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Any suggestions where I should look for inspiration for potential effects of damage on specific body parts in D&D3.5?

I am not interested in how to generate the called shots, just their potential effects. I am not looking for 'funny' effects - e.g. hit in the nuts kind of jokes - , dramatic effects or realistic/simulation effects. I am looking for effects, which would affect performance and make sense in 3.5 mechanics, e.g. if you get hit in the leg for 4 points, you will not be able to run until the leg is healed, or you will get -4 to STR for the purposes of determining encumbrance. The effects should vary according to damage done, e.g. 8 points of damage should impact the performance more than 2 points of damage, although the effect does not need to be exactly 4x stronger. There is no need to worry about hits dealing more than 15 points of damage because this is about the maximum damage that matters in this context. The strength of the effect should be defined by damage alone not by the location, e.g. in principle, 4 points of head damage should NOT give a more severe effect than 4 points of leg damage. I am not looking for a finished or completely balanced sub-system but for a (long) list of comparable effects to get ideas.

Background information. We are playing something that could be described here as very low level and non-competitive game. The game is basically 3.5 ed, with a few major exceptions. One of them is how damage works. The system is somewhat similar with Pathfinder Wounds&Vigor . To make a brief summary: PCs have HPs (which work like HPs) and life points, which equal their CON score. Once your hit points are gone the damage takes life points, i.e. results in wounds. Once your life points are gone you are incapacitated but not necessarily dead. Wounds are supposed to somehow affect your performance, hence the question.

This... is horrible.

I... this...

Ugh. Ignoring everything after the first line...

Any suggestions where I should look for inspiration for potential effects of damage on specific body parts in D&D3.5?

I'd look to various feats where attacks give status effects as your guidelines. There's the various rogue feats where you trade in sneak attack damage to provide various status effects like hamstringing legs and what have you.

If you're treating Wounds as basically negative hit points where you don't have to be unconscious but it'll cost you in the long term to stay up, ignore any complaints. That's a fine alternative to sitting out the combat. Just make the recovery and such not insurmountable, as there is magic in them thar hills.


Now, a list.

• Fatigued, Exhausted, Paralysed. For "strength damage" type things, these conditions already suit fine.
• Entangled, Slowed, Held. For "dexterity damage" type things, ....
• Half max Vigour, 1 per level max Vigour, zero Vigour recovery. Con ....
• Compelled, Charmed, Dominated. Because you want to attack people's minds? I don't know either, but I like those outcomes for illusiory attacks.
• Distracted, Confused, Stunned. For getting hit in the head.
• Shaken, Frightened, Panicked. Boo! People really do panic when they're dying.

I wonder what Eldricht monster Eric saw that he got so scared. HPs work like they always do. The idea is, of course, to enable PCs to be relevant after dropping to zero hp. To overcome pain and perform heroic deeds etc. Also, the idea is to avoid the binary alive/dead approach of D&D because it is terribly counter intuitive.

Giant critical hit/fumble tables like the ones used in ICE games!!!

Very roughly how do you intend to determine when these conditions are triggered, and which are triggered? Just out of curiosity.

beejazz wrote:Very roughly how do you intend to determine when these conditions are triggered, and which are triggered? Just out of curiosity.

'When' - immediately after you reach 0 hp and each time you get additional damage. 'Which' - no system at the moment. Hit location is typically determined by rolling a die. Sometimes this is dictated by the situation, e.g. small monsters are more likely to attack legs. The effect is currently MTP. I would prefer to have some guidelines (hence the question) although I do not think I have enough motivation to come up with a formalized system.

I have a rough table of ideas you could borrow. In my game I went with random wounds, with a wound type axis and a wound intensity axis. Wounds trigger when a single attack deals lots of damage in mine. In yours, you could key the intensity of the wound to the damage total. There are two wounds on my chart that might not fit with the low WP totals because they deal subsequent hp damage (bleed and bonus damage).

Food for thought:

1 Left leg (penalized/disabled/destroyed)
2 Right leg (penalized/disabled/destroyed)
3 Left arm (penalized/disabled/destroyed)
4 Right arm (penalized/disabled/destroyed)
5 Knockback (disengaged/+prone/+stunned)
6 Stun (stunned/ +staggered/ +KO)