One person even mentioned wounds as
armor. Which I sort of used in my old freeform system I made once
upon a time. In my system there were different levels of wounds once
one of the lower damage levels got filled up it took bigger hits to
hurt the character. You could also use a flat increase to the armor
type or whatever, depending upon the system.
One issue that got brought up with the
reverse death spiral is that players may start keeping their players
'on edge' or constantly wounded. Never using that healing potion,
lower level healing spells, etc, just to constantly get the bonus.
It was pointed out this was done in the City of Heroes MMORPG with
one of their classes turning them into a 'walking wounded' class.
My solution for it was this. The
bonuses are only in affect during the fight in which the damage was
taken. Once that fight is over the adrenaline stops flowing, the
aches really begin and the blood loss starts to build up. So they
are back to no bonus for the next encounter and maybe only a few hit
points left so not much of a chance to build a bonus then. Therefore
it becomes important to keep healed up between fights.
Heck you could even turn the reverse
into a normal death spiral after the fight. Which is what I would
most likely do.
