Crit healing is a problem for me. It's quite possible for a mangled limb or a concussion to heal over night. Realistically, wounds like this take weeks, if not months to heal. I'm not looking for the game to mirror real life, but I do want less cinema and more grit.

How about:

A crit *cannot* heal until successfully tended by a character with Medicine or First Aid. The severity is the number of that is added to the medical check. Each crit must be tended separately.

Resilience checks to heal crits can only be made once per week by the suffering character.

The severity represents a number of wounds that will not heal until the crit is healed.

I haven't actually got to play this game yet, still digesting the rules, but looking at the healing section, I think your changes would definitely make it more gritty, more WFRP.

I think the probability of healing a crit for starting characters is already low enough that I don't think there is a need to add additional misfortune dice. If your main problem is the possibility of an overnight cure and you're looking for it to take longer, how about just saying the first attempt to recover from a crit can't take place until a number of weeks equal to the severity of the crit have elapsed? So you'd need to wait a minimum of 3 weeks to recover from a sev 3 crit and it may be longer; much longer in fact since the probability of removing it on your first attempt is already low.

I think you'll end up with the PCs needing a lot more downtime since they'll not want to keep adventuring once they have a couple crits knowing that the next combat could kill them and it might still be some time before they can even attempt to recover from the first one.

mac40k said:

I had considered that exact mechanic too, severity = weeks before first check; but I wanted it to be less static and to rely on medicinal skills. The extra misfortune dice would be added to the First Aid/Medicine check, not the Resilience check. It represents the difficulty of tending different wounds. Characters may have to go on a quest to hunt down a recluse rumoured to have near-mystical medicinal skills (Medicine trained 3 times), or work their way into high society to meet with a top doctor, to have a sev 5 crit successfully treated.

Or they could get lucky and some one trained once in First Aid could get some righteous successes.

Healing magic would still work as shown on the cards.

mac40k said:

Instead of downtime, they'll just need to seek medical attention. Although, I have no problem with downtime spent on healing. I like that being needed in my games. Of course, the adventure could prevent them from having that luxury. Dire consequences if they don't stop the Slaaneshi cult in time, and all of that good stuff.

Additional idea -

The first successful recovery roll after treatment lowers a crit's severity by 1. The next check against the reduced severity removes the crit.

A lot of the crits are completely not serious... Like Twisted Ankle or something, really. The crits here aren't really maiming, horrendous deformities or limb-removals like in previous editions. From what I've seen so far recovery seems acceptable.

Vaeron said:

It's "Twisted Joint" and it actually is pretty serious as you lose your free manoeuvre every round. That's a lot of fatigue... I had a bad twisted ankle once and was on crutches for a week. Crits are serious, wounds are much more transient. I see wounds as representing the minor cuts, bruises, abrasions and twists. I know the crits are not horrendous deformities or limb removals (though some of those would be nice) but I want there to be absolutely zero chance in Hell that a critical hit will go away overnight.

First Aid can be attempted untrained, and many times a day or two will see the crit mended (wrapped properly, compress applied, however you visualise it) and ready to begin healing.

Ideally, I want to find a way to work the crit tables from Warhammer 1st or from the book A Million Ways To Die into the system.

Perhaps the problem is simply the term "critical", especially for those familiar with prior editions of the game. It may have been better if they used a different term like serious injury or hindering wound. Normal wounds represent scrapes, bruises, and other aches and pains that are recovered easily with a bit of rest. Crits are more serious injuries that continue to hinder you in some fashion until they are healed. They aren't as easy to get rid of as normal wounds, but by themselves they aren't life threatening either, so calling them critical wounds seems to overstate them. Crits are only life threatening when you sustain too many of them, so taking a single crit may not be a big deal, but amassing several is courting death.

If they had called them "serious injury" rather than criticals you could have 3 levels of injury. Lightly wounded = sustained normal wounds only. Seriously wounded = 1 or more serious wounds, but less than Toughness score. Critically wounded = serious wounds equal to your Toughness, meaning that the next serious wound taken will result in death. You could then have the difficulty level of the recovery check be Lightly Wounded <P>, Seriously Wounded <PP>, and <PPP> for Critically Wounded. This would help stress the fact that the individual serious injuries may not seem that bad, but you probably want to deal with them before too many accumulate. It would also promote seeking Long Term Care if Critically Wounded since that reduces the recovery check one level.

This doesn't solve Mordenthral's problem of not liking that it is possible (although not necessarily probable) that a crit can be healed in one day. However, since you can only treat one crit at a time, once a character starts amassing them, making them too difficult to get rid of individually will just result in either a lot more downtime while the PCs seek Long Term Care, or increased character death if this is not possible. Without more play experience of my own, I'm willing to trust the developers at this point that they got the balance right through their playtesting and not muck with the system too much. It may not be as realistic as some would like, but more realistic runs the risk of being less fun if the PCs are constantly laid up due to injuries rather than adventuring.

mac40k said:

I think the names of some of the crits, like "Hideous Wound," lend themselves to envisioning the types of crits that were in older systems. But I see your point, and adding a third level of injury could be another way to handle my issue.

mac40k said:

True, but that's when you interrupt them with merchant houses and nobles demanding their attention, or assassins in the night, or an attack by orcs and goblins and they have to heroically fight off the baddies with a mangled limb and a concussion.

I am presently working on converting the medical treatment/surgery system from the Old World Armoury for this new version. For surgery to truly be necessary, we need destroyed limbs and the like. Otherwise, why bother going to a rat-infested, ramshackle cesspit that looks more like a heavily used butcher shop or abattoir to endure the tender ministrations from the local quack with a cleaver?

I am noodling some ideas on mechanics for assigning damage. I rather like that the new crits occur in the middle of combat, and the damage types I am thinking about are game changers. If you get one, you're very likely out of the fight, and likely at death's door. Some my first idea:

• You don't fall at zero wounds, rather the next hit is likely to kill or maim.
• On your next hit, instead of taking wounds, take an equivalent amount of fatigue (eventually you WILL pass out).
• For each new critical, take an amount of stress = to severity of the crit(s). Place a token on these new crits to set them apart.
• A crit with severity 2 or 3 means whatever hit (head, limb, etc.) is now crushed and useless, or is a massive gash revealing bone and brain (GM arbitrates what this means).
• <OPTIONAL> If in one hit you suffer from crits with a combined severity greater than your To, you lose a limb!
• Crits of severity 2/3 must have immediate medical attention to stabilize or the PC bleeds out. They have a number of rounds = to To.
• If stabilized (a successful Immediate Care/First Aid), they will linger a number of days = to To until they see a surgeon (to treat those specially marked crits).

I really don't want to slow down combat with complex crits, but I think this captures some of the really high grittiness of the world. But it's also EXTREMELY deadly in that PCs don't and are possibly left alone until the encounter ends, rather they are bludgeoned to death and/or cut into pieces. Chances are, if the fatigue gains trigger unconsciousness, you've probably accumulated enough crits to die.

I am still debating that <OPTIONAL> one...

Mmm - maybe if I deploy this hardcore system, I might allow PCs to expend fortune to convert a crit to a regular wound (and therefore take more fatigue and go the route of passing out as opposed to dying).

I came up with a hit location idea, so I may ditch the FFG crit cards altogether. Using it, variable damage and the 1st edition crit tables I can just use that healing system too.

Running the demo tonight. I'll play test it and see if soak values need to be lowered, or wound thresholds reduced.