Forgive me if I've failed to notice a change, but the notion of a flat bonus on the wound table for each previous wound sounds like it would dramatically favor rapid fire weapons. To counter this, I would like to propose a different layout of wounds table such as follows:
Arm Energy Damage Table
Damage Effect
- 1-2 The shot burns across the target’s limb, causing a painful and possibly gruesome burn. No additional effects.
- 3-4 If the limb is holding anything, the target must make a WP test or he drops anything he is holding in that limb.
- 5-6 WP test or lose an AP due to pain.
- 7-9 WP test or stunned for one round.
- 10-12 Limb catches fire.
- 13-15 Limb crippled indefinitely, WP test or pass out.
- 16-18 Lose Limb, pass out, & stop rolling on this table.
- 19+ Death.
To use the table, you would roll damage and subtract the armor and toughness values, then look on the table for the corresponding entry to the remaining damage. You would suffer that result and put a check on the corresponding section of your character sheet. The next time you took damage you would repeat the process. If you would arrive at an entry that has already been used, you would instead go down the list to the next available entry. The same checkboxes would be used regardless of whether the damage came the energy table or another.
Example:
Lucian takes two lasgun hits on his unarmored limb, each dealing eight damage. He subtracts his toughness bonus of four and then looks up the corresponding entry. He follows the entry for four damage and then places a check mark next to it. He then suffers the next wound. Because the entry for four damage is already suffered, he moves down the list and uses the entry for 5-6, then places a check mark next to that entry.
Lucian's Right Arm
1-2 3-4 5-6 7-9 10-12 Crippled Lost
( ) (X) (X) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
Obviously more entries could be added to spice up the results and spread the gore, even specifying multiple effects with a shared checkbox. For instance, 13 could be expanded to limb crippled, 14 to limb crippled and WP test or stunned, and 15 to limb crippled and WP test or pass out, but all using the same checkbox.
The idea is that this table organization would reward both repeated low-damage abilities, which would inflict escalating trauma and fewer, but higher damage abilities, which would bypass the lower effects and move to the point where each wound counts triple.
Options:
- As to emphasize the awful nature of criticals, you could say that the critical's damage entry is followed and all less severe entries are marked as used.
- Even scarier, you could say that all hits follow their damage entry, then it and all less severe entries are marked as used, which would reward early high-damage wounds. This also gives you the benefit of less book-keeping because you only have to keep track of the highest effect marked off.
- A talent, such as Sound Constitution, could give you a second box at one to two damage if taken once, a second box at three to four damage if taken twice, etcetera, thereby making you more resistant to stronger weapons each time it is taken.
- Alternatively, a talent could give you a second box at one to two damage if taken once, a third box at one to two damage if taken twice, a second box at three to four damage if taken thrice, etcetera, thus making you highly resistant to weak weapons, but still vulnerable to high-strength weaponry.