d20 games are designed to use hit points and attack bonuses and saving throws to determine outcomes in battle. The general idea is that a higher level character or creature is stronger than lower level ones.

However, when it comes to Death Effects, Ability Drain, Level Drain, Ability Damage, this goes right out the window.

One unlucky natural 1 can allow a level 8 to slay a level 16 in one shot.

A few summoned monsters can allow a level 12 to drain a level 20 of all their levels.

And all of this because they didn't have the "right" gear or "right" class in their party.

Some people are okay with that, this discussion is NOT for those people.

This discussion is for those who prefer to balance these things AND reduce all the needless tracking.

Edit: The goal here is to (preferably) go back to making all these things simply "hit points and conditions".

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Death Effects:
Don't automatically kill but deal 2d6 damage per caster level. If its a racial ability, their caster level is their racial HD + half all other HD (if any). A successful save doesn't half the damage but cuts it to 1/10, round down, minimum 0. A save is added if not there already, usually Fortitude unless its a mind-affecting effect in which case it's Will. Damage is negative energy unless noted otherwise (it can be any type that makes sense). Wail of the Banshee could easily become sonic damage (2d6 per caster level would be 40d6 at CL 20 or 4d6 on a successful saving throw).

Level Drain:
For every "level" a level drain effect would deal, it instead deals 4d6 negative energy to the target's hit points (save for half). In addition, the effect afflicts them with either the shaken or sickened condition until they rest or have it magically healed (passed save negates). If the target is already shaken or sickened, their conditions worsen to frightened or staggered (respectively). If the target is already frightened or staggered, their conditions worsen to panicked or nauseated (respectively). Resisting fear is a Will save and resisting sickness is a Fortitude save.

Ability Damage/Drain:
Take average for all ability damage effects. For every point of damage the effect would deal, it instead deals 1d6 nonlethal damage to the target's hit points (save for half). Drain deals lethal damage. This damage can be negative energy or poison. It can even be psychic damage but only for mind-affecting effects that target Int, Wis, or Cha.

In addition, the effect afflicts them with a condition based on the ability's targeted:

Str, Con or Dex:
1 failed save = sickened.
2 failed saves = staggered.
3 failed saves = nauseated.

Int, Wis, or Cha:
1 failed save = Distracted
2 failed saves = Nonreactive
3 failed saves = Confused

New Damage Type: Poison
"Poison" damage accumulates just like nonlethal does. Effects that restore hit points don't remove poison damage. When poison damage + nonlethal = current HP, you fall unconscious. When poison damage > current HP, you start dying, rolling stabilization normally as if you had 0 hit points. Any effect that removes ability damage removes 1d8 points of poison damage for every point of ability damage normally cured (lesser restoration for example normally removes 1d4 ability damage ~ 2 which would remove 2d8 poison and 2d8 nonlethal damage from a victim).

Poison damage is healed at the same rate regular hit points are but separately.

So a level 2 character with 18 max HP currently at 10 HP, 5 poison, and 5 nonlethal would heal 2 hp damage, 2 poison damage, and fully recover from nonlethal with a single night's rest putting them at 12 HP, 3 poison, 0 nonlethal the following day.

Nonliving creatures are immune to poison damage and effects.

New Spells:

Cure Light Ailments: As cure light wounds but instead of healing hp and nonlethal it removes poison and nonlethal.


New Conditions

Distracted:
-2 penalty to Concentration and Perception checks.
Treated as flanked by all melee attacks (giving foes +2 to attack you)
This negates Uncanny Dodge and Improved Uncanny Dodge.

Nonreactive: (worse version of distracted, doesn't stack but supersedes)
-6 penalty to Concentration and Perception checks.
Treated as flat-footed against all attacks.
This negates Uncanny Dodge and Improved Uncanny Dodge.

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EXAMPLE POISON CHANGES

Note: DCs and frequencies changed. The DC of a poison is always based on the statistical probability someone with +0 Fort would roll to match the original frequency duration. For example, normally Arsenic lasted for 4 intervals. To recreate this through the DC, we figure out what DC makes a 1/4 chance of passing the save for a +0? On a d20, that's DC16. So rather than say it lasts for 4 minutes OR cure 1 save, it simply increases the DC to 16 and 1 save passes. This is also why Black Lotus Extract DC is lower but damage is very high (since a passed save only halves the damage and you need TWO saves to end Black Lotus).

All poisons have 3 saves end now.

If a creature survives long enough to get 3 successful saves, they reduce the condition severity by 1 after an hour of rest, but thereafter only removing the poison damage can cure the remaining conditions either by natural rest or magical healing.

A creature that receives magical healing to remove poison gains a bonus to their next saving throw against poison equal to 2 + double the spell level of the healing effect they received.


*This effect is dealt only once.
**This damage may vary to other types such as Acid, Cold, Electricity, or Sonic, depending on the circumstances.
Deadly Venom and Deathblade can be used for most monster's and NPC's poisons including everything from a viper's bite to a giant wasp's sting.
***Substance is addictive. A creature that willingly takes it must make a Will save against the poison's DC upon their first failed Fortitude save or they become affected as if by the suggestion spell to attempt to acquire another dose and apply it to themselves. A creature that willingly fails their Fortitude save doesn't necessarily willingly fail their Will save.

Cost:
+1 DC = 100 gp (Base 10 before adding)
+1d6 damage = 100 gp
Frequency 1 round = x2 cost
Frequency 1 minute = normal cost
Frequency 1 hour = 1/2 cost
Injury = normal (or 1/2 if there's a delayed onset)
Ingested = 1/2 cost (or normal if there's a delayed onset)
Inhaled = x1.5 cost (or x0.75 if there's a delayed onset)
Contact = x2 cost (or normal if there's a delayed onset)

Example:
DC15, 2d6 damage costs 500 gp for DC and 200 gp for damage if an injury poison (700 total). If ingested, it's only 350 and if contact it's 1,400.

In addition, a delayed onset doubles the cost (if ingested) or halves it (if injury or contact). Delayed onset can be 1 minute, 10 minutes, or even 1 hour. Doesn't matter.

I've attempted to adjust the poisons to fit these needs.

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Conditions track notes

Disorientation:
1) -2 Int/Wis-based rolls/DCs + can't take AoOs, immediate actions, or free actions outside turn, can't charge or run
2) -2 all rolls/dcs + flat-footed
3) -4 Str/Dex rolls/DCs + everything has concealment 20% vs. you
4) -4 all rolls/dcs + blinded
5) -6 str/dex rolls/dcs + blinded + staggered
6) -6 all rolls/dcs + blinded + confused
7) -8 str/dex rolls/dcs + blinded + confused + staggered
8) -8 all rolls/dcs + unconscious

Weakening:
1) -2 Str/Dex-based rolls/DCs + can't take AoOs, immediate actions, or free actions outside turn, can't charge or run
2) -2 all rolls/dcs + lose 1 swift action each round (only get 1 move 1 standard normal free)
3) -4 Str/Dex rolls/DCs + staggered (can only take 1 standard or move action on your turn)
4) -4 all rolls/dcs + nauseated (can only take 1 move or swift on your turn)
5) -6 str/dex rolls/dcs + dazed
6) -6 all rolls/dcs + stunned
7) -8 str/dex rolls/dcs + paralyzed
8) -8 all rolls/dcs + unconscious
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:12, Fri 10 Nov 2017.

I agree death effects aren't very fun as they, as mentioned seem so random and extreme.  While I understand how they fill a niche, I agree that in most circumstances they seem to do more damage to the fun than enhance the genre.  Doing 2d6 per caster level, and basing it on a saving throw is pretty close to simply recreating the random death effect.

Why not build an alternate death effect that would often take effect, instead of the current instantaneous death.

#1 For a death effect to cause instant death/destruction the source of the death effect must exceed the target's level/HD.  (potentially reduced for negative levels currently subject to)  Otherwise, it will utilize the alternate effect.

#2 Even if it exceeds the target's HD, the target will get a saving throw, even if the spell doesn't specify one.  If this save succeeds, the target is instead subjected to the alternate death effect, instead of instant death.

My suggestion for the alternate effect.  The individual loses half their HP and is considered disabled despite probably being positive hit points.  Preforming Standard actions will strain the individual and cause them to lose a HP, however as long as their HP remain positive, they are not subject to entering the dying state due to this.  They remain disabled until brought back to max hit points using magic, healed by something equivalent to a heal spell, or they get a solid 8 hours of rest and care.  It represents the whole body, having been that close to failing suddenly.

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Negative levels, I'm not certain I agree much with your solution.  For one thing, basically, each negative level is supposed to knock you down a notch by approximately a level, but you have it doing some 14 HP average damage per level (ok, presuming you don't make a save)  I see that as worse.  It ends up just being another high damage (effectively even more than before) situation no different than other forms of damage.  Granted, the pathfinder effect really amounts to a bit more than a level if you ask me, it is still a general/close benchmark.

I'm not quite certain what creatures you are saying can drain a creature of 24 levels all of a sudden.  I'm not aware of them... most I look at seem to do one or two levels.

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Attribute damage/drain... those when occur in smaller doses, actually helps weaken someone rather than sudden death syndrome.  However, in the cases where you get really low, (or start really low) it can become 'sudden death' as they hit zero in some attribute after one hit.  [take for instance an animal hit by something that drops its INT]  A suggestion I would have, would make those last few attribute values take more to drop.  Going down to attributes with penalties, it takes that new attribute's negative value in points to drop the attribute.  [min of one point loss per effect]  So if someone with a 6 int took 1d6 INT damage, they would probably only lose down to 5 INT as that would be the min effect of 1, but would generally require 3 points of damage to drop otherwise.  However, if they rolled 6 for the damage, 6 would be enough damage to drop it down to 5 using 3 points, and have enough left over to pay the 3 more to drop it down to 4. (alternately, instead of a minimum of 1 per effect, you could make it a minimum of full point per die of damage, if you feel that scaled the damage too far back.

This would allow someone who is really strong in the attribute to really get largely impacted, but not immediately kill someone who wasn't supper strong in that attribute.


Just some thoughts, hopefully one or more either inspires something, or is usable for you.

In reply to LoreGuard (msg # 2):

I don't really like the idea of death effects or dealing % damage to creatures. Even at only "half HP", it just allows the problem to persist, just cutting it in half. So where that's certainly helpful, it doesn't get me quite where I'm aiming to go.

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Yes, that was the point actually. I wanted to steer away from the crazy penalties and tracking Pathfinder/3rd has for negatives and just make it extra damage. I want it to still be a bad thing, but not excessive.

Assume they pass half the time (7 half the time, 14 the other half) rounds to (7+14=21/2=10.5) an average of 10 damage per negative level. Add in the condition and the first negative level is worse than normal but thereafter they're very dependent on the target failing the save in order to do anything worse to them other than a little hp damage.

Oh, pretty much any method of dealing negative levels is OP, regardless whether it's summoning or a spell. Just the fact that it can be done. But a high level cleric can easily throw out a dozen vampire spawns or any undead with level drain to slap something well above their level a few times and just stat-cinerate it.

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Actually, I wanted to steer away from that progression-type of ability damage. I wanted it to simply be a condition and some damage.

The goal isn't strictly balance but also an attempt to reduce needless complexity. Focusing more attacks to simply "hit points and conditions" really helps consistently tracking become much easier. Adding a pinch of something new to eliminate a TON of needless tracking goes a long way.

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I appreciate it. Good to bounce ideas off of others again.
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:32, Fri 03 Nov 2017.

I guess you could say I don't see a big difference between a spell that does no HP damage, but automatically kills you on a failed save if you are at or below caster level, and another spell of the same level that is going to do statistically enough damage to kill a barbarian of the same level that has max HP when they fail their save.  It sill becomes all a game of chance hedged against the character.  Throwing more dice doesn't for me make is seem less so.

My suggestion then combine a reasonable damage per level, with the disabled condition despite potentially still having a positive HP.  Gives death effects a scary feel, but keeps them from being a one-shot.  it is a tweak to the Disabled condition. (basically allowing it to persist even for positive HP in that one instance, and giving a different recovery point for that instance)

As far as the negative levels go, your replacement for one negative level has become HP damage (averaging about 10 by your calculations rather than 5, as well it places an effect that is approximately equivalent to two negative levels?)

I think I understand more clearly that you seem to dislike the idea of having/tracking a number of tiers/levels for the modifiers.  (also understand now more clearly why my solution for changing cost/effect for lower attribute drains did not meet your goals, I apologize for missing that)

However, I want to point out that using your suggestion of a summoner summoning something that can cause drain, the high level target gets hit a whole bunch of times, they get knocked out of the fight.  However, I want to point out you are already using tiers, and in your case, it takes three hits and someone is pretty well out.

Could I suggest, instead of using sickened, staggered, nauseated you stick with the negative levels (you can get rid of, or revise the current recovery rules easily enough if that is part of your issue with them).  Instead simply tweak negative level stacking.  (same could be applied to attribute damage if you liked)  Basically, if you already have temporary negative levels you determine the newly applied damage and compare it to your current total.  You take the larger of the two, and simply add one to it.  (your new damage, or your old damage stacking as a single point, not as its original total)  That way, if someone was hit by a spell draining 1d6 levels, they might take a pretty big hit.  However, a second application of the spell, while there is a chance if the first attack was small, the next one might be a big hit if the attacker rolled better that time, but otherwise it will likely only be one more level.  Using this method your high level character will probably easily last longer and be less crippled after three negative drain hits than by even your method.

Lastly, I think you really under-powered the ability damage method.  Ability damage is supposed to be restored slowly, but steadily.  Making it do non-lethal damage makes it extremely short lived.  I see how it enables you to not outright kill lower level creature by being hit by such a form of damage, but it really doesn't feel right.  To make such damage last longer, I'd suggest applying it against the Max HP, and have it be limited to 1MAX HP/day (or 2 for full rest with care) rather than level HP/day.  Have Drain damage apply to the MAX HP but not restore naturally without special healing magic or conditions.

Again, you could use the same method I suggested for affecting level drain stacking to deal with ability drains as well.  As far as keeping tracking, with this stacking you compare the newest damage from the current damage and of the newer damage is less, you simply add one to the current.  If the new one is higher use it and add one (or if you want could just say use it).  This would make tracking current state really quite simple.


Retrospective:  If you are set on completely discarding the level drain components, have an effect that does 1 level drain only force the saving through for the assigned condition tier and do 2d6 negative damage to the characters MaxHP.  If a particular attack is supposed to do more levels of damage, for each additional level you add another 2d6 damage, and increase the DC for the save by 1.

I'd then go and suggest for Ability Damage, have the normal attribute damage apply 1 for 1 to the characters Max HP.  I'm just not sure how to have the damage potentially affect the DC of your condition check.  The scaling is just all off between HP and Attributes.  If you make something reasonable for lower level characters, it becomes insignificant for high level characters.  If you scale it to be impactful for high level characters you make ray of enfeeblement a necromantic cannon.

Any of those feasible?

In reply to LoreGuard (msg # 4):

I wouldn't either, which is why I specifically designed it to NOT be like that.

Hmmm, condition tweaking. I've added two new ones, but I'm sure a few tweaks here and there wouldn't be too bad.

Oh yeah, more HP damage and less tier stacking. You either have a condition or you don't and the few conditions that have tiers have only 3 tiers, so much easier to work with. Uh, no apologies necessary. I appreciate the feedback.

No, the whole point was to remove that. Although, you COULD tweak those conditions to function a bit more in tandem with a desirable scale. Say, -1, -3, -6 or something to that effect (instead of -1, run away, panic or whatever). Back to condition tweaking.

Nah, again, adding unlimited stacking tiers or percentages based on a target's stats instead of the attacker's stats would defeat the purpose in this exercise.

Dealing damage to a target's max HP vs. dealing damage is just one more thing I didn't want to have to deal with. I don't want them to be unhealable.

All great ideas, but the only one that works with what I'm trying to accomplish is the condition tweaking, since I effectively want to reduce everything to "damage and conditions" with no other way of harming a character (statistically speaking, you can still bully them and make them feel terrible about themselves emotionally if you want, LOL).

Reviewing your modifications... I'm seeking clarification.

If I understand correctly if the first level rogue with 8hp, takes 1hp piercing damage, +18hp poison damage from the assasin's blowgun dart and is sickened due to her failed save.  So she is down to 7hp and has 18hp of poison damage and 0hp of non-lethal damage.  because non-lethal + poison is over her remaining hp of 7, she begins dying.

I think the above up until that point is pretty clear.  But let me verify what comes next.  As she is dying she has passed out, she needs to make stabilization checks.  If she fails she takes 1hp lethal damage (actually taking her down to 6hp).  If she stabilizes, she stops losing lethal damage, but is unconscious until something her poisoning is remedied.

So the above is assuming excess poison damage does not translate into lethal damage.  I was guessing either is ignored, or makes recovery take longer.  This would make the nasty poisons take down lower level creatures rather quickly but not absolutely kill them immediately.  If excess Poison damage jumps to lethal damage immediately, the rogue is dead first hit.

Obviously, the choice is yours based on how you want it to work.  One alternative would be to allow poison damage to spill over to non-lethal damage before spilling over to lethal damage.  That might buy people a little time.

Anyway, I think you should make it clear what is done with excess poison damage.  Also, it would be good to clarify if when they begin dying from poison damage if their normal HP count gets artificially set to 0 or if stays positive despite being in the dying state.

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Honestly, I'd suggest turning your negative level drain into 2d6 damage, 2d6 poison damage and condition tree advance, (half damages on save, and skip condition advance)  Only do one roll save or not for this, not like poison getting damage til save.

You could make attribute drains do 1d6 non-lethal and 1d6 poison, and condition tree advance, again only one roll save or fail.  Additional rolls only from additional strikes.

Not sure where you're getting "18" from. Are you assuming they roll max damage and fail the save every single time for 3 rounds in a row? A basic poison is DC10 meaning someone with +0 has a 55% chance of success. So the chances of that happening to an "average" level 1 would be: (1/6)³ * (0.55)³ = 0.004629629 * 0.166375 = 0.077%

That's a lot less likely than the barbarians' 2d6+6 (19/x2) greatsword or the ranger's 1d8 (20/x3) longbow scoring a critical hit. Assuming a 50% chance to hit and critting only on a 20, there's a 2.5% chance to crit on each attack (average damage would be enough to kill or very close).

1st level rogue vs. assassin? Well, yeah, that rogue is pretty doomed. Lowest level assassin is 6th. That's pretty much bug vs. windshield unless the bug is very VERY lucky.

And if it's level 1 rogue vs. level 1 rogue, then that's more of an issue of the rogue stealing higher level gear from higher level characters because level 1 characters can't afford a 200 gp vial of poison.

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I could do a conditions track but that would require some reworking of a lot of the conditions. But now that you mention it, that would greatly reduce the sheer number of conditions necessary in the game.

But now you got me thinking...would a conditions track be an entirely separate rule or should I just rename this thread...?
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:58, Thu 09 Nov 2017.

In reply to Arkrim (msg # 7):

Sorry I was having the rogue be lucky and getting hit with max damage from first round of damage from a 3d6 damage nasty poison.  I was trying to come up with a question that would present the question of if someone takes 18 points of poison damage, and they have 8 HP normally, and a 10 CON.  Are they dead because poison damage takes you below zero.  Or does excess simply get dropped, or makes recovering from it harder, or does it somehow spill over to non-lethal or lethal HP damage?

I frequently get caught up in a web of my own thoughts.  I think a contemplative were-spider bit me at a very young age.

In reply to LoreGuard (msg # 8):

Oooh, I see what you mean. Yeah, I suppose they would just die if it accumulated so high as to exceed their current HP AND their Con score as per normal negative hit point rules.

I'd recommend making that intent clear in your rules then.  i.e. If your poison damage exceeds the combination of your [max?] HP and Constitution score, you die similar to hormal HP loss.

Or you could simply as I said, indicate damage over your HP spill over into either non-lethal or lethal HP damage.

You don't want it to spill over because that could completely negate the point in having poison type work differently.

Then any healing would help just the same and that's definitely not what the intent is.

However, I think I'm going to work on that conditions track you mentioned. It may be doable but it may require 4-5 tracks. But doing that could feasibly consolidate all conditions. Will take some thinking.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:58, Fri 10 Nov 2017.