Non-Linear Wound System

[sheadunne]

Anyone know of a non-linear wound system?

 

[Umbran]

That depends on what you mean by "linear wound system".

In FATE, for example, you have a few stress boxes, and consequences you can take instead of taking stress boxes. In the right circumstances, you can take a high level consequence before taking any stress or lower consequences. There is no clear linear progression of how you take damage.

In Shadowrun (earlier editions, anyway, I haven't followed the later ones), a would could be light, moderate, heavy, or deadly - 1, 3, 6, or 10 boxes, respectively. That is not linear.

 

[sheadunne]

That depends on what you mean by "linear wound system".

In FATE, for example, you have a few stress boxes, and consequences you can take instead of taking stress boxes. In the right circumstances, you can take a high level consequence before taking any stress or lower consequences. There is no clear linear progression of how you take damage.

In Shadowrun (earlier editions, anyway, I haven't followed the later ones), a would could be light, moderate, heavy, or deadly - 1, 3, 6, or 10 boxes, respectively. That is not linear.

Fate is the closest I've come across but I still think it's linear in that there is still a predetermined number of wounds before death. I should have described non-linear better I think.

What I'm looking for is a non-determined progress toward death. A player doesn't know before hand whether any particular hit will be the final blow. While in most systems damage is random, it is still usually a known how many hits or how much damage will dispatch the character.

Fate seems to be the closest I've seen but not quite there.

 

[Bagpuss]

You want something like Millennium's End RPG, in that you had something like 25 body locations, and you used a template hit location system (more recently seen in Aces and Eights) and depending on location and penetration of the wound, it had various results, including things like broken bones, bleeding, puncture lungs, etc. So it was possible to die from a single bullet to the head or other vital area, or you could take loads of hits but to none vital areas and be okay (well not okay but not dying).

 

[sheadunne]

You want something like Millennium's End RPG, in that you had something like 25 body locations, and you used a template hit location system (more recently seen in Aces and Eights) and depending on location and penetration of the wound, it had various results, including things like broken bones, bleeding, puncture lungs, etc. So it was possible to die from a single bullet to the head or other vital area, or you could take loads of hits but to none vital areas and be okay (well not okay but not dying).

I do like location based injury, but it's hard to implement. I'll check those out.

 

[Wightbred]

What about Dogs in the Vineyard style? You take dice for each wound and roll them at the end of the fight. Only then do you look down notice that hit was the sucking chest wound that will kill you.

 

[sheadunne]

What about Dogs in the Vineyard style? You take dice for each wound and roll them at the end of the fight. Only then do you look down notice that hit was the sucking chest wound that will kill you.

I was playing around with something similar. It's still rather linear, just delayed, but it's not a bad system. I'll have to revisit it.

 

[Nagol]

I can think of a couple:

Rolemaster -- although death will result from hp loss, it is more typical to die from a critical.

Morrow Project -- a system of tables is checked from a hit to determine how well the victim withstood the blow. I've seen a PC die from a thrown rock.

 

[Dragonblade]

You can do these sorts of wounds in True20. I think there is an optional instant death rule where if you fail your death save by 20 or 25, you die.

So depending on the damage DC of the attack, and your Toughness save bonus, once you take a certain number of hits, any hit beyond that could either be something you shrug off, or could be your last depending on your Toughness roll.

 

[phil62]

I dimly recall Maelstrom might have had some mechanism that tracked individual wounds. I'll have to see if I can find my copy to check.