How many different ways are there to be hurt?

[Herremann the Wise]

I like threads like this so thank you for starting.

Trying to generalize as much as possible:

There are the "classic" three:
- Bludgeoning
- Slashing
- Piercing

You then have the special forms of damage:
- Burns (be it from acid, cold, electricity or fire)
- Concussive (such as sonic or thunder or "nonlethal" damage)
- Stimulative (radiant or pain causing over-stimulization)
- Necrotic (like classic vile damage or negative energy damage but I suppose you could also put acute infections in here)

You then have ones that are a more immediate threat:
- Suffocation (be it drowning or strangulation or anything related to lack of oxygen)
- Circulatory Breakdown (Heart attack/some poisons/even electricity may have an effect here.)
- I suppose you could almost put stimulative here although it is not as fatal as the first two.

These more immediate effects would seem to want to bypass the traditional hit point system: 3e would have handled these as saves.

You then have the more long term effects of starvation, exposure and disease but that as you highlight is slightly different again.

The question then becomes how to apply this? [Tangent ahead so sorry if these additional ideas are not really wanted]

My preference is to have a buffer of points, and a limit for amount of actual wound damage:

- Combat Points that represent a character's skill, capacity to avoid damage or turn a damaging blow into a lesser one, inner strength and resolve, divine guidance or providence, their will to go on, there capacity to perform at their best and such forth.

- Hit Point Limits that represents the total hit points worth of wounds before a character is incapacitated and the total hit points worth of wounds before a character is dead. If a character is hit and they have run out of combat points or if they are critically hit, then this translates to a wound (measured in hit points). If they sustain enough of these wounds then they are incapacitated or dead. For example a character might have an incapacitated limit of 24 and a deceased limit of 35; wounds of 12hp, 3hp and 10hp would incapacitate the character, while a further 13hp wound would kill them. Once they have received individual wounds totalling or exceeding these numbers, the character is either incapacitated or dying.

In terms of application combat points are restored quickly while wounds are healed slowly. In addition, wounds will have a type as mentioned above (slashing, burn, necrotic etc.) This may cause possible penalties, or make healing of these wounds more difficult or require specialised treatment.

You then can circle back around to your original question of resistance to these damage types. Obviously armor has a significant impact on protecting against these (even regular clothing is going to help versus burns etc.). You can then have magical effects that protect not against the damage caused (burns) but the thing dealing the damage (fire, acid etc.). Magic is good at shielding against the direct cause and not so much the effect. I think in play, this translates to good strategy as well. Find out the creature you are up against, and how best to protect yourself against that creature's attack (fire breath, freezing and crushing grip and so on).

So yeah... that's my initial thoughts on the matter.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Asmor]

As far as fire vs. acid, people are burned by both but it's important to remember that objects might be different. It's a lot easier to burn through certain metals with strong acid than with heat. Conversely, you'll have more luck setting fire to a tree than using acid on it.

You make a great argument. If nothing else, I like the idea that I could have e.g. golems which are highly resistant to fire but not acid.

Concussive (such as sonic or thunder or "nonlethal" damage)

My initial thought is that bludgeoning would cover everything from clubs to sonic attacks to constriction.

The only reason I could see for breaking it down would be to have some things that are hard but brittle, like rock, that might be more vulnerable to a "concussive" attack. Getting back to the idea of golems, I could see that working here, but I don't really think it adds quite as much design space as breaking apart acid from fire.

Stimulative (radiant or pain causing over-stimulization)

Depending on the nature of the effect, this could probably be covered by either fire, electric, or 'bad magic'. I could see there being design space here for a good-vs-evil/light-vs-dark kind of paradigm, like the sort D&D has (with healing spells harming undead), but that's not really a theme I want to explore in my RPG.

- Suffocation (be it drowning or strangulation or anything related to lack of oxygen)
- Circulatory Breakdown (Heart attack/some poisons/even electricity may have an effect here.)
- I suppose you could almost put stimulative here although it is not as fatal as the first two.

These more immediate effects would seem to want to bypass the traditional hit point system: 3e would have handled these as saves.

Yeah, this is something I'd handle elsewise.

You then have the more long term effects of starvation, exposure and disease but that as you highlight is slightly different again.

The question then becomes how to apply this? [Tangent ahead so sorry if these additional ideas are not really wanted]

My preference is to have a buffer of points, and a limit for amount of actual wound damage:

That's kind of similar to what I'm doing. All human-sized characters in my system have a base of 10 wounds. You can work to improve your number, but it doesn't get much higher; a high-level "meat shield" type might have 15.

Damage is divided by your resistance to that damage type to determine how many wounds you lose; so 30 slashing damage would deal 3 wounds against someone with 10 slashing resistance, but only 2 wounds against someone with 11 slashing resistance.

There would be some effects which might deal wound point damage directly, bypassing resistances.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Concussive (such as sonic or thunder or "nonlethal" damage)

My initial thought is that bludgeoning would cover everything from clubs to sonic attacks to constriction.

I can see where you are coming from here in that concussive damage feels like a special application of bludgeoning damage. Thinking further on this, I think that concussive damage most likely deserves its own little patch of rules regarding character consciousness. You could most likely map it to a sliding scale of conditions: shaken to dazed to staggered to stunned to concussed. Perhaps concussion damage is bludgeoning damage that depending upon it's amount may also force additional momentary conditions using this scale? Just some thoughts.

Stimulative (radiant or pain causing over-stimulization)

Depending on the nature of the effect, this could probably be covered by either fire, electric, or 'bad magic'. I could see there being design space here for a good-vs-evil/light-vs-dark kind of paradigm, like the sort D&D has (with healing spells harming undead), but that's not really a theme I want to explore in my RPG.

Fair enough. I was thinking of Tayne's point regarding pressure points and saw the link with radiant damage and over-stimulization of the senses. Again though I think this might be best handled as a more immediate situation outside of the field of hit points.

That's kind of similar to what I'm doing. All human-sized characters in my system have a base of 10 wounds. You can work to improve your number, but it doesn't get much higher; a high-level "meat shield" type might have 15.

Damage is divided by your resistance to that damage type to determine how many wounds you lose; so 30 slashing damage would deal 3 wounds against someone with 10 slashing resistance, but only 2 wounds against someone with 11 slashing resistance.

There would be some effects which might deal wound point damage directly, bypassing resistances.

Seems interesting and good luck with it. Out of interest, how are you planning to handle the metaphysical aspects of hit points?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Chris Knapp]

Abrasion (road rash) - not sure how often this might come up but it is probably one of the most common real world physical injuries.

Desiccation/Dehydration - whether through lack of drinking or through chemical or magical effect.

 

[Asmor]

Out of interest, how are you planning to handle the metaphysical aspects of hit points?

Lots of blissful ignorance.

Abrasion (road rash) - not sure how often this might come up but it is probably one of the most common real world physical injuries.

This would be covered either by bludgeoning (the impact of the fall) or slashing (being dragged across a rough surface).

Desiccation/Dehydration - whether through lack of drinking or through chemical or magical effect.

If it's something happening immediately via a magical effect, that would fall under entropy. If it's something happening over time, then it's not really covered by the purview of hit points.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For "bad magic" maybe you want "necrotic"?

The best I've got as a synonym is "gangrenic" or "gangrenous" but I don't love those terms.

How about "thanotic"?

 

[Hand of Evil]

Break it down into groupings: Mind, Body and Spirit, all three can be subject to damage of some kind, most have been listed but some I did not see; Fatigue and Exposure.

Now, it comes down to if it is perment or temp.

 

[steeldragons]

Seems everything has been covered, more or less.

Great suggestions.

I would, also, voice my concern about not going tooooo "micro-manager" in general...not breaking into too many categories. Cover the major types, but there will always be times when the DM is left with making a call as to the most relevant damage type.

Several types of attacks might call for different types of damage. A dagger could be slashing or piercing (stabbing) depending on how it is used. A bite/teeth attack would be slashing (ripping away flesh) or piercing (clamping on and chewing or bloodsucking, for example). These "flavor" kinds of details require some lea-way for the DM to decide.

I'd go with something like this:
Slashing
Piercing/Stabbing
Bludgeoning

Concussive/Force: damage is partially from a bludgeoning physical or energy attack as well as the "slam"/landing with the secondary possible effects of daze/stun/"knocked unconscious"/what have you. This could be getting walloped by a hill giant, charged into a wall by a minotaur, thrown by telekinetics, blasted with a Ring of the Ram, falling of a cliff, sonic/thunder effects, etc.

Energy: this could be a combo of the Radiant/Necrotic energies and non-elementally specific magical effects with the understanding that creatures of like alignment (good for radiant, evil for necrotic) would take less or possibly no damage from energy matching their alignment. Necromantic and "Shadow-based" magic, energy/level drain effects, various ability drain effects, as well as "radiant energy attacks" from angels, positive energy creatures, clerical bolts of divine energy and all of that sort of thing would fall under this.

Elemental damage: a sub-set of "Energy" really, but specifically natural or magical fire, heat/cold, ice, electricity. "Wind" damage would not fall in this category: i.e. air elemental attack, dragon wing buffeting, etc.. the damage would be dealt from the Concussive force, not the Element of Air. This would also cover damage from Exposure, as noted above.

"Mental"/Psychic damage: mind flayer attacks, psionic/telepathic mind blasts, fear and confusion effects, the "phantasmal killer" spell. Arguably, psionic energy attacks could, conceivably be included in the "Energy" category...but I like/think with the other types of Mental attacks available, psionics (or at least telepathy) fit in here nicely.

Substance Damage: natural or magical toxins, poisons, acids. Diseases/Infections (the substance being viruses and/or bacterium) could conceivably be included with this type of damage.

8 types of damage....yeah, I'd say that's enough to cover most of the bsaes.

--SD

 

[Tonguez]

I once looked at a damage system based on secondary & critical effects thus

1 Bludgeon -impact and concusive attacks knock-down secondary, Shock critical
2 Slash - slicing weapons: bleed secondary, Shock critical
3 Chop - Chopping weapons: bleed secondary, limb damage critical
4 Stab - piercing weapons:bleed sceondary, organ damage critical
5 Burn - all energy attacks: burn secondary, Shock critical
6 Infection - disease, posion, necrotic etc effects: septic secondary, shock critical
7 Mental - mental attacks: fear secondary, shock critical

Shock critical caused a knock-down effect and a second roll, which if failed lead to a paralysis effect

It never really got implemented however

 

[TheOmnibusDriver]

It seems that there are many different ways to be hurt on the job - since so much material has already been presented, I would like to focus upon organization and suggest a tree structure. If properly designed, it will enable easier and more intuitive assignment of damage.

As an rough example with visualization...

[CENTER]
(Opposite Spectrum)
_
|
HEALING
^
|
v
.......DAMAGE.......
|                 |
PHYSICAL           MENTAL
|   |              |   |
EXTERNAL INTERNAL COGNITIVE EMOTIONAL[/CENTER]

Ideally, to aid in ease of identification, you should be able to organize the tree in such a way as to follow any sort of injury down to its most precise classification. This means that categories should be comprehensive and quantifiable, based upon separate and very specific criteria. A structure like the one given above would allow you to easily separate stab wounds from disease and organ failure, and emotional trauma from a psionic nuke jammed into a character's frontal lobe.

Just an example, of course - this would require some thought, and I'm sure that even my example categories could get sloppy down the line.