What I like in critical wounds mechanic in 3-rd edition is that they can happen any time.

What I lack in it is the blood, gore and flying body parts of previous editions.

To fill the gap, I came up with idea of new wound type.

Deadly Wounds – some really nasty, and bloody ones, not neccessarily leading to a death (sometimes that too), but much more unpleasant than critical ones.

When you get Deadly Wound:
- when you are hit for more damage (after substracting Soak, and Toughness from total damage) than half of your wound treshold you draw a Deadly Wound
- when you hit the 0 wounds level, you draw a Deadly Wound instead Critical Wound
- when you have number of Critical Wounds equal, or more than your Toughness rating, then each time you should draw a Critical Wound, you draw a Deadly Wound instead.

Deadly Wounds count as Critical Wounds every time you need to count the number of critical wounds you are suffering from (like in case, you are at 0 wounds and on number of crits equal to your Toughness you die).

Providing care to a character that is suffering from at least 1 Deadly Wound is a Hard (3d) test.

Deadly Wounds can only be healed by someone with Medicine acquired. Apart that healing goes exactly like in a critical wound case.

Few Deadly Wounds examples (not even a close to complete list):

Broken Jaw (Severity: 5)
The blow is so strong, that it breaks your jaw along with several teeth. You gain Overwhelmed condition until medical attention is received. Your Fellowship is halved, and you cannot cast spells, or use social actions until you heal the wound.

Smashed Skull (Severity: 6)
The blow crushes your skull bones. You immediately pass out. Until you heal the wound you get 1 <P> to all tests you make. After you heal the wound, make a hard (3d) Resilience test, or you loose 1 point of Inteligence.

Severed Artery (Severity: 4)
One of your main arteries on head is severed. You loose 1 wound due to blood loss every turn, until medical attention is provided (Medicine, or First Air check). Additionally you must make normal (2d) Resilience test, or pass out for a brief duration.

I lost my head today (Severity: -)
Your head flies few feets in random direction, or is smashed to pulp brain splashing around. You are dead Jim

Broken Arm (Severity: 4)
Mighty blow crushes your arms bones. You drop everything you held in that hand. You cannot use that arm until healed. All tests requiring use of both arms gain additional 1 <P> to difficulty.

Severed Hand (Severity: 5)
The place where your hand used to be suddenly becomes very empty (not counting blood). You drop down everything you held in that hand (including hand, that flies away from you). You loose 1 wound every round due to blood loss (can be stopped by First Aid, or Medicine check, or stops after 5 rounds by itself). Your hand is lost forever (but you can replace it with a hook).

Just a scratch, but you get the drill

It's very interesting that you posted this as I had some similar ideas rattling around in my brain. I like the idea of re-introducing maiming and permanent wounds (the classics being lost limbs, gouged eyes, clipped ears, etc.).

Bloody Sun Boy said:

Thanks mate.

I thought it would be nice to have them back.

Right now I'm struggling with healing Deadly Wounds.

Healing them as criticals seems... too fast.

They should heal over longer time span.

Maybe I put fixed healing time on them, or allow one token to be taken from it on a sucessfull resilience/medicine check (once per day),

Any thoughts on that?

I'd have to think on the "healing" ideas further. My original train of thought was along the lines of "anything more severe than a Critical Wound is effectively permanent" but it doesn't have to be that way.

Here's a bit of brainstorming that I've been doing that may or may not provide inspiration for your own subsystems:

I'm toying with the idea of "permanent impairments" for occasions when the PCs are in a really bad way. My unpolished thoughts are thus:

Whenever a character would be killed by an attack (KO'd and current Crits exceed Toughness) the player has an option for the character to receive a "permanent impairment" instead. (This next part is still under heavy scrutiny) In order to do so, the player must spend all remaining Fortune Points his character has. If the character has no Fortune Points, he must remove all Fortune Points from the party's Fortune Pool instead. If the party Fortune Pool is empty, the player cannot invoke a permanent impairment and the character simply dies as normal. If the player meets these requirements, the following occurs:

1) The character remains in a KO'd state as normal.

2) All current Critical Wounds in excess of the character's Toughness are converted into normal Wounds (the most recent Criticals are converted first. After that convert those with the lowest Severity Rating first. If all else fails, convert by random selection).

3) The player draws a random permanent Impairment and applies it to the character, replacing the most recent (or least severe, as above) remaining Critical Wound. The Impairment's effects are suffered immediately and cannot be healed through any means. The Impairment is otherwise considered a Critical Wound for the purposes of all rules that reference such a condition (except that the Impairment does not affect the character's "Wounded Condition" for the purposes of natural or assisted healing).

4) Because the Impairment is permanent and treated like a Critical Wound, it takes up 1 slot of the character's Wound Threshold and reduces the number of Critical Wounds a character can suffer before death.

I have yet to work up all the details for the individual Impairments, but here's one rough example:

Lost Eye: The character adds 1 Challenge die to all Ballistics Skill, Observation, Initiative and similar checks when sight is involved.

I kind of like this approach for a few reasons. First, it reintroduces the potential for crippling injuries and battle-scars. Second, it provides a way for an otherwise "dead" character to continue to be playable (albiet in a diminished state) which not only makes the player feel a different kind of sense of accomplishment but also helps well-developed characters continue deeper into a campaign and reduces "hot-swapping" of PCs. My gut feeling is that the negatives are severe enough (permanent penalty, loss of 1 "effective" Wound and 1 less Crit before death) that it isn't a "no-brainer" that every character will take every time, but it might help a worthwhile character continue on his journey a little longer. It also doesn't totally "prevent" character death as even once an Impairment is taken, the PC is still KO'd and 1 Crit away from death, which means any further damage will kill him. I'm also thinking of limiting this to once per session...meaning only 1 character can attempt this per session, making it a group decision as to whether or not the character should live on.

Thoughts, questions, concerns?

By "healing" I meant, that they can be cured to the point, when they are no more counted into the crit count. You know to heal the open wound after severed hand, not to grow a new hand (for that you will need some really powerfull magic, deal with chaos, or be troll, or a master mutator from moulder clan ).

So they would have some permanent effects (that can't be cured), and some short time effects - like pain, blood loss, and such.

And I see some really neat ideas in Your post.

The fortune points rule is a lifesaver (like the old fate points).

And I also like the Wound Threshold decreasing one, but I skip the " reduces the number of Critical Wounds a character can suffer before death " as it seems too penalizing for me (permanent imparement, and Wound Treshold decrease is enough to satisfy my bloodlust).

I will definitely harness my rusted gears, and undead hamsters to do more work, this is looking good

Ok, gave it some thought.

Changed the name to Imparements (I like Your name for the thing more ).

It also came out, that we don't necessarily need another type of wounds. Imparement card, and a small change in use of critical hits will do.

Here is what I have in mind.

Imparements – some really nasty, and bloody wounds, usually permanent, not neccessarily leading to a death, but much more unpleasant than critical ones.

When you get Imparement:

1. Due to a number of critical hits suffered
- when you have number of Critical Wounds equal, or more than your Toughness rating
- next time you should draw a Critical Wound, you draw an Imparement instead
- when you choose (randomly) an Imparement, you may pay a price in Fortune Points from your own supply (you can not pay from group supply) equal to its severity to dispose of it (Imparement is discarded)
- if you can't pay the price in Fortune Points, Imparement immediately takes effect, and you may put number of critical wounds equal to its severity under it. Those crits do not count to the limit of Ctitical Wounds, but their effects are still in play, and have to be healed (read below).

2. Due to high amount of damage suffered from 1 blow
- when you are hit for more damage (after substracting Soak, and Toughness from total damage) than half of your wound treshold you draw an Imparement
- when you choose (randomly) an Imparement, you may pay a price in Fortune Points from your own supply (you can not pay from group supply) equal to its severity to dispose of it (Imparement is discarded)
- if you can't pay the price in Fortune Points, Imparement immediately takes effect, and you may put number of critical wounds equal to its severity under it. Those crits do not count to the limit of Ctitical Wounds, but their effects are still in play, and have to be healed (read below).

3. When you would be killed due to an attack (lost all wounds, suffer from more crits than Toughness rating)
- instead of being dead, and rolling another character, you may draw an Imprarement instead, and put it on one critical wound (keep the crit for healing purposes, explained below)
- you have to pay number of Fortune Points (from your personal, or group supply if you don't have enough of them) equal to Imparement Severity
- if you can't pay the price in Fortune Points, you die
- if you pay the price, and have Fortune Points left (in your, or group supply), you may spend additional Fortune Points, to put more crits under it (1 Fortune per 1 crit), to a maximum of Imparement severity
- crits under Imparement cards, do not count to the crit limit (any time you need to count crits you suffering from, you do not count crits under Imparement card), but their effects are still in play (you suffer their effects), and need to be cured (see below).

Imparements DO NOT count as Critical Wounds. Every time you need to count the number of critical wounds you are suffering from (like in case, you are at 0 wounds and on number of crits equal to your Toughness you die), you ommit Imparements, and all critical wounds under their cards.

Each Imparement you gain lowers your Wound Treshold by 1.

Imparements cannot be healed, but crits under its card can, ans should.
Crits under Imparement card resemble the wound that caused the Imparement, the pain, how much you suffer (crit effects still in play), and how long it takes before the wound can seal itself (each crit have to be healed individually).

Few Imparement examples (more to come):

Broken Jaw (Severity: 2)
The blow is so strong, that it breaks your jaw along with several teeth.
You gain Shocked condition until medical attention is received.
Your loose 1 point of Fellowship permanently.
You cannot cast spells, or use social actions until you heal the wound (all crits under Imparement card).

Smashed Skull (Severity: 2)
The blow crushes your skull bones.
You immediately pass out.
Your loose 1 point of Inteligence permanently.
Until you heal the wound you get 1 <P> to all tests you make.

Severed Artery (Severity: 3)
One of your main arteries is severed.
You gain 1 fatigue due to blood loss every turn, until medical attention is provided (if you pass out, you are dead).
You loose 1 point of Toughness permanently.

Broken Arm (Severity: 2)
Mighty blow crushes your arm bones. You everything you held in that hand.
Gain Overwhelmed condition until medical attention is provided.
You loose 1 point of Strenght permanently.
You cannot use that arm until healed.

Severed Hand (Severity: 4)
The place where your hand used to be suddenly becomes very empty (not counting blood).
You down everything you held in that hand (including hand, that flies away from you).
You gain 1 fatigue due to blood loss every turn, until medical attention is provided (if you pass out, you are dead).
Your hand is lost forever (but you can replace it with a hook).

Lost Eye (Severity: 3)
Lucky hit of your opponent takes out your eye. Nothing looks like it looked before.
You gain Exposed condition until medical attention is provided.
The character adds 1 Challenge die to all checks based on sight (Ballistic Skill, Observation, etc) forever.

One small add.

This

Sunatet said:

Should read:

2. Due to high amount of damage suffered from 1 blow

- when you are hit for more damage (after substracting Soak, and Toughness from total damage) than half of your wound treshold, and you suffer from at leas one critical hit (or just gained one due to the hit) you draw an Imparement.

I also plan to use the Imparements instead of critical wounds in case of undeads (those that do not suffer critical wounds).

Undeads will be immune to Imparements special effects (like loose Inteligence, or Strenght, or bleed, or gain condition), but can loose a hand for example (or head, or anything else they have left ), and everything they carry in it.

It can add a bit of flavor to fights with undead (blood, gore, and flying body parts ).

Also it may be fun watching players hack undeads to pieces (and the undeads ignoring it and keep coming ).

very interesting indeed... To keep it simple, I would use deadly hit when :

• you lose a number of wounds higher equal or higher than your Toughness, after substracting Toughness and Soak.
• you get to 0 wounds.

I've put the above into pdf file, and keep updating from time to time.

Newest version is always here: www.gmtools.excelocms.com/houserules/Imparements.pdf