Wounds and Vigor

Health has always been a part of roleplaying games. There needs to be a way to tell when you're getting killed. D&D, being mostly a combat simulation, has always been very concerned about the intricacies of combat. However, the HP mechanic from D&D is very simple, so simple that many have a problem with it. Including us. So, we instead ported a wound/vigor system, with it's own little aspects.

Wound Points
All characters have a number of Wound Points equal to double their Constitution score. They also have a wound threshold equal to their Constitution score. When a creature’s wound points drop to or below its wound threshold, that creature becomes wounded. When a creature is wounded, it gains the staggered condition until it is no longer wounded. Furthermore, when a creature is wounded, if that creature takes any standard or move action on its turn, its remaining wound points are reduced by 1 and it must make a DC 10 Stamina check. If the creature fails that check, it falls unconscious. When a creature reaches 0 or fewer wound points, it is dead.

Vigor Points
However, creatures can also gain Vigor Points. Vigor represents a creature’s ability to avoid the majority of actual physical damage it might take from an attack. When a creature takes damage, the damage typically reduces its vigor points first. Some special attacks deal wound point damage directly or deal both vigor and wound point damage (such as Critical Hits).

Gaining Vigor Points is a somewhat complicated affair, because there are different levels of Vigor Points. For each dice purchaced, the cost for the subsuquent dice increases. The price on the chart indicates the total number of experience points that needs to be spent to purchase the die listed. After the initial purchace of vigor points, a die may be increased later by spending the difference in points between the die already purchaced and the die desired. The cost is dependant on the number of the die that you are increasing. The experience cost of Vigor can be seen on the following chart.

A player may always choose to take the average Vigor gained for their die rather than actually rolling the die to determine their Vigor. They may gain 2 Vigor for a d4, 3 Vigor for a d6, 4 Vigor for a d8, 5 Vigor for a d10, or 6 Vigor for a d12.

If at a later date during character creation the player decides to increase one of their die to a higher die type (i.e. a d4 to a d6, etc.), they must either have their rolls for Vigor written down or re-roll all of their vigor die to determine total Vigor. If the values are written down, they need only re-roll the one die.

Character Creation Example
Ellen the Barbarian has a constitution of 13, so has a total of 26 Wound points (2x constitution score). This means that at 13 Wound points, she will begin the process of dying as described above. In order to prevent this, she desires to purchase Vigor with the 30 experience points that she has set aside. She first purchases 4d4 Vigor for a total cost of 20 experience (2+4+6+8). She then decides to increase her first d4 to a d12 at a cost of 4 additional experience (6 - 2) for a totoal of 24 experience spent on Vigor. She then decides to increase her second d4 to a d10. Referencing the second row, she finds that it will cost her a total of 6 more experience (10 - 4) to increase her second d4 to a d10. For a total experience cost of 30, Ellen now has 1d12+1d10+2d4 Vigor. She decides to take the average for each die so has a total of 15 Vigor.

Combat Example
Ellen the Barbarian is fighting a sewer rat the size of a small cow. During the first round of combat, the rat happens to hit Ellen with a critical hit. The Game Master tells her that because of the critical, she takes 3 Wound point damage and 9 additional damage. Ellen now has 23/26 Wound points because of the rat and the remaining damage all goes into her vigor which leaves her with 6/15 Vigor. The next round, the rat strikes again without a critical hit and deals her 4 more damage. Because she has enough vigor remaining, all of the damage goes into her vigor points, leaving her with 23/26 Wounds and 2/15 Vigor. The following round the rat's buddy jumps out of the shadows and both of the rats happen to hit her, one dealing 9 damage and one dealing 7 damage. The first 2 damage takes out the remaining Vigor points and the rest is dealt as Wound points leaving Ellen with 11/26 Wound Points and 0/15 Vigor. Ellen is now suffering the ill effects of dying as described above.