Proposal for Improved Wound effect system

By wolph42, in Game Mechanics

Posted at
Let me keep this short: I like the new system, however it has few flaws. My proposal here is to gather all the good input to correct the flaw and create something constructive to send to the writers of DH2.
So PLEASE no biggering and complaints except when its accompanied with constructive alternatives and on topic.
In this topic I want to pick out one flaw and try to come up with a better alternative:
The Wound effect system. In principle I like the idea, it gives flavor more realism etc etc, but after encounter number 10 everyone is sick and tired of it ESPECIALLY the constant requirement to check the book/tables. I do not have the illusion that FFG will completely revise the entire wound effect system, so I'm not aiming at that...I actually doubt they will do anything that results from this, but who knows, if its REALLY good... so lets give it a shot and try to keep it as close to what it currently is.
A solution that takes away a lot of hassle allready is a suggestion by Saldre :
  • The first 3 (or so) wound effects inflict 1 fatigue but NO actual wound. Where the actual threshold lies is open for debate. This prevents stupid things like receiving 4 major hits by e.g. an autocannon leaving that relatively unscaved and then explode by the prick of a knife.
  • The second MAJOR improvement is to remove alll entries below 20 and replace them by something you can actually remember. The last 10 entries of the tables can AFAI'mC remain as they are roughly the same as the critical hit tables from ya-old days. This way you create some balance between the 'fluff and the fast'(er game pace)
Now my intention is to update this post with better suggestions as well go along and I hope I can get some assistance from the forum.
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So here trial 1 . To keep things simple I would suggest to simply divide everything in tiers of 5 so you can easily remember it
1-5 1 Fatigue, no wound
6-10 1 Fatigue, 1 wound
11-15 1 Fatigue, 1 wound, 1 round effect on body part. E.g. Head: Stunned, Body Dazed, Limb: Ag/WS/BS -20
15-20 1 fatigue, 1 wound, more severe effect: Energy: burn condition (1d10), Impact (H/B/L): stunned (1d5)/weakened(1)/crippled (until healed) condition, Rending: Blood Loss condition(1d5)
21-etc Same table as now, maybe with some changes, but in general it remains the same.
Note that RAW: 'novice NPC' have NO wound effects, but die with 2 wounds or 1 critical wound. So for those there is no bookkeeping for the gm.
As for elite NPCs I'm inclined to rule 4 wounds == death (1-5 does inflict a wound). Master NPC's treat same as PC's.
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Some pondering thoughts:
- maybe this makes 'toughness' too important as it decides when you tip over. Alternatively you could remove the fatigue from 6 to 15 and only inflict fatigue in 1-5 and 15-20 ?
I'm curious to your feedback.
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EDIT
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Trial 2

Been giving this some thought, especially with th efeedback and come to the following conclusion:

  • FFG is NOT gonna throw away the tables, as correctly stated they are this game holy cow

  • So IF this makes it in any way into the gameit should be offered as an alternative to quicken gameplay for those interested.

  • Hence KISS should really apply to this alternative

This is what I made of it, together with the given feedback

"As an alternative to the existing wound effect system during battle we offer the following guidelines to speed up game play. The wounding system is split up into three tiers where the character remains longer lightly wounded, but will gain more severe wounds effects more quickly after that. A GM can choose to mix these alternative rules with the tables. E.g use the below for 1-20 and consult the tables for wound effects of 21+."

1-10 light/minor wounds. Gain 1 fatigue and get +2 'wound modifier'

11-20 heavy/major wounds. Gain 1 fatigue, +5 'wound modifier' and (until healed or when round are given:)

Energy: burn condition (1d10)

Impact: (H/B/L): dazed (2d5rounds) / weakened(1) / Crippled

Rending: Blood loss (1d5)

21-30 Gain +5 wound modifier, 50% chance to fall unconscious for 1d5 rounds

Limb: 50% limb loss

Head: 50% partial sensory loss (1 eye/1ear/nose) should you loose both (eyes/ear) you gain the deaf/blind condition)

Body: 50% weakened(3) and blood loss (1d5)

Energy:burning condition (1d10+5)

Impact: toughness decay (2d10) until healed, test Ag-30 or fall prone.

Rending:blood loss condition (1d5+5)

Critical Wounds (due to a righteous fury) will still double the 'wound modifier' so for the 1-10 tier the modifier is +4.

Some slight modification on NPC's (most is RAW):

Novice NPC die when:

  • Gaining 2 wounds (RAW)

  • Gain 1 major/mortal or critical wound

  • Novices do not gain any wound effects (RAW)

Elite NPC's die when

  • Gaining 4 wounds

  • Gain 1 mortal or critical wound

  • Elites do not gain any wound effects

Master NPC's suffer same effects as players.

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Some pondering thoughts...: maybe not KISS enough or too simplified?

Edited by wolph42
Posted at

My suggestion is to keep the wound tables at 30 entries. Divide them up into the first ten results as minor wounds, the second ten as major wounds, and the last ten as mortal wounds. Minor wounds give a plus 1 to later wounds, major give +5, and mortal give +10. Critical wounds would double this bonus. It's simple, keeps most of the existing mechanics intact, and leaves a cinematic experience in place with lots of cool wound effects. Edit the character sheet to have 10 places to mark off minor wounds, 4 for major wounds, and two for mortal wounds. That makes the whole thing a bit easier to track. Edit the wound tables so that each one fits results evenly in the three categories and you're good to go.

Posted at

Divide them up into the first ten results as minor wounds, the second ten as major wounds, and the last ten as mortal wounds. Minor wounds give a plus 1 to later wounds, major give +5, and mortal give +10. Critical wounds would double this bonus.

Really like this idea quite a bit... especially coupled with the more generic effects listed above. You could boil 9 tables into one - 3 sections for each type of damage, with rows for wound severity and columns for location. Like so:

The downside is that you definitely lose granularity, but it makes it so much more fluid in gameplay... and it's much easier to track (without having to photocopy 9 charts for every player).

(As another alternative, at least boil these 9 tables down into 1. Get rid of the fluff about eyes boiling and chunks of flesh flying and stick in the pertinent effects. While they are amazing and hilarious to read, they get repetitive when you play the game more than once - like, "oh hey, I boiled another guys eyeballs out of his skull... cool story." Let the players and the GM decide how the gore manifests, and get the important stuff down in a single table.)

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Given that these unwieldy wound tables have survived five other game lines and taking up 8ish pages of every book they're in, I kind of feel like the gruesome descriptions are a bit of a sacred cow to the game line akin to the percentile system. Plus, this is the first chance we get to have the wound effects happen in every combat. I'm excited to see how it feels to use them.

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I think you're going to find putting 1 fatigue in at the 1-5 wound effect rank (but at the same time removing the "wound" quality of the effect) is going to cause combat to be slightly more dire, if not fatal.

From what I can tell, it seems to be the intent that characters expire more from fatigue = 2 * (WB + TB) rather than arriving at a wound effect 30+ range. That over the course of combat, a character will likely pass out from fatiuge. If they're suffering Blood Loss, they will die eventually. Note the stacking quality of Blood Loss.

Edited by KommissarK
Posted at

My suggestion is to keep the wound tables at 30 entries. Divide them up into the first ten results as minor wounds, the second ten as major wounds, and the last ten as mortal wounds. Minor wounds give a plus 1 to later wounds, major give +5, and mortal give +10. Critical wounds would double this bonus. It's simple, keeps most of the existing mechanics intact, and leaves a cinematic experience in place with lots of cool wound effects. Edit the character sheet to have 10 places to mark off minor wounds, 4 for major wounds, and two for mortal wounds. That makes the whole thing a bit easier to track. Edit the wound tables so that each one fits results evenly in the three categories and you're good to go.

Introducing minor wounds that add +1 to the next wound is pretty much the same as having hit points again.

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I don't think it's really equivalent to reintroducing wounds, given that every character starts with the same amount, they still have additional effects, and how many get inflicted varies pretty widely.

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ok Im pretty pissed off now, as I just written a lengthy reply and this forum ate it. Ill first test post this message and edit it so it won't happen again

So here we go again, i fear it wont be as lengthy as the last one.

First thank you for the great responses especially in such a short period of time. Im not gonna quote everyone but just react to the points given.

- dividing into three tiers (and creating a table with effects for the three tiers for all locations and damage types as suggested later on): to me its basically the same difference. I suggested 5 tiers (1-5, 6-10,11-15,16-20 and 21+), you suggest 3, I guess you will loose more granularity, but gain a pace in game play. Can you draw up a table with a concept reflecting this, that makes it a lot easier to compare?

- FFG not giving up their holy cow (8 ish tables with blood and gore) I guess you're right. Partially I wanted to 'compromise' by still using them, but limit the use to 'when stuff gets hairy' similar to the old system, instead of EVERY WOUND which is just a pain. Still a good alternative would be to keep the tables and add fast pace rules. Say best of both worlds. Which boils down that its still good to keep diggin into this, worst case we end up with a solid set of house rules

- fatigue vs wounds in the first being more fatal... I have to disagree. Lets make some assumptions and two scenarios. Assume that stats are at least 30 making the 'fall unconscious' level 2*(3+3)=12.

Scenario 1: knive fight. After 6 succesfull hits all doing 1 point wound (so AC-DV=1):

- current system, you're at +30, next knive hit will take your head off

- suggested system, you're at 6 levels of fatique

Scenario 2: heavy weapons doing 5 point wounds

- current system: after 5 hits you explode

- suggested system: after 6 hits you explode

In conclusion: its less fatal.

After giving this example I have to conclude that after 6 stabs of a knive you're still 'not wounded' so i guess there's merit in the suggestion to DO keep track of the as 'minor' wounds and add a +1 for the first 5. I think that if you set the tier to the first 10 it will become VERY hard to get PCs down, taking out a lot of the edge of the game and letting a combat become a drag.

Edited by wolph42
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Trial 2 is added to the OP. Please give your feedback.

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I think the chart is self is fine but the modifiers are whats killing it. Each locations should track what number you are on the chart. You take 2 damage you are at 2 on the chart. You take 3 more damage to that location you are at 5 on the chart. You take 1 more damage you are at 6.

Change the modifiers to maybe if you take over your TB in damage you get a +5 and keep Crits at +10. This makes the system easy to remember, easy to record and does not make "flesh wounds" from massive damage.

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I think the chart is self is fine but the modifiers are whats killing it. Each locations should track what number you are on the chart. You take 2 damage you are at 2 on the chart. You take 3 more damage to that location you are at 5 on the chart. You take 1 more damage you are at 6.

Change the modifiers to maybe if you take over your TB in damage you get a +5 and keep Crits at +10. This makes the system easy to remember, easy to record and does not make "flesh wounds" from massive damage.

with 'the chart itself' are you referring to the orginal ffg charts, or the ones i propose?

also from what i gather from the rules is that you get +5 for ALL wounds you have so far (at least thats what it sais in th book) so after 6/7 wounds your dead, regardless of the locations of those wounds.

From your reply i gather that the +5 is per location, where is that stated in the rules?

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I was originally refering to the FFG's version. I do think your first chart works quite well.

I was just speaking to what changes I would make to system.