Many games include some chart and related mechanic that allows incoming damage to cause specific, sometimes gory, and usually fun effects.
Roll a 4 on the Critical Hit chart and you "Hit the guy's liver causing him to bleed out 1HP per turn and suffer a -3 on all Drinking Tests for a week!
In all seriousness, this kind of mechanic is used a lot but Ive always found a fault in them. To me it makes more sense to simply award a generic negative modifier to dang near everything the character does while he is affected by this critical injury, the specific location and nature of which not really being as important. Not only is it easier to keep track of (Bonzo has one Nasty Wound - he is -2 on all actions and attacks, speed is down 1/4 also) but it actually makes more medical sense.
This is probably debatable but as a medic in the fire service for 20+ years It was really rare to see anyone hindered specifically by a wound in a particular body part and nowhere else. If a guy broke his leg he was slow to walk sure, but he also felt like shit, had the shakes, couldnt concentrate, fumbled with the pen when signing the permission forms etc. Another guy has a hernia giving him hell. Its just his stomach that hurts but he is nauseous, stumbling around with his eyes half closed, weak as a kitten etc.
Based on my experience the notion of the very specific "You hurt your left hand and cant use a shield" only is pretty lame and a general modifier for just being "HURT" would be more logical and easier to manage in the game as well. '
THoughts?
Harnmaster does this.
If you get hit two things happen.
1) You suffer injury which is a cumulative total that acts as a negative modifier to your skill rolls and attribute save.
2) You need to make one or more attribute saves to avoid some bad result. The least of which is shock.
For example using Harn Combat Charts (http://columbiagames.com/resources/4001/harnmaster-combattables.pdf) the if I suffered 3 Injury Levels and get hit with a S2 injury in the forearm. I suffer two injury levels. I need to make two saves.
The first is a shock roll where I roll 2d6 (because of the S2 result) + my current injury level 5. If I roll less then my constitution (3 to 18 normally). Then I don't go into shock and pass out.
Because it is a forearm hit I need to see if I fumble anything that I am holding with that arm. Again I roll 2d6+ Injury Level. If it less than my Dexterity Score I keep a hold of my weapon or shield (depending on type).
Because I now have 5 injury levels I am now at -25% to use any of my skills (Harnmaster is percentile based for skills).
The charts make it a snap to resolve. The time it takes to resolve combat is only slightly slower than classic D&D.
Afterwards however healing is more involved. Each injury needs to have it own one line entry. You make physician rolls to determine the healing rate. Then you heal over time and there is the possibility of infection. There is a detailed herb list available separately that give some further options for treating injuries.
For example
Bruise Thigh M1
Severe Cut Forearm S2
Severe Stab Thorax S3
It is very well designed for the level of detail it goes into. One of the best combat system out there.
Quote from: rgrove0172;1003251Roll a 4 on the Critical Hit chart and you "Hit the guy's liver causing him to bleed out 1HP per turn and suffer a -3 on all Drinking Tests for a week!
QuoteBased on my experience the notion of the very specific "You hurt your left hand and cant use a shield"
I have not seen that level of odd specificity. I agree that if I did see it, I'd find it odd.
QuoteTHoughts?
There are trade offs to be made.
- Realism in wound effects vs. what makes for a fun game.
- Simplicity and ease of use vs. more realistic complexity and detailed tracking.
- Including only some of the effect for wounds vs every wound starts an immediate and incredibly steep death spiral.
- The general debilitation caused by wounds, fatigue, and sickness vs the ability in an emergency to overcome many of those effects for a short period of time. (Adrenaline is a thing.)
Which trade offs one chooses to make will vary based on subjective preferences.
We did some sample combats with Harnmaster... It wasn't the right system for my playgroup at the time, and ultimately, I moved away from interest in the Harn setting.
There are game systems I like hit locations in. I like them in RQ2. I liked them in Top Secret SI. Both of those systems have rules for called shots that make most folks still take normal shots. Hit location systems I have seen added to D&D all seemed to be aimed at enabling people to kill things quicker by making called shots to the head...
My college friend's home brew didn't use hit locations or any specific wound stuff, but it did have a penalty to actions when you went below half your hit points, with fatigue also factored in.
Classic Traveller has it's wounds applied to stats, that after combat become long term wounds with reduction in those stats which can produce penalties.
Burning Wheel has a nice wound system, it has hit locations to some extent, however, they only are used to bypass armor, they don't create specific wound effects (though a GM MAY "award" traits after the fact to reflect specific wounds if it makes sense).
I like all of these systems for a certain level of abstraction, with some degree of death spiral, but not so much that taking a single significant wound probably is the end of things.
Quote from: rgrove0172;1003251Based on my experience the notion of the very specific "You hurt your left hand and cant use a shield" only is pretty lame and a general modifier for just being "HURT" would be more logical and easier to manage in the game as well. '
THoughts?
I've often thought that a generic wound state, which can be used in addition to any crit system, would be fairly easy to implement.
Say, at 50% HP, the character takes a -1/-5% penalty to all rolls. At 25% HP, the penalty increases to -2/-10%. Tweak to taste.
But then this is the kind of fiddly system that I'd likely forget about the next time combat rolls around...
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1003272I've often thought that a generic wound state, which can be used in addition to any crit system, would be fairly easy to implement.
Say, at 50% HP, the character takes a -1/-5% penalty to all rolls. At 25% HP, the penalty increases to -2/-10%. Tweak to taste.
But then this is the kind of fiddly system that I'd likely forget about the next time combat rolls around...
GURPS does this to an extent. Bad stuff starts after you are reduced to 1/3 of your Hit Points (normally equal to your Health). At -5 times HP you are definitely dead. If for some reason you suffer damage taking you down to -10 time HP, your body is utterly destroyed.
Typically within a half dozen rounds after going into negative Hit Points, a GURPS character will do a face plant as they fail to make Health check to stay conscious or alive.
Quote from: Bren;1003262There are trade offs to be made.
- Realism in wound effects vs. what makes for a fun game.
- Simplicity and ease of use vs. more realistic complexity and detailed tracking.
- Including only some of the effect for wounds vs every wound starts an immediate and incredibly steep death spiral.
- The general debilitation caused by wounds, fatigue, and sickness vs the ability in an emergency to overcome many of those effects for a short period of time. (Adrenaline is a thing.)
Which trade offs one chooses to make will vary based on subjective preferences.
The detailed tracking is the one that usually gives me pause. A little more involved procedure that you go through right now, then record is fine. But it seems to make more specific damage matter, then specific healing needs to go with it. Since the healing can stretch out over multiple sessions, the cost is more than I want to handle.
I have suffered my share of injuries that you could call "critical hits". Certainly in the imediate aftermath it is exactly like Rgrove says, everything is impeded, not just the specific part hurt. Later during the healing process it was more that I couldn't put weight on my leg, use my thumb or whatever.
I would fully support a combat system that applied general penalties for trauma as fighters took more damage, with some critical hits also causing specific effects. Trauma penalties would also apply to actions outside of combat. Kt is hard to concentrate when you have a throbbing injury that is consumig most of your attention.
Reality aside, I think it is much more interesting to have a table of different injuries/setbacks, as opposed to a generic modifier.
What the OP describes is the shadowrun system - every 3 wounds you get a -1 penalty on everything (except soak, from memory). Also tends to result in death spirals. Which may or may not be what you want.
Crit tables of the sort listed are very useful in very gritty/harsh games. You want to be very careful about using them in more 'cinematic' games (unless by 'cinematic' you mean something like Game of Thrones).
Quote from: rgrove0172;1003251In all seriousness, this kind of mechanic is used a lot but Ive always found a fault in them. To me it makes more sense to simply award a generic negative modifier to dang near everything the character does while he is affected by this critical injury, the specific location and nature of which not really being as important. Not only is it easier to keep track of (Bonzo has one Nasty Wound - he is -2 on all actions and attacks, speed is down 1/4 also) but it actually makes more medical sense.
er... no it doesnt make more medical sense.
I fell and suffered hairline fractures to my ankle. That sure as hell slowed my walking down for a few weeks. But it had (usually) zero impact on my ability to do anything else not walking or foot related.
Its not that hard to track. Quick example using Albedo as a base.
Left leg, Severe Wound, -3 on all initiative checks and cannot run and takes 1 point of damage any time moves the injured limb.
Head, Light Wound, -2 on INT, WIS and DEX checks and take 1 point of damage any time move or jolt.
Its going to take 3-4 weeks to recover from the leg injury and 2-3 weeks to recover from the head injury.
Simple notation on an index card.
Let's just split the difference and say that every wound fucks up everything, but especially fucks up one specific thing.
I have a big 12-sided die where each side is labeled with a different body part. When someone takes a lot of damage in an attack, I use it to see what part is disabled. Other than that, i don't usually use hit locations unless it's part and parcel of the game, as in Flashing Blades.
In our Wednesday D&D BX game the new guy lost his hand to an obvious trap... GM said he can't use a shield unless he gets one custom made OR somehow grows his hand back. Not that any of that is in the rules... but it made sense and no one complained.
It makes sense to me that if you get shot in your sword hand there's going to be complications to your melee skills... that a wound to the face might effect your charisma... I like having hit locations, at least as an option.
Quote from: rgrove0172;1003251Many games include some chart and related mechanic that allows incoming damage to cause specific, sometimes gory, and usually fun effects.
The games I mainly play & played (GURPS & TFT) model these things specifically, but not just as completely random special effects as you described:
QuoteRoll a 4 on the Critical Hit chart and you "Hit the guy's liver causing him to bleed out 1HP per turn and suffer a -3 on all Drinking Tests for a week!
[...]
Based on my experience the notion of the very specific "You hurt your left hand and cant use a shield" only is pretty lame and a general modifier for just being "HURT" would be more logical and easier to manage in the game as well.
Why not both? In GURPS & TFT, most attacks are assumed to be at the body in general. Specific body parts can be hit for specific effects, usually done intentionally and sometimes aided or ruled out by circumstances (e.g. height advantage). All injuries reduce the victim's abilities depending on how severe the injury is, with various overlapping effects including being knocked down (possibly into nearby bad places to fall), dropping equipment, short-term or long-term skill penalties, movement penalties, losing actions, being stunned, unconscious or dead or dying. Effects of hits to body parts varies by part and also depends on the amount of damage done (that gets past armor at that location), victim's health, and some random chance. i.e. it makes sense based on the situation and choices and isn't just a random fate.
Quote from: Omega;1004271er... no it doesnt make more medical sense.
I fell and suffered hairline fractures to my ankle. That sure as hell slowed my walking down for a few weeks. But it had (usually) zero impact on my ability to do anything else not walking or foot related.
Its not that hard to track. Quick example using Albedo as a base.
Left leg, Severe Wound, -3 on all initiative checks and cannot run and takes 1 point of damage any time moves the injured limb.
Head, Light Wound, -2 on INT, WIS and DEX checks and take 1 point of damage any time move or jolt.
Its going to take 3-4 weeks to recover from the leg injury and 2-3 weeks to recover from the head injury.
Simple notation on an index card.
OTOH, most whole body movements, like swinging weapons, actually include foot movement as part and parcel of it:). Imagine trying to box on that foot with the ankle fracture.
Granted, it probably didn't fuck up your mental abilities much, but the pain itself probably would have accounted for a penalty shortly after you received it;).
There is a large psychological component to dealing with injury and pain.
I've had a casual conversation with a guy who's hand was just blown off. If he was required to take action in a critical situation in that state, he could have done anything that didn't require his left hand.
I also saw a man rolling on the floor and screaming bloody murder because he was scratched by a cat on his shin. It was a completely debilitating injury.
Generally speaking, if there is only localized injury the debilitating effects of the injury are a direct result of the injured item. That doesn't account for the individuals psychological reaction the injury, though.
When talking about catastrophic trauma, there is often a very fine line between being consciousness and generally able and being dead. RPG's seems to have this universal assumption that "safe" unconsciousness happens before death. In reality, only a few things cause unconsciousness. The most common being drugs, shock (low blood pressure, such as from blood loss), and brain damage. Considering the latter two, the divide between loss of consciousness and death is pretty small.
Quote from: Beldar;1004473There is a large psychological component to dealing with injury and pain.
I've had a casual conversation with a guy who's hand was just blown off. If he was required to take action in a critical situation in that state, he could have done anything that didn't require his left hand.
I also saw a man rolling on the floor and screaming bloody murder because he was scratched by a cat on his shin. It was a completely debilitating injury.
Generally speaking, if there is only localized injury the debilitating effects of the injury are a direct result of the injured item. That doesn't account for the individuals psychological reaction the injury, though.
When talking about catastrophic trauma, the is often a very fine line between be consciousness and generally able and being dead. RPG's seems to have this universal assumption that "safe" unconsciousness happens before death. In reality, only a few things cause unconsciousness. The most common being drugs, shock (low blood pressure, such as from blood loss), and brain damage. Considering the latter two, the divide between loss of consciousness and death is pretty small.
True, which is why I like the system in Blue Planet 2nd edition:). In it, a guy can be taken out of the fight by an average injury that's not immediately life-threatening, or keep acting with mortal injury that's going to be eventually fatal;).
Quote from: AsenRG;1004480True, which is why I like the system in Blue Planet 2nd edition:). In it, a guy can be taken out of the fight by an average injury that's not immediately life-threatening, or keep acting with mortal injury that's going to be eventually fatal;).
I'm not familiar with that system, but both of those situations can certainly occur in reality. So, it seems like a reasonable facsimile.
Some of the BRP iterations aren't too out of control either. But honestly, there are so many millions of variables in human injury that it's a difficult thing to simulate. Often hit points work well enough for me.
Quote from: Beldar;1004495I'm not familiar with that system, but both of those situations can certainly occur in reality. So, it seems like a reasonable facsimile.
It's just a "roll 3d10 under the damage rating of the weapon, count successes, 1 success is minor, 2 successes are serious, and 3 successes are potentially lethal":). When you get a serious hit, roll under Willpower to keep fighting. When you get a potentially lethal wound, roll under Willpower-5, meaning that average Willpower simply can't make the roll.
There you go, simple and with a nice probability;).
QuoteSome of the BRP iterations aren't too out of control either. But honestly, there are so many millions of variables in human injury that it's a difficult thing to simulate.
It is, which is why I like the Blue Planet system.
QuoteOften hit points work well enough for me.
As long as they don't go up with levels, me too.
Glad to hear you are finding your limits to Granular Verisimillitude! Congrats! Now you are that much closer to finding and tweaking systems to what you want as a GM to provide to your tables. :)
In some ways you can calculate that "broken leg, hernia, weak as a kitten, etc." as a swooned casualty, which can mean everything from fatality to endagered until stabilized up to 1 HP. Welcome to the wonderful spectrum of abstraction. Let it serve you, not the other way around.
Quote from: Opaopajr;1004588Glad to hear you are finding your limits to Granular Verisimillitude! Congrats! Now you are that much closer to finding and tweaking systems to what you want as a GM to provide to your tables. :)
Thank you, but I've found plenty such systems already, now my task is to learn whether it's possible to use the rest of them:).
Quote from: AsenRG;1004589Thank you, but I've found plenty such systems already, now my task is to learn whether it's possible to use the rest of them:).
Well good for you, too, not original topic poster! :)
I agree there are good and bad hit location / critical effects tables. Those you describe sound like something out of Rolemaster which I always assumed were a bit tongue in cheek, not completely serious.
I disagree on the lack of isolated injury though, that can be all over the place based on different pain thresholds, type of injury, circumstance of the injury and time since the injury. Stepping on a Lego in the middle of the night can be completely debilitating because that pain becomes your whole existence (personal experience), on the other hand there are accounts of people receiving a serious gunshot wound and not even realizing it due to being distracted by combat, and the fight or flight reaction which can do a good job masking pain (thankfully not a personal experience).
Defensive firearms training is beginning to consider things like aiming for the pelvis rather than center mass, because putting a few rounds through the heart of a knife wielding attacker hopped up on drugs may not disable them before they close the 10 feet between you and them, but a busted pelvis will drop them in their tracks. They still may not feel the pain, but with a broken pelvis their legs physically can't support them.
If you've been around someone who was in a car accident they will often be fine immediately afterwards, sore a few hours later and wishing they would die the next day as all the bumps, bruises and strains begin to register.
I guess what I'm getting at is I don't believe there is any one way people respond to pain and injury.
You might want to take a look at RQ6 / Mythras. It took me some time to appreciate their take on it, kind of backwards from the usual crit system. Rather than roll hit location and crit effect, when you get a crit you determine the effect and then fit the description to the effect. I'm not describing it well, but it is a different take than most games.
Quote from: Opaopajr;1004600Well good for you, too, not original topic poster! :)
Didn't realize you were talking to the OP:).
Quote from: AsenRG;1004616Didn't realize you were talking to the OP:).
Regardless, I support you both! :)
Quote from: Beldar;1004473There is a large psychological component to dealing with injury and pain.
Very true. My wife has a very high pain threshold. She spent two days with a shattered finger before she finally admitted that maybe she should get it checked out.
I have injured myself and not realized it until I saw the blood. Then it hurt, but not until.
For a while when I was running Star Wars to cut down on GM book keeping I used "binary stormtroopers". They were either in the fight or out of it, nothing in between. I set a damage threshold and any hit that did damage over that threshold took a trooper out of the fight, under it had no effect. I am thinking about adopting a similar system for other games.
I am not entirely certain that tracking small increments of hit points even with critical hits adds much to the game, at least for the monsters and NPCs. What matters is if they are still in the fight.
Quote from: DavetheLost;1004630For a while when I was running Star Wars to cut down on GM book keeping I used "binary stormtroopers". They were either in the fight or out of it, nothing in between. I set a damage threshold and any hit that did damage over that threshold took a trooper out of the fight, under it had no effect. I am thinking about adopting a similar system for other games.
Isn't that just regular hit points?
Nope. SW had a system of varrying levels of damage each of which had a degrading effect on combat abilities. Instead of tracking which troopers were stunned, impeded, etc and so at a penalty of one or more dice to their rolls I had them up or down. Any trooper taking a wound worse than about the midpoint on the scale was removed from the fight, any trooper taking a lighter wound was still in the fight with no effect.
For D&D it would work by saying any hit scoring over X hit points took that monster out of the fight, any hit scoring lass than X hit points would be ignored. Most hit point systems require you to track the actual hit point numbers. I did away with this entirely. I stopped tracking wound states for stormtroopers and other faceless foes. If they survived round one their chances of dying in round two were the same if they had been hit or missed, no wound effect carried over from round to round. No tracking of wounds at all. Regular hit points are tracked from round to round. A 6 hit point goblin that takes 2 hit points in round one will have 4 hit points in round two. I changed this to the goblin being alive or dead, nothing in between.
That's often a useful simplification. I use it sometimes in D6 Star Wars for Stormtroopers.* It's a bit of a problem in other systems with variable weapon damages since low damage weapons can't actually do the death of a thousand cuts. They just do (almost always) nothing.
* It wouldn't work well for the equivalent of Wookiees in armor since it would be very difficult to do more damage than the low end of wounded.
Quote from: DavetheLost;1004646Nope. SW had a system of varrying levels of damage each of which had a degrading effect on combat abilities. Instead of tracking which troopers were stunned, impeded, etc and so at a penalty of one or more dice to their rolls I had them up or down. Any trooper taking a wound worse than about the midpoint on the scale was removed from the fight, any trooper taking a lighter wound was still in the fight with no effect.
For D&D it would work by saying any hit scoring over X hit points took that monster out of the fight, any hit scoring lass than X hit points would be ignored. Most hit point systems require you to track the actual hit point numbers. I did away with this entirely. I stopped tracking wound states for stormtroopers and other faceless foes. If they survived round one their chances of dying in round two were the same if they had been hit or missed, no wound effect carried over from round to round. No tracking of wounds at all. Regular hit points are tracked from round to round. A 6 hit point goblin that takes 2 hit points in round one will have 4 hit points in round two. I changed this to the goblin being alive or dead, nothing in between.
Well, that's basically the Savage Worlds rule for fighting extras, except omitting the "shaken" condition. And I think it's also omitted in the last iterations of SW rules, too;).
It was a couple of decades ago, so I'm fuzzy on exactly how the damage rules actually worked. But, binary stormtroopers played with minis, that I do remember.
Quote from: Bren;1004671* It wouldn't work well for the equivalent of Wookiees in armor since it would be very difficult to do more damage than the low end of wounded.
Do you get a lot of Wookiees in armor? Is Chewbacca just part of some nudist sect?
Quote from: Dumarest;1004835Do you get a lot of Wookiees in armor? Is Chewbacca just part of some nudist sect?
For a Human, wearing armor is bad enough. For a hairy Wookie, it should be torture.
Quote from: Dumarest;1004835Do you get a lot of Wookiees in armor? Is Chewbacca just part of some nudist sect?
No to the first question. Wookiee in armor was meant to be short hand for any high STR character (usually an alien) in heavy armor.
Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1004852For a Human, wearing armor is bad enough. For a hairy Wookie, it should be torture.
It didn't seem to bother the apes in the old Planet of the Apes movies. :D
Lion & Dragon will have a (optional) pretty badass critical table. They can lead to some very gruesome consequences.
There's another potential fillip to harm. I've had moderately serious fibromyalgia for about 15 years now, and I'm in pain every moment of every day. For the most part I just override it as best I can, but I'm in the camp of the guy who gets clawed by a cat: there are times when a very modest extra amount of pain hits very hard.
But especially this: a pain I can see coming, a *predictable* pain, I can often handle. Something I *don't* see coming, I usually can't. Slice my hand, damn that hurts, ow. Poke me in the back moderately hard, though, by surprise, and I will drop like a sack of potatoes.
Quote from: Ravenswing;1005325But especially this: a pain I can see coming, a *predictable* pain, I can often handle. Something I *don't* see coming, I usually can't. Slice my hand, damn that hurts, ow. Poke me in the back moderately hard, though, by surprise, and I will drop like a sack of potatoes.
That does not sound fun.
I have a d12 marked with hit locations and backed a KS for critical and fumble dice. Who needs combat tables?
Quote from: DavetheLost;1005553I have a d12 marked with hit locations and backed a KS for critical and fumble dice. Who needs combat tables?
How do the locations break down on a d12?
Quote from: Bren;1004957No to the first question. Wookiee in armor was meant to be short hand for any high STR character (usually an alien) in heavy armor.
I see you evaded my question about Wookiee nudist sects. What are you covering up?
Quote from: DavetheLost;1005553I have a d12 marked with hit locations and backed a KS for critical and fumble dice. Who needs combat tables?
I have that same d12, I think. Mentioned it up the thread. Like so?
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1902[/ATTACH]
:D
Two questions.
- Is the missing location the Abdomen?
- What the heck is "Full Body" supposed to mean?
Quote from: Bren;1005572:D
Two questions.
- Is the missing location the Abdomen?
- What the heck is "Full Body" supposed to mean?
1. Yes. The twelve sides are labeled head, chest, stomach, right arm, left arm, right hand, left hand, right leg, left leg, right foot, left foot, and full body.
2. No clue, but I use it for abdomen.
:D
Quote from: Ravenswing;1005325There's another potential fillip to harm. I've had moderately serious fibromyalgia for about 15 years now, and I'm in pain every moment of every day. For the most part I just override it as best I can, but I'm in the camp of the guy who gets clawed by a cat: there are times when a very modest extra amount of pain hits very hard.
But especially this: a pain I can see coming, a *predictable* pain, I can often handle. Something I *don't* see coming, I usually can't. Slice my hand, damn that hurts, ow. Poke me in the back moderately hard, though, by surprise, and I will drop like a sack of potatoes.
So your personal experience confirms that strikes you don't see coming are the hardest to withstand? It's a relatively well-known fact, but I agree that not enough systems cover it:).
Amusingly, some of the less realistic ones do, and some that strive for realism, don't:p!
Quote from: Dumarest;10055741. Yes. The twelve sides are labeled head, chest, stomach, right arm, left arm, right hand, left hand, right leg, left leg, right foot, left foot, and full body.
2. No clue, but I use it for abdomen.
:D
If it was me, I'd use it as an euphemism for "dirty strike";)!
But what do you roll if you're fighting a winged human, or a humanoid spider:D?
Quote from: AsenRG;1005612But what do you roll if you're fighting a winged human, or a humanoid spider:D?
D20. Runequest has the hit location table for each of them.