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So, me and players were talking over discord a bit discussing how odd it is that even in a gritty dark world the worst that can happen to a PC battling dragons, giants and griffons is they die. Even if the PCs are heroic level individuals. Which got me thinking about an injury system of sorts. The following is something I came up with but its pretty rough around the edges. I'm hoping to implement it in a way that actually gives something back to the PCs as well. The pay back is, they are more resistant to death.
The idea is- when a character would normally die, they would instead make a roll on the injury table. Please note, raise dead/reincarnate are NOT useable spells in the game. Only the high tier resurrection spells can be used.
What this does-
It gives an opportunity the PC to survive, as written atm, its a fairly high chance of survival, unless they took a large hit and were low already. It might also be bias towards melee oriented characters due to the nature they are often in the most danger. Which is why I added the clause regarding 50% of your max HP.
So, here we go.
When a character would be killed, roll on the following chart. Add your con modifier to the result, then subtract the total by which your negative HP exceeded your Constitution score then consult the chart.
Alternatively, if you ever take greater than 50% of your maximum HP from one attack, roll on this chart as well. Add your con mod to the result of the roll before consulting the chart. If the resulting damage would cause you to roll on the chart due to "death" make only one roll.
roll a d20.
1-2: Death
3 Pierced lung, you immediately begin suffocating, this functions as if under the Suffocation spell. This injury can only be repaired by a successful heal check at a DC of (?10+damage taken from triggering attack?) or through application of regenerative magic. (affects that heal only hit points or ability score damage are not enough). Successful Heal checks equal to DC 20 resets the target to unconscious and at 0. (though does not cure it)
4-5: Left Arm is severed.
6-7: Right Arm is severed
8-9: Chest Wound
10-11: Left Leg is severed (knee down)
12-13: Right leg is severed (knee down)
14-15: Left Hand is severed
16-17: Right Hand is severed
18-19: Mental injury (example: a new Phobia, if “killed” by a giant spider, the character must succeed a (hard) will save or be terrified. (new saving throw at end of every round?)
20+: Terrible Wound- reduce maximum HP by 1 per HD. Constitution counts as 1 lower for determining when a character dies for each terrible wound a character has. Subtract X from any future Major Injury rolls where X is the number of Terrible Wounds a character has. Terrible Wounds may be healed via Heal or regenerate, regenerate heals all terrible wounds, the heal spell removes only 1 per cast.
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How does it work after the player has rolled on the table?
Is he unconscious? Is he bleeding after the loss of a limb fx.?
Can you suffer additional injuries after the first? Lets say 3 enemies fire their crossbow at the player. They all hit and the first bolt “kills the character” and trigger a injury roll. Then the next bolt trigger a new injury roll. And the third a third roll.
Do you have an idea how to deal with severed limbs when it comes to movement speed, Acrobatics/Climb/Swim checks, new off-hand/2H weapon/TWF rules?
Or do they only have to deal with that until they get to someone with Restoration?
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The PC would count as "out of the fight" for the remainder but "stabilized". If an NPC has the time and dedicated a coup de grace it would outright kill the PC that suffered the injury. As would an attack that hits. Though I like the idea of it taking a full round instead of just a casual poke.
If there are three separate attacks, the first would kill him, then the 2nd two would be allowed to change targets, if they decide not to, or cannot it follows normally. The character would be dead if one of the attacks hit.
In other words, you get 1 chance to ignore death in a combat.
I've considered allowing breath of life to "revive" downed PCs, allowing them to partake in the combat. However their injury would remain.
Severed limbs will have negative modifiers to checks that require both yes. Likely -5 to most. The PC would be unable to use 2handed weapons or TWF while having a severed hand/arm. Like wise one could not wield a weapon and a shield either. Perhaps "grafting" a weapon on their elbow would allow TWF or use of a shield.
As for dealing with the lost limbs. Bionics or magical "crafted" limbs work, as well as more mundane fixes, such as a peg leg for severed leg.
Of course, paying for a regeneration spell (in the very few instances you could find someone powerful enough to cast it or an item that could cast it) would heal any and all injuries.
These wounds all seem to imply a slicing weapon, do you have a different wound table for piercing, bludgeoning, spells etc?
FYI: this already exists in the Rolemaster game system, it's damage system is one of my favorites, you should check it out.
if you have the Crit deck, you could use that for such "killing blows", then you have something for other damage types as well. If a card doesn't make sense, just redraw.
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Bleed, Negative Levels, and afflictions should count against you... making the DC harder.
Hero Points, Fast Healing, and probably some buffs should count towards lowering the DC.
Or adjusting the roll, however it works.
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Good idea on the additional modifiers. Hero points could be used to reduce any roll on the chart to a "terrible wound" or nullify it entirely.
The "severed" bit is a catch all, if its torn off by explosive force, claws, or yanked apart from a blow by a blunt weapon. The one that would be hard to justify is piercing weapons.
Piercing weapons are almost worse... they punch this little innocent looking hole, but the bone below is destroyed. The limb just daggles, flacid and useless. But it remains, as if to mock you with its continued presence...
At least when something bites it off, it's gone. Out of sight, out of mind...
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I stumbled across a very simple "Injury system" a little while ago. Haven't tried it with my own group yet but I'm considering it.
If you get hit for more than your total Fort Save you have the write down an Injury or Scar.
If you get dropped below Zero HPs your write down an Injury.
When you get Magical Healing you Erase the most recent Injury from your list.
If you are restored to max HPs and still have Injuries they are permanent scars
Injuries and Scars do nothing. They have no mechanical effect at all.
The key to the system is that you make the players imagine their injuries and encourage them to role-play accordingly.
Instead of blaming that Natural 1 on bad luck, blame it on your broken rib. Failed a Perception test, well clearly the blood from that head wound got in your eye or your head is still ringing from that club earlier. Failed a Climb test, that old Knee injury is acting up.
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I think the problem with any injury system is the long term penalty. If a monster suffers an injury then the encounter is almost over but if a character suffers an injury then all future encounters will be that much harder. It may be okay for some high level groups where the party cleric can cast heal and even then the net effect is to reduce the cleric's potential as they need to dedicate spell slots to repairing injuries. For low to mid levels the result will be un-fun as the character does not have ready access to the spellsto remedy the condition.
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Alternatively, if you ever take greater than 50% of your maximum HP from one attack, roll on this chart as well. Add your con mod to the result of the roll before consulting the chart. If the resulting damage would cause you to roll on the chart due to "death" make only one roll.
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I'd definitely drop this 'alternate' idea: It's far too easy to lose half your HP in a single hit at lower levels (particularly if you are a d6 or d8 class).
I think the problem with any injury system is the long term penalty. If a monster suffers an injury then the encounter is almost over but if a character suffers an injury then all future encounters will be that much harder. It may be okay for some high level groups where the party cleric can cast heal and even then the net effect is to reduce the cleric's potential as they need to dedicate spell slots to repairing injuries. For low to mid levels the result will be un-fun as the character does not have ready access to the spellsto remedy the condition.
Yep, it's just an extension of the concept of the "death spiral" in which death is actually preferable to these effects because death is often easier to heal than those. Or at least you get to bring in a new character that isn't hampered.
While it's more realistic, it's typically a lot less fun for most people to play that way.
If you wanted to add an optional system just use the already existing Death from Massive damage rules. At least people have a straight forward path when their character dies.
my only issue with using such rules is that the cure is often a handwave away, which kind of defeats the point, unless you're trying to showcase the power of Divine magic. I personally like the challenge of them. In our current game, I nat 1'd a Blindness/Deafness spell, in the first round, of the first encounter, of the first game. It would be 5 sessions before I regained my sight and being a melee fighter, that made things...interesting. But it was fun, and different, and strangely enough fit the character (a War Priest who follows a god who is all about personal struggle). Now level 12, I just lost an eye to the crit deck and I'm seriously considering whether I want to get the restoration to fix it (most likely will since it also means a Con drain).
But over the course of the game, we've had several missing fingers, ruinous scars, etc. And now that we've got levels under our belt, it's just a simple 100gp fix. So it's like we've got this gritty thing going on, but not really because it's just a 3 round fix away.
So I guess my suggestion after all of that, is if you are going to use such a system, make it meaningful. I'd make maiming wounds much rarer and if one occurs, really lean into it narratively.
Most people I play with IRL get attached to their characters, so they would likely prefer losing an arm, and having an intriguing side mission of sorts to either find a replacement, or get it healed.
Though I can understand your point of view as well.
I agree that players get attached to their characters and I can certainly understand the desire for an injury system. But as I said earlier, and Claxon summarised as a death spiral; be prepared for it to have a negative effect on your game and to reverse it out. Perhaps you could introduce it as an experiment with your players agreement with the option to remove it if proves an unpopular mechanic.
Don't get me wrong, I get attached to characters but a character that can't fight well is a character I'm not going to enjoy playing.
Either the cure is a handwave away and thus the rules you make up don't really matter because they amount of a penalty for 1 combat only or they're so difficult to remove that as a player I'm going to have the character retire because I'm not going to play a permanently blind fighter that now has a 50% chance to ever hit anything.
That's not fun at all. That sort of disability is something that as a player I'm willing to put up with for 1 gaming sessions. If it's not resolved by then, or at least we have a plan that will be accomplished by the next session I'm very likely to have the character say, "I'm sorry, I simply can't do this anymore".
How many blinded soldiers do they let stay in the military on active combat duty?
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A "gritty dark world" pathfinder is not. It would be odd if there was a lasting injury system for this heroic high fantasy game where a titan can step on you, a dragon can roast you with fire, a troll can rend your flesh, and many other horrible things happen to your pcs all the time that nobody could possibly survive.
Pathfinder is designed for players to face increasingly more preposterously impossible challenges. Everything is designed around that, with scaling attack bonuses, defenses, damage output, powers, etc. While it'd be possible to homebrew for your gritty dark world, you're going to be fighting against the system the whole way.
Conversely there are other rpgs, like the old Harnmaster game, that are designed around gritty dark realism. That game has no levels, no hit points. It has detailed rules about blocking and dodging, and if you get hit, you suffer grievous injuries that leave you maimed. While it'd be possible to homebrew that system to play high fantasy, it'd be awfully difficult.
Now gritty dark realism isn't my jam, so I've never gone looking for any current rpgs that are designed in that vein, but I'm sure there are several. Even if you want to stick to homebrewing pathfinder, I highly recommend looking at other rule systems to see how they solved similar goals.
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1. The injury system is not meant to inflict permanent incurable penalties on players. And yes, at higher levels one can usually just wish away the issue. That said, up until level 14? That is harder to come across. And that's assuming the party has a 9th level divine caster. (Something I'm seeing less of)
2. It's meant to show how the heros take blows that fell lesser men and women, and overcome those obstacles.
3. I've never seen HP as pure damage. I see HP as an ambiguous general toughness and fatigue. The dragon hits you with a breath weapon? You raise your shield and manage to protect yourself from the brunt of it.
Just because a giant "hits" you for 50 damage doesn't mean he is gashing your guts out. It could be he clips you and knocks you back several feet, knocking the wind from you. Lethal damage only occurs when you hit 0. Such as, you tried to dodge, but the exertion from the fight slowed you too much and he lands a solid blow cutting deep into your chest. That's just my view on it however.
The hope I have from the system is to give players a chance to resist death when they would normally die, and open up chances to tell a characters story. If they would rather retire, if that is the characters story, that's fine. It's still a story, and puts an NPC in the world.
Its meant to set up side stories, such as one of the characters finding an artificer to craft them a bionic arm/eye.
Tell a story of how A fighter lost his sight, but is overcoming that. (Blind fighting feat chain)
To that end, I would likely allow retraining at a reduced cost, save for class levels.
I suppose making a side quest to get an item that can resurrect one dead person due to a character death at very low levels would be fiat as well?
Yes.
But ultimately everything is GM fiat really.
was largely my point. The quest the PCs go on is fiat.
Yes, but no.
Many people play APs or string together modules. So there's a certain understanding of "Hey, this is what we're doing". If suddenly we're taking a detour just to resurrect or heal someone because the GM made up some additional rules that cause people to die more often or have disabilities which make player a character untenable then the GM is creating patches for their patches.
In my opinion it's bad.
In general as a GM I try to avoid killing PCs, though I do definitely try to make them feel the pressure. To me death or severe disability are about the same in terms of player enjoyment.
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so, as mentioned, this is probably not a very good idea to use. However if you do insist on using it, I suggest looking at the Arms Law/Claw Law book from the Rolemaster game.
In rolemaster your attack is a d100 + an attack bonus - the targets defense bonus.
Once you get this total, you look at each weapons individual table, and compare the bonus vs the armor type (one great thing about Rolemaster is they actually vary weapons effectiveness based on the different armor types.)
this table give you an amount of damage dealt, and a critical severity. you then turn to the critical pages (there is one for each type or damage) and make a roll, these tables will give you the effect. they range from a bonus on your next attack, to instant death, and all kinds of fun things in between.
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I duno, I had a pc die in one of my campaigns. The group was on a quest for a faerie, far from civilization, so they decided to go ask the faerie if she could help raise their friend. So making it up as I went, I had the faerie direct them to a unicorn who owned a cauldron of resurrection. The unicorn agreed to raise their friend, but they had to go on a side quest to replenish the herbs required to power the cauldron. It was a silly little affair with fairies, a lot of bad jokes, and a single fight with some quicklings. My players still talk about that unicorn.
I run my own homebrew stories and setting. I write and run it all myself, so the entire game in essence is gm fiat. Coming up with interesting things as needed as you go is why you have a gm and not just rules and random charts.
I duno, I had a pc die in one of my campaigns. The group was on a quest for a faerie, far from civilization, so they decided to go ask the faerie if she could help raise their friend. So making it up as I went, I had the faerie direct them to a unicorn who owned a cauldron of resurrection. The unicorn agreed to raise their friend, but they had to go on a side quest to replenish the herbs required to power the cauldron. It was a silly little affair with fairies, a lot of bad jokes, and a single fight with some quicklings. My players still talk about that unicorn.
I run my own homebrew stories and setting. I write and run it all myself, so the entire game in essence is gm fiat. Coming up with interesting things as needed as you go is why you have a gm and not just rules and random charts.
I'm not completely against GM fiat.
In your case, it sounds like your were helping out a player character that died in the course of adventure, likely from bad rolls or bad choices. Not from a system that hobbles PCs and pushes them further towards death on its own.
While I'm still not a huge fan of having to do this sort of thing, it is better than a player sitting out for long periods of time because their character died at an inconvenient time. And also better than having a new character appear conveniently just because the old one died.