Game Mechanics Review

What you should know about; Damage and Injury

In the big gun fight last game, the NPC bandits were killed more quickly than realistic game mechanics would indicate. The assumption was that once their Hit Points reached 0 they would fall unconscious and bleed out in a few minutes, before any help would arrive. This allowed things to go fast, and did not leave the problem of a half dozen wounded enemies incapacitated on the ground.

Realistically here are the rules that would have come into play.

Shock – any loss of HP causes a temporary penalty on your next actions, equal to the amount of HP lost, unless you have the high pain threshold advantage. This is a minor danger, unless you must act the very next turn.

Major Wound – any single injury doing more than half your HP in damage. ( many gunshot wounds will qualify ) You must make a HT role, failure means you’re stunned. 

 

Stunned – You suffer -4 on all defenses, you can do nothing. On your next turn make a HT role to recover. If you fail, you are still stunned. Try again next turn. 

Blow Through – most attacks can only do damage equal to your total HP, the excess damage passes through you. ( a gunshot doing 22 damage to a guy with 12 HP will take him down to 0, not to -10 ) Of course this counts as a major wound. ( big explosions and getting crushed by huge objects will avoid the blow through factor )

Last 3 HP – once you are down to your last 3 HP you are at half move and dodge. Its time to consider retreating, hiding or giving up. 

Less than 0 – you are still alive, but you are hanging on by will power and adrenaline, every few turns you must make a HT role, failure means you fall unconscious. ( some times a Will role may be substituted ) Of course you are at half move and dodge.

Death – when you reach your full negative HP you must make a HT role to avoid death. Most NPCs are dead at this point, but you can drop lower, if you make more HT roles.

How would all this have affected last game’s combat?

People with pistols had a max damage of 12, so it is unlikely they would take down a bandit with 11 HP in one shot, although possible. It is likely they would inflict a major wound with one hit. It would require a minimum of two good hits to bring a bandit down to full negative HP, death. 

As a quick rule most NPCs will pass out at less than 0 HP, thus ending their combat ability. But they would still be alive, slowly bleeding to death most likely.

People with rifles had a max damage between (4d6) 24 to (5d6) 30, so it is very likely any shot would drop a bandit to 0 HP, the excess damage lost to blow through. Aside from being a major wound, this would cause a bandit to make a HT role to stay conscious. Many would fail and be out of the fight. Those who succeed would usually be trying to hide or maybe perform first aid on themselves. Only the very desperate or hard core warriors fight on below 0 HP.

NOTE -

There are other more complicated rules about combat and damage, but we are not going to be using them yet. The above offers a good balance of realism and easy play.