Wounds? Anyone done this?

[gundark]

There are some critisms that True 20 is a little gritty when compared to Hit point systems. I was wondering if a wound system might work. I'm talking like something like warhammer where the heroes have maybe 2 wounds. When they fail the save that fails by 15 or more they lose a wound. I don't know, I haven't thought it out too much I was just wondering if anyone else has toyed with this?

[FickleGM]

I have only used the damage system as written, but the following idea may work to reduce the "deadliness" (I will note that Conviction has kept the system from being too deadly in my games):

- The Toughness Save remains the same as written.

- A character has 5 wounds (or more or less, up to you).

- If the Toughness Save fails, the character takes wounds based on the amount missed by:

0 - 5 = 1 wound
6 - 10 = 2 wounds
11 - 15 = 3 wounds
etc.

- When the character runs out of wounds, he is "out" (dead, unconscious, etc. based on how deadly you want the system).

- Each wound may cause a -1 (per wound) penalty to rolls, but penalties are not necessary.

This may or may not be something that would interest you, but I figured that I throw it out there. The number of wounds and wound thresholds can also be tinkered with to adjust deadliness.

Final note: Wound level thresholds can also be easily modified in the base rules to adjust deadliness.

Later.

[Dr. Halflight]

There are some critisms that True 20 is a little gritty when compared to Hit point systems. I was wondering if a wound system might work. I'm talking like something like warhammer where the heroes have maybe 2 wounds. When they fail the save that fails by 15 or more they lose a wound. I don't know, I haven't thought it out too much I was just wondering if anyone else has toyed with this?

I used a system similar to this in Mutants & Masterminds (1E) for awhile.
Essentially, everyone had 5 or 1D10+Con Bonus Wounds (Players Decision). Failing a Toughness Save cost 1 Wound & every 5 points over was an additional wound. Under 1st Ed, it sped things up for our group.

We're currently using an idea from these boards, where being Hit is immediately a Hurt or Bruised result, the DC of the Toughness Save is 10+DB & failure has its normal results adjusted by the new DC. Its working faster for us.

MC

[gundark]

(I will note that Conviction has kept the system from being too deadly in my games):

True. Someone pointed out on another board that conviction ends up being like hitpoints. Actually the wound idea was something that I was thinking about for larger creatures (like giants). However I'm not sure if that would make them too tough.

[Ether]

If I remember correctly, one of the changes from the original printing makes it so that characters can suffer multiple Wounded conditions, rather than just one (i.e. it functions just like Bruised and Hurt, only once wounded, characters suffer penalties).

Are you using this rule, gundark? I only ask because I had missed this change initially, and in my opinion, it does much to reduce the deadliness inherent in the system. Characters can get wounded a lot, but even with the wide variability of the d20, I've found save failures by 15+ (meaning Unconscious or Dying) to be fairly rare.