Author Topic: Wound Points  (Read 3006 times)

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Nox_Noctis

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Wound Points
« on: May 19, 2008, 09:01:07 PM »
Wound Points: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm#woundPoints
Psychic Weapon Master: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040827d
Disciple of Dispater: Book of Vile Darkness

Agita mentioned them to me. I had read them before, but never very thoroughly. So when he mentioned them, I took a closer look. I started looking at how critical hits work. A weapon retains its original threat range. For each 1 above x2 that its critical multiplier is, it gets +1 to the threat range. Okay, so Greathammer is pretty nice with 19-20/x4. Still, there was more. Okay, so it has a threat range of 17-20. We add Improved Critical. It's 13-20. We add Disciple of Dispater. It jumps to 9-20 and then 5-20.

That's pretty nice. But what else could we add? Psychic Weapon Master does some interesting things with criticals. You can add +1 to the multiplier (+1 to the threat range, +4 after all the multiplications). That gives you 1-20. But you could argue that it only applies to one attack. It's nice, but not the be-all, end-all. But at Psychic Weapon Master 7, if you already have Improved Critical, you instead add a static +2 to the critical threat range of your weapon. Now we're talking. Your threat range permanently becomes -3 to 20. That's so good, it isn't even practical. So we can afford to lose some levels of Disciple of Dispater (since we're already spending 7 on Psychic Weapon Master, after all).

What are the benefits? Since critical hits don't deal extra damage, creatures immune to the extra damage of critical hits are not a problem. All of your hits directly affect Wound Points. As such, you're likely to reduce your enemies to disabled very quickly (since they have Wound Points equal to their constitution).

But there's more that can be done, as I'm sure many of you know. We make that an Aptitude Greathammer and suddenly we can take the Lightning Mace feat. Since every attack is a critical threat, every attack grants you an extra attack. With this, you now have infinite attacks (and thus, by the laws of probability, infinite natural 20s and also infinite damage). Have fun.



Sources Used:
  • Monster Manual IV [Greathammer]
  • Book of Vile Darkness [Disciple of Darkness, Disciple of Dispater]
  • The Mind's Eye [Psychic Weapon Master]
  • Player's Handbook [Combat Expertise, Dodge, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Greathammer), Improved Critical, Mobility, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (Light Mace)]
  • Expanded Psionics Handbook [Psionic Dodge, Psionic Weapon]
  • Complete Warrior [lightning Mace]
  • Tome of Battle [Aptitude Weapon Enhancement]
Now, the character is highly feat-intensive, but having infinite attacks is worth it in my opinion.


Also, while the applications of having infinite attacks can be made broken, if you're simply dealing damage, it need not be theoretical necessarily since you can only reduce creatures to 0 Wound points with attacks, not below.

Oh, and like most of my inventions, it allows for rebuilding to save you five levels. :)
« Last Edit: May 19, 2008, 09:14:05 PM by Nox_Noctis »
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Banor

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Re: Wound Points
« Reply #1 on: May 19, 2008, 09:04:28 PM »
IIRC Greathammer got errataed in the MM4 errata

Nox_Noctis

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Re: Wound Points
« Reply #2 on: May 19, 2008, 09:05:20 PM »
Oh, did it? Well, if you pick up Disciple of Dispater 8, it still works, I believe.

That also means you can get rid of Exotic Weapon Proficiency as a required feat, putting less stress on feats (but consuming more class levels - which, admittedly, are much more valuable).
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PhoenixInferno

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Re: Wound Points
« Reply #3 on: May 19, 2008, 11:38:35 PM »
For practical purposes you only need to get to 2, since a natural 1 is still a miss.  I don't think reducing your crit range to negatives will ever change that.

Nox_Noctis

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Re: Wound Points
« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2008, 03:29:33 AM »
Yes, but making it 1-20 activates Lightning Mace on a one even though it's a automatic miss. I realize that negative range doesn't help, but if Greathammer was indeed erratad, then you actually won't hit negative. Further, in the case it is not erratad, I made a note for how to change the build since you don't need that wide of a threat range (dropping excess Disciple of Dispater levels).

The eventualities have been planned for. :)
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Rymosrac

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Re: Wound Points
« Reply #5 on: May 20, 2008, 12:45:55 PM »
. . .

Wound points just go crossed off the list of UA variants I want to try out. Excellent work. :)
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Sunic_Flames

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Re: Wound Points
« Reply #6 on: May 20, 2008, 12:53:18 PM »
. . .

Wound points just go crossed off the list of UA variants I want to try out. Excellent work. :)

Yeah, they really don't serve any purpose except letting some random mook one shot you, which means you shouldn't give a damn about your characters as they are now inherently disposable.
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Stratovarius

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Re: Wound Points
« Reply #7 on: May 20, 2008, 01:02:09 PM »
. . .

Wound points just go crossed off the list of UA variants I want to try out. Excellent work. :)

Yeah, they really don't serve any purpose except letting some random mook one shot you, which means you shouldn't give a damn about your characters as they are now inherently disposable.

I can see they've thought through this variant rather a great deal, and it makes me more leery of a good deal of the variant rules they suggest.
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Banor

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Re: Wound Points
« Reply #8 on: May 20, 2008, 01:27:30 PM »
Hum I just can't find the errata for the Greathammer... maybe I'm used to play with that house rule so much that I thought it was an actual rule :D

Nox_Noctis

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Re: Wound Points
« Reply #9 on: May 20, 2008, 08:04:39 PM »
Interestingly enough, Greathammer won't work because it is two-handed (unless you have four arms or the like), but any weapon with a x4 critical (light pick, et cetera) will work with Disciple of Dispater 8 and Psychic Weapon Master 7.

And, yes, I will now never play a game using Wound Points or run one for the same reason.
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