Good rules for wounds? Like "arm broken?"

[mattcolville]

I've got ICE's 10 Million Ways To Die and was thinking about using that, but I'm curious about whether there are any good rules for wounds. As in "arm broken" or "thigh punctured?" Specifically, what I'm looking for is;

1) Something that doesn't require "called shots." I'd be happy with a system that caused, or had a chance to cause, a wound with every Crit, or Natural 20 or whatnot.

2) Something that specifies what the wound is (broken bone, wound to specific limb, etc) and how it affects the PC (movement reduced by 5', -1 to attacks with that arm, etc...)

3) Something that tells me how a Cleric can make it better, preferably with some "wounds" that can't be made better except by a very high level cleric.

As maybe an added extra, I'd like something that showed how different weapons were more or less likely to acheive certain wounds.

Please, no wise cracks about how I should be playing Rolemaster or HARP or whatever.

 

[Stone Dog]

Sword & Sorcery produces an Advanced Player's Handbook that has a system almost like that.

1&2) every crit has a table to roll on. A set for bludgeoning, piercing, slashing and energy broken down by hit locations for the head, torso, arms and legs.

The Critical Value is a % roll plus the damage done. Sneak attacks rule in this system. Oh yes. They do.

Critical multipliers are reduced by one though to offset the other penalties that you might get from say a solid head shot with a mace (double damage as usual) or the more ICE sounding "Skull caved in, brain smashed to paste."

3) This isn't really handled in a detailed manner, but still it might work for you. Fleeting injuries last for a limited number of rounds and don't need more than a DC 15 heal check. Temporary injuries wait for the character heales all hitpoints from natural healing, recieves a DC 15 heal check or magical healing is applied. Permanent injuries need regeneration, restoration or remove paralisis.


Hope that helps!

 

[Hand of Evil]

There is a product out but its name escapes me.

 

[nothing to see here]

Bastion Press's "Torn Assunder"

Good system. Not for everybody as it adds a layer of complexity to combat. Base system is Critical Hit based -- with descriptions and penalties depending on hit location -- type of creature -- and source of damage.

A good book. On my all time top 5 list.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I've got ICE's 10 Million Ways To Die and was thinking about using that, but I'm curious about whether there are any good rules for wounds. As in "arm broken" or "thigh punctured?" Specifically, what I'm looking for is;

1) Something that doesn't require "called shots." I'd be happy with a system that caused, or had a chance to cause, a wound with every Crit, or Natural 20 or whatnot.

2) Something that specifies what the wound is (broken bone, wound to specific limb, etc) and how it affects the PC (movement reduced by 5', -1 to attacks with that arm, etc...)

3) Something that tells me how a Cleric can make it better, preferably with some "wounds" that can't be made better except by a very high level cleric.

As maybe an added extra, I'd like something that showed how different weapons were more or less likely to acheive certain wounds.

Please, no wise cracks about how I should be playing Rolemaster or HARP or whatever.

Torn Asunder: Critical Hits by Bastion Press covers points 1,2 & 3. It expands that usefulness of the Heal skill for dealing with critical injuries like broken bones and the like with both long term and short term care. I'm in the process of incorporating alot of this stuff into my game as well and it's working fine so far.

 

[diaglo]

Torn Asunder.

i never really liked the system introduced in Supplement II Blackmoor. to me it goes against the whole idea of hit points. but... YMMV.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Torn Assunder and Advanced Player's Guide both have what you're looking for.

To me, it's useful for leveling the playing field against individuals who use two handed weapons as getting an arm broken or cut badly is fairly common but it favors NPCs too much, adds too much time, takes too much healing away from the cleric, etc... And this comes after months of playing with both sets of rules in different campaigns.

If you're using one of them, it should be made clear to the player and they should have some way to effect the outcome through action points or something.

 

[devilish]

Ok - have to play devil's advocate -- it's my namesake.

Why does everyone love Torn Asunder for the wound rules?
To me it just seemed to be the same template of -2, -4, -6
applied to each damage type with little thought given to it.
Sure it makes it easy, but it doesn't have that ICE flavor
or another system a friend of mine uses that I can't recall ---
but where a critical is "Your opponent parries too high and you
manage a slice to the hamstring --- speed reduced by 50% etc. etc."
instead of "Cut to the leg, -4 to dex; Crunch to the leg, -4 to dex;" )

Does the Advanced Players Handbook have this?

So what makes the TA wound system so great?

(to be fair, the rest of Torn Asunder is great, but I think the
wound section is weak.)

Thanks,
-D

[edit : Changed "Expanded Players Handbook" to "Advanced Players Handbook"]

 

[nothing to see here]

this topic is probably gravitating towards belonging in the 'Rules' forum...

Devilish raises a good question about Torn Asunder. And, while I like the book as written, I agree that I'd probably prefer a little more detail and variety in the CH rules. Back when our groups was playing, we played a style where combat was an infrequent but compicated, dangerous and weighty affair -- and rules like TA scratched our itch (though we houseruled it significantly.

Compared to what it could be, TA is very simplistic in implementation.

However, when you consider that the system does add an entirely new element to check for in combat; added that to the fact that that many groups seem to find the base 3/3.5 combat rules complicated (i.e. those unhappy with Attacks of Opportunity -- or the popularity on these boards of stripped down versions of d20) -- my guess is Bastion, or anybody else tackling this issue, were stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I'm looking forward to reading Malhavoc's 'Book of Iron Might' to see how they deal with that exact same issue.

How do you add to the vividness and detail of the combat rules as written, without additionally burdoning a tactical system that many feel is already rules-saturated.

There's wisdome in cliches. You can't please everybody.

 

[Ghostwind]

Exactly. When we wrote the critical hits rules we had to find a balance between something that was useable and not too complicated versus one that put a little grit and danger into combat. We had three distinct versions that ranged from overly simplistic to overly complicated. The end result was the compromise.