Health Points my ass

OSR usually fixes this since players don't have enough hit-points that getting stabbed becomes trivial at higher levels

Yes! Simple and creative. This is exactly what I was looking for. Veeky Forums delivers indeed.
I've felt a lack of some purely mechanical drawback akin to WH crit tables because players seem to overlook any narrative injury in a long-term if it's less severe than a missing limb. Or you can make an argument that I'm not pressing them with it enough. In either case - thank you.

>How do you make your players care about their characters' condition when any dull-witted cleric could make any harm go away after a prayer and a couple of hand gestures?

Reminder that in AD&D, only clerics of certain gods could cast healing spells, you only started with a handful of coins, and things like magic shops and potion vending machines were things that you only encountered at the very bottom level of the final dungeon. You weren't guaranteed to be back to 100% fitness just because you reached a town.

I just describe the damage done by attacks and my players get the idea without me having to explain much further. Being good at that can make "mundane" combat seem much deadlier and imply a seriousness that is much more effective than just 'you lost 10hp out of 40, ouch'. This is especially effective if you single out body parts to take the damage from an attack. If you have 40hp taking 10 of that directly to the face is obviously going to fucking hurt.

Ie:

>the orc swings at you.. and hits!
>you raise your weapon to block but his blade glances off yours and slices your arm to the bone!
>"oh fuck dude"
>player assumes their arm is wounded and adjusts their actions around that until the cleric can actually treat the wound

Other attacks that were convincing enough to make the player assume they were badly wounded without anything on my part

>the fighter got his heel ripped off from a plant monster attacking from below the ground
>the actual damage was easily survivable but 12 damage concentrated on the players feet and leg obviously hurts like hell

>a monk set off a 'stone spike drops from the ceiling' trap and fails roll
>"you reflexively leap to the side.. but you jump short and the trap catches you in the ear! you hear a sickening scrape followed by utter silence!"
>first thing another player says is 'damn dude that was lucky, if that had hit the top of your head..'
>his screams also alerted nearby enemies and the blood loss negatively impacted him in combat until the wound was tended

You don't need to be full edgelord "AND THEN HE RIPS OUT YOUR GUTS AND SQUISHES YOUR INTESTINES IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE! HOLY SHIT!" but never forget what a gory mess getting killed in a dungeon would end up being. Taking 15 fire damage would be unbearably painful and disfigure you terribly. A troll raking you across the face with his claws would badly damage your sensory organs. Its all in the presentation.

Just warn your players before hand in case somebody wants to play Medic McHealslut.
Also i would go about and go simply "Stronger enemies have a stronger curse" in 3-5 steps over the curse of the game, you know few enough to feel a difference with rising power but enough to prevent "healing valleys".

I'd either reduce the amount healed by 1/3 for the start or pose a DC the caster has to overcome so that the spell works, the slot is spend one way or another and rise up from there and of course not a full blown curse that needs remove curse or whish to remove, for starters a simple dispell should be enough.
Like a note ahead for players that something funky is going on but don't just start at "Kick your teeth in" force when it comes to hombrew elements.

I don't. D&D isn't a system that handles wounds well.
If I wanted a system that does wounds, I'd play like shadowrun or a vampire game.

See and D&D 5e MM pages 266-267 for slower healing and suffering mental/emotional damage. Pages 272-273 detail how to implement more permanent injuries and massive damage.

Hit points are literally designed to avoid this kind of mechanic. If you don't like hit points try playing something besides D&D that has a system to represent injury. Be careful of "wound" systems that just have a small HP pool and then start imposing penalties, it's just an enhanced HP system masquerading as actual wound mechanics.

Mythras handles wounds and damage well I think.

If you insist on playing D&D, there's all kinds of bandages you can try putting over the system to try to make it work, from limits on daily healing (the healing surge mechanic from 4e) to "oh this attack is DIFFERENT" type mechanics that have a page or two written here and there, but the whole system just isn't built for it.

You can do it but keep in mind it makes casters even more powerful as they can easily put damage onto people.

...

The problem with the "have you tried not playing D&D" is that people use it more often than not when playing a different system wouldn't solve anything.

Few problems discussed on this board can be solved just by switching systems, largely because at the end of the day, the system is actually only a small component to the game that's being run, and that switching systems just leads to a new veneer on the same old problems.

"Try X system" is not always bad advice, but it's not particularly helpful in a thread about problem players, or about story issues, or even alignment arguments, because even in the last case it's just a name (or a different name) for things you'll find in find in almost every other game. Even games "without" alignments still have degrees of morality to them or factions with codes of conduct, and most alignment arguments typically revolve around these two features of alignment.

Does D&D have flaws? Certainly, but most of these are remedied in far less time than it takes to learn a new system, and the idea that you should abandon a system just because something didn't work out is why we find a lot of people hopping through multiple systems hoping that a change of game will solve their problems.

Most of the whole problem with system discussion is that it's actually political in nature. Play X game or play Y game is a tactic to try to garner support for one game or dissuade people from playing another, and is largely dishonest in its lack of transparency. D&D becomes a target not because it's a bad game by any measure, but because it's popularity means people are less inclined to play other games.

As a person who has played his share of everything under the sun and now plays homebrews almost exclusively, I've really gotten tired of people claiming system superiority or inferiority when they're all just talking about the same inferior games just under different disguises.

If only they knew how amazing Duck in the Circle was.

I started a semi related thread the other day. Ideas-
Put a time limit on how long a wound can be healed before it is guaranteed to leave horrible scars even if magically healed.
Allow maimings- a character's life could be changed forever if they lose an arm, or get shot in the Johnson with a crossbow.

Nice copypasta, fagtron.

You act like it's not a reply to stale and awkward forced meme touted around by idiots.

"Have you tried not playing D&D" is basically saying "wah, I'm upset people play D&D, and I'll take every opportunity I can to try and steer people away from it."

Considering that the majority of the roleplayers on this board play D&D, that makes you a pretty sad contrarian.

Oh boy, Mr. "D&D is great because iz poplar!" is here, can't wait to see him argue in circles about how D&D is flawless because it's popular.

No, in this case here's how the conversation goes:

OP: I don't like HP and D&D-style healing systems.
Anonymous, a gentleman and scholar: One of the principal foundations of D&D is the Hit Point system. You can try making it suck less, but overall you're stuck with the suck as long as you keep playing D&D.
You, a fool with no argument: You can't just keep saying D&D is bad!

Hit points are a game mechanic, and most people don't even know that it's not a necessary mechanic. Trying to "fix" hit points by houseruling all kinds of band-aids to a shit mechanic is how you end up with 3.5 and pathfinder and three generations of tabletop players who don't see that there is a better way because they have spent so much time learning D&D that they don't want to learn any other system.

Play something besides D&D or read a book about game design before you go talking about how we shouldn't steer people away from a system that they have clearly stated they do not like.

You can't go much simpler than D&D HP without making mechanics inconsistent and insubstantial-feeling to certain palates (like Savage Worlds) or much more complex without increasing bookkeeping and slowing down play (GURPS, M&M). In most cases, it's just an useful abstraction and not worth much thought.

That said, there are plenty of homebrewed "death and dismemberment" tables for OSR systems (these counter-intuitively tend to make games less harsh since they mostly assume you'll roll on them rather than killing a character downright, while including sub-systems for actual death), and 5e does have some rudimentary support for lingering injuries which is not hard to expand. I'm sure there must be stuff for 3.5 and maybe even 4e, but I'm not familiar with those systems.

You're an idiot, because in this very thread we have people showing some simple ways to include wound systems into D&D, including official ones.

What you're trying to pretend is that games are inflexible, and that if you don't like one thing, you need to throw the baby out with the bath water. You're acting like it's a carefully constructed computer game designed for a single user experience, rather than an inherently dynamic and versatile medium. For fuck's sake, we're talking about changes that people have implemented decades ago, and you're acting like it can't be done or even that it can't be done well.

So please, stop trying to argue like you think it's not obvious that you're just a pathetic contrarian upset about a game's popularity.

>Play something besides D&D or read a book about game design before you go talking about how we shouldn't steer people away from a system that they have clearly stated they do not like.

See? Can you make it even more obvious that you think that anyone who likes D&D has only played D&D? That's the mindset of a person so detached from reality, you don't even recognize your crusade against what's popular is pathetic and ultimately futile. All you're doing is conjuring up myths to support your personal delusions, while the rest of the world carries on, using games in ordinary ways that you've deemed impossible.

For shame.

/thread

>You're an idiot, because in this very thread we have people showing some simple ways to include wound systems into D&D, including official ones.
Suggesting ideas for homebrews and actually developing homebrews that work as intended are two entirely different concepts user.

Any fool can make homebrews without even reading the book but it takes much more work and dedication to come up with something that's actually worth bringing to the table, which is why after a decade of homebrewing, the only shit that you hear being used is E6 or the tier system.
>So please, stop trying to argue like you think it's not obvious that you're just a pathetic contrarian upset about a game's popularity.
Christ, can you be any more of a drone? You do this in every thread whenever anyone even suggests that D&D isn't the best shit ever.

>we're talking about changes that people have implemented decades ago, and you're acting like it can't be done or even that it can't be done well.

No, more than that, that's literally my point. It's not done well, and it can't be done well. The closest thing that can be achieved is an approximation of wellness. Just because you can try to homebrew away some of this deficiency doesn't mean you should, mainly because a person who is thinking of doing this has no idea what the design implications of doing so are.

>Can you make it even more obvious that you think that anyone who likes D&D has only played D&D

This is also literally my point. I'm saying that most people who like D&D have only ever played D&D. This is for a number of reasons, the primary one being that D&D has so many books of rules that people don't want to learn to play anything else. The other reason is that, were someone to play something besides D&D they would not have a question such as OP because the question has already been answered by another system.

I'm not saying D&D is bad because it's popular, I'm saying D&D is bad because it's bad, and it would do well for people to broaden their horizons. The popularity of D&D has absolutely nothing to do with it being bad. Is D&D so bad that it's absolutely worthless? No, not really. It does some things really well. HP is a fine mechanic for some things, but it is not and never has been intended to be used as a mechanic to approximate debilitating and long-lasting injuries.

Something being popular does not make it immune to criticism.

Really? This is your reply? To ignore official support and variants and treat them like homebrew just for the sake of continuing your ignorant crusade?

Truly, for shame. You're not even arguing, you're just bitching, moaning, and whimpering, but you can't see that because your head is too far up your contrarian ass, to the point where you think it's not obvious that you don't have anything except a blatant bias constructing your "arguments" for you.

Here's a clear and simple statement. You've already been proven wrong in this thread ten times over, and we're barely at thirty posts. Your best move would be to walk away, instead of just confirming for everyone else to see that you are only here for your system war agenda.

That's all your here for, after all. You don't care about giving OP honest advice, you're only here to shitpost because you can't stand people discussing a system you don't understand and hate. If that's your plan, then enjoy getting publicly shamed, along with your fellow shitposting compatriots.

If that's not what you're here for, quit arguing strawmen and shut the fuck up. D&D isn't "the best shit ever", but you're not doing anyone any favors by constructing a mythology about roleplaying systems being inflexible monoliths.

Joke's on you, that was a different person. Maybe if you addressed points instead of playing ad-hominem roulette, you wouldn't be such a fagtron.

>bla bla bla

Holy shit man. If you honestly think anyone is falling for your bullshit "Don't play D&D" being simply how you earnestly attempt to broaden people's horizons, you're more detached from reality than I expected.

Saying "try this system" or "try that system" might actually sound like you're trying to broaden someone's perspective.

"STOP PLAYING D&D" just makes you a whiny cunt.

And with that, I don't need to listen to anymore of your pathetic attempts at damage control, because that last batch was particularly pathetic and easy to dice apart. I'd hate to see what you'd try to conjure up next.

See ya.

Dude, your material stops packing as much punch the umpteenth time you use it. Take a piss and come back with a cool head and for god's sake, stop trying to build a narrative in which everyone but you is a contrarian who everyone else is laughing at.

Nobody is laughing ITT, they're groaning at the fact that your presence has effectively derailed an otherwise amiable discussion because someone dared to suggest that maybe D&D isn't the best shit ever.

>See ya.
Thank christ the spastic left, now we can get back to a constructive conversation.

Haven't you noticed no one takes your "stop playing D&D" shitposting seriously? You contrarians shitpost it in every thread that mentions D&D, and still more and more people end up playing D&D and discussing D&D.
Look how pissed you are that someone called you out on it. You guys are really just the butt of a joke, and don't even realize it because you keep getting hit in your blindspot. That blindspot is that you really, really care that other people are playing a game you don't like, but you don't realize that most people don't care that you care.

This might come out of left field, but I was wondering if you've played something that isn't D&D?

For the record, this user meant the 5e DMG, not the MM.

>Haven't you noticed no one takes your "stop playing D&D" shitposting seriously?
Notice how you're the only screeching about someone saying "have you tried not playing D&D" and how nobody else ITT is weighing in on your side at all?

Nobody ITT gives a fuck about your crusade and anyone who has been on here for any extent of time can see who the real shitposter is around here.

So how bout you make good on your promise and leave.

But no one in my group will even look at another system.

Hold on I have a PDF that briefly about this.

Health has a different meaning depending on how old the average person becomes in a society. It is said that in medieval England the average life expectancy was about 30 years. Those kinds of numbers are not really representative, however, because they included the infant mortality, which skewed all the averages. When you consider only people who lived beyond childhood, the numbers trend more towards the fifties and, according to some sources, even to the seventies. With the benefit of magical healing, it is reasonable to assume that citizens of a city with proper sanitation and ample access to healers could live to respectable oldish ages

Different person. You managed to get one guy to care about your shitposting, so congrats. I'm asking you to stop making a fool of yourself falling for his bait.

On the other hand, this number includes both average citizens and adventurers, who by definition are not average people. The life expectancy of an adventurer is probably near the extremes: they die young, in their late teens or early twenties, or else they die old, in their fifties for Fighters, seventies for Monks, and probably well into their second or third centuries for some Wizards. That is just for Humans, of course. Consider: if a Human and an Elf both start adventuring at the analogous ages — say, 18 and 125 — and they are both killed on the same day by the same dragon, then the Human has lost 30 or 40 potential life years, and the Elf has lost some 200. Does that make one death more of a tragedy than the other? Probably not. Still, the fact is that whereas most NPCs will probably die of old age, most adventurers will die of violence.

You're not fooling anyone chief, please leave.

As most people age, they tend to get less healthy: muscles weaken, bones thin, reflexes slow down. Most people will hit their physical peak in their late twenties, sometimes in their thirties, after which they will notice that they are not as fit or have a harder time staying fit. Somehow, though, creatures that start adventuring at the age of 18 just keep getting more and more durable, even as their hair turns grey and their beards reach their knees. Obviously, hit points do not represent pure durability. One way to think of hit points is as a measure of “ability to withstand harm.” A Wizard might rise from level two to level eight in the space of one year and become significantly harder to kill, but his bones have not become laced with unbreakable metal (probably). Hit points can be thought of as representing a number of factors. Here are just three of them:

1) Actual Health. Actual Health. Actual Health. Adventuring is a high-exercise lifestyle. You do a lot of walking, a certain amount of heavy lifting, and you get plenty of fresh air. The more you do it, the tougher you get. 2) Pain Threshold. Pain Threshold. A Pain Threshold. first-level Fighter might get knocked out by a single punch, not because she is more delicate, but because she is not used to getting punched. The hit comes as a bigger shock, emotionally and physically. By the time a Fighter reaches level 10, she has probably gotten punched many times. She is used to it. She knows how it feels and knows she will survive it and, as a result, she can handle taking a few more hits. 3) Skill. A Skill. Rogue who gets stabbed once learns that he does not want to get stabbed again. The next time he takes the same hit, his reflexes are a little bit faster and he pulls his body away. The next time a Fighter gets punched, she knows how to roll with the blow a bit better so it hurts less. Even though the amount of damage dealt might be the same, it takes off a smaller percentage of the creature’s total health because they have reduced its impact somewhat

>I'm saying that most people who like D&D have only ever played D&D
And your opinion is wrong.

4e's lingering wound rules were pretty good for that (Especially if you use the 'long lasting injuries' variant). HP is your ability to keep fighting, not meat points. If you hit 0 HP (Or bloodied) you're down and you flip a card from the injury deck and get that effect (With it upgrading to it's 'Oh god fuck' variant if you flip one you already have). How long it lasts depends on which variant you are using. Could be until a long rest or could be until you get proper medical care and surgery depending on how crunchy you want your game. These effects are all bloody nasty and cause serious impairment until treated.

Healing magic can't make it go away, save for the Cure Affliction ritual (Which takes quite some time, costs and is very risky, able to even kill the guy being treated if the spellcaster isn't up to the task).

It's not even an opinion. It's just wrong.

Yeah.
My friends are cowards who fear change, so I still gotta play D&D often despite constantly trying to put new things out there