Injury system for Codex

[Daeruin]

Thinking about severity a bit more ... I think what I was trying to convey earlier can be summed up by this question: If my worst injury is a broken finger, then why did I fall unconscious and nearly die? That's what's been nagging me about some of the minor injuries. They just don't seem consistent with reaching 0 hp.

I still think they should be possibilities, because if severe wounds are possible then it seems weird to never have combatants receiving minor wounds. I like your idea of the minor wounds being the result of a critical that doesn't drop you to 0 hp, or maybe other criteria. Like dropping to a quarter of your total hp, getting any wound that delivers more than 20 hp, rolled after the fight by anyone who takes hp damage, maybe rolled anytime the GM wants to add some color to the fight. Any of these could be presented as optional house rules, too.

I've also been thinking of that video you posted recently that talks about people taking serious, even fatal wounds and fighting on for a time before collapsing. Is there room for that idea in here somewhere? That could be an interesting take on the Diehard feat.

[Galloglaich]

Very cool. I like the division between different severity of injuries. I think it kind of highlights the effects of different attack types. Bludgeoning tends to cause more general damage, slashing is weighted more towards deadly injuries, and piercing doesn't have much middle ground—it's either minor or deadly.

Yes I think that matches the data. Piercing wounds will also be a bit less likely to cause instant death or incapacitation, but more likely to cause permanent harm or death. This is what the data says.

When you assign die rolls to these charts, are you planning to make some injuries more likely than others? It seems like the various head/face injuries have more listings in the chart and should get less weight overall. I'm curious about the mechanics.

The idea is that from strikes, head injuries are very common, this is backed up by experience from sparring and fencing, and also by some Medieval dueling and fighting statistics I can post later tonight. Though there is a problem here, obviously, if people are wearing helmets especially helmets that protect the face. The fix I had come up with is to move up one notch in the chart if you had protection in that particular spot, so I can't have any face or head injuries one after the other.

I noticed a few more little things... Destroyed/blinded eye is listed as moderate under bludgeoning and piercing, but minor under slashing. Pierced lower leg is repeated—second one should be upper leg, I think.

Fixed!

G

[Galloglaich]

Thinking about severity a bit more ... I think what I was trying to convey earlier can be summed up by this question: If my worst injury is a broken finger, then why did I fall unconscious and nearly die? That's what's been nagging me about some of the minor injuries. They just don't seem consistent with reaching 0 hp.

Yeah I understand, and I think you have a point. I want to kind of map the whole thing out on the 'real' level and then I can make decisions on how to fit it into the game rules. That is how I usually do things in the codex.

I still think they should be possibilities, because if severe wounds are possible then it seems weird to never have combatants receiving minor wounds. I like your idea of the minor wounds being the result of a critical that doesn't drop you to 0 hp, or maybe other criteria. Like dropping to a quarter of your total hp, getting any wound that delivers more than 20 hp, rolled after the fight by anyone who takes hp damage, maybe rolled anytime the GM wants to add some color to the fight. Any of these could be presented as optional house rules, too.

After, or during... I'm thinking any really serious wound, maybe. But there has to be some really simple threshold for it, maybe the 20 hit points.

I've also been thinking of that video you posted recently that talks about people taking serious, even fatal wounds and fighting on for a time before collapsing. Is there room for that idea in here somewhere? That could be an interesting take on the Diehard feat.

Yah I think Diehard is the fix for that. Part of this new injury system will be the rule that you can keep fighting down to negative hit points equal to your Con score. But to do so you'll have to make Will Saves. Diehard will probably give you a Free Dice for that will save. I haven't decided how to compute the DC for that yet.

Thanks for helping me with this by the way it's immensely valuable to me.

G

[Daeruin]

I'm glad my comments are helping. Most of the time I feel like a third wheel in the discussions around here. I'm pretty passionate about realistic wounding systems though—it's one of the things I really value in a game and has always been one of the biggest things that turns me off of the d20 system in general. I'm really glad you're doing this.

The armor issue is a tough one. The guy wearing armor still hit 0 hp *somehow*. Maybe you could treat any hit that reduces someone to 0 hp as an automatic armor bypass. Their helmet got torn off in the fight, the straps broke, or their enemy managed to slip the weapon inside the joints. In keeping with the abstraction of hp being fatigue, near misses, and inconsequential wounds, the last hit that drops someone to 0 hp would have to be more. Considering that hit as equivalent to an automatic bypass could work.

Another option that involves more work is to create different charts (or additional columns on the same chart) for various armor types so nonsensical results just won't happen.

I imagine these charts will often be subject to GM modification and interpretation due to the infinite variety of circumstances characters can find themselves in. In my mind, moving down one slot on the chart, or rerolling, would always have to be options that the GM can rely on as necessary.

[Galloglaich]

I'm glad my comments are helping. Most of the time I feel like a third wheel in the discussions around here. I'm pretty passionate about realistic wounding systems though—it's one of the things I really value in a game and has always been one of the biggest things that turns me off of the d20 system in general. I'm really glad you're doing this.

You've always been supportive, and really, having anyone who is interested and intelligent help develop ideas is an immense help. Pretty much everything in the codex was made that way.

The armor issue is a tough one. The guy wearing armor still hit 0 hp *somehow*. Maybe you could treat any hit that reduces someone to 0 hp as an automatic armor bypass. Their helmet got torn off in the fight, the straps broke, or their enemy managed to slip the weapon inside the joints. In keeping with the abstraction of hp being fatigue, near misses, and inconsequential wounds, the last hit that drops someone to 0 hp would have to be more. Considering that hit as equivalent to an automatic bypass could work.

Another option that involves more work is to create different charts (or additional columns on the same chart) for various armor types so nonsensical results just won't happen.

I imagine these charts will often be subject to GM modification and interpretation due to the infinite variety of circumstances characters can find themselves in. In my mind, moving down one slot on the chart, or rerolling, would always have to be options that the GM can rely on as necessary.

Yeah I think it's actually going to be pretty simple. If you had armor on that particular part of the body, and the attack was a bypass, then you just move up one. (and if necessary, move again but I think usually one will do it). If the attack wasn't a bypass, then the armor failed as you described. Of course GM can and will do some fudging around the edges.

As for the more minor wounds, I have to think on that a bit more, but right now I'm leaning toward 15 points, that will put it within reach for piercing attacks (which do less crit damage) but not so low that you are getting terrible wounds all the time.

G

[Galloglaich]

Our evidence shows that strikes to the head and upper body were very common in serious fights.



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[Galloglaich]

Ok I finished the first (severe as opposed to critical) injuries table. These are for the effects of major wounds (20 HP or more) which did not take the player (or his or her victim) below 0 HP. Thoughts welcome.

Severe.jpg (338.47 KiB) Viewed 2172 times

[Arkon]

Our evidence shows that strikes to the head and upper body were very common in serious fights.



G

Does it man that first strike was usually fatal?

[Galloglaich]

Not necessarily, since these cover incidents, i.e. a whole fight, not just one strike necessarily - presumably people may have been hit multiple times. Certainly with modern knife attacks that is usually the case.

However, being cut with a sword or stabbed with a 12" blade and so on is not good for your health, I think that is a safe bet. A single strike certainly can kill anybody, but anecdotally (from medieval sources) it was not always the case.

If I had to guess very broadly speaking I'd say something like 20- 30% of the time the first strike was fatal, but sometimes you have people wounded 5 or 6 times and surviving.