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2 years ago ::
Oct 29, 2011 - 1:33AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Mar 20, 2006
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Yo fellow D&Ders,
I need rules suggestions on how to handle the loss of an eye for a character (i.e. What kind of penalties would the character incur? Would there be any ability loss? Etc.). Also, while on the subject, suggestions on how to deal with things like loss of an arm or a leg or a hand, etc. would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Nominrath
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2 years ago ::
Oct 29, 2011 - 1:41AM
#2
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There are no rules in 4e that account for this, other then suggestion in the DMG which is: Don't do that and if you do do that make sure it has no mechanical impact.
For that reason this is more appropriate in the houserules forum.
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2 years ago ::
Oct 29, 2011 - 1:46AM
#3
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None.
Don't.
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2 years ago ::
Oct 29, 2011 - 2:25AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Sep 19, 2007
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None.
Don't.
To expand on this:
The Fighter who loses a leg soon becomes the Innkeeper with lots of stories of his past as an adventurer that he tells his patrons. If you are feeling merciful, permanent disabilities are what happens when the PC fails his third death save. The end result is the same, the character is retired and the player rolls up a new one.
Do not force a player to continue to play a character that will have significant penalties (especially in relation to everyone else around the table) unless you are planning to cure or compensate the character in short order.
One example of how to compensate could be taken from Michael Moorcock's Prince Corum
Corum is a Vadhagh, a race of long-lived beings with limited magical abilities dedicated to peaceful pursuits such as art and poetry. A group of "Mabden" (men) led by the savage Earl Glandyth-a-Krae raid the family castle and slaughter everyone with the exception of Corum, who escapes. Arming himself, Corum attacks and kills several of the Mabden before being captured and tortured. After having his right hand cut off and left eye put out, Corum escapes by moving into another plane of existence, becoming invisible to the Mabden. They depart and Corum is found by a member of the Nhadragh, an old enemy of the Vadhagh. The Nhadragh takes Corum to a being called Arkyn, who treats his wounds and explains he has a higher purpose. Travelling to Moidel's Castle, Corum encounters his future lover, the Margravine Rhalina. Rhalina uses sorcery (a ship summoned from the depths of the ocean and manned by her drowned dead husband and crew) to ward off an attack by Glandyth-a-Krae. Determined to restore himself, Corum and Rhalina travel to the island of Shool, a near immortal and mad sorcerer. During the journey Corum observes a mysterious giant who trawls the ocean with a net. On arrival at the island Shool takes Rhalina hostage, and then provides Corum with two artifacts to replace his lost hand and eye: the Hand of Kwll and the Eye of Rhynn. The Eye of Rhynn allows Corum to see into an undead netherworld where the last beings killed by Corum exist until summoned by the Hand of Kwll.
However, this kind of sweeping change to a character should only be made with the player's consent and assistance. Still, better not to do it in the first place. Save those kind of permanent injuries for when a player wishes to retire a character or switch characters to give those characters a graceful and dramatic exit.
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2 years ago ::
Oct 29, 2011 - 5:51AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2008
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Okay, well aside from the fact that as Alcestis said this belongs in the homebrew forum, you'll have better luck there. But I will say that it really isn't isn't this big bad thing that everyone else is talking about.
Our group has a crit chart, where when anyone crits we roll a percentage and depending on the percentage it'll do one of the following;
Normal crit damage(over 50% range, so the most likely)
Broken Bone
Lose a limb
Lose an eye
Internal Bleeding(take bloodied value in damage instead of the damage from the attack, small chance)
Instant Death(100% only, and doesn't work for monsters)
And you know what, despite people's fear, it works fine. Broken bone tends to make and arm or leg inusable(thus can't use hand to wield weapons, or you're slowed). Same pretty much goes with lose a limb except that obviously your limb is gone which is harder to fix. Lose an eye gives a -2 atk penalty I think for the battle, but depending on how much time you have to rest afterwards the penalty may disappear as you get use to the missing eye. Already explained internal bleeding, which only has like a 5% chance of being picked, and then instant death is self explanatory but the monsters can't roll it so we as players don't have to worry about a monster rolling 100%.
So you lose a limb, yeah you'll be hindered if it's a leg but then the group can just cobble together a crutch or something. Lets them think outside the box. Once in a battle my pally lost his leg but we were somewhere where we couldn't get it fixed so we used a bone from the dragon we killed as a sort of peg leg. Now, while saying that it didn't make a big difference, and wasn't this whole, "oh the character is useless and done for good" deal that Malak thinks it is, it does require the DM to give opportunities to fix these things.
Usually in big cities, or the odd smaller town we can find a cleric who can fix the damage. May take a little time, may not depends. But that's all you have to do. Just have NPCs available that can fix the damage usually when the players return to town, or get to a town. It really isn't that big a deal, though yeah as mentioned there are no actual rules because it is the kinda thing that really should be an option catered to the group and how far they want to go, not just a standard set of rules by Wizards that you'd have to follow.
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2 years ago ::
Oct 29, 2011 - 6:10AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Feb 26, 2006
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In a nutshell, if you are going to implement these long term injuries, they shouldn't have any mechanical impact except perhaps for a VERY brief time after they occur. The character should have some immediate opportunity to remedy the situation, if not by directly healing the problem then at least by cobbling together an appropriate prosthetic (Like Ash's mechanical gauntlet hand in Army of Darkness). Let the injury impact the STORY but not the MECHANICS.
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2 years ago ::
Oct 29, 2011 - 10:14AM
#7
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Date Joined:
Mar 15, 2008
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You could do this, allowing for the Remove Affliction ritual to fix the problem.
If you allow for that, then something like loss of eye could be reflected with creatures not adjacent to the PC have partial concealment. It's a mechanical impact, one that is not going to completely destroy the character, and one that has a clear method of being overcome.
This should be the pattern for any such effects like this you introduce. The mechanical impact should not prevent the character from contributing meaningfully to the party. If it does prevent that, then you can no longer count that PC toward the size of the party for determining XP budgets for encounters.
Likewise, if there is no way for the character to overcome the disability, the character is best dealt with by being retired. Since players can become attached to their characters, you should always allow for a way to remove the disability.
So, always make sure your characters can contribute meaningfully to an encounter, and always allow for a means to remove the problem.
Also if you want to do stuff like this in your 4e game, you would be strongly advised to secure the agreement of the players before doing so. 4e has certain assumptions tied to it, and changing those assumptions can fundamentally change the play experience, therefore it is in the best interest of everyone involved to make sure everybody involved is okay with that experience changing.
But mostly check the homebrew forum, there will be tons of ideas there (not all good ideas, but not all bad either). I recommend finding something there you like and think is fair to the PCs, and presenting it to them to critique and vote on, before you introduce this element into your campaign. None of this is supported by the Rules as Written.
"Not only are you wrong, but I even created an Excel spreadsheet to show you how wrong you are." --James Wyatt, May 2006
Dilige, et quod vis fac
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2 years ago ::
Oct 29, 2011 - 10:48AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Jun 15, 2004
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I need rules suggestions on how to handle the loss of an eye for a character (i.e. What kind of penalties would the character incur? Would there be any ability loss? Etc.). Also, while on the subject, suggestions on how to deal with things like loss of an arm or a leg or a hand, etc. would be appreciated.
I'd probably give them –1 to all attack rolls, skill checks, saving throws, and ability checks, until three milestones are reached.
From the forum FAQ, if desired:
"How do you disarm someone? The writers purposefully left out disarming as a basic option (although some powers like 'Exorcism of Steel' allow it). However, when an enemy is defeated you can describe them as disarmed (or crippled, etc.) instead of slain (addressed in WotC’s Podcast #29)"
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