House Rule: Instant Kill

[schir1964]

I've long used a general Instant Kill house rule similar to Fitz's in various genre campaigns, including grittier superheroic ones. If a character takes an amount of BODY damage after Defenses equal to their starting BODY from a single attack - including Coordinated attacks, and counting modifiers for Hit Locations - the character has to make a CON Characteristic Roll or die immediately from shock (which is actually a pretty realistic outcome). Note that with their higher than average CON scores most heroic types will make that roll, and their higher BODY scores mean that they often don't have to roll at all, so using this rule doesn't affect them adversely in most cases. The possibility of immediate death is still there, though.

 

For higher-fatality campaigns you can just ignore the CON roll altogether. I've also found that that works well as a "mook rule" when you want lots of slaughter of cannon fodder or innocent bystanders; you just assume that anyone you want to die automatically failed their roll.

 

This has given me all the realistic NPC (and PC) deaths I could want.

 

For perusal and reference.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[pinecone]

Re: House Rule: Instant Kill

 

I use a simular (no con rolls) thang called either the "Mook rule" or in earlier versions the "Red mist" rule.....if you don't mind the grim and gritty it works real good...(It called the Mook rule from a game quote"If ya take all your body in one hit,yer justa freakin Mook!")(Quote sanitised for family viewing)

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: House Rule: Instant Kill

 

I find such mook rules need to be taken with a bit of creative interpretation. For example, a strict application of a "down is dead" mook rule can be very frustrating to PC's trying to take a captive for questioning, making the mook rule add to the effective "power" of the mooks instead of detracting from it.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: House Rule: Instant Kill

 

OTOH it can force heroes who tend to blast first, ask questions later to exercise a little more caution when dealing with those fragile normal people, or suffer the game-world consequences.

 

I've also found that this rule adds a lot of appropriate tension to hostage-taking situations. I've seen metagaming players who will try to take out a hostage-holder who has someone covered, figuring that they can save the hostage before he or she bleeds to death.

[pinecone]

Re: House Rule: Instant Kill

 

That it exactly...I want a dose of Power=Responsability....its easy to shoot first when the consiquences are light....."It might be a case of mistaken idenity" " I can fly, I'll get them to hospital Ages before they die"

[zornwil]

Re: House Rule: Instant Kill

 

That it exactly...I want a dose of Power=Responsability....its easy to shoot first when the consiquences are light....."It might be a case of mistaken idenity" " I can fly' date=' I'll get them to hospital Ages before they die"[/quote']

Well, on the other hand, I think in a world with supers as powerful as we see both in comics and games, I think that mentality is quite realistic and one which some supers would take.

 

I am not trying to derail or deny anyone else running games as they wish - but I think there's a bit of falsity in trying to shoehorn in the same sort of hostage dramas that normals have with ones supers would have.

[HewhoisMatt]

Re: House Rule: Instant Kill

 

I have never used a rule like that before but I think I will in certain campains. Looks like a good idea to me.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: House Rule: Instant Kill

 

Yeah, its called Impairing and Disabling rules. I've been using them for years.

[pinecone]

Re: House Rule: Instant Kill

 

Yeah I use those too...but not for 4 color...my wimpy players don't like the Iron age feel...

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: House Rule: Instant Kill

 

I would never use such a rule, as I consider the 'easy to knock out, hard to kill' part of the HERO System to be a feature, not a bug ... it doesn't need fixing.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: House Rule: Instant Kill

 

And that's your right. However, I've received a lot of positive responses when I mentioned this rule here in the past, which leads me to conclude that no few HERO gamers feel that this part of the system does need fixing, at least for some games.

 

Since HERO purports to be the Ultimate Toolkit, usable for just about any style of gameplay, IMHO it's perfectly reasonable for such an option to be included. Like all the other optional elements it's there to be used or not, however an individual group wants to play the game.

[zornwil]

Re: House Rule: Instant Kill

 

And that's your right. However, I've received a lot of positive responses when I mentioned this rule here in the past, which leads me to conclude that no few HERO gamers feel that this part of the system does need fixing, at least for some games.

 

Since HERO purports to be the Ultimate Toolkit, usable for just about any style of gameplay, IMHO it's perfectly reasonable for such an option to be included. Like all the other optional elements it's there to be used or not, however an individual group wants to play the game.

Heck, you can pick anything that "no few HERO gamers" feel should be fixed.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: House Rule: Instant Kill

 

This thread really makes me wonder if anyone has actually read the impairing and disabling rules, considering that the original post is exactly whats laid out in those optional rules. And by exactly, I mean exactly.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: House Rule: Instant Kill

 

Well, not exactly, no. The Impairing and Disabling rules are used in conjunction with Hit Locations, and some gamers prefer to avoid the complexity of those. The death result is GM discretion and conditional on hitting particular locations. Coordinated attacks aren't dealt with, and with Hit Locations probably wouldn't make a difference.

 

What I was going for was something simpler, faster, not needing Hit Locations and that could also scale up to supers if desired. I won't fault you if you just prefer Impairing for your games, though.