One thing that I cannot get my head around — and I know new players to my campaign struggle with — is that there's no penalties to skill levels for being wounded. So, once engaged, a knight fights just as well unwounded as he does having received a major wound, save for the prospect of losing consciousness of course. This is difficult for people to reconcile with their experience with other games and indeed their real-life experience. I suppose the standard answer to this is that the literature does not concern itself with such trivialities, that the heroic knights of the Arthurian tradition just fight till they drop. Another answer is it's a needless complication. I would counter that the game goes to great lengths to achieve a sort of historic verisimilitude, if not realism, so why should combat be exempt from this sort of rationality?

So I'm curious — how do you deal with this in your campaign? How do you respond to players who may feel "cheated" that their foes don't realistically react to their wounds? I know there's always the problem of the "death spiral" but aren't such effects mitigated by the use of passions and traits?

Here's an idea that I've been considering. It used the standard wound hierarchy, but adds a level. Each level has penalties to combat (and other physical) skills:


Damage from a single blow that is 1/2 or less than the character’s Major Wound threshold (CON) deals a Flesh Wound. Weapon skills are at -1, cumulative.

Damage from a single blow that is more than 1/2 than the character’s Flesh Wound threshold (CON) but less than CON deals a Light Wound. Weapon skills are at -3, cumulative.

Damage from a single blow that is equal to or greater than the character’s Major Wound threshold (CON) deals a Serious (Major) Wound. Weapon skills at -5, cumulative.

Damage from a single blow that is equal to or greater than the Total Hit Points (CON + SIZ) deals a Mortal Wound. Subject is helpless/incapacitated. Weapon skills are not possible.

Although this adds a little complexity (another wound level and tracking penalties) it seems to me that such a system would actually make combats shorter, and mitigate some of the issues we've seen with ties, and the "tink, tink, boom" effect.

Thoughts?


T.

I personaly don't mind it. It reflects well what we see in the literature, as well as keeping things simple. The "tink, tink, boom" effect also simulates well those fights in the literature that last for a full morning/day or so (and I think there is already a rule in the GPC to deal with the "tink, tink, boom" effect). All in all, I think the system works well as far as Arthurian fiction goes.

But you're right, if your players want a bit more realism, adding penalties for wounds to skill levels makes sense. But then again, as far as I remember, most systems (Call of Cthulhu, BRP, D&D, Gumshoe, Savage Worlds, Unisystem, etc) don't use that kind of penalties either, but I may be wrong. Exceptions would probably be GURPS, Hârn, and a few others. Personaly, I'm fine with it.

Your biggest problem here is that it's effectively a "death spiral" that makes future rolls more likely to contribute toward more wounds on account of the penalty. It seems to me that it would make more sense for there to be break points similar to the Unconsciousness Threshold that require Valorous checks to attempt potentially dangerous actions while so wounded, or Energetic checks to attempt strenuous actions. This contributes to the idea that brave & vigorous knights are more capable of fighting on despite wounds, which lines up with the literature.

Cheers,
Cam

Thanks for the replies.

Yeah, I noted the death spiral issue in my original post, but I'm wondering if that would be offset due to Passions and Traits. In a game where your skill can be boosted to 25 or more and a critical hit therefore happens 1 out of 4 times, the danger of the traditional spiral may be mitigated somewhat.

I do very much like the idea of the Valorous roll after hitting certain milestones. I like the idea of Energetic rolls, too, but it seems like this should more be a function of the number of rounds one spends in combat — maybe you can fight as many rounds as you have CON points before having to check Energetic. The problem is, this doesn't scale to mass combat, where turns are measured in hours.



T.

IMHO, I don't think the complication is needed. After all, like people say, these are (mainly) puissant knights in a semi-legendary world. Also, they are probably amped up to their eyeballs with adrenaline, which might counteract many of the pain effects for the duration of a typical fight.

From my GMing point of view, anything that requires me to start adding tracking and modifiers for all the NPCs my players' knights are fighting against is really counterproductive. :P

I would, however, see value in potentially assigning penalties after a Major Wound. Granted, these usually are fight-enders more often than not: a HP roll to stay alive, usually against a low-ish number around 10 or the guy is below unconscious limit already, and a Valorous roll to keep on fighting, usually a higher number 10 - 16, but still a chance of failure. But I could see a simple table assigning additional penalties, like:
1d6 Stat Loss Effect
1 SIZ Torso hit. Fighting hurts, -2 to Weapon Skill. Also, each round of strenuous activity (continuing to fight until you get first aid) merits a CON roll. On a failure, lose 1 HP. On a critical, you don't have to roll anymore.
2 DEX Leg hit. Halve your Move, -5 to DEX rolls against subsequent Knockdowns.
3 STR Arm hit. Roll 1d2: 1=sword arm, -5 to Weapon skill; 2 = Shield arm, lose the benefit of a shield (with two-handed weapons, -5 to Weapon skill).
4 CON Torso hit. See SIZ for the effect.
5 APP Face hit. -3 to Weapon skill due to being partially blinded by your own blood.
6 None None, you lucky son of a... virtuous lady.

These would make Major Wound even worse than they are in a rulebook, but like said, the fight is often over by then anyway, so I wouldn't expect it to have a major effect on the NPC bookkeeping and play balance. But it might add a bit of an added thrill in some tense duels and give your players a feeling that the character is actually suffering from his Major Wound. :) (Not that I had any problems with my players about that; each loss of a stat point has been greeted with howls worthy of professional mourners...)

I must agree with Morien that the problem does not lie on the side of the player, but the GM. Systems like this require a lot more bookkeeping on the GMs side and that can be frustrating. It mostly slows down the combat as the GM is adjusting all the NPCs.

I would make the system less complicated by splitting it into two steps:
Each wound suffered reduces skill by 1. Each major wound suffered reduces the skill by 5.

Other option would be to use some sort of wound allocation system. That would add a sense of realism too.

Thanks for your input, good sirs; I really appreciate it. I like Morien's table idea.


Best,


T.