fights, a surviving PC is no longer fun to play because of all the severe injuries received. Peg legs, hooks for hands, and eye patches may make memorable pirate features, yet over time this becomes very unfun as the penalties add up, and soon it becomes a more attractive option of starting a new character than playing a half-ablative mess of penalties.
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Only when it makes the game more fun for the player involved.
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I'll throw in my 2 coppers and say, as a player I wouldn't like such a system.
It would unfairly penalize melee characters, who will bear the brunt of the burden, and they are the ones generally already disadvantaged by the mechanics of the system in the first place.
Any advice would be amazing as I go for realism in this new campaign.If he wants to run a normal Pathfinder game with these new brutal rules, my advice is "don't do it".
If he wants a run a homebrew Pathfinder game in his own universe with its own stories and rules, then I say go for it.
In fact, I have done exactly this in the past. I tried to run a normal (if homebrew) game with some debilitating injury rules. My front liners were very quickly unhappy and I took away the houserules. Unless you plan on being in a very custom universe where other NPCs are also effected by these penalties, I would suggest to not give the front liners such a debuff.
Even in a custom universe, you'd have to remember that the NPCs should bear similar wounds. If you do this and have a 5th level barbarian with a few missing limbs, she's going to call foul when she comes across a 6th level fighter with nary a scratch on him. And she'd be right, too.
Pathfinder really is the wrong system to be putting that kind of realism into.
It can be done, but it take a lot of work. Also, magical healing is supposed to fix most of those problems anyway. So now you have to figure out which of the cure spells will fix a broken finger, which a broken leg, which a pulled hamstring, which a sucking chest wound.
The only way I have found debilitating wounds to work is on crits. If a PC (and never bad buys) takes a crit he gets the option of the normal extra damage or a debilitating wound. In practice it works out that the characters only take debilitating wounds from shots that would have killed them otherwise.
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I don't think Pathfinder is really the right game for gritty realism. Actually, I'm very sure it isn't. It's one of the worst games for that.
However, is realism really what you want? I think a lot of the time people want a consistent, immersive environment. That's not the same. Immersion is about coming up with "rules" about how the world works, and sticking to them. That gets you "cinematic appropriate realism". If an enemy suddenly starts using powers that make no sense in his class/race/game system, that comes across as "unrealistic". Like vampires that for no particular reason have no problem with sunlight.
Pathfinder's "realism" is more like an action movie in the vein of Die Hard, Conan or RED. Kicking in the door and kicking ass, rather than very stealthily creeping around because even a nameless mook can cripple you with a lucky gunshot. Heroes take a beating that would shatter any normal person's bones, grunt in pain, but by the next scene they're up to 99% effectiveness again.
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If gritty realism is really what you want, I'd advise you to take a look at other game systems, like White Wolf perhaps, that have injury systems where damage causes penalties to your functioning.
Most of the time, you get better results by picking a game system that's right for your preferred style rather than trying to change fundamental properties of an existing game system.
The idea of permanent injuries is interesting, but hopefully you will allow for the FIXING of said injuries as well...
If realism to this level is your goal though, you of course eliminated magic before looking at this new rules system, right?
And burnt your Bestiaries.
Hey, to be fair, most of the animals listed should be allowed.
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There are some times when people should not be encouraged to do stupid/harmful things even if they want to.Unnecessarily harsh.
Close. It's harsh.
Instead of shooting down his idea, either make some suggestions to support it or take your advice to another thread.
This is an "advice" forum, not a "sycophantic approval" forum. My advice is that this is one of the worst ideas he could have come up with and he should drop it here if he values the friendship of his gaming partners.
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The problem with permanent effects is that it removes the incentive to have a character survive...
I mean, if I was playing a fighter who wound up missing a hand (and was a two weapon fighter) I would want to ditch the character.
It's even worse if you have a caster who can't cast anymore...
It basically can remove class features.
Now, if we are talking about a non-combat thing... just descriptive, that's cool. I often detail my characters scars (we houserule that magical healing can prevent scars IF YOU WANT. Some of us rub pepper into them before healing to make them more prominent. No game effect, just general badassery.)
I don't suggest doing anything like missing limbs/mechanical penalties because it will affect the martial characters more often than the casters, and the disparity is already a point of contention.
Of course, if you want to keep things 'realistic', as I assumed before, you have already stripped magic out of the game so everyone will be playing martials anyway...
This is an "advice" forum, not a "sycophantic approval" forum.
False, this is the rules forum. While any offered rules help should be offered in the context of humanity (i.e. advice is welcome), you should at the bare minimum offer an alternative as opposed to just saying his idea is terrible. In other words, you added nothing to a conversation where several people have already expressed their disapproval.
But we're getting off topic now, so lets get back to the OP. I am waiting for him to respond before offering any further posts.
you should at the bare minimum offer an alternative as opposed to just saying his idea is terrible.
I did. I offered as the alternative "just don't do it." I will continue to offer that alternative until a third alternative presents itself that is better than "just don't do it."
The fact that no one else, including yourself, has been able to find such an alternative confirms to me that I am giving the correct advice.
Saying "don't do it" is not an alternative, that is by definition just saying no to his idea.
I have offered houserules for it in my very first post as well as offering guidance for how to do this, from communication with players to effecting NPCs. I see no such advice from you. Instead you are only here to tell him his idea is terrible. Duly noted. You may leave now.
But I digress, this conversation is adding nothing to the discussion at hand, so I will no longer be responding to posts about it. Let's stop derailing the thread.
Saying "don't do it" is not an alternative, that is by definition just saying no to his idea.
And that's an alternative. Furthermore, it's a superior alternative to anything you have suggested.
you are only here to tell him his idea is terrible.
No, I'm here to make any responses that are appropriate. But "this is a terrible idea" is the most appropriate response.
And I'm willing to continue "derailing" this thread for a while yet, since, from my point of view, restating the advice that this is a bad idea that should not be pursued is will remain useful advice for as long as there are participants that are willing to pursue this exceptionally bad idea. I'm not going to pretend this is a good idea simply because you're feeling cranky and possessive about a thread.
So typically by level 10, an up-and-front fighter will have taken thousands of points of damage, been critically hit over a hundred times, been knocked unconscious to often to remember, and always been just fine and dandy the next day. His hp goes back up, no broken bones, no concussion, in fact if she got magically healed then she won't even have a sore back in the morning according to the rules.
Does anyone have a standard they go by for inflicting specific, long term injuries on the players like broken bones or hitting a vital organ? Maybe whenever they go unconscious or lose more than 20% of full health in a single hit? (minmum 20?)
Should I allow a fort save?
How long should it take to heal, magically and non-magically?
Any advice would be amazing as I go for realism in this new campaign.
Since this is the rules forum - there are no rules in the Paizo Pathfinder to allow for this. You may want to look at the Laying Waste book by Total Party Kill Games.
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Now, if we are talking about a non-combat thing... just descriptive, that's cool. I often detail my characters scars (we houserule that magical healing can prevent scars IF YOU WANT. Some of us rub pepper into them before healing to make them more prominent. No game effect, just general badassery.)
I like this.
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Okay, so here's an alternative: on suffering a confirmed critical hit, instead of taking the extra damage (and maybe rider effects), you can take a permanent injury as detailed in the Skull & Shackles Guide.
Purely as a voluntary option for the players. Monsters don't get to evade magus alpha strikes with this.
If you choose to play Pathfinder as a gritty realistic game, I would suggest either getting rid of all magical healing or even better getting rid of magic altogether. Things are brutal than, but everybody is on the same playing field.
Also, how much cold damage can be taken before someone gets frostbite? How much fire damage before 3rd degree burns?
RAW, neither "frostbitten" nor "burned" are in-game status effects.
So there is no number as there is no "frostbite" to get. In the same way that there is no amount of damage you can take that will result in a sprained wrist.
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I think that it should generally be where it is appropriate, both in story and in thematic standing. It's less about how much cold damage is taken, but more about how long you are exposed to it.
Like if you are stuck in a freezing environment, without adequate protection against the cold or resistance/immunity to the cold, for maybe many weeks or even months, you are probably going to suffer from some frostbite that would get worse as things progressed if not treated like disease.
Magic really doesn't actually solve the problem of injuries or disease. Example to give for this is the plague in curse of the crimson throne, which actually shows the difficulty with treating a plague with only magical means. remove disease and restoration only make the disease vanish, it does not actually solve the problem of the disease, until you actually find an actual cure to the disease. In a similar vein, you have spells that heal damage by making it go away.
If you don't have any of those spells available, you only can heal by conventional means(resting and getting medical treatment). And in those circumstances, injuries like lost eyes, limbs, fingers, or damaged organs WILL actually stick.
And the Whole XENA, Hercules, Conan thing. Conan had to be healed by magic, and hercules and xena are mythic tier heroes. as for other action film characters, most never really get hit, and when they do they do need to treat the injury using whatever options the plot gives them.
I good general rule is there is some strain on a body part when you take 50% of your health in an attack, similar to clobbering rules, where say I hit you for 40hp with a hammer and your hit points are 50, then you might have a broken leg, now magic healing or some rest with the bone being set might fix that, but don't give them out to often or unless some large shock is already being done.
I highly recommend Torn Asunder rules. They've adapted it to Pathfinder now.
Does anyone have a standard they go by for inflicting specific, long term injuries on the players like broken bones or hitting a vital organ? Maybe whenever they go unconscious or lose more than 20% of full health in a single hit? (minmum 20?)
Should I allow a fort save?
How long should it take to heal, magically and non-magically?
Any advice would be amazing as I go for realism in this new campaign.
A few games have injuries happen when you go out of hp, or when you receive a critical hit. I like to think that lost hp represent taxing parries and minor wounds, the real blow is the one that knocks you off (i.e. below 0 hp).
Instead of the standard rule for dying, you could have a chart (or deck of cards) with effects that are triggered by going under 0 hp, ranging from full "recovery" to "instant death", with a variety of reduced movement and blinded in one eye etc. in between.