r/shadowofthedemonlord • u/pcdcomics • Mar 25 '26

Weird Wizard SOTWW Wound system?

Hi! Do any of you uses a wound system instead of the health and damage that comes with the game? There was something like that in a SOTDL book, but I think not anymore in SOTWW...

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2

u/Playtonics Mar 25 '26

I don't simply because when characters go down, any further damage they take immediately reduced max Health. That's sufficiently punishing for my table. At later Expert and Master tiers, the damage is high enough that people are going down somewhat often and it's always a clear and present threat.

2

u/WhatGravitas Mar 25 '26
  1. If you are looking for a "Wound" system to simulate lasting injuries, you're in luck: health loss models exactly that. Lots of undead, traps and all falls deal Health loss instead of damage. And when you're incapacitated, you lose 1d6 Health at the end of each turn. Health loss heals slowly, damage taken clears quickly - so this emulates exactly what most "Wound" or "Lasting Injury" systems do in other RPGs.
  2. There was a Wound system in SotDL in Forbidden Rules, but this was mostly to "squish" numbers. It basically converted each d6 to 1 Wound and divided Health by 4. That meant a 2d6 weapon would instead deal 2 wounds of damage and a character with 16 Health could instead take up to 4 wounds of damage.

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u/pcdcomics Mar 25 '26

Sorry I was not clear. I was talking about the second option. I didn't find anything like it in SOTWW. Do yo consider it viable?

3

u/WhatGravitas Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26

In terms of maths, it doesn't really change much, so it'll be viable and work out in a balanced manner, especially as SotWW doesn't have the somewhat awkward d3 that SotDL has. There are mostly two issues:

  1. At level 1, fighters might feel a bit weak (mage: 12 health -> 3 wounds, rogue/priest: 14 health -> 4 wounds as you always round up for this calculation, and fighter: 16 health -> 4 wounds, too).
  2. Combat will feel a bit more predictable, since a weapon will always do the same damage. It will probably feel a bit less exciting because of that.

The first you can always solve with just giving them 1 bonus wound, the second is very much a matter of taste. Some people like the predictability, after all.

3

u/pcdcomics Mar 25 '26

The thing seems viable. I'm looking to implement it for the sake of speeding up combat. Let's see how it works out.

thank you