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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 944161" data-attributes="member: 5171">I think there's a danger to reading the rules in a vacuum.  You're looking at a worst-case scenario and then implying that most adventures will be like that, and I don't entirely believe that to be the case.For example, the rules regarding coming back without any aid from being out:Yup.  It's hard.  Down with you on that.  It is not easy.  Nor should it be.Let's assume for the moment that d20 Modern is meant to be a bridge of sorts between realism and action-movie cinematism.  It's supposed to be fun and exciting and somewhat dangerous.I see two ways for being out at -1 to work:1) The movie/TV trope of the guy who gets whacked by the bad guy and is out like a light, but his friends check him and "He'll be fine."  He wakes up on the couch a few hours later with an icepack on his head and an attractive woman telling him he's an idiot for going after the vampiric weretrolls all by himself.Dude got reduced to -1, then got stabilized.  He was never in any real danger.  He's shaky for the next few days, but is really going to be fine with no trouble.2) The movie/TV trope of the guy who gets whacked by the bad guy and falls off a cliff and has to recover on his own and limp painfully back into town, bleeding and scuffed, finally collapsing in the arms of his friends as they shout about how they thought he was dead and all that.Dude got reduced to -1, made his saves, and slowly eked his way back.  It's a lot more dangerous.  He feels a lot more heroic for surviving on his own.  Like you said, lots of save problems.  Not something the average Smart Hero is gonna do on the first try...Now, you're implying that because (2) doesn't map to what I'm talking about, that I'm way off base.  I'd submit that (2) was never what I was talking about, or at least, not what I wanted to be talking about.  I'm talking about (1), which is the way that television handwaves someone being unconscious for a period of hours with some small chance of death, but assuming that they're either cared for by friends or captors, they're not in any real meaningful danger.Perhaps this all masks a gigantic house-rule conspiracy I'm trying to stealthily slip through people's guards.  When my bad guys want you to wake up tied to a chair, they are most likely to batter you unconscious and then treat your wounds.  Treating the wounds is flavor-texted with something like the following:"Steve, you see that Joe isn't moving.  As you're held helpless, one of the thugs moves over to Joe, puts a thick finger to his throat, and then nods at the leader.  'He'll live,' the thug grunts, and then hoists Joe over one burly shoulder, taking care not to bang Joe's head anymore.  If nothing else, having Joe's head elevated should help."That was the bad guy's Treat Injury check.  If they're capturing you, they obviously want you to live, so yeah, they're gonna treat your injuries -- but having them use smelling salts and give you stitches and an icepack sorta makes them seem like wimps.  So you flavor-text it differently.At this point, I'm almost sure that I'm in the minority.  I'm working on a no-magic game, and I want to come up  with types of unconsciousness that aren't a death sentence for heroes who don't have a first aid kit handy.As far as some of your other realism points, I'd say that your opinion is just as valid as mine, for whatever that's worth.  According to the rules right out of the book, a first-level Smart Hero could be shot by a gun for 7 points damage, reducing him to -1.  He'd need serious treatment at the hospital, and then he'd be completely and totally healed in one week flat, with no signs whatsoever of his previous injury.  In fact, after only two days, our hero would be running at his full speed, attacking without penalties, solving complex mathematical formulae without any complaints about how the recent gunshot wound made it hard to concentrate, or anything like that.In my opinion, a wound that heals completely in a week shouldn't be described as "near fatal".  Near fatal would be the one that takes you to -10 and requires surgery and mandatory recovery periods.  -1 should be a wound to a nonvital area that was bleeding and could have become serious if left untreated, but could also have clotted on its own.And even with my fix, recovery times from near-mortal injuries are way too fast, and nobody ever gets broken legs or concussions that take weeks to heal, because frankly, I'm not interested in coming up with the Rest & Recovery Splatbook that describes how shafted your character gets by a broken leg and tries to make up for it by giving Bonus Feat: Crutch Proficiency.  My interpretation of the rules lets me ignore some of the inherent problems of an abstract hit point system, and it lets me make the game I want with the flavor I like.Really, realism is gonna be kinda tweaked, no matter how we play with it.  For my part, I prefer to think of nonlethal damage and lethal damage and down & dying rules the way I do because that flavor text is more enjoyable for me in the games that i want to run.  My mechanics are unchanged, and YM, of course, MV.</blockquote>

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