I think everyone know the type of player who starts fiddling with his phone the minute he's not the center of attention. It's rude, annoying as hell and generally just pisses me off.

Scold the guy and get on with the game :-)

Is there any way to take them out so that they can't access these further abilities, or are they effectively "impotent but immortal" during this time?

Yeah, you gradually bleed out and further damage accelerates that. But NPCs tend to focus on live allies (other human players... less so).

Also, whilst you're downed if someone you've tagged dies you rally and get back up- so in most cases you're better off paying attention to what your allies are doing to try and help them land a kill than just running away to slowly heal yourself up (which is boring).

I'm a huge fan of how Guild Wars 2 handles downed characters- you get access to a second skillbar of weak abilities that you can use whilst waiting to be picked up/for combat to end, so you're always able to do something.

It might work to have downed characters reduced to 1 maneuver a turn- so they can use Assist on PCs who are still active, or crawl out of combat then take a maneuver to stim up. Maybe let them use a 'Distraction' maneuver to add a setback die to enemy rolls.

I used to play GW2 a lot but I had completely forgot about that mechanic! Maybe that was influencing my thinking on a unconscious level! I like your idea and it feels like it would escalate the seriousness of the encounter but still give the player something to do.

Oh, forgot to add this to my earlier post. One of the other reasons we decided to skip the incapacitation and just do critical injuries was because we just couldn't figure out a cinematic or logical way the incapacitation made sense.

Look at the Critical Hits table, it starts around bad bruise. Therefore, anything that doesn't produce a critical must be less then a bruise. This works with wounds being your 'cinematic survival' points. So what happens when you run out of these - you suffer spontaneous existence failure and fall unconscious (or the equivalent). So somehow, without taking a single injury that will even leave a bruise, our warrior has been knocked out. Given that concussion is also on the Critical Hits table, this leaves fainting. So every badass jedi and bounty hunter faint if they're shot at for to long, even if they're never actually injured.

Or they're being stunned into unconsciousness by bullets. Which doesn't even seem physically possible. How do you knock someone out with a blaster bolt? If you can, why do you have a stun setting - your kill setting only knocks people out already! Having a critical hit table, particularly a very complete one like EotE's, just destroys any logic for being knocked out at wounds over threshold.

This isn't the correct way to interpret critical hits. Critical hits are not "really bad/hard/damaging hits" (implying the hit is somehow greater than a non-critical hit), they are just a hit that does something else on top of the standard damage and activated effects. You can critical someone with your very first attack on them, which makes your progression of "criticals are past your wound threshold" idea even more weird.

Critical hits.

If you're shot, you may pass out from the shock and pain (regular damage)

If you're shot in the lungs however you drown in your own blood, without even being able to scream in pain (critical hit).

Yes, you can get a critical on someone with the first shot - that would be "real damage". That doesn't necessary mean you cinematic ability to avoid damage is entirely gone. There is no break in movie logic here. People get injured (remember the first 100pts of criticals are non-life threatening) then avoid further gunfire all the time, both in real life and in movies. And of course critical hits are greater than regular hits - that's why we spend advantage or triumphs to activate them.

Wounds cannot be real damage, because compared to the critical hits table, there is no kind of real damage for them to be except the most mundane of scrapes. It certainly can't be Shock & Pain, that's one of the critical hits! You only get sudden horrible death if you've been critically hit at least five times already, (or facing a very, very vicious weapon)

Yes, you can get a critical on someone with the first shot - that would be "real damage". That doesn't necessary mean you cinematic ability to avoid damage is entirely gone. There is no break in movie logic here. People get injured (remember the first 100pts of criticals are non-life threatening) then avoid further gunfire all the time, both in real life and in movies. And of course critical hits are greater than regular hits - that's why we spend advantage or triumphs to activate them.

Wounds cannot be real damage, because compared to the critical hits table, there is no kind of real damage for them to be except the most mundane of scrapes. It certainly can't be Shock & Pain, that's one of the critical hits! You only get sudden horrible death if you've been critically hit at least five times already, (or facing a very, very vicious weapon)

There is no such thing as "real damage", because there is no fake damage either. Wounds are physical damage. If you take too much physical damage, regardless of critical hits, you go down, incapacitated, unconscious, out of action. RAW. Critical hits are just extra effects of top of that.

Wounds can be physical damage. Again, I'm challenging your interpretation that there is somehow a scale here and all non-crtitical hits must be on that scale before we get to the critical table.

Medicine checks heal wounds. If non-critical hits did not do "real damage", why would it REQUIRE a med kit and a skill check to heal them? Stimpacks work but have diminishing returns.

If my heavy repeating blaster hits you for 34 damage because I triggered autofire, you are telling me none of that is "real" because I didn't crit?

I think we are all forgetting about careers like e.g. Bodyguard whose main strength is staying alive, also thanks to the (Improved)Hard headed talent, which allows them to act (granted, after a discipline check) while incapped/staggered etc. Changing this mechanic means fiddling with these talents and careers too. Looots of work!

Additionally, the Shock and Pain critical is not the only manifestation of Shock and Pain. It simply means this specific time your character is in Shock and Pain it incurs this specific penalty.

I can see you challenging my interpretation, as I'm challenging yours (and the normal) because I think it's an even less defensible position. For example, let me turn this around - If it is physical damage, how does a stimulant fix it? A stimulant can't close wounds or help shock (It'd make it worse, actually). All a stimulant would do is make you more aware of potential danger - ie. increase your cinematic ability to avoid damage.

Medicine rolls, meanwhile, can provide treatment similar to a stim through verification ( "You're going to be ok, none of these wounds are serious") or treatment of minor wounds (scratches, etc) before they become infected or otherwise cause problems. Or, you know, the stimulants in the medpac.

If I had 35 wounds, then yes, I'd say none of your repeating blaster hits did real damage. Cinematically, they all impacted the metal railings I'm running past, or blew apart my cover forcing me to leap behind something stronger. Maybe you burned my clothing some with shots that got a little too close. Certainly that's more believable than me taking a minutes worth of autofire to the chest and somehow still being alive, and moreover, unhindered in my next action.

If I didn't have 35 wounds, then you'd roll a critical, and now we know exactly what happened, a wound that's got to be more believable and interpretable than you somehow knocking me out with blaster fire hits. Think of how it would work if you were using a slugthrower (like a modern gun). How does one take an assault rifle, shoot a full automatic burst at them, and knock them unconscious, but leave no lasting effects?

I can see you challenging my interpretation, as I'm challenging yours (and the normal) because I think it's an even less defensible position. For example, let me turn this around - If it is physical damage, how does a stimulant fix it? A stimulant can't close wounds or help shock (It'd make it worse, actually). All a stimulant would do is make you more aware of potential danger - ie. increase your cinematic ability to avoid damage.

Medicine rolls, meanwhile, can provide treatment similar to a stim through verification ( "You're going to be ok, none of these wounds are serious") or treatment of minor wounds (scratches, etc) before they become infected or otherwise cause problems. Or, you know, the stimulants in the medpac.

So the first thing is that a Stimpack is much more than just stimulants. There are also painkillers in there, but most importantly there is actual medicine in there that helps you heal very rapidly. You should re-read the description of stimpacks if you think that all they have is stimulants in them.

Let's not get too sciencey here, this is a fantasy setting. In this setting, whatever a stimpack is (medicine, bacta, and painkillers per the CRB, not an actual stimulant), it allows a person to heal some of the physical damage they have taken and keep fighting.

There is a reason the rules say, "Damage to a character's physical body is tracked using wounds."

I didn't say the two hits (autofire) of 17 (totaling 34) left you standing. Most characters would have exceeded their wound threshold at that point and would be unconscious.

See, you don't roll the critical hit until you have exceeded your wound threshold (assuming none were triggered on the attacks). However it is not the critical hit that puts you down. It is the repeated and cumulative effect of the physical wounds you have been taking. So you take 17 twice (minus your soak) and exceed your wound threshold. You are now unconscious. We roll a crit and get 85. Winded. You can't involuntarily take strain for the encounter. But guess what, you are STILL unconscious because of the physical damage you took via wounds.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that regular wounds (the damage applied to your wound threshold) is taking off limbs and causing people to bleed out, but it is actual physical damage through cuts, scrapes, bruises, etc. and it can accumulate enough to knock a character unconscious. At that point they take a critical because criticals are more serious and have last effects.

This doesn't mean all criticals are somehow more severe than a large blast from a big gun. Some of them are fairly harmless, while enough physical damage via wounds can put a person down.

You're not (entirely) arguing the logic of the house rule vs. the regular rules, you are arguing that description used is why they're described that way. I said "my house rule is that wounds are cinematic resistance, not significant physical damage", telling me that the rules describe it as "Damage to a character's physical body is tracked using wounds." doesn't mean anything - that's exactly the part I house ruled. I understand what the RAW says, it's their logic and usefulness I'm arguing.

Anyway, I don't have a problem with minor cuts, scrapes and bruises occurring as part of loosing wounds, I've used that example myself in an earlier post. But "actual physical damage through cuts, scrapes, bruises, etc. and it can accumulate enough to knock a character unconscious." is where you've lost me. How many minor cuts, scrapes and bruises do you have to deal to knock someone unconscious? I can't see any amount where that would occur.

Also, it defeats the point of that final critical. Who cares if they're winded and can't voluntarily take strain, they're incapacitated anyway. Indeed almost none of the first 100pt results matter if you've been incapacitated, they would just cause minor, potentially 1 round, penalty to a person who can't act.

You're not (entirely) arguing the logic of the house rule vs. the regular rules, you are arguing that description used is why they're described that way. I said "my house rule is that wounds are cinematic resistance, not significant physical damage", telling me that the rules describe it as "Damage to a character's physical body is tracked using wounds." doesn't mean anything - that's exactly the part I house ruled. I understand what the RAW says, it's their logic and usefulness I'm arguing.

Anyway, I don't have a problem with minor cuts, scrapes and bruises occurring as part of loosing wounds, I've used that example myself in an earlier post. But "actual physical damage through cuts, scrapes, bruises, etc. and it can accumulate enough to knock a character unconscious." is where you've lost me. How many minor cuts, scrapes and bruises do you have to deal to knock someone unconscious? I can't see any amount where that would occur.

Also, it defeats the point of that final critical. Who cares if they're winded and can't voluntarily take strain, they're incapacitated anyway. Indeed almost none of the first 100pt results matter if you've been incapacitated, they would just cause minor, potentially 1 round, penalty to a person who can't act.

The system works well. Whatever fluff and real life concepts you want to pull down over your house rule, I still believe it to be bad, from a gameplay perspective. Criticals have the potential to to be worse than just normal wounds, but many are not all that bad or dangerous.

I don't really see the need for the debate as the wound states in the core book are quite clear and makes as much sense as rolling dice to hit someone with a blaster ever will. When you exceed your threshold you get a critical wound, which suggests that passing your threshold is critical.

It's silly applying too much real life logic to something that was always meant to be an abstract representation. Take chess for instance... I find it highly unlikely that Kings in the middle ages were moving so slow and that siege towers could only move in true straight lines north-south or east-west.

Criticals are simply an extra effect on top of getting wounded and no matter how long you ponder about it, then getting 10 wounds and a point of strain (minor nick) is worse than simply losing 10 wounds, however slight the difference is.

Actually, when we tried the RAW method, we felt it didn't work as well. We returned to our original (accidental) house rule for gameplay reasons before the subject of logic ever came up. We felt that by having people become incapacitated at 0 wounds took people out of the fight to quickly and to randomly. Except for characters built for soak, a single good (GM) roll was wiping people out of the combat. This also lead to far less satisfying when confronting rival and nemesis characters, who were likewise being wiped out with a single good (PC) roll. We have a large table (up to 9 players) and a nemesis that didn't even last to the final players action.

In addition, because there are a lot more critical hits (a complete misnomer given the chart) flying around, our Doctor actually had more to do, in particular things that could not be simply solved by the application of a (thanks to KOTOR) Stim (Scifi super injection though it may be.) Despite that this rule extended combat, the combats actually felt deadlier, because they could see the "Death" end of the chart approaching with each new critical hit. It also helped us push the narrative, because we were coming up with how that critical effect occured, rather than just "Passing out'.

Anyway, I'm not saying it's the ultimate, problem free solution, but we like it, and to the original point, it might actually help the OP. But, like all house rules, ymmv.

(P.S. I think chess is a rather irrelevant choice of example, it's not an RPG, it's not intended to simulate or capture the feeling siege warfare. This game, as has been said across innumerable thread, is supposed to capture the feeling of the movies.)

My experience is that if a player choses to play a character that is not the big combat heavy guy then ussually he is aware of this and stays back in cover to try and sort things out for the rest of the party. You as a GM could think about this when it comes to the ensuing battle as well...

Ask yourself this:

Would the enemy first target the big bad hairy giant holding the Bowcaster that (because of standard marching order) walks into the room first or chose to shoot the academic looking flying small dude with the datapad lingering in the middle of the group?

Even if the enemy has the drop on the party allow those characters that are not the biggest threat to the enemy to make an active decission to follow the Obvious route for their character.

Otherwise, should they ever go down in one shot then that is a risk the player took when building his/her character and they have nice things to go along with their weaknesses.

Yeah, and it sucks to be out cold in D&D and Pathfinder (or worse mind controlled).

So after thinking about this I'm going to suggest that downed players narrate there actions while incapacitated, if they want. If there is anything that may impact the encounter I'm going to ask for a Daunting of Formidable Resilience check, with Setbacks as appropriate.

For example, our Toydarian, gets one shot'ed, he can wail and shout for assistance or drag himself to cover with a successful check. GM approval as normal.

Well mind control is the hottest thing ever - I always volunteer to be mc'd. I also tend to work out a way to still play my character. Being an adult means playing along sometimes.

The game does a fantastic job of keeping my PCs at the brink, so I'm very pleased to read this thread. I'd like to find a way to keep players engaged, and I don't think that out means out necessarily.

Incapacitated in terms of maneuver and action, but not in dialogue. The player can be free to talk, perhaps work a radio, and be dragged to a console or another player to make checks of medicine, lore, computers, etc. I think keeps them active and engaged while still reflecting their inability to press on the fight.

Until reading this thread I was happy to rule Incapacitated=Unconscious. However I think it could make some sense (occasionally) to allow a Fear or Resilience check (depending) as a "saving roll" (again, depending on circumstance). Overcoming the check would allow the character to retain consciousness, but be limited to Incidentals/calling for help, perhaps spending a Destiny point to crawl out of harm's way...

I wouldn't do this all the time, but I like the idea as a way to change things up a bit.

We felt that by having people become incapacitated at 0 wounds took people out of the fight to quickly and to randomly.

0 wounds means the character has not suffered any damage. The system works much better when you count up, and go incapacitated when the wounds taken is higher than your threshold (14 out of 14 is still up, 15 out of 14 is down). Your initial posts were not clear (to me at least) that you were consciously instituting a house rule over trying to interpret the damage system a different way and say it was still following the rules.

If it works for your table and you understand how it differs from the rules, go for it.

If you do want to do something different with this, you could simply use the wound threshold as the threshold for when you get a critical wound and then only apply critical wounds as an effect. This of course means you can withstand more damage before dropping and when you do drop, you're no likely to get up again.

Lets say someone has a wound threshold of 14. He gets hit by 34 damage. He would get two critical wounds, but instead roll for one critical wound with +10. He would then mark the spill over 6 damage (14x2 = 28) as his current wounds. I don't like it too much, but it can work just fine.

Hello,

When a character becomes incapacitated, we have been playing that the character is unconscious, and is unable to participate in the encounter further. This has had some negative reactions and comments from players.

I've not seen any information anywhere regarding player actions while incapacitated but I was wondering if anyone had come up with a house rule to allow limited actions?

Thanks!

Um, I don't think you really need a house rule. I think perhaps you need to dial it back then. If this is becoming such a problem that your group is unhappy about it, it is not the rules fault, it is really your encounter design and ultimately your actions that are causing this.

If your non combat players are acting like "combat" characters, then perhaps they are getting what they deserved, but if they are trying to stay in cover, but are still being a primary target, that is your choice. You are the one doing this and blaming the rules and trying to house rule it will not fix this for you.

As for the word: Incapacitate it seems than many people misunderstand what it means. I may seem a bit condescending here, but I'm not trying to be,(it does come naturally for me )The word actually means to deprive of capacity or natural power. Yes, it could mean that someone is "knocked out", but it rarely should. It means that someone is incapable or performing about anything but lying on the ground screaming or curled up in ball crying for thier mommy. Even in prize fighting, the majority of the time someone is "knocked out" they are still conscious, rolling on the mat trying to get up, but their body can't obey the mind as the brain is just overloaded and sending wild signals everywhere. There are times yes that after a heavy blow, they are truly knocked out. That would be unconscious, not incapacitated.

For me, if a player gets incapacitated, that is about it for them. Sorry. Tough luck. If it was their bad descions that led to that, then I have no sympathy for them. If was becuase of something I did as the GM, like making my encounter too hard, then I do help them out a little. But a player should definitely be penalized for a bad descion. If they mouth off to an Imperial,they will get hit with a stun baton, if the group joins in, well, they will get shot, repeatedly. If I have a non combat guy go head first into combat, well, that is their call, not mine. I'm afraid I don't understand your logic that they should not be penalized for poor choices. Um, yeah, they totally should be. While this is a game, there are/should be limits. I once had a player that said he will kill any imperial that he sees. I told him that was a bad idea. He was insistent on it, "dude, I'm just playing my character." After about three encounters of him "playing his character" and causing massive havoc, he got his due. He was mad at me, but I responded, "dude, I'm just playing in character as cops." His character didn't survive the encounter, and I did not let him reroll a character that adventure.

So, in short, if your support guys are rushing headlong into a fight, if they go down, they have nothing to complain about. And I suggest you just let them lay there doing nothing. If not, they will never change their ways. If they are playing smart, and you are making it too difficult on them, they have every right to complain. If I am playing a a slicer, but all I ever get to do is be forced into gunfights, then again, that is a major problem with the game, not the rules.

Sorry if I seem to becoming off as harsh or crass, I am not trying to be, but after reading through the thread, it seems less likely that the problem lies inside the rules, and more with the person running the secenorios. As to the part about a poor choice for gear or a talent, yes they should not penalized for that. "Well, sorry dude, it was your choice not to buy or even afford armor, but here is a bunch baddies you have to face off." That would be horrible. I suggest you look at what led up to the toydarian being one shoted, and see about correcting that first.

Whatever you do, good luck, and I hope you and your group continue to have exciting adventures.