Fatal blows and emergency healing

[PhilHibbs]

Any ideas on how to handle sudden fatal blows near the end of a melee round? It sucks if it happens, and can really put players off. I’m comfortable with playing a deadly game, but not everyone is.

I’m thinking, some kind of CON roll each round or die. Gives a chance for last words etc. as well as healing. Maybe balance it by having healing not automatically avoiding death by just bringing HP back over zero, but have the player still roll for survival one more time.

CON×5, ×4, ×3, ×2, ×1 each round maybe. Make all five, you survive!

[Jens]

I’ve generally ruled that death from general HP<1 doesn’t occur until the end of the next round rather than the current one to allow for emergency healing, but over 3x damage to the head, chest, or abdomen from a single blow means that part is severed/destroyed and you’re instantly dead. Limb wounds, head and torso under 3x, and multiple blows already take longer to kill. 

Edited April 5 by Jens

[glarkhag]

41 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Any ideas on how to handle sudden fatal blows near the end of a melee round? It sucks if it happens, and can really put players off. I’m comfortable with playing a deadly game, but not everyone is.

Resurrection, DI.

But your suggestions work. If you just want chance for last words allow that but there's nothing that can be done for them except DI. Just because they are conscious and (barely alive) doesn't mean normal healing magic or first aid will work. You might even allow it for fatal head injuries. I've read countless stories of people with fatal head wounds being conscious. The brain can continue to swell after the injury for example and eventually crush the critical parts.

If you all agree that its not instant death then why not? As long as NPCs get the same benefit....😈

[radmonger]

Personally I rule that 0 hp, or head severed, is merely clinical death, and is just as reversible as it is in the real world.

Quote

The brain, however, appears to accumulate ischemic injury faster than any other organ. Without special treatment after circulation is restarted, full recovery of the brain after more than 3 minutes of clinical death at normal body temperature is rare.

Actual death, requiring resurrection, happens 3 minutes after clinical death. This  is the time for the spirit to leave the area. That time can be extended by shamanic practices, which will involve talking to the dead person and persuading them to stick around.

Fully healing some wounds within that time frame may be challenging, and for a single healer may well involve more rune points then a Resurrection spell. So unless a fight happens directly outside the doors of the Nochet great  hospital, this make little difference to battle casualty figures.

[soltakss]

20 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Any ideas on how to handle sudden fatal blows near the end of a melee round? It sucks if it happens, and can really put players off. I’m comfortable with playing a deadly game, but not everyone is.

I tend to ignore, or downplay, Total Hit Point damage as being fatal. I normally say that it is fatal when you have gone negative past your normal Hit Points, so someone with 15 Hit Points doesn't die until they reach -16 Hit Points, and even then they don't die until the Book-keeping phase of the round, allowing Healing to work.

20 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I’m thinking, some kind of CON roll each round or die. Gives a chance for last words etc. as well as healing. Maybe balance it by having healing not automatically avoiding death by just bringing HP back over zero, but have the player still roll for survival one more time.

CON×5, ×4, ×3, ×2, ×1 each round maybe. Make all five, you survive!

That could work as well.

 

[Akhôrahil]

On 4/5/2024 at 11:56 PM, PhilHibbs said:

Any ideas on how to handle sudden fatal blows near the end of a melee round?

Me and a lot of other people houserule this as ”end of next round”, or if you want to particularly meticulous, ”in 12 SRs”.

Edited April 7 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

18 hours ago, radmonger said:

Personally I rule that 0 hp, or head severed, is merely clinical death, and is just as reversible as it is in the real world.

Actual death, requiring resurrection, happens 3 minutes after clinical death. This  is the time for the spirit to leave the area. That time can be extended by shamanic practices, which will involve talking to the dead person and persuading them to stick around.

This isn’t the case - the spirit hangs around for seven days.

You raise a really interesting point, though - since you can perfectly re-attach a severed head in fraction of a second, why is decapitation instantly fatal?

[Malin]

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

You raise a really interesting point, though - since you can perfectly re-attach a severed head in fraction of a second, why is decapitation instantly fatal?

Maybe because the abdomen/torso/neck/head (spine/chakras) is the anchor of the spirit and once that is cut/destroyed, the spirit has started to detach? A bit like a balloon whose string has been cut?

[Shiningbrow]

I allow a PC to get off a Rune Spell at the moment of death, as they have a sufficient connection to the god for that to happen, and the god's energies swiftly (instantly) move in to keep the soul there, and to heal the body. Of course, they still need to make the Rune roll for that connection to be invoked. Remembering that Rune Magic normally takes place on SR 1 - meaning, as soon as it's thought of, and thus, can be called upon and used at any time (such as as a reaction)... although, SoI still rules, as I wouldn't allow popping a Shield just because damage is too much... (or would I??? hmmmmmm))

I recall something sort of similar in the thread about Humakti and healing/resurrection (which they can't get, but can heal in that instant between life and death). Effectively, they haven't crossed the line just yet...

 

(which is good for my Befuddled Humakti player who copped a nice hit to the head! From a tusk-rider on a charging tusker.... about 20 pts of damage :p)

 

[radmonger]

5 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

This isn’t the case - the spirit hangs around for seven days.

7 days is the limit for resurrection, presumably because the soul has not merely left the area, but passed through the Courts of Silence and been sent by Daka Fal to their just fate.

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

I allow a PC to get off a Rune Spell at the moment of death

If you do that, then you presumably also have to allow it for unconsciousness or incapacitation. This leads to PCs who, once they have a few extra RP, essentially can never lose any reasonable fight, because they can always instantly heal any incoming damage. You end up just rolling to see how long their victory takes. If you counter this by allowing NPCs the same, then fights are long grinding affairs.

I much prefer the situation where you can go into a fight with two possible outcomes, the PCs win, or lose but survive. This offers a wealth of meaningful storytelling possibilities; abandonment, capture, escape, ransom, etc. Perhaps more importantly, it keeps the fight itself exciting, because there are stakes. Tactics and luck matter. 

Realism, mythological and gameplay arguments seem to all align to say the current RQ:G rules in this area are a bad fit for Glorantha. They would be fine for a gritty Bronze Age wargame. One where you you have no reason to care about the difference between 'dead now', and 'unconscious now, dead in 5 minutes'. But in one with either modern medicine or the common healing magic of Glorantha, you do. Note that Chaosium themselves do not use them, as indicated by the RQ:G FAQ answer here.

Of course, YGWV. I could see the argument for abandoning realism and keeping beheading, specifically, as an instant kill, for symbolic reasons. Maybe there could be other ways of getting an instant kill. Like stabbing someone through the heart with a cold iron dagger in the shape of a death rune.

 

 

Edited April 7 by radmonger

[Shiningbrow]

1 hour ago, radmonger said:

If you do that, then you presumably also have to allow it for unconsciousness or incapacitation. This leads to PCs who, once they have a few extra RP, essentially can never lose any reasonable fight, because they can always instantly heal any incoming damage. You end up just rolling to see how long their victory takes. If you counter this by allowing NPCs the same, then fights are long grinding affairs.

Yeah, well... it was his second fight ever in RQ, so I was lenient. I might change it afterwards...

(You have pointed out one aspect that's relevant though... "a few extra RPs".. by this time, he had only 1 left... So, that's going to be a thing! Never using up that last RP in case they need to use it later... could make things interesting!)

[svensson]

To the OP:

IMGU, it depends on the killing blow. Head and Chest blows are instant-kill. With other locations, or with general HP loss, I give a CON roll 'countdown' at SR 1... CON x3 the round after the killing blow, CON x2 the second round, CON x1 the third.

But I'm also very careful to explain that RQ is a deadly system and that 'adventurer' implies a very risky lifestyle. If you wanted 'safe' you could have stayed back on the steading... I 'encourage' all my players to armor the head and torso and I remind them that RP and MP are renewable resources and that they should 'power up' before a fight if at all possible.

Every one of my players gets this speech from me:

"RQ is not DnD. There are no 'warm up fights'. The only HP you're ever going to get is on your character sheet right now and any permanent increase in those HP is both very rare and takes a bit of work to achieve. Even then it won't be very many HP, 1 or 2 at most. Last thing: while some opponents are more powerful than others, there are no 'kobolds' or 'goblins' against whom you are impervious. Even the lowest creature in the game can get lucky and kill you no matter how powerful you get. You have an outright 5% chance of being instant-killed in every single fight you're in. Don't start fights that you don't want to win and don't treat any fight as trivial."

[PhilHibbs]

3 hours ago, svensson said:

Every one of my players gets this speech from me:

"RQ is not DnD. There are no 'warm up fights'. The only HP you're ever going to get is on your character sheet right now and any permanent increase in those HP is both very rare and takes a bit of work to achieve...

That was never a hard transition for me because we went more or less straight from basic D&D blue book to RuneQuest, so we never got used to fifty-hit-point fighters.

[Geoff R Evil]

I tend to agree with @svensson but with some slight clarification. A head chest abdomen shot which deals 3x hp is instant death. The head comes off, the back cut in half etc. only DI can save you versus this. However hits that whittle you down to minus- 2x hp in one of those locations may allow some circumstantial last second saves. A heal body, a heal of 2hp or more from a party member within a few SR ( yes into the next round, I like to see flexibility around the hard round by round barriers and see it mostly as a useful game/fight management tool not a stop start thing). With head and arms, I allow even more time flexibility even if total hp loss as they bleed to death. Maybe a round or two if the total hp loss has been really gradual, less if mostly one hit plus multiple minor wounds. In other words plenty of role play opportunity.

This leaves plenty of scope for death of a PC, but also last minute heroic saves by other PCs, given they might be in Combat and risk themselves to make such a save (you allow a free shot from that troll as you bend down to heal Fred…maybe with a half dodge etc) also they don’t automatically know you are dying and need to make a save. I might ask for a perception roll, maybe an int roll etc. Lots of roleplay angst when they realise they could have saved a colleague but failed due to inattentiveness etc. In other words, if a fellow goes down, waiting could mean their death. I often put players into mid fight dilemmas that way.

So this means real risk if you go off solo, or accept a solo fight. In my campaign one death so far, a player that went off on his own against the main monster. He bled to death after multiple wounds.

A last note….if someone needs such a last minute death save, then adding a major scar is appropriate. In extreme circumstances, maybe a location is never fully healed, it loses a hp permenantly, or the person walks with a limp, or cannot parry attacks from above, loses an ear or an eye with perception reductions. I find PCs carry such weaknesses with pride.

 

[svensson]

1 hour ago, Geoff R Evil said:

I tend to agree with @svensson but with some slight clarification. A head chest abdomen shot which deals 3x hp is instant death. The head comes off, the back cut in half etc. only DI can save you versus this. However hits that whittle you down to minus- 2x hp in one of those locations may allow some circumstantial last second saves. A heal body, a heal of 2hp or more from a party member within a few SR ( yes into the next round, I like to see flexibility around the hard round by round barriers and see it mostly as a useful game/fight management tool not a stop start thing). With head and arms, I allow even more time flexibility even if total hp loss as they bleed to death. Maybe a round or two if the total hp loss has been really gradual, less if mostly one hit plus multiple minor wounds. In other words plenty of role play opportunity.

This leaves plenty of scope for death of a PC, but also last minute heroic saves by other PCs, given they might be in Combat and risk themselves to make such a save (you allow a free shot from that troll as you bend down to heal Fred…maybe with a half dodge etc) also they don’t automatically know you are dying and need to make a save. I might ask for a perception roll, maybe an int roll etc. Lots of roleplay angst when they realise they could have saved a colleague but failed due to inattentiveness etc. In other words, if a fellow goes down, waiting could mean their death. I often put players into mid fight dilemmas that way.

So this means real risk if you go off solo, or accept a solo fight. In my campaign one death so far, a player that went off on his own against the main monster. He bled to death after multiple wounds.

A last note….if someone needs such a last minute death save, then adding a major scar is appropriate. In extreme circumstances, maybe a location is never fully healed, it loses a hp permenantly, or the person walks with a limp, or cannot parry attacks from above, loses an ear or an eye with perception reductions. I find PCs carry such weaknesses with pride.

 

"He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day." ...

[snip]

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whilest any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day!"

-- Henry V, Act IV, Scene 3

I also tend to apply 'scars and disfiguring marks' in certain 'epic' circumstances. And I've been known to joke that the reason why Orlanth initiates can tell the weather a day in advance is because their old wounds and joints act up the day before it rains! 😁 

As to whether these wounds might have in-game consequences is a matter of discussion with the player. For example, I had a player go down when a troll hit a crit on his arm and chest. He was saved [barely] by a helpful PC and we discussed the consequences of that 'near death experience'. I ended up giving him a 1d6% rep increase in exchange for having a -1 Strike Penalty and a really ugly scar.

Edited April 9 by svensson

[Saki]

Why not go all the way if your group doesn't want a deadly game?  Just say PCs cannot die and any fatal wound drops them unconscious instead.  No need to make it complicated.

[French Desperate WindChild]

Imo

if the blow is instant death you can’t heal them (chest head etc with enough negative hp) except very heroic power you cannot heal your friend when the head is far from the rest of the body

in other cases, as we are not with action points but SR I would rule like this :

round 1

our guy is wound at sr 12 (or any) and no one is able to heal/save his life 

round 2

Ask who does what (intent)

if someone says « heal the guy as soon as possible » 

fine that’s possible

if anyone has other priority… well our guy is dead

 

The point for me is not the SR in the next round, it must be the first thing the healer does. It is a question of priority

At the end of the day it is the same logic when someone is dying at SR 3 and others decide to not heal the victim because they want to hit at SR 6

At the end of the round the victim is dead as no one saved her/him when they had the opportunity 

 

 

[PhilHibbs]

On 4/9/2024 at 1:46 PM, Saki said:

Why not go all the way if your group doesn't want a deadly game?  Just say PCs cannot die and any fatal wound drops them unconscious instead.  No need to make it complicated.

Because I don't want to go all the way. I want drama and options and danger.

Edited April 14 by PhilHibbs