Breaking the Fight/Rest Paradigm

Of late, I've been giving some thought to the D&D approach, where you adventure for a bit, until you're low on hit points and/or your priest has cast all his healing spells, and then you bed down in the monster's lair and rest. Then you continue on, until you're again beaten up, and then you rest again.

This, unsurprisingly, leads to the oddity that characters will typically adventure for a couple of hours in the day, and then feel the need to rest for the remainder of the day to get back spells. And it's even worse if the party healers can't deal with the group's injuries in one day - you might have to camp for days at a time in the heart of a monster lair.

So, here's an attempt at solving this problem. My working assumption is that characters will be using fixed hit points per level at the rates used in the current game. Without that assumption, this system may be over-generous to PCs.

This model works on the notion that only a small part of the hit point damage taken by characters in any combat is actual wounds. The rest takes the form of exhaustion, near-fatal blows turned aside, or simple luck or divine favour. As a result, although these dwindle during a fight, and funning out will be fatal, they should be recovered quite quickly with rest.

During combat, wounds are as normal. Characters track hit points, and become incapacitated at -1 hit points, and dead at -10, as normal. However, in addition to the other effects, it is necessary to track when a character takes damage from a single attack doing more damage than his hit die type (the highest one for multiclass characters). This number of attacks is the number of wounds dealt in combat. Any attack that does fewer hit points of damage than the character's hit die type is ignored (other than the actual hit point loss).

At the end of combat, once they've had a chance to rest, characters take stock of the impact of their wounds. The level of the wounding should be calculated immediately, although perhaps only indicated to a character who examines the character with a Heal check (DC 10). The effect of the wounds will be applied 10 minutes after the end of combat, at which time the permanent effect of the wounds will be applied, and the character will regain hit points. (This lag time could be quite important, as this gives a cleric 10 minutes to apply healing to a character who might be mortally wounded without it.)

Note that a group that is attacked immediately after one combat will still be suffering hit point loss from that combat, but will not suffer the more permanent effects of combat.

After ten minutes have passed, all characters who have lost hit points must first check the extent of their injuries. This requires a Fortitude save (DC 15 + no of wounds taken in the combat - note that I'm not sure this DC is set to the right value). If this save is successful, the character suffers no lasting ill effects from the combat. If the save is failed by 1 or 2 points, the character suffers from bleeding. If the save fails by 3 to 5 points, the character has a light wound. Failure by 6 to 8 points indicates a moderate wound. Failure by 9 to 11 is a serious wound and 12 or more a critical wound. A character who takes a light or more serious wound from combat is also considered to be bleeding.

A character who suffers from bleeding suffers no great problems, but cannot regain hit points until the bleeding is stopped. A character with a light wound suffers 2 points of Constitution damage, moderate wounds cause 4 points, serious wounds 6 points, and critical wounds 8 points of Constitution damage. All such damage is cumulative, so a character carrying a light wound into combat who is then moderately wounded has suffered a total of 6 points of Constitution damage. This damage can easily kill a character. Basically, in such an instance, the character was mortally wounded during the combat, and so died once the adrenaline wore off.

Curing bleeding is accomplished simply a matter of applying a Heal skill check (DC 15). This requires a full-round action, if such becomes important. The cure minor wounds spell (or any more powerful cure spell) will automatically stop bleeding. This can be done regardless of whether the character's other wounds can be tended to (so, a character who took a serious wound can have his bleeding stopped, even if the party cleric has no remaining spells available). Curing the other wounds is achieved by resting (at the normal rate), through the use of the restoration spells (of course), or through the use of cure spells.

The caster of a cure spell may choose whether to heal hit point damage or wound damage. If used for the former, the spell functions as normal (and stops bleeding). If used for the latter, the spell restores 2, 4, 6 or 8 points of Constution damage.

The other part of the handling of injuries, that ensures this doesn't completely screw over PCs, is that once the extent of a character's wounds have been ascertained, and once the bleeding is stopped, the character may immediately roll his hit dice (applying his newly reduced Con modifier), and regain the number of hit points indicated.

One final detail: Under this system, Clerics lose the ability to spontaneously cast cure spells. Quite simply, they don't need them so often, so can do without. Also, I like being an evil bastard.

(Note that the term bleeding, as used above, does not necessarily refer to simple blood loss. It applies to any condition that would prevent the character from regaining hit points. So, a character who takes a nasty fall could be considered to be bleeding, even if he didn't actually have any open wounds. Likewise a character hit by a lightning bolt, or whatever. This should be obvious, but I'll just state it to prevent people from trying to weasel around the actual wording used.)

An extended example: Tekkis is in combat with three orcs. He's a barbarian, so has d12 hit dice. He has a Con of 14, and 38 hit points (3rd level). During the course of the combat, Tekkis is hit twice, for 3 and 7 hit points of damage. Consequently, he takes no wounds.

At the end of the combat, Tekkis makes a Fort save (DC 15). He passes this check, and so is not even bleeding. Tekkis' player then rolls 3d12+6, and adds those back to his hit points, restoring Tekkis to full health.

Later, Tekkis is attacked by an ogre. During the fight, Tekkis is hit twice, for 13 and 15 hit points of damage. Thus, he takes 2 wounds. After the combat, he must again roll a Fort save (DC 17). Assuming he fails this by 4, he takes a light wound. Tekkis is also bleeding. Tekkis thus takes 2 points of Con damage from his wound, and thus loses a further 3 hit points. However, once the bleeding stops, Tekkis will regain 3d12+3 hit points (if he's still alive). A cure light wounds spell will restore Tekkis' Con score, and in turn restore those 3 lost hit points.

(For more detail, add a "wound infection" disease that can affect any character who does not have his bleeding stopped within 1 hour, or anyone who takes a serious or more serious wound. This disease would have 0 incubation time, a Fort save DC of 15, and do 1d3 points of Con damage. So, a character could potentially be wounded non-fatally, but then die some time later from infection. Of course, remove disease would counter it. Actually, if you go this far, you're starting to get towards a 'realistic' injury system, except without the risk of characters being permanently maimed.)