Damage systems (lethal only)
John Dallman
Hero
I recall a homebrew system where you used action points to do things, and the immediate effect of injury was to reduce your supply of action points per turn. Once you had run out of action points and would not get any more, you were unconscious. The problem in playtest was that the system did not provide a definition of death.
Sir Brennen
Legend
One thing not mentioned in the OP: Instant Death.
Many systems have rules for, say, things like massive damage, or GM fiat for obvious things, like falling into lava.
But no, I'm talking about Save or Die effects, especially for magical sources. D&D, especially earlier editions, has both Hit Point attrition, and "You rolled a what? Oh. Hand me your character sheet" effects, where you don't even necessarily take damage. You just accidently met the gaze of that weird boar-headed-dinosaur-thing in the swamp.
Many systems have rules for, say, things like massive damage, or GM fiat for obvious things, like falling into lava.
But no, I'm talking about Save or Die effects, especially for magical sources. D&D, especially earlier editions, has both Hit Point attrition, and "You rolled a what? Oh. Hand me your character sheet" effects, where you don't even necessarily take damage. You just accidently met the gaze of that weird boar-headed-dinosaur-thing in the swamp.
Sir Brennen
Legend
Another one that doesn't quite fit the list originally listed: Savage Worlds and Wounds. It works somewhat like a simplified version of Wound Categories in other games.
All PCs get 3 Wounds before they're Incapacitated. Most of the PC's rolls have a penalty for each Wound a character has, so there's a bit of a death spiral.
Survivability comes in with the player's ability to use Bennies - tokens give out during play - that allow them to make a "Soak Roll", possibly avoid some or all of the Wounds when first taken. Bennies can also be used to make re-rolls throughout the game, including the Soak Roll.
If you become Incapacitated from Wounds, the character rolls to see if they expire, or take a permanent or temporary injury (exact location determined on a random table, unless caused by a Called Shot.) They may also be bleeding out, and still in danger of dying.
There's various dials to increase/decrease lethality, like limiting the number of Wounds that can be inflicted in a round (thus improving the odds of Soaking enough to stay alive), or rolling on the Injury Table for any Wound taken, suffering the effects immediately (so you might have only one Wound, but now have a lame leg.)
Healing, interestingly, is limited to "the Golden Hour" after taking Wounds. After that, the character has to heal naturally, which can take a while (powerful magic or sci-fi tech in a given setting not withstanding.)
All PCs get 3 Wounds before they're Incapacitated. Most of the PC's rolls have a penalty for each Wound a character has, so there's a bit of a death spiral.
Survivability comes in with the player's ability to use Bennies - tokens give out during play - that allow them to make a "Soak Roll", possibly avoid some or all of the Wounds when first taken. Bennies can also be used to make re-rolls throughout the game, including the Soak Roll.
If you become Incapacitated from Wounds, the character rolls to see if they expire, or take a permanent or temporary injury (exact location determined on a random table, unless caused by a Called Shot.) They may also be bleeding out, and still in danger of dying.
There's various dials to increase/decrease lethality, like limiting the number of Wounds that can be inflicted in a round (thus improving the odds of Soaking enough to stay alive), or rolling on the Injury Table for any Wound taken, suffering the effects immediately (so you might have only one Wound, but now have a lame leg.)
Healing, interestingly, is limited to "the Golden Hour" after taking Wounds. After that, the character has to heal naturally, which can take a while (powerful magic or sci-fi tech in a given setting not withstanding.)
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zarionofarabel
Hero
Far Trek essentially has Save vs. Death or take a Wound with Wounds giving a penalty to the next Save vs. Death. The caveat is that the PCs don't die if they fail the save they just fall unconscious cause they are the main characters and main characters in Star Trek have plot immunity.
Fate hasopposed rolls with the overflow going into stress & consequences that can be extremely brutal but pretty much require a very shared narrative system to work as more than irrelivant bookkeeping
Argyle King
Legend
GURPS has hitpoints, but they're handled a lot differently than D&D hitpoints: they're more "meat."
Being below 1/3 HP has negative effects.
An attack which does enough damage (in one shot) might knock a target unconscious (or be a mortal wound).
If you're using the optional rule of hit locations, you can also break bones and chop off limbs.
Fatigue Points are used for things like dehydration, starvation, and etc. Losing enough of them means starting to lose HP instead.
Similarly, FFG Star Wars has both Wounds (essentially HP by a different name) and Strain.
Being below 1/3 HP has negative effects.
An attack which does enough damage (in one shot) might knock a target unconscious (or be a mortal wound).
If you're using the optional rule of hit locations, you can also break bones and chop off limbs.
Fatigue Points are used for things like dehydration, starvation, and etc. Losing enough of them means starting to lose HP instead.
Similarly, FFG Star Wars has both Wounds (essentially HP by a different name) and Strain.
aramis erak
Legend
note that Strain in Star Wars is used for exhaustion effects, stun damage, mental damage, and general social damage... kind of a mess. Genesys keeps it all the same as FFG SW.
JiffyPopTart
Bree-Yark
Original Torg had a three damage type system.
1. Shock Points (of which you usually had 10-13 of) were taken frequently, loss of all of them resulted in you being knocked out, and regenerated after a minute.
2. Wounds (of which the 4th killed you) were taken infrequently, required days of healing or magic to reduce by one, and reduced your effectiveness in the game.
3. K's and O's were given separately and if you had a K and an O at the same time you were knocked out. K's lasted 30 minutes and O's just one minute. This allowed you to quickly knock out something in one blow without necessarily dealing any other damage than the KO.
Using a Possibility (the in game XP-like currency your character banked to affect the game world and advance) to prevent damage allowed you to choose three things from the following list to not happen to your character (3 shock points, 1 wound, K's and O's). This meant that sometimes you would choose to be wounded so you could keep fighting, or maybe leave you unable to stay conscious because you couldn't reduce both all of your shock damage AND the K or O that would put you under.
1. Shock Points (of which you usually had 10-13 of) were taken frequently, loss of all of them resulted in you being knocked out, and regenerated after a minute.
2. Wounds (of which the 4th killed you) were taken infrequently, required days of healing or magic to reduce by one, and reduced your effectiveness in the game.
3. K's and O's were given separately and if you had a K and an O at the same time you were knocked out. K's lasted 30 minutes and O's just one minute. This allowed you to quickly knock out something in one blow without necessarily dealing any other damage than the KO.
Using a Possibility (the in game XP-like currency your character banked to affect the game world and advance) to prevent damage allowed you to choose three things from the following list to not happen to your character (3 shock points, 1 wound, K's and O's). This meant that sometimes you would choose to be wounded so you could keep fighting, or maybe leave you unable to stay conscious because you couldn't reduce both all of your shock damage AND the K or O that would put you under.
Argyle King
Legend
True, but strain can turn lethal.
Also, some NPC enemies do not have a strain threshold (taking the damage as wounds instead).
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