Alternate Damage System

If you find the regular damage system too fuzzy, too coarse-grained, or too table-driven, you might like this one better. It is slightly more complicated, but most of the calculation can be done before play, and when you're done, the only table you need is the Universal Rank Table. Also, this damage system allows you to nickle-and-dime someone until they go down, instead of just taking away all their action points.

Precomputation Fun!

To prepare to use this damage system, you need to calculate five quantities and record them on your character sheet. (Round any fractional result up to the next integer.)

Start with the halved rank of whatever Attribute best reflects your ability to withstand physical abuse, and add a full rank. The number of this rank is your Shock Threshhold.

Add a full rank to your Shock Threshhold. The number of this rank is your Stun Threshhold.

Add a half-rank to your Stun Threshhold. The number of this rank is your Impairment Point.

Add a half-rank to your Impairment Point. The number of this rank is your Incapacitation Point.

Add a half-rank to your Incapacitation Point. The number of this rank is your Terminal Point.

Points of Damage

The rank of the damage inflicted is determined as in the normal combat system. The number of points of damage inflicted is then the number of that rank. (1.5 points of damage rounds to 2, but one must always be nonlethal; 0.5 and 0.7 round up to 1, which must always be nonlethal. Anything below 0.5 rounds down to 0.)

Some fraction of those points will be lethal damage and the rest nonlethal, depending on the type of attack:

Since the lethality is a fraction, you can just multiply the total damage by it (and round down) to find the number of lethal damage points. Alternately and equivalently, you can reduce the rank of the total damage by the number of half-steps shown in the rightmost column of the above table; the number of that rank (once you drop any fractions) is the number of lethal damage points. Which of these methods is faster depends on how well-rooted the brainworms are.

You can move the lethality of an attack up or down the chart by one notch for each success you spend to do so. Obviously no attack can be more lethal than 1, and most attacks that start higher can't go lower than about 1/7 (depending on the description of the attack).

Effects of Damage

Now that you know how much damage you've taken from this attack, you need to compare it to your threshholds:

If the total damage you take (lethal+nonlethal) is equal to or greater than your Shock Threshhold, any set-up you have is lost, and any long-term action you're working on (like defusing a bomb) is interrupted. If you have more than 0 Action Points, you lose one.

If the total damage you take is equal to or greater than your Stun Threshhold, all of the above happens except that instead you lose three Action Points (if you had any to lose); if this takes you below zero, the negative points carry over to next round's initiative roll.

Now, add the damage of this attack to any damage you have already accumulated (you might want to use glass beads of two different colors to keep track of lethal and nonlethal damage), and compare the new total to the points at which bad things happen:

If your total accumulated damage is greater than or equal to your Impairment Point, you are effectively reduced by one full rank (-2 successes) in all Attributes. You do not have to recalculate your damage capacity, but you will get fewer Action Points.

Optional Limbmangling Rule For Greater Detail: If the attack that puts you at or over your Impairment Point is described as striking a specific location, the GM may give you only a half-rank of impairment overall, but two full ranks when using the damaged appendage. Hits to the head or torso still give one rank of overall impairment.

Optional Gumption Rule For Greater Heroism: If you are impaired, you can take an action to roll Willpower, devotion to the task at hand, Sheer Bloodymindedness, or something similar. If you get a Good result, you may ignore half the ranks of impairment. If you get a Great result, you may ignore all of your impairment. This lasts until the end of the round, and does help with the next round's initiative roll.

If your total accumulated damage is greater than or equal to your Incapacitation Point, you are out of it. You may still be conscious enough to overhear the villain's rant, or notice the license number of the getaway car, but you sure can't do anything about it: you get no Action Points (but you still get Recoveries).

Optional Headcracking Rule For Greater Realism: Retroactively increase the lethality of the attack that incapacitated you by one step (it's hard to knock someone out without really hurting them).

If your total accumulated damage is greater than or equal to your Terminal Point, you are unconscious and helpless. You do not get any recoveries in combat time.

Optional Headcracking Rule For Greater Realism: Retroactively increase the lethality of the attack that brought you to your Terminal Point you by two steps (it's hard to knock someone out without really hurting them).

If your accumulated lethal damage is greater than or equal to your Terminal Point, you are dead. You may get a cryptic dying utterance if the GM is generous.

Optional Death Scene Rule For Greater Angst: If your lethal damage is exactly at your Terminal Point, you will linger for 10 minutes. Each additional point reduces that by a half-rank. During this time, you can make extended dying soliloquies, declare the love you never could speak of while you were alive, or vow to return from the grave to wreak a terrible revenge. If you're really unlucky, your friends will then be able to get you to medical care before you pass on, so that you have to live with everything you said.

Recovering From Damage

Aside from that minor death issue, the big difference between lethal and nonlethal damage is how quickly it goes away. You can recover from nonlethal damage on a combat timescale; lethal damage takes days or weeks (or longer) to heal.

Find the rank of whatever Attribute you feel best determines your ability to recuperate, and subtract two full ranks from it. The number of this rank is your Recovery Rate: the number of points of nonlethal damage you lose on each Recovery. If this number is less than one, it takes multiple Recoveries to get rid of even one point of damage; take one glass bead of a different color for each Recovery, and save them up until you can turn them in to lose a point of damage.

Everyone in combat gets a Recovery each round, unless the GM rolled a 1 on their Tide of Battle die. On the other hand, if your ToB die turns up 6, you get two recoveries. You can also get another Recovery by taking an action, so if you have the Action Points to spend, you can get your wind back pretty quickly. If you're incapacitated, you still get per-round Recoveries, but get no Action Points to spend on extra ones.

Once combat is over, nonlethal damage vanishes more or less immediately. If you need to know the actual rate because another fight is breaking out, call it 7 Recoveries per minute (things hurt a lot more once you come down from the adrenalin).

A doctor or healer can stabilize someone who is at their Terminal Point by rolling 8 successes within a minute, +1 success per half-rank of additional time. Advanced technology or magic, if available, will provide a bonus that may be high enough to raise the dead even after some hours.

Lethal damage has an analogous recovery rate of one rank less than the appropriate Attribute, but you only get one recovery per week. To add variation, the GM may ask you to roll on your healing Attribute and use the result of the roll instead of the base Attribute.

Incapacitation from lethal damage may, if medical care is available, convert to double impairment. Or, you may remain completely incapacitated until you heal to below your Incapacitation Point.

Good medical care will speed healing. For standard medicine of the sort familiar to the players, the attending physician needs to roll 2 successes if you're just bunged up, 4 if you're impaired, or 6 if you're incapacitated. On a success, your recovery rate goes up by a half rank; for every two additional successes, your recovery rate goes up by another half rank, to the limits of the medical techniques available (probably about a full rank for C20 medicine). The effects of highly advanced medical technology or healing magic range from a bonus to the doctor's roll to "Poof! You're healed!".

The less said about poor medical care ("Ah, a spurting arterial wound! Pass the leeches!"), the better.

Extending the Damage System

This system can extended to handle other sorts of "damage", by using different Attributes and interpreting the results of reaching the Points creatively (the results of the Shock and Stun Threshholds are pretty generic and probably universally applicable).

For example, if someone was casting a petrification spell on you, Impairment would be due to stiffening of the limbs and possibly calcification of the brain. Incapacitation would mean that you were paralyzed, and at the Terminal Point, you would be a statue. If you were only "knocked out", you'd turn back to flesh on your own, but if the spell "killed" you...

More elaborately, if you were undergoing psychic invasion, you would use some Attribute related to willpower or psychic potential to determine how much you can withstand. If you were Impaired, you might become prone to reflexively doing what the attacker is trying to control you to do, or you might just be so preoccupied with the struggle that you couldn't devote your full attention to anything else. If you were Incapacitated, you would be under the attacker's control but might still be able to resist shooting your friends (with an appropriate roll). Once the domination reached your Terminal point, you'd be a complete zombie. If the "damage" was considered nonlethal, you'd recover on your own pretty quickly once removed from the malign influences; if it was treated as lethal, you would have to get another psychic to break you free (or undergo years of expensive therapy).

Similar analogies can be constructed for other sorts of attacks, or you can just wing it.

This file was last modified at 1340 on 14Dec99 by trip@idiom.com.