Does a missing hand reduce the HP of that arm?

[Jex]

One of the major characters of a RuneQuest adventure I'm working on is missing his right hand.  (I know magic exists in Glorantha that can regrow limbs, but there are reasons his hasn't been regrown.)  I haven't statted him up yet, but when I do, I'm wondering if his missing hand means his right arm should have fewer HP?  I'm thinking it would make sense to reduce the HP of his right arm by a point or so, but I'm not completely sure that would be correct.  Is there an existing rule for this that I overlooked, or does anyone have any thoughts?

[svensson]

If the hand is off at the wrist, I'd say no. If off at the elbow, perhaps reduce the HP by 1 point.

Getting a little bit min/max power gamer with it, the HP in the arm are valuable barriers for the chest location.

[Jex]

It's at the wrist, and the character isn't much of a combatant anyway (though he does have trained animals that could defend him in a fight).

Yeah, given that the arm of a typical human only has 3 or 4 hit points anyway, I guess taking off a point for a missing hand does seem a bit much.

[PhilHibbs]

The only rule I can remember for missing parts of a limb is if it is severed in combat you roll % for how much is lost. That's the RQ3 rule, I don't recall if it's there in RQG. If it is, then the limb is still considered "gone" even if you've lost less that 50% of it, so by that rule the arm simply has no hit points at all.

But that's not really what you want, so there's no rule for it. I wouldn't change it myself, but I'd be ok with a 1 point reduction.

The down side is that the limb is easier to cut off. The up side is that less general HP are lost when it is severed.

[French Desperate WindChild]

if I were facing such issue, I would not reduce the hp. The manipulation penalty is enough

But I don't think we have any rule about it.

[Akhôrahil]

I wouldn’t bother. If you start down that route, you will now have to consider whether an attack that would gave hit the hand misses instead, and so on.

[Scotty]

Just for general reference:

https://robslink.com/SAS/democd79/body_part_weights.htm

[Bill the barbarian]

13 hours ago, Jex said:

One of the major characters of a RuneQuest adventure I'm working on is missing his right hand.  (I know magic exists in Glorantha that can regrow limbs, but there are reasons his hasn't been regrown.)  I haven't statted him up yet, but when I do, I'm wondering if his missing hand means his right arm should have fewer HP?  I'm thinking it would make sense to reduce the HP of his right arm by a point or so, but I'm not completely sure that would be correct.  Is there an existing rule for this that I overlooked, or does anyone have any thoughts?

I would agree with svennson and remind you that you suggest he is not much of a combatant anyway. -1 to the limb sounds good and adds incentive for him to remain a non-combatant. Maybe up his communication skills.

Edited November 18, 2022 by Bill the barbarian

[g33k]

I would not apply a HP penalty, simply because -- once any injury is healed -- that person doesn't really have any fewer HP's.

It's not like a missing hand costs any total-HP's.
It's not like a 3-year-old (or congenital) missing hand is going to be relevant to the damage done to the bicep & humerus by an axe.

The RQ hit-location mechanism has no real way to distinguish sub-locations...
How far down that path do you want to go, really?  A ruined nailbed, that no longer grows a fingernail?  The last joint of a finger?  An entire finger?  Most (but not all) of a hand?  Etc...

Once these wounds are healed-up, I allege -- even if missing parts aren't restored -- the HP-totals are fully restored to normal pre-injury levels.

As @French Desperate WindChild said:  a manipulation-penalty would suffice, at his table (and mine).  YGMV.

Edited November 18, 2022 by g33k

[svensson]

8 hours ago, Scotty said:

Just for general reference:

https://robslink.com/SAS/democd79/body_part_weights.htm

Ah... forensic gaming, because no detail is too small for power gaming 🤣😁

[That's not a jab, @Scotty... Every one of us knows 'that guy']

[svensson]

2 hours ago, g33k said:

I would not apply a HP penalty, simply because -- once any injury is healed -- that person doesn't really have any fewer HP's.

It's not like a missing hand costs any total-HP's.
It's not like a 3-year-old (or congenital) missing hand is going to be relevant to the damage done to the bicep & humerus by an axe.

The RQ hit-location mechanism has no real way to distinguish sub-locations...
How far down that path do you want to go, really?  A ruined nailbed, that no longer grows a fingernail?  The last joint of a finger?  An entire finger?  Most (but not all) of a hand?  Etc...

Once these wounds are healed-up, I allege -- even if missing parts aren't restored -- the HP-totals are fully restored to normal pre-injury levels.

As @French Desperate WindChild said:  a manipulation-penalty would suffice, at his table (and mine).  YGMV.

At that point, if I were that player character I'd be investing a lot of 'filthy Lunars' into Protection and Shield spells.

[The OP said there were roleplaying reasons why the PC didn't want Regrow Limb]

[Jex]

For the record, the character with the missing hand isn't a player character; he's an NPC in an adventure I'm writing for the Jonstown Compendium.  (He's actually one of the main villains of the adventure, though he's a social, manipulative kind of villain rather than any sort of physical threat--he wouldn't be able to put up much resistance in a fight, but it would be difficult for the PCs to catch him alone and undefended and have an opportunity to face him in a fight anyway.)  Based on the discussion here, yeah, I think I'm going to go ahead and leave his arm HP unmodified.  Thanks for the responses.

[whitelaughter]

Page 149a: if an adventurer no longer has part of a limb, they lose 1 hit point in that location.

[Jex]

Oh, thanks for pointing that out; I thought I'd read through that section in the rulebook, but I must have missed that sentence somehow.

On the other hand, @g33kmakes a good point that the size of the missing part would make a difference—like they said, it would be silly to take off a full hit point from a character just missing the last join of a finger.  The guy's arm only has four hit points anyway, and the hand is a lot less than a quarter of the arm, so taking off a hit point from the arm may be excessive.  I'm leaning toward leaving the hit points alone, but I can see a good argument either way.

[Akhôrahil]

On 11/19/2022 at 8:50 PM, Jex said:

Oh, thanks for pointing that out; I thought I'd read through that section in the rulebook, but I must have missed that sentence somehow.

On the other hand, @g33kmakes a good point that the size of the missing part would make a difference—like they said, it would be silly to take off a full hit point from a character just missing the last join of a finger.  The guy's arm only has four hit points anyway, and the hand is a lot less than a quarter of the arm, so taking off a hit point from the arm may be excessive.  I'm leaning toward leaving the hit points alone, but I can see a good argument either way.

If you like, you could roll 1D100 for the percentage of limb lost, and apply that towards HP as well.