5e Lingering Injuries

In my D&D 5e game, I have replaced massive damage with lingering injuries, but I have never posted the rules. There were a few design considerations when devising this dismemberment table:

1. I wanted something small and simple, rather than a fiddly subsystem with multiple tables for an eventuality that is frankly rather rare.
2. I wanted something painful. Dismemberment happens rarely, but it should matter when it does. Even if there is a save, it should not negate a consequence.
3. I wanted diegetic, not mechanical penalties. While -4 Strength is painful, it is also patently unfun. On the other hand, "You cannot speak." or "You have only one arm." are painful and interesting, because they force the player to actively adapt, rather than do the same old with lower bonuses.

You tell me whether I succeeded or not.

 

Jan Žižka

  

While a character cannot go below 0 hp, when a hit would result in enough surplus damage to take them below negative Constitution score in hit points, they roll on the dismemberment table.

Write the surplus damage down next to the injury taken. To remove an injury, first a medical treatment (and a successful Medicine check) is needed, then this surplus damage must be healed. Whenever a character receives (natural or magical) healing, they can decide to regain hp, or to reduce the surplus damage from one of their injuries.

d10 Dismemberments

1. Panicking, you block the blow with your weapon - successfully, but you only hold a half of your weapon now. Magical weapons get a Dexterity saving throw. On success, you were only disarmed.
2. The blow was so hard that your armour is all twisted, sundered and useless now. At least all your limbs are still attached. Magical armours get a Dexterity saving throw. On success, you were only sent flying backwards.
3. Suddenly, blackness. Until this injury is healed, you are in a coma.
4. Blood everywhere! So much blood! Until this injury is healed, gain +1 Exhaustion level for every strenuous action. Fighting or casting spells is strenuous. Lying in a ditch or shuffling around is not.
5. Something inside you is broken. Lose all Hit Dice and you cannot regain hp naturally until this injury is healed.
6. You spit teeth and blood. You cannot speak or cast spells until this injury is healed.
7. Ouch, my eye! A successful Constitution saving throw means it is too bruised to use, but can be healed. A failure means you are left with an empty socket.
8. Crunch! Lose d2 legs. A successful Constitution saving throw means they are broken, but can be healed. A failure means they are no longer attached to your body, and healing the injury only stops the bleeding.
9. Crunch! Lose a random arm. A successful Constitution saving throw means it is broken, but can be healed. A failure means it is no longer attached to your body, and healing the injury only stops the bleeding.
10. Blood is dripping from your nose, but you have to laugh. Regain 1 hp and immediately get an extra turn.

Difficulty of all mentioned checks is either half surplus damage or 10, whichever is higher.

Class: Ogre Ape

Depending on the setting, this could be an ogre, an ape, or an ogre ape. (Or a half-giant, or a goliath, even a really brawny barbarian. Any big guy/gal, really.) It has a touch of James Young's barbarian, SaltyGoo's ogre and Skerples' brawler.

Ogre Sitting by vshen

 

Quest: Visit the Ape Islands, or defeat and devour a bear by your lonesome.

Language: dialect basically unheard of Around Here

Items: loincloth, greatclub (d10)

Skills: Astrology, Cooking, Fishing, Herb Lore

A: Unconquered, Half-Naked

B: choose one of Commanding Roar or Powerful Presence

C: Unbreakable

D: choose one of Silverback Punch or Withstand

Unconquered

You are an eight foot tall slab of muscle.

Your unarmed attacks deal d4 damage. Double your base maximum HP.

This probably requires a bit of an explanation. In my current ruleset, you have base HP based on Constitution and extra HP from class levels. So if your rules have for example Meat and Grit, double the Meat. If nothing like that is applicable, maybe step up their hit dice, or simply give them +2 HP per level?

Half-Naked

You are immune to the negative effects of weather and hypothermia.

Commanding Roar

Once per encounter, you can give a one-word command to a humanoid that is smaller than you. It can choose to fall prone instead of obeying the order.

Powerful Presence

At the start of each round, you can decide how creatures smaller than you react to you: They either avoid fighting you unless there is no other choice, or they gang up on you, ignoring your teammates.

Unbreakable

Once ever when you would die, instead regain full HP and gain a cool scar.

Silverback Punch

Once per session, you can knock anything unconscious. This can be used even against things like golems or doors, where unconsciousness should be interpreted liberally.

Withstand

Once per session, completely ignore an attack or effect. If it would normally continue further, you also shield everyone behind you.

This negates secondary effects too (If a trap swings a huge stone hammer at you and you withstand it with your face, you also won't be knocked back.), but may not help much against ongoing effects. (When splashed with liquid flame, you can withstand the initial damage, but you will still be on fire.)

Ritual of Communion

No wizard is to be trifled with lightly, but when several wizards join forces, they become the stuff of nightmares. Especially if they literally join forces via the ritual of communion.

Winter Solstice by shk28

All wizards partaking in a communion must be within a pre-made magic circle. The wizard who initiates the ritual becomes the communion master, the rest are communion slaves. Communion slaves cannot use magic until they break communion by stepping outside of the circle.

The communion master gets access to MD and spells of all communion slaves, and can use them as if they were his own.

Only one participant is affected by any Mishaps or Dooms triggered during communion. The communion master chooses who is affected - potentially shunting any consequences of powerful spells onto a communion slave. This is often kept secret from the communion slaves, for obvious reasons.

Wizard shackle: Most often forged in the form of a ring or manacle, it obviates the need for a magic circle when starting a communion. The bearer of the master ring can draw upon anyone wearing a linked shackle.

Legendary Resistance-less

Legendary Resistance (3/day): If the creature fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.

I dislike this ability. It is not fun at all.

I understand why it exists - because otherwise there are way too many save or suck powers that can easily leave any boss struggling to take a single turn while the party murders them - but giving the boss several Get Out of Jail Free cards per day, with no clear indication to the players that their attack worked and the monster just decided that "Nope, I don't like that!" feels unfair and unfun to me. On a second thought, giving a clear indication what just happened might be worse, as the player just wasted a limited resource and there is not even a trick to be learnt and abused later - it just doesn't work until brute-forced by running the boss out of their daily uses.

 

Here are d6 alternatives to Legendary Resistance. While this is parlance specific to D&D 5e, these abilities should be easy to use for any OSR boss just as well.

1. Save Immunity: The boss automatically succeeds on any saving throws it is proficient in.

I like immunity on bosses more than resistances. Giving a boss one or two immunities and clearly communicating that to the players gives them a nice restriction to work around, which breed creativity. Giving a boss some resistances basically just prolongs combat.

2. Save Adaptation: The boss automatically fails when it makes a saving throw of each type for the first time, but always succeeds afterwards.

A variation on Save Immunity, this means that the players' powers just work (fun) but cannot keep the boss bound for long (also fun). It also forces the players to change their approach each round - no spamming the same spell over and over. Few fights will take more than 4 or 5 rounds and this power should reset between encounters, so the boss probably won't become immune to everything.

3. Purge: As a bonus action, remove one effect affecting the boss.

This should be a bonus action, so that the boss can use it without giving up its turn completely, but works best if the boss has other bonus actions that will compete for their place in the action economy. You can debuff the boss, but it will rarely last more than a round. Still, it will cost it a bonus action it could otherwise use for more nefarious purposes. Plus if you can layer several effects, or somehow force it to use its other bonus action, you can keep the debuffs going. This is my second favourite, as it gives the GM some fun decisions to make in the heat of combat and at the same time prevents the boss from sucking for long even if it fails every single saving throw.

4. Reflect: When targeted by a spell that allows a saving throw, the boss and the caster roll an opposed ability check. If the caster fails, their spell is redirected back at them.

Very scary power that nonetheless doesn't help if the boss fails and gets caught in whatever nasty spell the wizard had prepared. High risk, high reward.

5. Unfair Exchange: As an action, the boss targets one enemy that must make a saving throw. On failure, the boss and the target exchange all their temporary effects.

The boss tries to switch its debuffs for a PC's buffs. Once again, very scary but dependant on a failed saving throw of the PC.

6. Redirect: As a reaction when it fails a saving throw, the boss can redirect the effect to one of its nearby underlings.

This is pretty close to the original Legendary Resistance, but the players get a clear indication that their power worked, that the boss is evil, abusing its minions like that, and that there is a solution - remove all minions. Also their power still works, if against a minion, so nothing feels wasted. This is my definite favourite.

For extra fun, instead of minions, give the boss several fully independent shadow clones and have it switch places and effects with the clones. Chaos reigns.