Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
From: thiggins@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tarry Higgins)
Subject: Re: Sowrds of Sharpness and Incredible Constitution
Reply-To: thiggins@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 20:08:48 +0000


> TITLE: Sowrds of Sharpness and Incredible Constitution
> 
> Well, in recent gaming sessions my group has come up with a couple
> of interesting questions.
> 
> One, we just found a sword of sharpness, in the DMG it just says that on an
> exceptional good hit 19 or 20 the sword severs a limb.  But nothing about
> damage, loss of blood or shook, basically the guy takes 2-9 points of
> damage plus str bonus and losses a limb but shrugs it of, this seems very
> unrealistic.  This sword is only worth 3K exp less than the vorpal blade
> which gives you an insta kill, if you hit well.  So we came up with an
> unsatisfactory tempory solution, but i'd hoped that maybe you'd be able
> to come up with something a little better.  This is what we did: on a 
> sever roll 1-4 to see which limb is severed (head not possible), and then
> triple damage.  This is what we went with and is all right, we thought about
> triple damage if this is over half total hits, then the person had to safe
> verus death magic or die from shock, or possible just fall unconsious.  Any
> input on this would be appreciated.  I think we're looking for something
> not too complicated, as we don't want to slow the game down too much, bue
> something a little more realistic would help.

Why do you need to uppower the sword, its already gross.  Cutting off 
somebodies limb will be hinderance enough for them, all this doing 
triple damage, and extra bleeding damage is way too much.  A person 
has about 10hp max (real hp), the rest is combat skill, luck, 
intuition, etc, so the sword does damage that is appropriate.  If a 
person has had an arm chopped off then he has the disadvantages of 
that, and other than the pain, which when on an adrenelin high you 
can ignore, additional spurious penalities are unnecessary.  If no 
left arm, no shield, therefore ac reduction, if no right arm no 
primary weapon, therefore combat reduction.  If no leg then fall 
over, no movement beyond 10'-20' a round (crawling speed), no 
dexterity bonus, and -2 ac (being on ground)

> Two, we have a VERY healthy elf in our group, he has a 20 con.  At this lofty
> hieght, he is entitled to regeneration a one point per hour. Our question is
> what if he sustains enought damage to take him below -10, does he die or
> does his regen still work and eventually he will get back up like a troll.  In
> second edition it says regular damage (other than acid and fire) will be healed
> at this excelerated rate, but unlike the ring of regen desc. it doesn't say
> anything about avoiding death.  We figured that a troll would have about a 54
> con and that this is a little above a 20 and so that might be a misleading 
> comparison.  I think we kind of decided that he still would die if -10 was
> reached, but we would again appreciate your comments.
> 
gross elf, but OK.  If youre using the death at -10 rule (which we 
do), rather than death at 0 (standard rule), then at -10 he dies, his 
system just can't take any more.  You may alternativly want to extend 
the death point below -10 to account for the incredible constitution, 
to say -12, as the standard max elf CON is 18 and he's 2 beyond that. 
 Another alternative to death at -10 is to have death at -con for all 
players.  This however enhances the survivability of all pcs.  


thiggins@cix AKA Taz AKA Tarry A Higgins

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd