HuManBing wrote:Again this is only helpful if you happen to be in a campaign that plays to these tastes. I heartily echo your YMMV disclaimer across all my posts.
Yeah, I've learned , over several years of net activity, that YMMV is a vital phrase.
All the stuff I've run with GURPS has been fairly gritty, so the basic combat rules without cinematic options have served me well.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
HuManBing wrote:Back on track, one other advanced realism rule that has been used for gunshot wounds is: the damage is capped at whatever value {X} you care to name. Any excess damage above that cap is then applied as a modifier for the health roll afterwards for bleeding.
This reflects the fact that a bullet could drill straight through a person's body without doing much structural damage, but it leaves a significant hole which facilitates death by blood loss.
The obvious exception would be head and vitals injury, which would have the full damage applied directly to the PC's HP.
I'd only use such a rule if other injuries were made more potentially lethal. How grimly realistic do you want to get? Are you going to include rules for hypovolemic shock from non GSW injuries? Paralysis from spinal injuries? Brain damage from head trauma? I could go on for a long, long time.
EDIT- The real 'problem' with 'realiism' in D&D combat is that hit points increase by level. If you want a deadlier game,without complex rules added, you could try this:
Hit points= CON score+ one half HD by class (the class taken at 1st level- no boosts for multiclassing). This never rises, except by taking the Toughness feat or raising CON.
A wizard with an 8 CON thus has 10 hit points. This is much better than the 1 or 2 hit points he would likely have under the standard rules. A housecat won't kill him, but a crit from a dagger certainly could.
A barbarian with an 18 CON has 24 hit points. Tough SOB! He's very hard to kill without repeated strikes, but one really nasty critical strike could bring him down.
All this is 3E, but it could be adapted to other editions.
I don't actually use these rules ( I have a more Gygaxian view of hit points as an abstraction. HP represent not just to the body's normal health and resistance to injury- but also skill, heroic grit, luck, and even divine favor).
YMMV
That's an interesting idea, but yeah I try to see hit points more than just health. Obviously, 1 hp damage to a 100 hp fighter isn't a scratch it's more like you felt the vibrations of your armor. Maybe it tingles. xD
