I've run into a few problems when playing WFRP 2e, and one of the more grievous aspects is the healing system.  As with all HP/wounds/Critical Existence Failure systems, the entire thing doesn't make sense.  For those of you unfamiliar with the system, you start with about 12 wounds and the average sword is doing 1d10 + 3 damage, so you're in danger of death.  (And since your maximum wounds tops out around 20, you're always in danger of death.)  That's good because the system is about a crapsack world where people are diseased, dying, or dead.

However, the system is bad.  Rather than working combat into something where people become exhausted due to their injuries and have difficulty carrying on, the game presents a system where you are either conscious and taking a knife to the gut or conscious and taking critical hits.  There's no getting knocked out, there's no weakness, there's no nothing that is interesting (at least in my experience).  Combat very quickly turns into a slog between groups, where whoever gets a lucky hit wins by decapitating his opponent.  And then once combat is over and (hopefully) the PCs are victorious, they're left at a fraction of their wounds and the adventure grinds to a halt as the barber-surgeon attempts to heal everyone.  Once the PCs have been healed for a small amount of HP--those lucky enough to have the surgeon succeed on his skill tests--the adventure sort of grinds to a halt.  The PCs have the option of resting and regaining a pittance of their wounds or chugging healing potions to get back to their full strength and then march onward.  Or they can have the local priest hand out what amounts to infinite healing.

This is basically shit for multiple reasons:

1. There's not much tension in battle.  Because characters are so often on the razor's edge of death/good-as-dead-due-to-a-crippling-wound, combat turns into a relatively boring slugfest with whoever scores the first Ulric's Fury winning.  This is compounded by the fact that it is basically impossible to be knocked out--you're either up and fighting or dead due to some asshole tearing your arm off and bleeding out in a puddle of your own blood and feces.

2. It doesn't simulate "grim 'n' gritty" very well at all.  Potion chugs and at-will heal spam are ridiculous in a setting that is supposed to be about how life is hard.

3. It doesn't make sense.  If I function just as well at 20 HP as I do at 1 HP, why am I arbitrarily assigned as being "heavily wounded" at 1 HP and stuck on the slowboat to recovery?

4. It makes the game frustrating to play.  "Well, everyone's close to death, so we're going to have to wait a week for everyone to heal up and then continue the adventure."  Yawn.

To solve this problem, I was thinking about the 4e healing system.  Despite my lack of fondness for things like "warlord yelling at his allies to heal them," the concept of healing surges isn't entirely awful.  In fact, I think that it could be adapted to a world without magical healing.  Thus, without further ado:

Fatigue, Recovery, and Wounds
Wounds
Wounds are an abstract representation of a character's toughness--his ability to resist damage, to turn potentially fatal strikes into glancing blows, and absorb various forms of punishment.  As long as a character's wounds are greater than zero, he is able to press onward and fight without hindrance.  Once a character's wounds are reduced to zero or fewer, however, he is knocked unconscious and begins dying.

Fatigue
All characters have a total of three (3) fatigue levels that correspond to their state of enervation: Weary, Exhausted, and Collapsing.  Each level of fatigue weakens a character further until the point when he cannot function properly.

Characters who have one (1) level of fatigue are Weary.  While they suffer no penalties to their abilities, they are in danger of further weakness that will hamper them.

Characters who have two (2) levels of fatigue are Exhausted.  They take a -10% penalty to all skill tests that they make, and their movement is reduced by 1.

Characters who have three (3) levels of fatigue are Collapsing.  They take a -20% penalty to all skill tests that they make, and their movement is reduced by 2.

Characters who have four (4) or more levels of fatigue are immediately rendered unconscious.  The penalties for varying levels of fatigue are not cumulative; only the worst applies.

Damage, Dying, and Death
Every time a character takes damage, his wounds are reduced.  Whenever a character is struck or otherwise exposed to damage, he is weakened.  The minimum damage that a character can take from an attack is one (1) wound.  Even if a character's Toughness Bonus and Armor Points would negate the attack, the character still takes one (1) wound in damage as his body is taxed.

Unconsciousness and Dying
If a character sustains enough damage that he is reduced to zero (0) or fewer wounds, he is immediately rendered unconscious, falling to the ground.  He is also at risk for dying.  On the beginning of his next turn, the character must make a Challenging (+0) Toughness test.  Success indicates that he is stabilized--unconscious but not at risk for dying.  Failure indicates that he is unstable--unconscious and dying from his injuries.

If a character is ever reduced to a number of negative wounds that total his maximum number of positive wounds, he immediately dies.  (A character with 12 wounds could thus be reduced to -11 wounds before death; reducing him to -12 or fewer wounds, however, would spell the end for him.)

Unstable Characters
If a character is unstable, he must continue to make Challenging (+0) Toughness tests at the beginning of his turn.  If he fails the test, he immediately loses two wounds.  This process continues until he stabilizes or dies, whichever comes first.

Stabilizing via Medicine
If a character trained in Heal can reach an unstable character, he may attempt to stabilize him by making a Routine (+10) Heal test as a half action.  If he succeeds, his patient immediately stabilizes and no longer needs to make Toughness tests each round.

Recovery
Recovering Wounds via Fatigue Levels
Although the corporeal form can only sustain so much abuse before it gives out, its capacity to recover from even grievous injury is remarkable.  Even a fledgling surgeon can patch up characters to the point where they can continue onward.

When not in combat and stopping for a short rest (usually in duration from 5-10 minutes), characters can choose to voluntarily gain fatigue levels to recover their wounds.  Taking a single level of fatigue allows a character to immediately regain half his maximum number wounds (so a character with a maximum of 12 wounds would regain 6 wounds).  A character trained in the Heal skill can make a Routine (+10) Heal test at this time to allow a character to immediately regain his total maximum number of wounds (so a character with a maximum of 12 wounds would regain 12 wounds).

Even unconscious characters can do this to regain consciousness, but they must be stabilized before doing so.  Characters who already have three (3) levels of fatigue cannot regain wounds in this manner and must instead rest to recover.

Recovering Wounds and Fatigue Levels via Rest
Characters may choose to rest instead of gaining levels of fatigue to heal (which often is a wise decision).  In resting, a character must spend at least eight ( hours sleeping in a restful environment to fully recover.  When a character successfully rests, he immediately is restored to his maximum number of wounds and loses all levels of fatigue.

Characters who are prevented from sleeping (perhaps from having rocks thrown at them while they rot in a moldering jail cell) do not recover as normal and remain weakened.  However, if they can manage at least four (4) hours of sleep, they regain half their maximum number of wounds and regain a single level of fatigue.  (Particularly hardy--or foolhardy--characters may do this in order to press on even in the face of difficult circumstances.)

No matter the circumstances, however, characters may only rest once per day.  If their rest is interrupted, they may choose to partially recover (as described above, assuming that they have rested at least four hours) or they can begin resting anew to gain the full benefits of resting.

I never had these problems with WFRP 1e and certainly healing wasn't that easy to find.

Remember that D&D HP doesn't equal blood, flesh and tears the way WFRP's Wounds really do equal the damage to the physical body. Since so much of HP are luck, metaphysical hero stamina, and heroic vigor, the warlord's HP healing makes more sense in that context. WFRP uses Fate points for that stuff.

Your houserules look fine, but consider going with 3 levels of Fatigue instead to keep it simpler. I am unsure how they fix your "potion chug" problem of adventuring though.

I would make magical/potion healing cause a level of fatigue (a lá Wheel of Time) to restore wounds.  Potion healing would probably just do the basic "half maximum" healing (to encourage its use only in emergencies) while magical healing would heal Magic Rating + half maximum.

I'm also thinking you're right about just three levels of fatigue--it'd make it less of hassle to keep track of.  Will update that later, though; will have to think on it longer.  Perhaps Toughness checks while dying don't cause fatigue but merely slow/stop bleeding out and being knocked unconscious immediately causes a level of fatigue?

Seems like an awful lot of complication.

A 0 wounds make a toughness check to see if you are ko'd.  If not keep fighting or do the smart thing and run since the next hit will probably cost you a fate point.

Quote from: kryyst;470977Seems like an awful lot of complication.

A 0 wounds make a toughness check to see if you are ko'd.  If not keep fighting or do the smart thing and run since the next hit will probably cost you a fate point.

Necromancy bump to say that this is excellent and I'm totally stealing it.

I'm sort of wrestling with a fatigue mechanic for my WFRP game, but I haven't quite hit the right note, yet.  With a game where you whiff as often as you do in this one, I end up needing some cap where I can say "ok, you both collapse against each other in a boxer's huddle, panting for breath and struggling to keep hold of your weapons".  Other than me just getting sick of the fight and calling it, haha.

(I should also admit that I only just stumbled across the combat modifiers for being outnumbered in the 2e book, which will probably ameliorate the whiff factor a bit.)