Here’s another classic problem for D&D. Crippling injuries. I’ve seen critical charts in other games. MERP used to have some notoriously brutal criticals. I’ve seen more than one hobbit trained to thread arrows through orc ears. We had a ranger try to furiously scoop her intestines back into her torso. My animist once took a slice across his eyebals that left him stunned for an in-game month. That stuff is out of control.

Some people want to play with that kind of brutality. It often leads to dead PCs, but worse than that, it often leads to players with unplayable characters. A soldier with two broken arms? Are you going to enjoy playing a character that can’t interact with the world? Do you roll a new character to play while your first recooperates?

The brutality isn’t necessarily the entire issue. Imagine a GM wants to add injuries. She has her players roll on a chart after every attack. She wants to add weather effects to her game. She rolls on a chart every round. She wants wandering monsters to periodically affect battles. She wants chaos magic distortions to randomly warp reality. Also, there’s a chance every hour the PCs spend near the dungeon that the master vampire will become aware of the PCs’ presence. Now the GM is rolling on a dozen charts every round for slight and fleeting results. Complexity is easy to add, but quickly becomes burdensome. That’s why there is such a focus on elegance in design.

So here again I crib an idea from a different game. In FATE, everyone technically only has one hitpoint. You take any damage at all and you’re knocked out. Whenever a character receives damage they can choose to deflect it by spending resources or voluntarily taking injuries. The bullet just grazed your head, now you’re ‘Rattled’ or ‘Exhausted’. The bullet clipped your calf now you’re ‘Ham-Strung’ and that’s going to make the rest of the fight more difficult, but you’re still up.

So let’s look at incorporating that into D&D: the idea of voluntarily taking injury to avert disaster.

A blue dragon swoops over you and takes a deep breath. You don’t make it to cover in time. You receive a full blast of the lightning. The GM grins and tosses a fistfull of dice. You wince at the total: 87 damage. That’s going to put you down. You won’t die straight out, but the party might not be able to win. You can’t afford to fall. You tell the GM, “I’ll take an injury.” You mark off 44 hit points and prepare to roll on the injury chart. With a hit this heavy, the result will likely be serious and permanent. Such is the price of victory.

To use this idea, you’ll need some kind of critical chart. I might dig up my old Rolemaster books, or adapt the critical chart from Edge of the Empire. There should also be some consideration for the relative risks of reducing nasty hits. Taking an injury to reduce the dragon breath should be much more risky than reducing a goblin arrow. Optionally, you might even want a series of charts relating to various types of damage. Injuries from piercing attacks will likely vary from those made by slashing or fire. It’d be weird to hit someone with a club and somehow chop their hand off. Alternatively, you could use the Pathfinder Critical Cards. They should be easy to adapt to whichever edition you prefer to play.

In game, a player may chose to halve any incoming damage. When they reduce damage in this way, consider the amount of damage actually taken, and use that to determine the severity of the injury rolled. There is always a chance that the injury will be merely cosmetic, even on a serious strike. There should also be a chance for debilitating injury even on a minor attack. Outright death should be rare. A gushing, lasting wound, or impending death may happen. Instant death should be reserved only for extreme results on heavy hits.

A player attacking may also chose to voluntarily deal half damage. In this way, they impose injury on their victim. This lets players can gamble during a battle.

Let’s say there’s a dragon. He’s got a mountain of hit points. You’re in the fight and you decide your sword attacks would be more helpful if you did less damage, but used the opportunity to cause some deiblity to the beast. The fight might last longer, but with a lucky injury roll, you might hobble or cripple the beast, saving the lives of your friends.

There is an important quality here: the injury roll is not directly tied to a critical roll. Criticals might encourage a player to inflict an injury, as it provides extra damage. Ultimately the injury remains entirely optional. Complexity is a dangerous addition to an RPG. Some crave it, others resent it. You don’t want to force someone to navigate through burdensome charts and unnecessary rolls if they don’t want to. Making the injuries an exclusively voluntary option on the part of the player allows the casual player to opt out.