I'm a big fan of progressive health systems like Shadowrun or Mutants & Masterminds. My idea is to completely remove the wound threshold; instead, any wounds that exceed soak are taken as strain damage. The player then gains a critical injury with a roll value equal to the damage after soak, applying modifiers as normal. (activating a critical does not apply an extra injury)

Healing wounds applies to the strain threshold with the benefit of healing above their strain threshold. Excess strain is removed at the end of the encounter.

This seems like an small tweak that will allow for grittier combat in settings that need to be more lethal. I'm really interested in any recommendations the community has.

I’m not sure I fully understand the purpose. Removing Strain and having that apply to Wounds seems easier to understand. I think you will find Strain management a much bigger problem than it initially appears as you play the system more. Once PC’s start to pick up Strain burning talents most often they drop through exceeding Strain Thresholds

Crits are nasty in this system, especially once you have a collection of them, less attackers with a higher dice pool will also achieve what you’re looking for.

Another option would be removing Brawn from Soak, so Armour is all that matters and Damage is more serious. It could turn into rocket tag really quick though.

Strain is used for too many Talents and 2nd Maneuvers so PCs are essentially going to be forced to not use the majority of their abilities or options for fear of assisting in crossing themselves off. I find the idea untenable in the system.

10 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

I’m not sure I fully understand the purpose. Removing Strain and having that apply to Wounds seems easier to understand. I think you will find Strain management a much bigger problem than it initially appears as you play the system more. Once PC’s start to pick up Strain burning talents most often they drop through exceeding Strain Thresholds

Crits are nasty in this system, especially once you have a collection of them, less attackers with a higher dice pool will also achieve what you’re looking for.

Another option would be removing Brawn from Soak, so Armour is all that matters and Damage is more serious. It could turn into rocket tag really quick though.

To clarify, I have a strong personal dislike of hit points. Your just as capable at 1 hp as your are at full hp but the moment you drop below 0 you fall unconscious, your injuries have zero effect until you're on the floor dying. Strain is too ingrained in the system to be removed and the difference between applying damage (and healing) to strain vs. wounds is what happens when you hit zero.

I agree that crits are nasty and their cumulative lethality is what makes them appealing. They also have effects that hinder the character until removed which is what I'm really trying to do with this change. I toyed with the idea of removing Brawn from soak but decided against it.

11 hours ago, 2P51 said:

Strain is used for too many Talents and 2nd Maneuvers so PCs are essentially going to be forced to not use the majority of their abilities or options for fear of assisting in crossing themselves off. I find the idea untenable in the system.

That's a really good point. I'll play test two variants with my group, one where excess damage applies to strain and one where it only applies a crit. My hypothesis is that since wounds also heal strain most players will end combat with very little to no strain damage.

To increase grittiness, trigger critical injuries more frequently, and use attacks that have Pierce, Vicious and low critical ratings. When resolving dice results, use multiple threat and despair to inflict wounds or critical injuries more frequently. Keep a tighter rein on how often players can use painkillers, and don't just hand-wave the time penalties.

27 minutes ago, Swordbreaker said:

To increase grittiness, trigger critical injuries more frequently, and use attacks that have Pierce, Vicious and low critical ratings. When resolving dice results, use multiple threat and despair to inflict wounds or critical injuries more frequently. Keep a tighter rein on how often players can use painkillers, and don't just hand-wave the time penalties.

I agree with what you're saying and I feel that's effectively what this change accomplishes without giving every single enemy a crit rating of 1. Stacking vicious on an enemy seems like a bad idea because no player likes being one-shot. And unless every enemy has adversary, despairs rarely occur during combat.

My goal is not to one-shot players (that's what disruptors are for ). When injuries hamper players outside of combat it creates a sense of suspense and forces the players to evaluate the risks associate with a fight.

1 hour ago, Hujumajujubon said:

Your just as capable at 1 hp as your are at full hp but the moment you drop below 0 you fall unconscious, your injuries have zero effect until you're on the floor dying.

Wounds are not HP, as a character can still die independent of taking too many wounds. Taking too many wounds does have a negative effect, as it makes it harder to heal the character; being harder to heal means that a character is less likely to be back to 100% the next time they get into a fight, which means they risk even worse injuries the next time around.

And to be entirely technical, the book says that exceeding wound threshold means that a character is knocked out and incapacitated. From a narrative standpoint, that's less a character being perfectly healthy to suddenly being unconscious, and more a character being pummeled into submission. Wound threshold are not HP, it is stamina, or a metric on how much punishment a character can take before Bad Things Happen.

24 minutes ago, Swordbreaker said:

Taking too many wounds does have a negative effect, as it makes it harder to heal the character; being harder to heal means that a character is less likely to be back to 100% the next time they get into a fight

To me that doesn't create suspense. It's an inconvenience to the healer and a gauge for when the party should go to bed. Don't get me wrong, the buffer wounds creates between damage and critical injuries is wonderful in high combat-adventure settings but it doesn't fit all games.

31 minutes ago, Swordbreaker said:

Wound threshold are not HP, it is stamina, or a metric on how much punishment a character can take before Bad Things Happen.

And strain is a measure of fatigue. I understand the thematic and mechanical differences but their similarities has bothered me since the day I started playing EotE. If a 150+ crit is the only way to kill a character, what is the point of having a wound threshold. The only justification I see is what 2P51 said:

14 hours ago, 2P51 said:

Strain is used for too many Talents and 2nd Maneuvers so PCs are essentially going to be forced to not use the majority of their abilities or options for fear of assisting in crossing themselves off.

4 minutes ago, Hujumajujubon said:

And strain is a measure of fatigue. I understand the thematic and mechanical differences but their similarities has bothered me since the day I started playing EotE. If a 150+ crit is the only way to kill a character, what is the point of having a wound threshold.

This is interesting because I can't say I recall GMs howling for ways to increase the risk of death. Typically GMs are concerned the dice might force the issue too abruptly and they want less clunky/fiat ways of forestalling that in game.

The 150+ crit in personal combat is the only dice/mechanical option for killing a PC in personal combat, but it isn't like once rendered unconscious you can't walk over and coup de grace them if you so choose. I think the system easily provides between Talents and gear the option for a GM to create a genuinely lethal opponent that can roll very high critical rolls.

I am planning on running a Genesys/Star Trek campaign in the next few months and I've kind of decided to approach Stun on weapons in a way similar to your approach. I am going to get away from trying to just deplete the Strain pool as a means of stunning a target and instead make 'Stun setting' a custom weapon effect, or a series of existing ones, that I feel will more accurately reflect what we see 'Stun' do in the setting.

I often wish I was more proficient at expressing my ideas more concisely. My intent is not to cause higher critical rolls but to increase the frequency of crits.

Since crits are not rolled but are instead based on the damage taken, this should give the GM more control and avoid unexpected insta-deaths.

Except that RAW everyone adds +10 to the roll, which adds up pretty quickly, particularly when factoring in Vicious, Lethal Blows, multiple Advantage/Triumph activations on the roll.

I find I can typically inflict crits on at least a couple people every round with dice pool results.

I was factoring in the +10, that's what makes it progressive.

That's different from my experience, crits against players are fairly uncommon unless an NPC is specifically tailored for it. And I want to avoid every enemy having crit 1.

I'm not sure why they're uncommon, I pile them up routinely using plain old Stormtroopers.

1 hour ago, 2P51 said:

I'm not sure why they're uncommon, I pile them up routinely using plain old Stormtroopers.

Lies! Everyone knows that stormtroopers always miss

I do think I hear what you’re saying, you want less hits that cause damage and more that cause Critical hits, you want less combat but much scarier Combat.

Throw Minion groups of at least 6 at your party, the Crits really pile up then, just make sure the minions are soft and their weapons are not too high Damage. Aim a lot as well, those Boost dice really up the Advantages rolled.

Wounds are knicks, scratches, bruises, and general soreness. They do not physically impair the character in anyway. Regardless of how many knicks and scratches a character has, a good shot can still make a solid hit - this is what activated criticals are. A character can be at full health and still get shot in the arm, gaining a critical injury. Also, eventually superficial wounds will add up. This is why once you've exceeded wound threshold any additional damage inflicts criticals. If you keep pounding on a dudes face, eventually you're going to break his nose or knock him out. This isn't hit points, like D&D. In D&D, your character is at full health, and once he reaches 0 HP he's dying. In this system, you get knocked out at 0, but you're not dying...you're just getting more severe injuries (and there are talents that even prevent you from being knocked out here). Everything up to that point has been superficial, unless someone has triggered a critical hit.

If you want to increase lethality, like swordbreaker said, really the way to do it is just to use the existing mechanics and trigger more criticals.

47 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

Throw Minion groups of at least 6 at your party, the Crits really pile up then, just make sure the minions are soft and their weapons are not too high Damage. Aim a lot as well, those Boost dice really up the Advantages rolled.

While this would work, it really limits variety. That and fighting waves of disposable enemies isn't very Shadowrun-like.

Then use well built Rivals. I always found the Storm commandos in AoR Beta to be true @$$ kickers.

23 minutes ago, saethone said:

Regardless of how many knicks and scratches a character has, a good shot can still make a solid hit - this is what activated criticals are.

And yet the lowest crit is literally a Minor Nick.

24 minutes ago, saethone said:

Also, eventually superficial wounds will add up.

This is why each crit adds +10 to subsequent crits.

27 minutes ago, saethone said:

This isn't hit points, like D&D. In D&D, your character is at full health, and once he reaches 0 HP he's dying. In this system, you get knocked out at 0, but you're not dying...you're just getting more severe injuries

From a design stand point I really don't see much difference. (except after you're revived when the medic is trying to remove the stack of critical injuries you've accumulated)

It's not about lethality. I'm striving to have progressive repercussions for being injured.

13 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

Then use well built Rivals. I always found the Storm commandos in AoR Beta to be true @$$ kickers.

Those must have been the storm troopers Obi-Wan was referring to.

What about having multiple effects depending on your injury level?

0 to half Wounds you act normally

half to your threshold you suffer the Disoriented condition

exceed your threshold and your Staggered

Exceed your Wound Threshold + Brawn and your unconscious.

13 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

What about having multiple effects depending on your injury level?

This was my first thought since it's more akin to Shadowrun. But it adds an extra layer of tracking and I try to avoid anything that will slow combat down even more. Still, could be worth play testing.

I would have a series of boxes on the character sheet, 1 for each Wound. Have the important points identified for quick reference.