Combining major wounds with hit locations

[Barak Shathur]

I’m looking for a way to simplify the hit location system by combining it with Major Wounds. I’m thinking, on a hit, roll hit location, if it’s a major wound apply the effect of “Damage equal to or more than the location’s hit points” of the regular hit location system to that body part. If it’s a minor wound it’s just damage to Total HP. So no separate hp for locations to keep track of. Am I missing anything or should this work?

 

[Simulacrum]

I am doing so and it is fine. You do need to decide if minors add up to majors when same location is wounded more than once.

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

I’m looking for a way to simplify the hit location system by combining it with Major Wounds. I’m thinking, on a hit, roll hit location, if it’s a major wound apply the effect of “Damage equal to or more than the location’s hit points” of the regular hit location system to that body part. If it’s a minor wound it’s just damage to Total HP. So no separate hp for locations to keep track of. Am I missing anything or should this work?

 

It will  work, but  since minor injuries to a location won't stack, disabling a limb with minor injuries won't be possible and and character will fight on longer. It will probably probably lead to a higher mortality rate. 

One thing you could consider is give a character a roll to see if a location is disabled or not when injured. Maybe a CONx5% roll or a D10 roll against hit points or some such. Possibly instead of using location hit points. CORPS does something like that, and applies a modifier to the roll for location. Although in COPS it's a roll against the damage taken, not hit points.

 

 

Edited October 3 by Atgxtg

[Barak Shathur]

11 hours ago, Simulacrum said:

I am doing so and it is fine. You do need to decide if minors add up to majors when same location is wounded more than once.

Good to hear. Yeah, it always seemed odd to me when BGB said that combining MW and hit locations isn't easily done. One the contrary, it seems like a quite obvious and intuitive solution.

For now I won't keep track of non-major wounds, since the aim is expediency.

[Barak Shathur]

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It will  work, but  since minor injuries to a location won't stack, disabling a limb with minor injuries won't be possible and and character will fight on longer. It will probably probably lead to a higher mortality rate. 

One thing you could consider is give a character a roll to see if a location is disabled or not when injured. Maybe a CONx5% roll or a D10 roll against hit points or some such. Possibly instead of using location hit points. CORPS does something like that, and applies a modifier to the roll for location. Although in COPS it's a roll against the damage taken, not hit points.

 

 

I'm going to simply follow the hit location damage formula as above, i.e. a major wound disables the location in question. I actually think it will be less fatal since hit locations will tend to have higher HP with this system.

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

I'm going to simply follow the hit location damage formula as above, i.e. a major wound disables the location in question. I actually think it will be less fatal since hit locations will tend to have higher HP with this system.

Are you replaceing the HP per location with the major wound value?

THat is what will make it more fatal. It's why general hit point tends to have higher fatalities that hit locations. With hit locations whenever someone loses the use of a location they tend to drop out of the fight. But with general hit points they can just continue on until they take a major wound or run out of hit points.

[Barak Shathur]

36 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Are you replaceing the HP per location with the major wound value?

Indeed.

37 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

THat is what will make it more fatal. It's why general hit point tends to have higher fatalities that hit locations. With hit locations whenever someone loses the use of a location they tend to drop out of the fight. But with general hit points they can just continue on until they take a major wound or run out of hit points.

That has not been my experience when playing OpenQuest, which uses Major Wounds. A MW by the book is pretty much incapacitating, either forcing a combatant to withdraw or knocking them unconscious, with potentially up to half their HP remaining. And in the system I'm thinking of implementing here, the effect of a MW would be the exact same as reducing a hit location to 0 HP, so I don't really see how that differs, except that in practice locations become somewhat sturdier. So the opposite would apply, it actually makes it slightly harder to outright kill someone. 

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Barak Shathur said:

Indeed.

That has not been my experience when playing OpenQuest, which uses Major Wounds.

It has been my experience when playing BRP games that use general hit points rather than point per location such as RuneQuest. Character can (and do) fight on with injuries that would have disabled them or given the reason to surrender in RQ. 

What happens is that a typical PC (12 hp MW 6) can take a couple of 4 point wounds and keep fighting on in CoC/Strombringer while in RQ  either of those 4 point hits would disable any location other than chest (5 HP), and give them reason to stop fighting. With two hits the character is either disabled, has one or two locations disabled, or in very rare cases (double head hits), is dead. All of which tend to end the fight quicker. 

So I've killed at lot more CoC and Strombringer characters that way than RQ characters. 

1 hour ago, Barak Shathur said:

 

A MW by the book is pretty much incapacitating, either forcing a combatant to withdraw or knocking them unconscious, with potentially up to half their HP remaining.

Yes, but generally so is reducing a hit location to zero, which is much easier to do than inflicting a major wound, since the HP per location are lower.. For arms reducing it to -1x HP is about the same difficulty as inflicting a major wound. 

 

[Barak Shathur]

38 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

It has been my experience when playing BRP games that use general hit points rather than point per location such as RuneQuest. Character can (and do) fight on with injuries that would have disabled them or given the reason to surrender in RQ. 

What happens is that a typical PC (12 hp MW 6) can take a couple of 4 point wounds and keep fighting on in CoC/Strombringer while in RQ  either of those 4 point hits would disable any location other than chest (5 HP), and give them reason to stop fighting. With two hits the character is either disabled, has one or two locations disabled, or in very rare cases (double head hits), is dead. All of which tend to end the fight quicker. 

So I've killed at lot more CoC and Strombringer characters that way than RQ characters. 

Yes, but generally so is reducing a hit location to zero, which is much easier to do than inflicting a major wound, since the HP per location are lower.. For arms reducing it to -1x HP is about the same difficulty as inflicting a major wound. 

 

Cool.

[Atgxtg]

59 minutes ago, Barak Shathur said:

Cool.

LOL! The players didn't think so. 

"Whaddya mean I'm dead?!"

[Barak Shathur]

I don't think I've ever seen a player character retreat. They always fight to the death.

[Nozbat]

59 minutes ago, Barak Shathur said:

I don't think I've ever seen a player character retreat. They always fight to the death.

Really? Mine quite often run away.. a couple have tried to blow themselves up, which I suppose is fighting to the death .. quite often they see the combat situation as way above their paygrade and don’t go in to the cauldron of pain

In CoC (if we take that as also BRP) they run away very very fast. 

[Barak Shathur]

On 10/4/2024 at 11:13 PM, Nozbat said:

Really? Mine quite often run away.. a couple have tried to blow themselves up, which I suppose is fighting to the death .. quite often they see the combat situation as way above their paygrade and don’t go in to the cauldron of pain

In CoC (if we take that as also BRP) they run away very very fast. 

My PCs are fantasy heroes who expect everything to go their way. There is no plan B. 
 

CoC is a whole other ballgame!

[Nozbat]

1 hour ago, Barak Shathur said:

CoC is a whole other ballgame!

I agree with that.. but surprisingly, trying to blow themselves up was in the Renaissance Game.. and it was on purpose.

I suppose there is some degree of agency in choosing how you die so it is justifiable to an extent. I was about to add that it would have been viewed as a mortal sin then I realised that it was done within the confines of a Church so maybe they had a religious debate and decided that there would be very little to bury afterwards.

Needless to say, like most of their present plans it had poor execution.

[Nozbat]

19 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

My PCs are fantasy heroes who expect everything to go their way. There is no plan B.

I think mine know they aren't .. as they keep pleading to the protagonists.. "We're not agents of the Hansa, we're just humble Salt Merchants"

They are quite good at selling things (salt mainly) and have written and composed satirical songs, selling them as penny (pfennig) broadsheets, but their fighting skills are somewhat non-existent. It makes for useful dialogue with the protagonists though and produces memorable lines. It possibly shows our age when the memorable lines are 90% puns. I still worry about this pun business though.. it is not even a skill they have on their character sheets and yet I think they come up each time with a critical success.

Their latest song "The Mark is not in Order" is likely to become an anthem of the revolution against the Danzig Council. Sadly, it is a pun too. The Mark refers to the debased coinage originally circulated by the Teutonic Order to fund their bloody wars against the Kingdom of Poland. Maybe a new manuscript will be written.. "Puns of the Revolution"

Edited October 6 by Nozbat

[Mugen]

On 10/3/2024 at 9:12 PM, Barak Shathur said:

I’m looking for a way to simplify the hit location system by combining it with Major Wounds. I’m thinking, on a hit, roll hit location, if it’s a major wound apply the effect of “Damage equal to or more than the location’s hit points” of the regular hit location system to that body part. If it’s a minor wound it’s just damage to Total HP. So no separate hp for locations to keep track of. Am I missing anything or should this work?

 

You could perhaps use a roll when a MW occurs. Depending on that roll, the wound could result in the same result as if total damage was > twice the localisation Hit Points.

[Barak Shathur]

15 hours ago, Nozbat said:

I think mine know they aren't .. as they keep pleading to the protagonists.. "We're not agents of the Hansa, we're just humble Salt Merchants"

They are quite good at selling things (salt mainly) and have written and composed satirical songs, selling them as penny (pfennig) broadsheets, but their fighting skills are somewhat non-existent. It makes for useful dialogue with the protagonists though and produces memorable lines. It possibly shows are age when the memorable lines are 90% puns. I still worry about this pun business though.. it is not even a skill they have on their character sheets and yet I think they come up each time with a critical success.

Their latest song "The Mark is not in Order" is likely to become an anthem of the revolution against the Danzig Council. Sadly, it is a pun too. The Mark refers to the debased coinage originally circulated by the Teutonic Order to fund their bloody wars against the Kingdom of Poland. Maybe a new manuscript will be written.. "Puns of the Revolution"

Oh to be a fly on the wall!

[Barak Shathur]

9 hours ago, Mugen said:

You could perhaps use a roll when a MW occurs. Depending on that roll, the wound could result in the same result as if total damage was > twice the localisation Hit Points.

I thought of rolling for location after, as per the procedure for standard MW. But it’s more theatrical to know where the minor wounds land. 

Also I will rely heavily on ’slung shields’, since that is the only meaningful way to use them in melee the way BRP is designed, and knowing where a blow lands allows shield carriers to decide whether to parry or not. 

[Nozbat]

1 hour ago, Barak Shathur said:

Oh to be a fly on the wall!

A fly on the wall of the revolution?

[Atgxtg]

12 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

I thought of rolling for location after, as per the procedure for standard MW. But it’s more theatrical to know where the minor wounds land. 

ONe thing you could try would be to have the attacker pick a target location, and then roll two D20s for location and take the one closer to their aiming point. That way the players sort of know about where the blow will land. Chances are if you are aiming at the head you won't hit their leg. 

12 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

Also I will rely heavily on ’slung shields’, since that is the only meaningful way to use them in melee the way BRP is designed, and knowing where a blow lands allows shield carriers to decide whether to parry or not. 

Yeah. I've considered making shield parries easy, to increase thier usefulness.

[Atgxtg]

On 10/5/2024 at 6:36 PM, Barak Shathur said:

My PCs are fantasy heroes who expect everything to go their way. There is no plan B. 

Ouch. I'm surprised. Ususally in BRP  events will disillusion them of that fairly quickly. A 2d6 or higher damage bonus has stopped many a "Plan A". 

On 10/5/2024 at 6:36 PM, Barak Shathur said:

CoC is a whole other ballgame!

LOL! You know it's bad when the weakest opponents you can hope for are other humans like yourselves.

[Kloster]

On 10/4/2024 at 10:10 PM, Barak Shathur said:

I don't think I've ever seen a player character retreat. They always fight to the death.

I've seen it a lot. Surrender, much less, but retreat, yes.

[Mugen]

On 10/6/2024 at 6:24 PM, Barak Shathur said:

I thought of rolling for location after, as per the procedure for standard MW. But it’s more theatrical to know where the minor wounds land. 

Also I will rely heavily on ’slung shields’, since that is the only meaningful way to use them in melee the way BRP is designed, and knowing where a blow lands allows shield carriers to decide whether to parry or not. 

That's not the kind of roll I had in mind.

I created a rule very similar to yours years ago, but with a CON x5 roll on a MW. If the roll was a success, the limb suffered from the same effects as falling to 0 HP in RQ3. If it failed, thr limb suffered from the same effects as having negative HP equal or superior to the maximum limb's HP.

[Questbird]

On 10/4/2024 at 5:12 AM, Barak Shathur said:

I’m looking for a way to simplify the hit location system by combining it with Major Wounds. I’m thinking, on a hit, roll hit location, if it’s a major wound apply the effect of “Damage equal to or more than the location’s hit points” of the regular hit location system to that body part. If it’s a minor wound it’s just damage to Total HP. So no separate hp for locations to keep track of. Am I missing anything or should this work?

 

 

Aquelarre is a BRP-like game which combines general hit points with hit locations. It does so by multiplying damage taken depending on the location. Head is x2, Chest, Abdomen x1; and limbs are x0.5. If you've lost half your HP you're wounded, which halves your movement and damage bonus. Losing ¾ of your HP or more makes you gravely wounded: you make a CONx4 roll to stay conscious, and you lose all damage bonus and ¾ of your movement if you do.

Additionally, if you take a single blow worth half your HP (before multiplying the damage for location) it counts as a Major Wound (called a Repercussion in Aquelarre). In that case you roll on a location-specific table for the effect.

[Barak Shathur]

On 10/7/2024 at 6:44 AM, Atgxtg said:

ONe thing you could try would be to have the attacker pick a target location, and then roll two D20s for location and take the one closer to their aiming point. That way the players sort of know about where the blow will land. Chances are if you are aiming at the head you won't hit their leg. 

The goal here is however to simplify, not add more rolls 🙂

On 10/7/2024 at 6:44 AM, Atgxtg said:

Yeah. I've considered making shield parries easy, to increase thier usefulness.

But then one will almost never fail a shield parry? I find the passive coverage more appropriate, especially now that BRUGE doesn't have hoplons cover every location except the head. 

On 10/7/2024 at 6:50 AM, Atgxtg said:

Ouch. I'm surprised. Ususally in BRP  events will disillusion them of that fairly quickly. A 2d6 or higher damage bonus has stopped many a "Plan A". 

In my campaign they ran into a half giant/troll that actually wanted to play riddles with it, had they waited to find out. They shot it.

On 10/8/2024 at 8:28 AM, Mugen said:

I created a rule very similar to yours years ago, but with a CON x5 roll on a MW. If the roll was a success, the limb suffered from the same effects as falling to 0 HP in RQ3. If it failed, thr limb suffered from the same effects as having negative HP equal or superior to the maximum limb's HP.

A bit similar to Mythras then. Nice. The challenge I've given myself however is to only use what's in the book. With one exception, I use half weapon AV as AP when parrying instead of "parry all damage regardless of weapons involved unless opponent is twice your size". 

On 10/8/2024 at 10:27 AM, Questbird said:

Aquelarre is a BRP-like game which combines general hit points with hit locations. It does so by multiplying damage taken depending on the location. Head is x2, Chest, Abdomen x1; and limbs are x0.5. If you've lost half your HP you're wounded, which halves your movement and damage bonus. Losing ¾ of your HP or more makes you gravely wounded: you make a CONx4 roll to stay conscious, and you lose all damage bonus and ¾ of your movement if you do.

Additionally, if you take a single blow worth half your HP (before multiplying the damage for location) it counts as a Major Wound (called a Repercussion in Aquelarre). In that case you roll on a location-specific table for the effect.

Also a nice solution.