Another Wound Level Playtest

This playtest is a bit more normal in that it's a party of three versus a monster, specifically an ogre. In Dungeons & Delvers, ogres are 6 Hit Die baddies, and while they used to be bizarrely accurate due to a high Strength score, we've since changed to a 3rd Edition-esque Base Attack system whilst having all attacks rely on Dexterity for accuracy.

This hasn't reduced the ogre's Attack Bonus all that much since he has a base modifier of +6, but it is somewhat hamstrung by a Dexterity score of -1 and his Large size.

His opponents are a 3rd-level fighter, rogue, and cleric:

FIGHTER

• Defense 16 DR 6 AC 21 (DR 0)
• Saves CON +3
• Wounds 6; -1, -1, -2, -3, -4
• Spear +3 to hit; 1d6+3 (AP 1)
• War Bow +3 to hit; 1d8+3 (AP 2)

I think the fighter's stats still assume that he has Defender, but I forgot to choose a 2nd-level Talent. I also forgot to add in his Damage Bonus of +2, which he would have received at 3rd-level automatically.

ROGUE

• Defense 14 DR 3 AC 19 (DR 0)
• Saves DEX +3
• Wounds 5; -1, -2, -3, -4
• Short Sword +4 to hit; 1d6 (AP 1)
• Short Bow +4 to hit; 1d6 (AP 2)

For now Sneak Attack works like it normally does: the extra damage just ups the CON save DC.

The only Talent that matters for this fight is Evasion, which lets the rogue Hinder an attack as a Reaction. I guess he could also have Fleetfoot and something else not directly related to combat. Like Trap Master maybe. Point is I shouldn't assume that even for these combat-oriented playtests that characters will only have combat options, as that will skew the results.

CLERIC 

• Defense 14 DR 6 AC 19 (DR 0)
• Saves CON +1
• Favor 5
• Wounds 5; -1, -2, -3, -4
• Spear +2 to hit; 1d6+1 (AP 1)

The cleric would have four or five Miracles, but the only two I care about for this playtest are Healing Touch and Flame Strike (which also requires Kindle the Flame and Beckon the Flame). Again, don't want to overload the characters with pure combat options and try to "balance" things around that assumption.

OGRE

• Defense 11 DR 3 AC 16 (DR 0)
• Saves CON +5
• Wounds 9; -1, -1, -2, -2, -3, -3, -4, -4
• Club +4 to hit; 2d6+7 (AP 1)

After the previous combat playtest, I felt it would be better to note the number of Wounds a creature can suffer before being rendered unconscious and Dying, as well as the penalties it suffers as it becomes Wounded. These penalties are applied to all d20 rolls, Defense (and by virtue of that, AC), and the DCs of effects and abilities the creature uses (so they become easier to resist).

And now, the report:

The fighter looses an arrow at the ogre and misses, and then switches to his spear and shield.

Rogue looses an arrow and hits with a 16 for 3 damage. Because the Attack Roll exceeds the ogre’s Defense by 5 or more points, he inflicts +1 damage. Additionally, the Attack Roll meets the ogre’s AC value so the arrow hits a weak spot in the ogre’s hide armor (or hits an unprotected area), inflicting 4 damage.

The ogre attempts a DC 14 CON save and gets a 12, so suffers 1 Wound (Injury penalty -1).

The cleric hits the ogre with a Flame Strike for 10 fire damage. The ogre attempts a DC 13 Dexterity save and rolls a natural 1, so suffers the full damage (maybe there should be an added effect for critically failing at spells).

This attack ignores his DR from armor since there are plenty of unprotected areas, so the ogre needs to attempt a DC 20 CON save. He rolls a 10, which is reduced to 9 from his Injury penalty, and so that’s three more Wounds and he is Burning (DC 13). His Injury penalty is increased to -2.

(Upon going over this again I realized I forgotten all about the Burning condition. This would have forced the ogre to make a CON save to avoid suffering 1 Wound, and it would have increased by 1 every round until the flames were extinguished. This I think could be absurdly powerful, meaning the base damage of fire attacks would need to be reduced.)

Enraged, the ogre rushes towards the fighter and tries to clobber him. He rolls a 16, which is increased to a modified 20 and then reduced to an 18. Enough to hit the fighter but luckily not enough to bypass his armor, so the ogre’s 15 damage is reduced to 10.

The fighter attempts a DC 20 save and rolls a natural 1, so suffers a total of six Wounds, meaning that he is immediately knocked unconscious and is Dying (which is admittedly what I would figure would realistically happen to anyone getting smacked by an ogre). 

Really quick, if we were to compare this using a hit point model:

On average the 3rd-level fighter would have a total of 27 hit points (assuming max at 1st-level and an average of 5.5 for the rest, and CON +2 added to each level). The ogre’s attack would have only reduced him to 17, and he would otherwise be perfectly fine.

This I think is an immediate issue with anyone expecting a Dungeons & Dragons experience. Granted the fighter was incredibly unlucky: had he rolled a 10, this would have given him a total CON save of 13, which meant he would have only suffered 2 Wounds. Still effectively a third of his health, but at least he'd still be standing.

One possible workaround would be to give characters a sort of bonus to the Wound threshold, where instead of suffering 1 Wound, +1 Wound every 5 points they fail the CON save, it increases to every 6 points. Then 7, then 8, etc. This way characters don’t become inherently tougher, but instead are less likely to suffer additional wounds due to increased combat experience.

Another option is to give characters Vitality Points or something reflecting growing combat experience that are lost first, and can be recovered during a Short Rest like they do in Dungeons & Delvers. This would speed things up, instead of having to math out different damage thresholds. It would also let me retain abilities and effects that only trigger on Wound damage, which I really like.

But for now let’s just keep things moving along.

The cleric rushes over to the fighter and uses Healing Touch. She’s got 4 Favor left and decides to use up 3 (figure I can still cap the amount of Wounds recovered to 1 per level), moving the fighter from 0 to 3 Wounds: he’s conscious and back on his feet with a -2 Injury Penalty.

He stabs at the ogre, rolling a total of 8 after all modifiers, just short of the ogre’s modified Defense of 9.

The rogue slips in, getting a modified 20 on his Attack Roll. The ogre’s Defense has been reduced to 9, meaning that the rogue has exceeded its Defense by 11 points, so his base 7 damage is bumped up to 9.

The ogre’s CON save results in an 11, meaning he suffers another 2 Wounds. This brings his total suffered to 5 and the Injury penalty up to -3.

The ogre swats at the rogue, but only manages a 4. Lucky.

At this point I’m wondering if it would make sense to give monsters abilities or something as they suffer Injury penalties, to better avoid a death spiral where the fight becomes inceasingly easier as it goes. Maybe ogres and the like get a damage bonus equal to their Injury penalty? Something to consider.

The fighter also gets a 4 thanks to his Injury penalty, but even with the ogre's Injury penalty, it wouldn’t have mattered.

The cleric wants to save her last Favor point, so also goes in for a stab. Thanks to the fighter she gets a +1 from Ganging Up, and gets a 15 total. Her damage roll is a 2, but since she exceeded the ogre’s Defense by 5 points it gets bumped up to a +1, and since she also beat its AC completely ignores its DR.

The ogre has to make a DC 13 CON save, which wouldn’t normally be so hard but he’s doing this at a -3. He gets a 9, and so suffers another Wound (for a total of 6, but his Injury penalty is still -3).

The ogre isn’t doing so hot, and would probably want to flee at this point. Wanting to play this example more normally, I check Morale and get a 6. Ogres normally have a Morale of 8, so he’s had enough and just wants to get out of there.

Taking a desperate swat and a random character (I rolled and it just so happened to be the rogue) he gets a 3, and as he turns to flee everyone gets an Opportunity Attack.

Starting with the fighter I get an 18, for a total damage of 6. The ogre’s CON save ends up being a 19 though, so no Wounds.

The cleric only gets a 7 to hit, just barely a miss.

The rogue gets a 24. Even with Sneak Attack her damage is only 4, but since she’s exceeded the ogre’s Defense by so much it gets bumped up to 7. The ogre’s CON save is a 10, so he suffers another 2 Wounds.

The ogre is teetering at the brink of death, and while he does make some distance the characters just resort to missile attacks.

The fighter pulls out his war bow. He rolls an 8 to hit and 10 for damage. The ogre’s hide armor applies, but only absorbs 1 damage since the bow has Armor Penetration 2.

The ogre has to meet-or-beat a 19 on his CON save. He gets a 16. Close, but not close enough, and the ogre is slain.

Resource-wise, the fighter is 3 Wounds down (halfway dead), and the cleric only has 1 out of 5 Favor left. Otherwise everyone else is doing fine. 

As for how the fight would have gone differently were hit points used, well ogres have something around 50 hit points. Skimming the play report the ogre suffered 49 damage at the point he died, so that’s interesting.

Now, where things would have gone differently is that the fighter wouldn’t have been knocked out, so the cleric wouldn’t have had to take her turn healing him. This means that the fight might have ended a round sooner, but would have otherwise played out the same way.

So far the system seems to work well enough. We'll be moving soon, but afterwards we'll need to try a string of encounters to see how it works long(er) term. Of course, even if it does work out, the question is whether I'll want to convert. I guess that'll depend which system we prefer.