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"Better" Combat Systems in RPGs - Feedback Welcome!
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<blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 8076328" data-attributes="member: 32164"><p><strong>Conditions, Wounds, Damage, and Death Spirals</strong></p><p>So, at this point, I want to take a minute to talk about a system for tracking damage that I've seen variants of in several games. Most recently, this system is in Savage Worlds, but something very similar to it exists in d6 <em>Star Wars</em>, <em>Mutants & Masterminds</em>, and, I believe, <em>True 20.</em></p><p></p><p>That system is the Conditions & Wounds system. It works like this: A character starts fine. If they take a hit, and the damage equals their Toughness (Armor provides a bonus), they become "Shaken," and cause a wound for ever "raise." A Shaken character who takes physical damage again is now wounded (and still shaken).</p><p></p><p>The average PC can take up to 3 wounds (each of which inflicts a -1 penalty) and still function more or less "normally," albeit with penalties. On the fourth wound, the PC is incapacitated, and at this point, the player must make a vigor roll to see how serious the wound is. Failing inflicts a permanent injury (there's a table) and means the PC is bleeding out. If the roll is a critical failure, the character dies. Success means the injury is either temporary until the character is healed of all wounds, or it goes away in 24 hours, even if he doesn't get healed before then. Obviously, if he's healed of all his wounds, this injury goes away too. A player who has Bennies can choose to spend one to make a Soak roll to minimize the damage from an attack with each success and raise absorbing one wound. Soaking <em>all</em> the damage means you lose the "Shaken" condition as well (even if it's from previous damage).</p><p></p><p>Permanent injuries mean the character might need serious healing magic. Or barring that, a prosthetic or an eyepatch. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p><p></p><p>"Lesser" NPCs are incapacitated if they take a single Wound. But some NPCs/monsters are resilient (2 wounds), very resilient (3 wounds), or Wild Cards just like the PCs (4 wounds).</p><p></p><p>And yes, this system does have a "death spiral" of sorts, as a more injured character takes penalties to his actions, including the ones to keep from bleeding out. Personally, I like the idea of characters becoming less effective as they get hurt, but YMMV. Someone who wanted a less granular system could simply do something like Fine, Bloodied (minor penalty), Injured (bigger penalty), and Incapacitated.</p><p></p><p>The method for determining "wounds" is obviously pretty important in a system like this. <em>Savage Worlds</em> resolves it by comparing the damage roll with a score called "Toughness," whereas <em>Mutants & Masterminds</em> had the Player make a Toughness Save, but the principle is basically the same. And of course, the "realism" quotient of the system is clearly highly dependent on how quickly the PC can recover from "wounds." (FYI, <em>Savage Worlds</em> also has a somewhat neat rule here that helps to draw a line between serious and minor wounds, but I do realize that it's not for everyone).</p><p></p><p>Personally, I like the balance of abstraction vs. realism here. It doesn't really matter where a character's PC's minor wounds are, until they take one that's substantial enough that it nearly kills them. And that should happen rarely enough that checking location tables at that point bothers me less. For the record, the generic rule on called shots is that they add to damage, and I'd certainly bypass rolling on the injury table if a character was incapacitated by, say, a called shot to the head (because rather obviously, it was <em>to the head</em>).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="JohnSnow, post: 8076328, member: 32164"] [B]Conditions, Wounds, Damage, and Death Spirals[/B] So, at this point, I want to take a minute to talk about a system for tracking damage that I've seen variants of in several games. Most recently, this system is in Savage Worlds, but something very similar to it exists in d6 [I]Star Wars[/I], [I]Mutants & Masterminds[/I], and, I believe, [I]True 20.[/I] That system is the Conditions & Wounds system. It works like this: A character starts fine. If they take a hit, and the damage equals their Toughness (Armor provides a bonus), they become "Shaken," and cause a wound for ever "raise." A Shaken character who takes physical damage again is now wounded (and still shaken). The average PC can take up to 3 wounds (each of which inflicts a -1 penalty) and still function more or less "normally," albeit with penalties. On the fourth wound, the PC is incapacitated, and at this point, the player must make a vigor roll to see how serious the wound is. Failing inflicts a permanent injury (there's a table) and means the PC is bleeding out. If the roll is a critical failure, the character dies. Success means the injury is either temporary until the character is healed of all wounds, or it goes away in 24 hours, even if he doesn't get healed before then. Obviously, if he's healed of all his wounds, this injury goes away too. A player who has Bennies can choose to spend one to make a Soak roll to minimize the damage from an attack with each success and raise absorbing one wound. Soaking [I]all[/I] the damage means you lose the "Shaken" condition as well (even if it's from previous damage). Permanent injuries mean the character might need serious healing magic. Or barring that, a prosthetic or an eyepatch. ;) "Lesser" NPCs are incapacitated if they take a single Wound. But some NPCs/monsters are resilient (2 wounds), very resilient (3 wounds), or Wild Cards just like the PCs (4 wounds). And yes, this system does have a "death spiral" of sorts, as a more injured character takes penalties to his actions, including the ones to keep from bleeding out. Personally, I like the idea of characters becoming less effective as they get hurt, but YMMV. Someone who wanted a less granular system could simply do something like Fine, Bloodied (minor penalty), Injured (bigger penalty), and Incapacitated. The method for determining "wounds" is obviously pretty important in a system like this. [I]Savage Worlds[/I] resolves it by comparing the damage roll with a score called "Toughness," whereas [I]Mutants & Masterminds[/I] had the Player make a Toughness Save, but the principle is basically the same. And of course, the "realism" quotient of the system is clearly highly dependent on how quickly the PC can recover from "wounds." (FYI, [I]Savage Worlds[/I] also has a somewhat neat rule here that helps to draw a line between serious and minor wounds, but I do realize that it's not for everyone). Personally, I like the balance of abstraction vs. realism here. It doesn't really matter where a character's PC's minor wounds are, until they take one that's substantial enough that it nearly kills them. And that should happen rarely enough that checking location tables at that point bothers me less. For the record, the generic rule on called shots is that they add to damage, and I'd certainly bypass rolling on the injury table if a character was incapacitated by, say, a called shot to the head (because rather obviously, it was [I]to the head[/I]). [/QUOTE]
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