Mortal Wounds

[Zeropoint]

Re: Mortal Wounds

 

With 21st century medical technology as applied to traumatic injury (as opposed to diseases and degenerative disorders), if they can get you through the first few hours, you're generally not going to die at all. Of course, throughout most of history, this hasn't been the case--prior to modern antibiotics, a perforated intestine was a death sentence.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Mortal Wounds

 

The more advanced meditech you have available the less likely you will end up with a mortal wound.... Even less common in the typical Cyberpunk or SF setting.

Yeah, and cyber-hears or genetically modified cat intestine transplants can introduce all kinds of interesting side effects and eccentricities....

[Sean Waters]

Re: Mortal Wounds

 

I've been thinking about something lately. I have not seen any damage system that I am aware of for any game that deals with mortal wounds, that is wounds that will kills the person who has recieved them, but not yet. The wound will result in death in hours or days and the wounded person may even be able to function for a while, maybe even in combat, before they finally succumb to it. But the wound is fatal and beyond the medical science of the setting to save the character's life.

 

Obviously any player would probably not like it if there was a rule for this in place that affected their characters. How much would it suck to still be playing your character but to know that later this session or next session you would be drawing up a new one and that their was nothing you could do about it. But what about for NPCs? For minor NPCs in combat this is somewhat moot. Either the NPC can continue to fight in which case you haven't defeated that foe yet (who cares if the orc barbarian is going to die in two days from the wound you just gave him to the gut, when he's going to kill you next turn?), or they are unable to fight and then does it matter how long that NPC will linger from his wounds before dying? But for major NPCs significant story elements may revolve around wounds such as this.

 

I don't think I've ever seen a system with rules for determining when a wound to a character is a mortal wound.

 

Thoughts?

 

See what you think about this - House Rule, but with a 'Hero System' feel:

 

Click for Bleeding Rules

 

Using that system you'd never KNOW that a wound was mortal (or indeed that it was not, so long as it bled) but you'd get a good idea of the chances. Potentially it allows you to take a relatively minor wound and die from internal bleeding days later., or take a relatively minor wound and bleed out quickly. I think that combining this with a hit location table might be nice - rather than rolling the 1d6 'bleeding modifier'. I've not gone that far though. Feel free to tinker.

 

Also note that losing blood under this system exhausts you, and can make you fall unconscious.

 

There is potential for talents like ''It's only a scratch" (+X Body only to determine Bleeding Threshold) and "Thick blooded" (Bleeding tends to slow and stop more quickly - built as healing triggered by bleeding, with activation).

 

Of course not all deterioration is necessarily due to bleeding, but it is a reasonable approximation.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Mortal Wounds

 

Just alter the rate at which people bleed out.

 

Lots of ways to do this. You could tie it to hit locations (gut wounds bleed out slower than arterial wounds). You could differentiate between types of "damage"; an axe to the head vs a wasting illness.

 

If simplicity is desired you could just randomize it...when someone receives a "fatal" wound roll 1d6 on a time chart starting at per Phase or even Segment on a 1 and walk up the time chart. If 1d6 is insufficiently curved you could do ranges on a 2d6.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Mortal Wounds

 

For a system where the 'sfx' of a fatal wound can be bleeding out, that works well, but doesn't allow you to build a character who, for instance, takes longer to bleed out.

 

If you want mortal wounds to be a feature of a 'gritty' (not necessarily 'realistic') game then it needs a bit more definition in the rule set you adopt, something you can use the character creation rules to modify for a given character.

 

It can be fun to play a character who 'knows' (read 'believes') that they are a gonner.