Limb Loss

[Tinker Gnome]

How often in your games do PCs lose their hands, arms, or legs? I often hear people say that limb loss doesnt really occur that often in an HP based game like DnD. While it is not common in the groups I play with, it has happened more than once before. In both cases(hand loss) the PC was still a perfectly viable character and life went on for them.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

There are a couple of nasty limb losing spells in the Book of Vile Darkness that I have foisted upon my players. One was temporary but the other was permanent. The character was a wizard who had his hand ripped off before it started levitating and using the wand it was holding back on the wizard - forget the name of the spell but you get the idea. Anyway, the player involved had a huge sook about it when it was obvious the hand was not coming back after the magic had finished, the hand just flopped on the floor like a blackened wet fish. He instantly went to Greyhawk and the church of Pelor for a regeneration (despite the fact he still had two "hands" thanks to a hand of glory around his neck). I received dark looks from him at how I could use such a spell for the rest of the night.

However, little did he know that one of the other PCs (a charlatan of the worst order who detests the wizard) had actually picked up the hand at the time and has since started a religious movement known as the "Church of the Heroes Hand". Funnily enough, the wizard's player has never connected the two incidents. When he finds out that for all this time, Brother Arnanbadullus (Brother Arnie to his friends) has been parading his removed hand around in the name of the gods, I am expecting quite a scene. The wizard will be more than upset, while Brother Arnie will simply say that since the wizard never bothered to pick it up, he thought it fair enough.

A real powderkeg that one.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[William drake]

How often in your games do PCs lose their hands, arms, or legs? I often hear people say that limb loss doesnt really occur that often in an HP based game like DnD. While it is not common in the groups I play with, it has happened more than once before. In both cases(hand loss) the PC was still a perfectly viable character and life went on for them.

Well, people lose their hands, feet, arms, and legs in my game when damage calls for it. But, you have to set up the way you deal and take damage so it works. IF you give the body a level of HP, and then set each body part with a % of that total. Then, when enough damage is done to the body, the DM or the player if he's making an attack against a specific area, will know if its been lost or not. Same way you deal damage to doors or swords, its got a hardness level, once beaten, it goes to its HP, once that's beaten, its cut through or knocked down.

Now, this is a pretty grity style of play, so not all players will be up for it because it requires more thought in combat, and the knowledge that when hurt, it will take awhile to heal. Also, in this setting, most times, healing magic is limited to make it so that when hurt, you understand what that really means. Its the Hp-vitality, and Con-Guts type rules.

Something to think about.


Game On