A Semi-cumulative Wounding System

In GURPS, wounds accumulate in a linear fashion, with undesirable effects occuring once you pass set thresholds. In real life, wounds do not accumulate like this. People can take many small wounds without any real danger - twenty chicken pecks, bruises or cigarette burns do not accumulate and cause unconsciousness or death. With gunshot and knife damage, the placement of the individual wounds is all important. People can survive many ill placed stabs or shots, but a single penetrating blow to a major blood vessel or vital organ is deadly.

However, damage clearly can accumulate to some degree. When you chop down a tree, you don't go for a single well placed or exceptionally powerful blow. Instead, you whack away until enough of the tree is missing that it falls over. Likewise, if you shoot a person enough, eventually he will be blasted into hamburger even if, miraculously, every single shot misses the heart, brain, spinal column, and major vessels. This latter effect can be important when dealing with constructs and undead that lack blood and vital organs, or when you are being eaten alive by rats.

Here, then, is a system for tracking wounds that falls somewhere between the linear "ablative hit point" model of GURPS and an independant wound system proposed by some other authors.

When you take damage, compare the points of damage sustained to your HP score. Do not subtract from your current HP! Under this system you always have "maximum HP."

If the damage is more that 1/16 of your HP but less than 1/8 HP, you sustain a Scratch (you can simply ignore all damage less than 1/16 of your HP). You take a -1 shock penalty to DX and IQ on your next turn. Do not record scratch wounds from crushing damage. The wound is too trivial to worry about. Even if you do not record the wound, the shock penalty still applies. (Damage that is technically crushing for game purposes but that does break the skin, such as the bites of many animals, is recorded.)

(you can simply ignore all damage less than 1/16 of your HP). If the damage 1/8 HP or more but less than 1/4 HP, you take a Minor Wound . You take a -2 shock penalty to DX and IQ on your next turn. If struck in the head or vitals, make a HT roll to avoid stunning and a HT roll to avoid knockdown. If you fail the sunning roll by 5 or more, you are knocked unconscious. Do not record minor wounds from crushing damage delivered by blunt attacks. You may get bruised, but take no real injury. You are still affected by shock, stunning, and knockdown caused by the blow, however. (Damage that is technically crushing for game purposes but that does break the skin, such as the bites of many animals, or flanged maces, or warhammers, is recorded.)

. If the damage is 1/4 HP or more but less than 1/2 HP, you take a Moderate Wound . You will have a -3 shock penalty to DX and IQ on your next turn. Blows to the head and vitals require HT rolls to avoid knockdown and stunning, as above, but the roll is at -2. Failure by 5 or more on the stunning roll causes unconsciousness. If you fail your impairment roll (see below), you suffer from moderate pain, and are at -2 to DX, IQ, skills, and self control rolls. You must succeed a will roll to use any limb or extremity with a moderate or greater wound. If the wound is to a leg, your move is halved.

. If the damage 1/2 HP or more but less than full HP, you take a Major Wound . On your next turn, you have a -4 shock penalty to DX and IQ. An extremity is crippled by one major wound; an arm, by two; and a leg, by three. Make a HT roll to avoid knockdown. Make a second HT roll to avoid stunning. These rolls are at -5 if the injury occured to the head or vitals. Failure by 5 or more on the stunning roll causes unconsciousness. If you fail your impairment roll (see below), you are in severe pain, and take -4 to all IQ, DX, skill, and self control rolls. In addition, if you are impaired your move and dodge are also halved.

. If the damage is your full HP or more but less than 2 × HP, you take a Critical Wound . You take all the effects of a Major Wound. If you failed your impairment roll (see below) you are in terrible pain (-6 to DX, IQ, skills, and self control) and you must succeed a HT check before you take any physical action or Do Nothing that turn. High Pain Threshold gives a +2 to this HT check, Hard to Subdue is added to it. If wound was from a single the blow to the vitals , you must pass a HT check or you will either loose 2 FP per second from bleeding or you are permanently paralyzed (GM's option, or roll randomly). If the wound was from a single wound to the brain , you must pass a HT check or immediately die. A critical wound resultying from a single blow to the neck requires a HT check, failure means you are either permanently paralyzed or lose 1 FP per second (GM's option). The Hard To Kill advantage adds to HT for this roll. An extremity is dismembered by one critical wound; an arm, by two; and a leg, by three. A dismembered extremity or limb can take no further damage. Three critical wounds to the neck caused by cutting damage causes decapitation. This is usually instantly lethal.

. If the damage is 2 × HP or more but less than 4 × HP, you take a Massive Wound . This causes all the effects of a Critical Wound. You must make a HT check. If you fail, you break. If you are broken, you are immediately incapacitated and automatically loose 2 FP per second from bleeding. Inanimate objects are useless for their intended purpose. This much damage to the head destroys the head, severs the neck, or causes instantly fatal brain damage, as appropriate. This much damage to the vitals destroys a vital organ, causing 2 FP per second or permanent paralysis (GM's option, or roll randomly).

. If the damage is over 4 × HP but not over 8 × HP, you take a Gawdawful Wound . Major structural elements of your body are destroyed. This causes all the effects of a Massive Wound, but HT checks to avoid breaking are at -4. Even if you do not die, you are at half Move and Dodge. You are at -1 to DX for every Gawdawful wound you have. Inanimate objects are so badly damaged that there is a -1 to skill to use the object for every Gawdawful wound it has.

. Major structural elements of your body are destroyed. If the damage is 8 × HP or more, your body is destroyed, either crushed to a pulp, chopped to bits, blasted to shreds, ripped to pieces, burned to ashes, or whatever. Death is automatic, there is simply not enough of you to keep functioning.

Once you take a wound, you can ignore shock penalties from equal or lesser wounds.

An option to reduce the granularity of this system is if you take damage that is one quarter of the way or more from one wound threshold to the next, take two wounds of that severity instead of one. If the damage is halfway or more from one wound threshold to the next, take three wounds. If it is three-quarters of the way from one threshold to the next, take four wounds. Only roll once for the bad effects of these multiple wounds - the only effect of taking multiple rather than one wound is for wound accumulation purposes, crippling, dismemberment, and bleeding (see below). When rounding to whole numbers of HP, the threshold for one wound always takes precidence, then for three wounds.

Keep track of each wound individually. However, if you take six wounds of the same severity to the same location (head (including brain, eye, face, and neck), torso (including vitals), right arm, right hand, left arm, left hand, right leg, right foot, left leg, left foot), they combine to form one wound of the next higher severity. Erase those six wounds that were combined. Immediately apply all effects of the higher severity wound you just took instead of the effects of the lower severity wound. To conveniently keep track of these wounds, you can write out a chart on your character sheet or a separate sheet you keep with your character sheet:

Wound Severity HP 1 2 3 4 Hit Location Head Torso R. Arm R. Hand L. Arm L. Hand R. Leg R. Foot L. Leg L. Foot Scratch Minor Moderate Major Critical Massive Gawdawful Destruction __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Large-Area Injury

When you take large area injury as defined on p B400, roll damage once but apply it to every hit location. DR protects each location normally. Reduce wound severity by one for the head, arms, and legs, and by two for the hands and feet.

Fatigue

Rather than treating fatigue beyond -1 × FP as a wound, use the following rules:

FP lost never cause HP of injury.

At 0 or lower FP, you must make a HT roll to do anything other than talk or rest. If you succeed, you can act normally. If you fail, you must Do Nothing that turn. Hard to Subdue adds to this roll.

Your accumulated FP can fall below -1 × FP. Make a HT roll when you reach -1 × FP and every additional ½ FP thereafter. On a failure, you fall unconscious. On a failure by 5 or more, you die. You are at -5 on this roll for every additional -1 × FP taken (i.e., -5 at -2 × FP, -10 at -3 × FP, etc.). Hard to Subdue helps this roll for the purpose of falling unconscious, Hard to Kill helps for the purpose of dying.

fall below -1 × FP. Make a HT roll when you reach -1 × FP and every additional ½ FP thereafter. On a failure, you fall unconscious. On a failure by 5 or more, you die. You are at -5 on this roll for every additional -1 × FP taken (i.e., -5 at -2 × FP, -10 at -3 × FP, etc.). Hard to Subdue helps this roll for the purpose of falling unconscious, Hard to Kill helps for the purpose of dying. If you are below 0 FP, "normal" fatigue recovers at 1 FP per hour. It can take over a day to recover from complete exhaustion!

Any attack that causes "fatigue" type damage and that is not resistable does not cause fatigue directly. Roll damage normally and find the wound severity. Do not mark off this wound, its only effect is to tell you how much fatigue is lost:

Severity Fatigue points lost Scratch 0 Minor 1 Moderate 2 Major 5 Critical 10 Massive 20 Gawdawful 40 Destruction 80

Bleeding

Wounds bleed to cause FP. The rate at which you take FP depends on how badly you are wounded. You bleed separately from each wound.

Severity 1 FP lost every Scratch 1 day (cutting damage only) Minor 6 hours (not crushing) Moderate 1 hour Major 10 minutes Critical 2 minutes Massive 30 seconds Gawdawful 5 seconds

You can avoid fatigue from bleeding by making a HT roll plus any levels of Hard to Kill. If you succeed, you do not take any FP this time interval for that particular wound. If you critically succeed, or succeed normally twice in a row, your rate of bleeding for that wound decreases by one level of severity. Exception: For Minor wounds and Scratches, roll every hour. Any one success means you do not take FP this time interval. Any two successes means the bleeding stops. For simplicity, you can ignore bleeding from Minor wounds and Scratches unless you have the disadvantage Hemophilia. A hemophiliac always fails HT rolls to avoid bleeding.

Bandaging a wound will make it bleed at one level lower severity if the bandager makes his First Aid roll. This takes one minute. By spending extra time as listed on the First Aid Table p B424, the healer can make a second First Aid roll to stabilize his patient and prevent any further bleeding. These First Aid rolls are at -2 for a Critical wound, -4 for a Massive wound, and -6 for a Gawdawful wound. Only one bandaging and one stabilization attempt are allowed for any given patient.

Surgery can be used to completely stop bleeding. This takes one hour, with the penalty to Surgery skill for wound severity the same as for the First Aid rolls. On a success, the patient no longer bleeds.

Fatigue from bleeding does not recover normally. Make a HT check each day. On a success, you recover 1 FP. On a critical success, you recover 2 FP. The Rapid Healing advantage will affect this normally. If you get blood transfusions of the correct blood type, all your bleeding fatigue is recovered as soon as enough blood is put back in your veins.

Poisons and Disease

Only poisons or disease that causes actual physical damage will cause HP of damage and thus wounds. Rattlesnake venom, spider venom, caustics such as lye or acid, and flesh eating bacteria fall into this category. All other diseases and toxins cause FP instead of HP. Symptoms occur either when you reach a certain fraction of your FP or when you take a wound of a given severity.

Recovery

Every week in which you are wounded, make a HT roll for each wound. On a success, that wound decreases in severity by one level. All wounds heal at the same time. If you do not have sufficient rest, food, and water, you are at -4 on the HT roll.

If you are under the care of a competent healer, you get a +1 on your HT roll for recovery. In addition, the healer can roll periodically to help you recover. The frequency at which the healer rolls depends on TL:

TL Frequency of healing rolls 0 - 3 Monthly 4 Every 3 weeks 5 Every 2 weeks 6 - 8 Weekly 9 Every 3 days 10 Every 2 days 11 Daily 12 Twice daily

Other Notes

Those with Injury Tolerance (unliving) never suffer from shock penalties, impairment, knockdown, or stunning. However, unliving characters take full damage from piercing and impaling attacks. This form of Injury Tolerance (unliving) includes High Pain Threshold, do not purchase it separately.

Those with Injury Tolerance (homogenous) have all the benefits of unliving injury tolerance. In addition, piercing, impaling, and tight beam burning attacks cause only one point of damage per die. Inanimate homogenous objects take a flat three points of damage per die from all other damage types.

Those with Injury Tolerance (diffuse) have all the benefits of homogenous injury tolerance, and never take worse than a Minor wound from any single blow, unless the injury was from an area effect, cone, or explosion attack.

Fragile (unnatural) characters die when they take their first Critical wound to the head or torso.

Treat Regeneration as follows: Those with Slow Regeneration have each wound decrease in severity by one level every three days, in addition to normal healing. Fatigue from bleeding is recovered at one point every 12 hours. Those with Regular Regeneration have each wound decrease in severity by one level every six hours. Fatigue from bleeding is recovered at one point every hour. Those with Fast Regeneration have each wound decrease in severity by one level every six minutes. Fatigue from bleeding is recovered like any other fatigue. Those with Very Fast Regeneration have each wound decrease in severity by one level every six seconds. Fatigue from bleeding is recovered like any other fatigue. Those with Extreme Regeneration have each wound decrease in severity by two levels every second. Fatigue from bleeding is recovered like any other fatigue.



Back to GURPS House Rules