Do you plan on using hit locations?

[Trifletraxor]

I use a similar system, so I quite like it. I.e: Use only Total HPs, HPs = SIZ/2, Die at under -CON; Wounds taking you to 0 or less disable the location hit, -5 gives a lesser Major Wound ('serious' - breaks etc); -10 gives a greater Major Wound ('critical' - severs etc), rolled on the combined location/wound table I gave before.

I liked that table. Is it okay if I add it to the new wiki I'm working on? Can you explain your system in a bit more detail? "HPs=SIZ/2", is that the hit point you would have in a hit locations, or the total HPs? Are you unconscious at 0 or below hit points?

To some degree I found RQ could get a little "Lopped off another left arm, one more for he collection" after a while.

Well, that I do agree with to some extent.

SGL.

[mrk]

To complicate things more once I get my BRP book this week, I want to break down and figure out how a weapon might how and where to strike an opponent. In a fight, your going to go for "desirable" targets and there's no better ones then the "head" and "chest" region as we all know. Now you may have a better chance of hitting an opponit with a bastard sword then a dagger, but you'll have a better chance of having the opportunity of striking those locations should you get around their defensive tactics and penetraite whatever armor they have do to the advantages you'll have over the longer weapon. Another thing also that I want to play around with is the actual hit location tabels themselves. If you striking someone in the rear, chances are your going to hit them in the back 60% or higher most of the time and much less in the legs or arms regions. I know, combat happens in a fraction of a second and anything is possible, but I just don't see why you would roll on the same chart over and over if you striking someone with an axe on the left or a dagger from the rear--it just dosen't make scense nor is it that much closer to "realism" as the hit location tables supposedly represent. Anyway, I could be entirely wrong and the new rules have address these problems already as I'm STILL waiting for my copy.:ohwell:

[frogspawner]

I liked that table. Is it okay if I add it to the new wiki I'm working on? Can you explain your system in a bit more detail? "HPs=SIZ/2", is that the hit point you would have in a hit locations, or the total HPs? Are you unconscious at 0 or below hit points?

Thanks! By all means add it to your wiki, if you think it's worthy. I just threw it together for an example, and it has various oddities peculiar to my own homebrew, rather than BRP. (I'd revisit it if you like - but not this week, sorry!)

I don't use HP/Loc, so SIZ/2 is Total HPs. But since they stay alive down to -CON, most characters actually gain, and have about 150% of BRP hps, rather like your method. It's just most of them are 'below the waterline' - which I find has advantages. (How could any self-respecting hero run away when they're just down to half hit points? But if they're down to Zero, well that's understandable... )

At 0, the location that was hit goes out of action. So if it was head, yes you're unconscious. But otherwise not - though you may lose your weapon/shield (arm hit), fall over (leg/abdomen hit) or be pretty well helpless (chest hit)...

[Trifletraxor]

At 0, the location that was hit goes out of action. So if it was head, yes you're unconscious. But otherwise not - though you may lose your weapon/shield (arm hit), fall over (leg/abdomen hit) or be pretty well helpless (chest hit)...

Will it be any strike taking it to 0, -5 or -10 that gives this effect? If you f.ex. are down to -4 hp, and get one more damage to your leg, will the leg then take a serious wound?

Added it to the wiki now. The wiki will be opened once I've sorted out the potential security issues with it.

SGL.

[Harshax]

I partially disagree, but you're describing a couple of scenarios and I'll address each one separately.

When combat involves two active participants, there will be some randomness in where your blow lands. The roll represents where you saw an opening in your opponent's defense. It might seem like one side of an opponent would get the brunt of attacks, depending on the handedness of the attacker, but the GM is free to alter the results if the don't make sense.

You could interpret a critical hit as striking a specific location. It isn't the RAW in BRP, but PerrinQuest let's you choose from a number of extra results for each degree of success. I think this makes a lot of sense, and is a fun option at the table.

The second scenario you describe reads as if you are describing an attack against an unaware foe, or at least one that is not aware of the attacker. If you accept my view of what the Hit Location chart is for, then you'd agree that you shouldn't roll on it for this scenario.

ymmv

The spot rules for attacks against unaware or helpless targets don't help much. It is an Easy [skill x2] attack roll, but you don't get the benefit of picking your location.

To complicate things more once I get my BRP book this week, I want to break down and figure out how a weapon might how and where to strike an opponent. In a fight, your going to go for "desirable" targets and there's no better ones then the "head" and "chest" region as we all know. Now you may have a better chance of hitting an opponit with a bastard sword then a dagger, but you'll have a better chance of having the opportunity of striking those locations should you get around their defensive tactics and penetraite whatever armor they have do to the advantages you'll have over the longer weapon. Another thing also that I want to play around with is the actual hit location tabels themselves. If you striking someone in the rear, chances are your going to hit them in the back 60% or higher most of the time and much less in the legs or arms regions. I know, combat happens in a fraction of a second and anything is possible, but I just don't see why you would roll on the same chart over and over if you striking someone with an axe on the left or a dagger from the rear--it just dosen't make scense nor is it that much closer to "realism" as the hit location tables supposedly represent. Anyway, I could be entirely wrong and the new rules have address these problems already as I'm STILL waiting for my copy.:ohwell:

[mrk]

I

When combat involves two active participants, there will be some randomness in where your blow lands. The roll represents where you saw an opening in your opponent's defense. It might seem like one side of an opponent would get the brunt of attacks, depending on the handedness of the attacker, but the GM is free to alter the results if the don't make sense.

I agree. I never said you shouldn't roll to see if you hit your selected target or not. What I'm saying is each weapon should be treated differently and not just lobbed into a generic hit location table. And yes, a GM can alter the results as he chooses fit, but I would still like to have the location charts a litlle more rational in their design.

You could interpret a critical hit as striking a specific location. It isn't the RAW in BRP, but PerrinQuest let's you choose from a number of extra results for each degree of success. I think this makes a lot of sense, and is a fun option at the table.

Sure, a criticle hit is open to interpretation. If you were in a fight with Achilles who's more or less " blesesed by the Gods" ,a criticle hit on his ankle is going to do far more damage then anywhere else on his body. A strike to his chest a is not going to kill him instanly even if you puncture his heart...if at all.

The second scenario you describe reads as if you are describing an attack against an unaware foe' date=' or at least one that is not aware of the attacker. If you accept my view of what the Hit Location chart is for, then you'd agree that you shouldn't roll on it for this scenario.[/quote']

Unless you have a Siamese twin growing from your rear, I'm going to hit you in the back or somewhere on you neck and head region as thease are more easly accessable targets and the least likely to be protected between you and my weapon. Of course this rule should be change depending on the combatant's and the situation: If Mini-Me is facing Hulk Holgan with a knife. Chances are, any strike Mini-Me obtains will be in the lower region then on the top of Hulk's head.

[Nightshade]

Pain and blood loss are additive - and what else do you think "damage" is, in general? However, a disabled limb means a broken bone or the like, so it takes more than "1 point when the limb was already at -3" to do it. All the suggestions here are realistic, but require more bookkeeping.

Actually, all evidence is that pain _isn't_ additive, at least in combat; you're just as likely to go down from the first serious hit as the tenth, and shock doesn't really care what's come before. That's the point; short of blood loss, almost all injuries that take someone down are just as likely to be from the first hit as the third or the fourth; the prior ones don't really effect it for good or ill.

Edit: To clarify why I make the distinction about "in combat", some time ago there was a pair of studies (though its amazingly hard to find any discussion or reference to them on the Web even though one was done by the FBI) about firearms exchanges; the conclusion they came to was that because of the effects of adrenaline (which simultaneously make you more short-term resistant to pain and shock, and ironically impair your capabilities up front because it tends to give you the shakes and have some negative impact on your perceptual abilities), there were essentially only three meaningful effects from getting shot:

1. You bled out (which can get contributors from multiple injuries, but in the time frame of most simple firefights its far more likely a consequence of getting hit in an area that starts a serious bleeder);

2. You shocked out (which was apparently random within the ability to assess the effect, since people were just as likely to fold up from the first shot as take ten shots and keep going, with no apparent relationship as to why one would occur in one case and one in another);

3. You very rarely got a hit to an area that was immediately fatal and/or disabling.

It turned out when in that state, it was astounding how little effect even quite serious wounds such as shattered bones and such had until people came down off the rush; then of course a lot of the effects came home to roost (including people dying outright in many cases).

So apparently if you want a relatively realistic damage system, you track blood loss, have some kind of a shock check system based on damage, and probably have some kind of threshold system for disablement, and then have a long term effects chart of some kind (possibly based on injury locations). Just remember that blood loss isn't usually the one that ends the fight, and its probably the one that a hit point model looks _most_ like.

[Harshax]

So apparently if you want a relatively realistic damage system, you track blood loss, have some kind of a shock check system based on damage, and probably have some kind of threshold system for disablement, and then have a long term effects chart of some kind (possibly based on injury locations). Just remember that blood loss isn't usually the one that ends the fight, and its probably the one that a hit point model looks _most_ like.

That's how HarnMaster does it. Once your hit, damage is assessed as Minor, Serious, or Grievous. This is interpreted as a [1 to 5]d6 which you roll against your Endurance (Hit Points). If the total is higher, you go into shock. Multiple wounds accumulate dice until eventually you are out.

I've seen some lucky ducks at my table, who rolled 6 dice against an END of 11 who managed to stay in the fight.

For those who are interested, the table can be found here:

http://www.columbiagames.com/resources/4001/harnmaster-combattables.pdf

[Nightshade]

That's how HarnMaster does it. Once your hit, damage is assessed as Minor, Serious, or Grievous. This is interpreted as a [1 to 5]d6 which you roll against your Endurance (Hit Points). If the total is higher, you go into shock. Multiple wounds accumulate dice until eventually you are out.

That's the problem though; it apparently doesn't really accumulate. If you wanted to model reality as those studies seemed to show, you'd keep rolling every time you get hit, but it wouldn't get any harder. You'd just be waiting for statistics to catch up with you.

And just to be clear, I'm not suggesting anyone in particular do anything this radical; I just tend to point this out because some people get a little overenthusiastic about the hit location version, and the truth is that isn't that much more realistic in practice than an amorphous blob hitpoint system on damage grounds (it obviously permits some things dealing with armor better); its just more intuitively "realistic" for some people (but so are death spiral systems that from what we can tell is basically dead wrong).

[rust]

So apparently if you want a relatively realistic damage system, you track blood loss, have some kind of a shock check system based on damage, and probably have some kind of threshold system for disablement, and then have a long term effects chart of some kind (possibly based on injury locations). Just remember that blood loss isn't usually the one that ends the fight, and its probably the one that a hit point model looks _most_ like.

You could even add some more realism by introducing a tiny, but real chance

that someone goes into a mental shock in a combat situation without having

received any damage at all.

It is quite surprising how many people, even trained ones, faint, "freeze" or

act irrationally when they see or smell blood or wounds or hear other persons

- especially ones close to them - scream in pain.

[Nightshade]

You could even add some more realism by introducing a tiny, but real chance

that someone goes into a mental shock in a combat situation without having

received any damage at all.

It is quite surprising how many people, even trained ones, faint, "freeze" or

act irrationally when they see or smell blood or wounds or hear other persons

- especially ones close to them - scream in pain.

Yeah, combat coolness is a whole 'nother kettle of fish; I suspect the easiest way would be to create a skill and have people roll against it each round, possibly with different qualities of result telling you different things.

[Harshax]

That's the problem though; it apparently doesn't really accumulate. If you wanted to model reality as those studies seemed to show, you'd keep rolling every time you get hit, but it wouldn't get any harder. You'd just be waiting for statistics to catch up with you.

Hmm. I think I see your point. Question is, do you think the study is valid for historical injuries (swords and arrows)? I'm thinking it isn't.

Take Dutch Schultz. It took him 22 hours to die of peritonitis. The bullet richocheted around inside his body, but he managed to walk around a litte, and be coherent enough to talk. Swords and Axes tend to break thinks when they hit, and not just put holes in you. I'm admittedly oversimplifying the types of trauma that can be suffered from gunshots, but I have not a few friends who have been shot, and the majority of them relate similar experiences to the one described in the study. One even went home to watch TV, and hadn't realized his injury until his mother, seeing him in the dark in front of the television, asked why his shirt looked wet.

[rust]

Hmm. I think I see your point. Question is, do you think the study is valid for historical injuries (swords and arrows)? I'm thinking it isn't.

If I remember it right, Barbara Tuchman gave a number of examples of the

effects of medieval weapons in her book "The Distant Mirror". It seems that

the differences are not so big, with the exception of blood loss, which ob-

viously is higher in wounds caused by cutting weapons (more wound surfa-

ce to bleed from).

[Harshax]

I think 'A Distant Mirror' just made it to my reading list. Now I only have to read what's on my reading list. Thanks for the suggestion.

If I remember it right, Barbara Tuchman gave a number of examples of the

effects of medieval weapons in her book "The Distant Mirror". It seems that

the differences are not so big, with the exception of blood loss, which ob-

viously is higher in wounds caused by cutting weapons (more wound surfa-

ce to bleed from).

[Nightshade]

Hmm. I think I see your point. Question is, do you think the study is valid for historical injuries (swords and arrows)? I'm thinking it isn't.

Its not going to be overwhelmingly different for piercing weapons. Blunt and edged weapons are more debatable, but the same general trends applied to combat with shotguns, which at closer ranges often behave rather unlike other ballistic weapons, and are far more prone to break bones and otherwise do a variety of coarse trauma (and some of the injuries in the reports did that too, (large caliber rifles aren't kind when they hit a muscle grouping or a bone) and it still didn't effect the overall pattern much.

Basically, it just didn't really matter; short of outright severs, it was astounding the injuries people just soldiered on with until they had time to come down and then sometimes essentially looked down, went "oh" and died).

experiences to the one described in the study. One even went home to watch TV, and hadn't realized his injury until his mother, seeing him in the dark in front of the television, asked why his shirt looked wet.

That happens with other types of injury more often than you'd think too. Even injuries that are hard to miss. Talk to people in trauma wards some time about some of the things people _walk_ in with, and that's not dealing with the combat-adrenaline phenomenon.

Its fair enough to question how this works with melee weapons since that wasn't in the study, but it did include injuries as severe as any most melee weapons will do (there were even a couple cases of severs where people fought on otherwise apparently unpaired for several minutes until the bleeding caught up with them).

I suspect the same basic principal would apply to everything; you just might want to modify some of the results based on weapon type (edged weapons should likely be more likely to produce bleeders than blunt or puncturing weapons, for example).

[frogspawner]

Will it be any strike taking it to 0, -5 or -10 that gives this effect? If you f.ex. are down to -4 hp, and get one more damage to your leg, will the leg then take a serious wound?

Yeah - bit of a glitch, I know. Probably good reason for an "only blows doing 5+ damage can be serious/critical" rider, and maybe another saying "only blows doing 2+ can disable". (If someone bleeds through a threshold, I ignore that, so there is precedent). Is that too complicated yet?

[Harshax]

suspect the same basic principal would apply to everything; you just might want to modify some of the results based on weapon type (edged weapons should likely be more likely to produce bleeders than blunt or puncturing weapons' date=' for example).[/quote']

I think this thread has been hijacked by another question, which plagues many RPGs.

'What is a Hit Point?'

Second question:

'Do the rules of injury and impairment reflect that definition?'

Last question:

'Do the rules model the mood and methods of your game reality?'

[Nightshade]

I think this thread has been hijacked by another question, which plagues many RPGs.

'What is a Hit Point?'

Second question:

'Do the rules of injury and impairment reflect that definition?'

Last question:

'Do the rules model the mood and methods of your game reality?'

That is pretty much the bottom line on all this.

[Harshax]

That is pretty much the bottom line on all this.

I waver on these questions dramatically, and not just from game to game, but even session to session (although rarely).

If I wanted to play uber-gritty, I use HarnMaster. Until this thread, and the discussion regarding shock, I thought it beat all other injury systems hands down. I might have to bring this topic up on the harnforum and see what they have to say.

BRP is gritty enough. With Hit Locations or Major Wounds. I think Hit Points equals total trauma and blood loss.

I'm happy with any game system where instant kills are a possibility.

[rust]

If I wanted to play uber-gritty, I use HarnMaster. Until this thread, and the discussion regarding shock, I thought it beat all other injury systems hands down.

While I have no use for it in my science fiction setting, I still consider Harn-

master as by far the most realistic combat system I have seen - although I

disliked it a lot to have character after character die from shock or wound

infection long after the combat was over.

[SDLeary]

To some degree I found RQ could get a little "Lopped off another left arm, one more for he collection" after a while.

And this is the reason to always include a Troll in the party!

SDLeary

[ORtrail]

I waver on these questions dramatically, and not just from game to game, but even session to session (although rarely).

If I wanted to play uber-gritty, I use HarnMaster. Until this thread, and the discussion regarding shock, I thought it beat all other injury systems hands down. I might have to bring this topic up on the harnforum and see what they have to say.

BRP is gritty enough. With Hit Locations or Major Wounds. I think Hit Points equals total trauma and blood loss.

I'm happy with any game system where instant kills are a possibility.

I think that about sums up my feelings too. All depends on the setting. Combat being fairly dangerous to the PCs is a good thing, as I'd prefer they have to think it over before resorting to violence.

BTW, for very specific wounds, blood loss, shock and even hydrostatic shock you need to check out the Tri Tac system (Stalking the Night Fantastic, FTL 2448, Fringeworthy). Characters can take massive damage, but die instantly with a shot to the head, or heart, or spine.

[Nightshade]

I waver on these questions dramatically, and not just from game to game, but even session to session (although rarely).

It tends to be just a campaign look-and-feel thing for me, but I probably was in your shoes 20 years ago.

If I wanted to play uber-gritty, I use HarnMaster. Until this thread, and the discussion regarding shock, I thought it beat all other injury systems hands down. I might have to bring this topic up on the harnforum and see what they have to say.

One problem--which I've been surprised I haven't gotten in this one--is that some people just don't believe it; its counterintuitive (and in some cases counter to individual experience) how very little most injury impairs people in combat. Until I read those reports I wouldn't have believed it myself, and as I said, it seems to be next to impossible to find a cite on the Web about it (which just astonishes me); even if there'd been more research to show the original studies were faulty or incomplete in some way, you'd expect to find something on the subject, given the all-encompassing thing the database of the Web has become. Yet I've hit other people who read the same material on occasion, so I know its not just my brain creating it out of whole cloth, but its a perfectly legitimate thing for a doubter to go "Show me", as has happened in the past, and I've had to just say "Afraid I can't."

(Part of it may be that the FBI has done a lot of different studies involving firearms issues over the years, some of more recent vintage and unrelated (ones on crime related gunshot deaths for example), so I may be just drowning in data when I do the search).

So don't be too astounded if you get skepticism when you bring it up; you're discussing second hand information from someone who couldn't give you a source, after all.

BRP is gritty enough. With Hit Locations or Major Wounds. I think Hit Points equals total trauma and blood loss.

I'm happy with any game system where instant kills are a possibility.

Well, as I said, the reason I usually mention this is to forestall people who get a little too enthusiastic about hit location or death spiral systems on "realism" grounds. One thing that a lot of systems suffer from is that they're actually too lethal to be realistic; a lot of people in combat fold up from shock or blood loss but still can be saved if medical attention gets to them fairly quickly (even just as little as someone with some training and a basic first aid kit in many cases), so environments with high tech or magical medical capability at hand shouldn't necessarily be as lethal as many rules sets would make them, unless everyone is doing the equivalent of fighting with phasers on dematerialize.

[rust]

Perhaps this could be interesting:

Reality of the Street? A Practical Analysis of Offender Gunshot Wound Reaction

[Nightshade]

Perhaps this could be interesting:

Reality of the Street? A Practical Analysis of Offender Gunshot Wound Reaction

It at least discusses some of the same issues, though the author doesn't seem to be aware of the reports I'm referencing (which given how obscure they've become is perhaps not suprising; I'm really beginning to wish I'd downloaded at lleast the summaries I read back in the day).