Right now, the way my acolytes and I play is when you reach over your number of wounds you start taking critical damage, regardless of hit location. Now we still determine hit location but I just say, "you were shot in the arm and take X wounds" We did this to save time and confusion. Now my question is, how important is hit location? If you get shot in the head but are not over your wounds, do you instantly die? If you get shot in the arm do you drop your weapon? These are the things i want to know, and also how does bleed out work, is that what happens when you get shot or is it only for deep laserations.

RoBro said:

I do believe you guys are doing, for the most part, by the book.

Before Critical Wounds, the only real mechanical difference in hit location is the amount of armour on that location (heads usually have the least). Hit locations don't mechanically start having an effect until Critical Wounds are taken, then it matters. Different locations have different effects and, on the whole, death occurs sooner for critical wounds to the head (7 on the average) then to other locations which don't start getting fatal until 8 on the average.

By the RAW, bleeding out doesn't occur until Critical Wounds are taken and usually for Rending damage though occasionally for the other types as well. The Critical Effects will tell you when blood lose begins to occur. When a character is suffering from blood loss (the result of a critical wound as described in the tables) he has a 10% chance of dying each round until the bleeding is staunched.

If you get sot in the head and it's not over your wounds (and even if it is) you don't instantly die. If you still ave wounds left, it was probably a glancing blow, maybe an ear nick, etc. Even once you are into the crit, the character won't instantly die. Te fatality of head-shots is a bit overblown, I think mostly due to first person shooters. It's quite common for folks to get shot in the head and live... maybe not long, maybe a few days, maybe a few hours, but it's rarely instantly fatal. Hell, there's folks living their lives wit bullets lodged in their brains right now. And out brain isn't the only think in out head. We have a good chunk of face beneath it, a whole mouth and jaw area to be shot trough, cheeks to be ventilated, neck for bullets to get lodged just 1/8th of an inch from the spine and if it moves any it'll paralyze you but we can't operate, the risks are just too great (dun dun duuuuun), etc.

I've actually seen two guys get shot in the head outside my house (well, i didn't see them get shot, but I saw the after effects). One lived and not only did he live but, according to the neighbors, several of the sots I heard was him returning fire. The other fella didn't die instantly, but when we called 911 he was still moving on the sidewalk. Judging from the paramedics reactions, however, he was dead by the time they got there.

So, ya, you guys were doing it right.

Graver said:

This makes me wonder, where you are actually living, mate!

Yea Graver's right. If you feel it's not enough I've actually toyed with house rules involving fatigue for head shots and toughness tests to prevent dropping your gun (like the Inquisitor game I believe).

Oh and yea holy cow Graver! dudes shot outside your house!?!

I live in New Orleans. That should explain it all.

People get real stupid in a crazy kind of way around Mardi Gras and, to top it off, the supper scary slums are just a few blocks off from where I live -it bleeds over now and again. The guy who was shot but lived was from Mid City (20+ blocks away) and had an altercation over drugs there, fled here, and brought the trouble with him. The guy who died (separate shooting 2 days latter... did I mention Mardi Gras is crazy) wasn't any kind of angel either as all I have been able to find out about that altercation is his rap sheet. Early 20's and already had two felony weapon possessions and one felony possession of cocaine with intent to distribute... and he was out walking around. Gotta love our parish lock-up's revolving door of justice!

And there's some damned little gangsta thugs who have taken to dealing on our corner which drew some fire a couple of weekends ago. Unfortunately, none of the little punks got hit. It's just New Orleans being New Orleans. Wonderful town, let me tell you.

Sorry about the off topic there.

To get back to something roughly approaching the topic, I did a bit of rule wrangling my self to actually make all shots have a bit more impact by spreading critical effects out through the entirety of the wound scale as opposed to packing them all in at the end. It leads to bloody broken heroes slogging on without having to be 2 points from death in order to be all ragged and pulped but still fighting on. I just like copious amounts of that in my stories and found that the rear packed criticals didn't do a good job of giving me that.

Considering how very deadly the system is already, why would you need to make it more so? Egads - I like my setting gritty, but I want my pcs to be capable of walking from one fight to the next.

Jack of Tears said:

Mostly 'cause it's not. People keep mentioning how deadly and fast it's combat is when, for me and my group, it doesn't seem that way at all. I guess we're used to much faster and brutal combat sequences.

Graver said:

Do you keep backup characters made so you dont have to spend time rerolling every session? lol

Varius said:

We've actualy only had one character die in the year long game we've been playing, though there might be a second soon as things are getting a bit dangerous and one character is out of Fate Points ;-)