Less Lethal damage

[SDLeary]

The thread on the listed damage of a Blackjack got me thinking...

Many things in the world that are used in fights are not lethal, much less in the single landing of a blow. How often will 4 or 5 punches actually kill someone (Brawl + DB)? A small club, quaterstaff, or as in the other thread, a Blackjack? I'm certainly not saying that they can't kill. There are recorded accounts of someone dying from a punch to the face, but they seem to be an extreme rarity, and make "news" when it happens particularly because of their rarity.

Even when people are bashed on with items like clubs, death seems to occur less than as molded in BRP, and people today tend to not wear armor!

So...

1. Do we need to model Less Lethal damage better?
   
2. How would you go about doing it?
   
3. What weapons or classes of weapons would you place under this?
   
4. How should they be listed in weapons charts?
   

SDLeary

[rust]

I think it would depend a lot on the specific setting. Up to the early modern

times even a small injury carried a high risk to die of an infection or of what

was considered as a medical treatment of the injury. Therefore the death ra-

te in a historical or pseudo-historical setting should be comparatively high,

although many people died days or weeks after the actual injury.

[KingSkin]

I was having similar thoughts earlier, how best to fit it in. The quick and dirty way (as I said in the other thread) is to let use the Fatigue system to track non-lethal damage. That way you can put somebody out of action without killing them. To represent the lethality you can just rule that any damage taken that exceeds your Fatigue points becomes standard HP damage. If you use the Hit Location system then it becomes fairly easy to knock someone out with a decent head hit (or temporarily incapacitate a limb) and also edges over quite quickly into lethal damage. Smashing the back of someone's skull for 16 or so points of 'non-lethal' damage is easily enough to kill, no matter what your intent.

I'd rule that Special successes do max damage and Criticals do max damage and ignore armour. Otherwise you have to rewrite the critical hit categories for the different weapons, while Knockback makes sense, Impaling someone on the flat of your blade would be a complete cock-up if you want to take them alive. For Fumbles I'd suggest a weapon built for subduing (like the blackjack or a fist) would suffer a normal Fumble result but if someone's improvising with a sword then it would be fitting (plus amusing) for them to accidentally get a bit 'stabby'.

The advantage of that is that it avoids having to rewrite all the weapon stats. I'd probably impose a -20% penalty to non-lethal attacks made with lethal weapons. Hitting someone with the flat of a blade to knock them out is harder than just belting them with it.

The only real problem I've got with it is that it doesn't appeal to the tinkerer in me enough. Part of me really wants to start pulling the weapon tables apart and working out how to do it properly.

@Rust: I agree with what you're saying but I think that's better represented by fiddling with the Medicine rules for settings. Give failed checks an increasing chance of causing the wound to get infected or otherwise worsened by the bumbling barber-surgeon rather than changing the damage values for weapons, after all, what you're talking about is a setting-specific difference in medical technology rather than the damage output of weapons or the fragility of the human body.

Edited February 6, 2012 by KingSkin

[SDLeary]

I was having similar thoughts earlier, how best to fit it in. The quick and dirty way (as I said in the other thread) is to let use the Fatigue system to track non-lethal damage. That way you can put somebody out of action without killing them. To represent the lethality you can just rule that any damage taken that exceeds your Fatigue points becomes standard HP damage. If you use the Hit Location system then it becomes fairly easy to knock someone out with a decent head hit (or temporarily incapacitate a limb) and also edges over quite quickly into lethal damage. Smashing the back of someone's skull for 16 or so points of 'non-lethal' damage is easily enough to kill, no matter what your intent.

I'd rule that Special successes do max damage and Criticals do max damage and ignore armour. Otherwise you have to rewrite the critical hit categories for the different weapons, while Knockback makes sense, Impaling someone on the flat of your blade would be a complete cock-up if you want to take them alive. For Fumbles I'd suggest a weapon built for subduing (like the blackjack or a fist) would suffer a normal Fumble result but if someone's improvising with a sword then it would be fitting (plus amusing) for them to accidentally get a bit 'stabby'.

The advantage of that is that it avoids having to rewrite all the weapon stats. I'd probably impose a -20% penalty to non-lethal attacks made with lethal weapons. Hitting someone with the flat of a blade to knock them out is harder than just belting them with it.

The only real problem I've got with it is that it doesn't appeal to the tinkerer in me enough. Part of me really wants to start pulling the weapon tables apart and working out how to do it properly.

Similar to what I've thought... also in the other thread. Both of our methods though assume that an optional rules system is in place. Fatigue with yours, Hit Locations in mine. The easiest way, and one that doesn't involve the use of optional rules, would be a slight revision of the Weapons Tables, appending a K to the weapons involved, and forcing people to use the Knockout rules.

Like you though, I think there should be more.

SDLeary

[SDLeary]

I think it would depend a lot on the specific setting. Up to the early modern

times even a small injury carried a high risk to die of an infection or of what

was considered as a medical treatment of the injury. Therefore the death ra-

te in a historical or pseudo-historical setting should be comparatively high,

although many people died days or weeks after the actual injury.

That would be somewhat setting dependent though. I'm thinking more in terms of generality... something of a way to lessen the mortality rate for fights that shouldn't be mortal to begin with, and to allow perhaps better scaling of the system to comic book levels, as mentioned in the Superworld thread.

YES! I know I mentioned weapons in the first post! If we can come up with something core and solid, then perhaps it could carry over to powers as well, without having to totally rewrite the damage system of the game.

SDLeary

[pansophy]

actually, I often have to deal with non-lethal damage, as I do not want to have players roll new characters all time. So what I came up with is this:

1) let the players note damage somewhere else on a piece of paper

2) after combat (normal BRP rules apply) let them roll CON on the Resistance Table against the Damage Points taken. Let them roll for every hit received, but always use the total amount of damage. For Example: PC has taken 5,3 & 2 points of damage. PC rolls his CON three times against 10.

3) for each successful roll, half of the damage taken (round up) was non-lethal and is ignored

This helps surviving, while it keeps combat still deadly. Major Wounds and rolling for unconsciousness are still a threat and stay in place, even if the damage is 'halved' after the battle. The non-lethal Damage Points simply represent bruises and shock that fades away, but is a threat while in combat.

Together with my Mook rules, this adds to a more heroic/cinematic like RPG feeling. You could also use the above rule only for damage that is inflicted by weapons usually used to stun.

Edited February 7, 2012 by pansophy

[Gollum]

I was having similar thoughts earlier, how best to fit it in. The quick and dirty way (as I said in the other thread) is to let use the Fatigue system to track non-lethal damage. That way you can put somebody out of action without killing them. To represent the lethality you can just rule that any damage taken that exceeds your Fatigue points becomes standard HP damage.

The problem of this rule is the fact that fatigue points are much higher than hit points. Strength + Constitution. Then, it becomes harder to knock out someone, especially if he is a bit strong. And it becomes very hard to injure him (and even harder to kill him) – which is not true for the blackjack, as described in the wikipedia quoted in the other thread.

1D8+1D4 gives an average result of 7. The average victim has 20 fatigue points and 10 hit points... Knocking him out would require about 3 blows. Killing him with a blackjack would require 5 blows.

I'd rule that Special successes do max damage and Criticals do max damage and ignore armour.

With this rule, it could do the job better. But that still gives two special or critical blows to knock someone out with the blackjack.

@Rust: I agree with what you're saying but I think that's better represented by fiddling with the Medicine rules for settings.

Yes. This is exactly what I think. Long term death is linked to recovering rules, not to damage ones.

[Gollum]

Similar to what I've thought... also in the other thread. Both of our methods though assume that an optional rules system is in place. Fatigue with yours, Hit Locations in mine. The easiest way, and one that doesn't involve the use of optional rules, would be a slight revision of the Weapons Tables, appending a K to the weapons involved, and forcing people to use the Knockout rules.

Of course, it all depends on the genre the GM wants (realistic, heroic...) and on optional rules he is using or not...

Having said that, I really believe that the knockout rule is the better choice.

1) You don't have to change anything on the book. Just to add a K to the weapons which are obviously made to knockout rather than to kill (blackjack, punch, kick...).

2) These weapons remain dangerous, as in real life: if the damage rolled is not a major wound, the weapon does it's minimum damage, but these are true damage. Then, repeated blows can kill. And quite quickly. Especially if the victim is already wounded!

3) Kicks and punches do more realistic damage. For a character with a damage bonus of +1D4, it gives 2 points of damage per blow – rather than 2 to 7 points of damage (or even 2 to 10 if you use 1D6 for kicks!); for martial artists, it gives 3 points of damage... And it gives a fair chance to knock out the victim before killing him.

4) A “sadistic” GM can easily rule that a fumble kills the victim if it is a bad thing for the attacker, which gives the accidental death from which news talk from time to time.

5) If the death of the victim is not really a bad thing for the attacker, the GM can just rule that a fumble to the defense means that the attack do true damage, which still gives some chance to kill the victim “accidentally”.

[Gollum]

actually, I often have to deal with non-lethal damage, as I do not want to have players roll new characters all time. So what I came up with is this:

1) let the players note damage somewhere else on a piece of paper

2) after combat (normal BRP rules apply) let them roll CON on the Resistance Table against the Damage Points taken. Let them roll for every hit received, but always use the total amount of damage. For Example: PC has taken 5,3 & 2 points of damage. PC rolls his CON three times against 10.

3) for each successful roll, half of the damage taken (round up) was non-lethal and is ignored

Good rule too...

Which makes me think about something...

When you are knocked out, it is never without pain. It hurts, and still hurts a lot after being awaken.

So, we could also rule that knockout attacks always do minimum damage. Even when they are fully successful and knockout the victim. Who will recover with a strong headache for a while...

It would be much more realistic. Especially for barehanded combats. They don't always kill, of course, but a punch in the nose or a knee strike in the ribs still inflict a wound that lasts more than a few minutes. Especially when they knock you out!

[KingSkin]

Similar to what I've thought... also in the other thread. Both of our methods though assume that an optional rules system is in place. Fatigue with yours, Hit Locations in mine. The easiest way, and one that doesn't involve the use of optional rules, would be a slight revision of the Weapons Tables, appending a K to the weapons involved, and forcing people to use the Knockout rules.

Like you though, I think there should be more.

SDLeary

They are both optional systems, but then so is the idea of non-lethal damage by the looks of it so if people are adding one system in they may as well combine the two. That being said, adding a K-type damage to weapons would be fairly easy to do as well.

@Gollum: I see what you're saying about the difference between Fatigue Points and Hit Points but the easiest way to deal with that is to make them equal. Either double the HP (which is what I tend to do anyway, for slightly more robust protagonists) or half Fatigue Points. I don't think fiddling with the Fatigue Points value is going to make much of a difference to the rest of the game, I'm not sure too many people use them as is anyway so I doubt it would raise many problems.

[Gollum]

@Gollum: I see what you're saying about the difference between Fatigue Points and Hit Points but the easiest way to deal with that is to make them equal. Either double the HP (which is what I tend to do anyway, for slightly more robust protagonists) or half Fatigue Points. I don't think fiddling with the Fatigue Points value is going to make much of a difference to the rest of the game, I'm not sure too many people use them as is anyway so I doubt it would raise many problems.

Yes. I fully do agree with that.