Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[77IM]

So I came up with this rule a while back, but neglected to mention it since the “problem” it solves is arguably either a feature, or too rare to worry about. Recent interest in more “old-school” rules variants inspired me to write it up and post it. (Posting this in homebrew because this really feels like a very genre/setting specific sort of rule. Because you know the thing you really miss most about that other game is hit points...)

Flesh-Wound Rules
1. Soaking: You can no longer spend bennies to soak damage.
2. Flesh-Wounds: Whenever a wild card would take a wound, they instead take a flesh-wound. A wild card may only have flesh-wounds equal to 1/2 their Vigor; any wounds past that are regular wounds. Extras don’t get any flesh-wounds.
3. Wound Penalties: Flesh-wounds don’t cause any penalties at all. Regular wounds still cause the normal penalties (-1 per regular wound to all Trait checks and Pace).
4. Shaken: Any damage equal to or greater than your Toughness causes you to be Shaken, even if it only causes flesh-wounds and no regular wounds.
5. Healing: Any healing effect that can heal wounds (such as the healing power or Healing skill) can heal flesh-wounds instead, once all your regular wounds are healed. In addition, you heal all your flesh-wounds automatically after an hour of rest, even if you have regular wounds! You can’t heal any flesh-wounds while incapacitated.

Example: Captain Example’s got Vigor d6, so he can take 3 flesh-wounds. In a battle against ruffians, he takes a major hit -- 4 “wounds!” The first 3 become flesh-wounds. There’s 1 left over, so Captain Example winds up taking a single regular wound from the hit and is Shaken.

His ally, Doctor Demonstration, uses the healing power on him, and gets a raise to heal 2 wounds. Since the Captain only has 1 wound, it is healed, and then the extra healing heals one of his flesh-wounds, leaving him with 2 flesh-wounds.

Captain Example then takes enough damage to suffer another wound. It becomes a flesh-wound, putting him back at his maximum of 3 flesh-wounds -- but he still becomes Shaken from the damage. After combat, Captain Example rests for an hour and cures all his flesh-wounds.
_________________
Stuff I made: Arcane Abilities · Talent Edge · Savage Fading Suns · Savage Wuxia!

[77IM]

So here's what I was thinking...


Goals
1. Reduce one-shotting by making it easier to soak freak damage results. Some people like the fact that a lowly mook might multiple-ace the damage roll and land an unsoakable number of wounds on one of our heroes. But most of the time, when I see this happen, it is a big downer -- my players don’t like going from gangbusters to ganked through no fault of their own. These rules are not meant to make the game any less lethal, just more predictable (in fact they may make it more lethal for many situations).
2. Reduce benny hoarding by removing the role of bennies in taking damage. Soaking is so valuable that many players hoard bennies for defensive purposes. I’d prefer players use bennies for cool stunts and moving the game forward instead of relying on them for “hit points.”
3. Reduce the impact of Wounds and “golden hour” healing by providing a damage buffer that recovers after every fight. This way someone who becomes a bloody mess can participate in future battles without having to hide in the back for fear of taking any damage.


1/2 Vigor: This number is just a guess. Back-of-the-envelope math seems to indicate that against multiple low-wound hits, this number of flesh-wounds makes characters soak roughly as many wounds as the normal system, assuming 3 bennies. But against a single massive-damage hit, the flesh-wounds absorb a lot more than soaking with bennies, which is the point.


Possible Game-Play Effects
1. Characters will have more bennies because they don’t need to spend them soaking. This is partly mitigated by the fact that they will become Shaken more often (since every wounding hit results in Shaken).
2. Since characters can’t spend bennies to defend themselves when attacked, they will be more aggressive in benny spending (the best defense is a good offense). Hopefully this will speed up combat. (Of course bennies can still be spent defensively in other ways, such as un-Shakening before a hit, or rerolling a resistance check against a power.)
3. The very reliable flesh-wound buffer might slow down combat, especially on “boss” monsters who may have MUCH more vitality than they would bennies under the normal system.
4. It is still possible to one-shot someone through a sufficiently acing damage roll. The flesh-wound buffer just makes it less likely. This means both PCs and enemies should wear down at a more predictable rate. This (hopefully) allows players to make more informed decisions and have more impact on when they or their enemies get taken out, rather than a fluke dice roll.
5. By making flesh-wounds a separate resource from bennies, players may feel more of a sense of “progress” when damaging enemies (sometimes forcing an enemy to spend a benny soaking feels lame, as if the guy just canceled your hard-earned success). Similarly, they may feel more of a sense of danger from having many flesh-wounds than being low on bennies (even if you spent a bunch of bennies soaking you haven’t been “hurt” yet; getting flesh-wounds sends a clearer message that you are running out of time).
_________________
Stuff I made: Arcane Abilities · Talent Edge · Savage Fading Suns · Savage Wuxia!

[ogbendog]

On the surface, this looks pretty good. I like the fact that a PC (or significant NPC) can be injured without being at a penalty to everything

[jpneok]

I haven't even played or run SvW and I kind of like this idea - I can see trying it out at the very least to see its application, and the 1/2 Vig makes sense.
_________________
http://abstrusedecapod.blogspot.com

[elf23]

Hey 77IM, sounds like an interesting system! One thing that stands out to me immediately, however, which may be problematic, is that it really favours characters with high Vigor (who are already quite favoured, in my experience). Not only do they get a higher Toughness, but now they'd also be able to take more flesh wounds. This is in contrast to the rough comparison with Bennies in the RAW, where usually characters all have the same number. What do you think?

One fix might be to make the flesh wound capacity only extensible by taking an Edge? (Ie all characters start off with the capacity for 3 flesh wounds, and can then take a combat Edge which allows them to take more.)

I definitely like the idea of releasing Bennies from their role as damage buffers though!
_________________
Blog: The City of Iron
Shared files: google sites

[Ultimoose]

First glance and it seems likable. I'll chime in with Elf23 and say it does seem to double up on Vigor's value.

Having a flat value and then Edges with vigor prereqs might be a way to balance this. Optionally have alternate edges to grant more flesh wounds based on spirit, sheer willpower allows them to ignore the pain and keep on keeping on.

Something like (completely off the cuff) Resilient - Vigor d6 - increase the number of flesh wounds you can sustain by 1, Extra Resilient - REsilient, Vigor d8 - Increase the fleshwounds by another 1 and then an I Ain't Got Time To Bleed - Spirit d6, and I Really Ain't Got Time To Bleed - IAGTTB, Spirit d8.



D

[Reef]

Very interesting! I've been toying with using SW to run a D&D inspired campaign, but have been worried about the potential lethality. This might be worth taking a hard look at.

As for number of Flesh Wounds, you could base the initial value on Size, and then use Edges to increase it. So, say 3 for Medium, 2 for small, 4 or 5 for Large, etc.

Definitely would love to hear some playtest experience with this.

[Clint]

Why not just make Flesh Wounds equal to 3 the same as normal wounds?

There's really no point in basing it off Vigor just because Soaking uses it when Soaking is a limited effect and this is a permanent one.

Anyway, using three, players can use the same character sheets, only circling the numbers for "Flesh Wounds," and then using an X in the circle when they move to taking "real" wounds.
_________________
Clint Black
Savage Worlds Core Rules Brand Manager

www.peginc.com

[77IM]

Thanks for the feedback!

Yeah, 1/2 Vigor is a wild guess, because I think the flesh-wounds should be linked to Vigor in some way. Vigor already double-dips because it gives you high Toughness and high Soak results. Thought experiment: Imagine two characters, one with Vigor d6 and the other with Vigor d12, but for some reason (armor?) they have the same Toughness and are taking the same damage. Both have 3 bennies. Who is going to suffer more wounds? Assuming they both spend bennies for soaking equally, the guy with the d6 is likely to suffer more wounds than the guy with the d12. (Now of course this is a contrived scenario but the point is to eliminate other variables.)

However, 1/2 Vigor may be too extreme since my math indicates the guy with the d12 won't actually soak 2x as many wounds as the guy with the d6. (It's more like 1.5x.) So if you want a gentler curve I would say something like, 2+1/4 Vigor. This gets the following: Vigor d4 or d6 = 3 flesh-wounds, d8 or d10 = 4, d12 = 5. That's very close to the "expected value" of successes and raises on 3 Vigor checks (chart). However it introduces weird break-points where you are rewarded for gaining d8 or d12, but getting d6 or d10 gets you nothing (well, I guess it gets you Toughness and so forth).


I do really like the idea of a flat 3 flesh-wounds (or basing it on size) and then using Vigor based Edges to increase it. That is very consistent with the rest of the rules and makes the basic system a smidge simpler. (Especially Clint's circle/X notation.) But I worry that it would nerf Vigor too much? Would Vigor be a more attractive dump-stat, if it doesn't figure into Soak rolls?

The other factor to remember is that without Soak rolls, if your dude has 2-3 real wounds, you're good hit away from Incapacitation and no amount of pity-bennies from the GM will save you (although they may come in very handy on the Incap table). So in this sense the system is much more lethal and maybe the high-Vigor guy should get more than a mere +1 Toughness if he is expected to be on the front lines. (And defending the squishies is a big part of the "hit point"-happy genre.)

Definitely needs play testing. If anybody tries this, or something similar, let us know how it goes!

-- 77IM
_________________
Stuff I made: Arcane Abilities · Talent Edge · Savage Fading Suns · Savage Wuxia!

[77IM]

Another idea:
- Everybody gets 3 flesh-wounds (instead of 1/2 Vigor).
- On the Incapacitation table, treat a success as a raise. This way a high-Vigor guy (esp. one with a benny or two) is more likely to get the "conscious with 3 wounds" result. That's a very concrete benefit to Vigor without introducing any extra rolls or rules.
- I'd keep the Incapitation failure results the same, though, so that swift grisly death is still a possibility.

-- 77IM
_________________
Stuff I made: Arcane Abilities · Talent Edge · Savage Fading Suns · Savage Wuxia!

[Clint]

[jpneok]

I was also thinking about this as I went to sleep and I see others had similar thoughts, about more experienced/higher Vig people having more Flesh Wounds.

I don't know why, but when I consider mechanics like this, I always think of action movies, and tend to visualize Schwarzenegger or Seagal movies when it comes to damage, and I think of the "flesh wounds" they take and continue the movie, having been shot in the arm or leg or chest - I know this is a bit out of genre but I think the concept is still relevant. A gunshot is not exactly a flesh wound but except for dramatically appropriate tension, it doesn't really come into play except for them grimacing heroically about it later.

I'd say Arnold would indeed have a higher Vig than most people, and more FW. But I can also see where you could see where all action heroes would theoretically have three freebie FW, it's just that some don't really "use" theirs in their movies. Bruce Willis, I guess it depends on the movie.

Rather than 3 Flesh Wounds, what you're really doing is doubling normal Wounds and saying only at the halfway mark do you become "bloodied", really, at least from my POV, because I have a writeup for fantasy races that get a bonus to Wounds for some of them, so some will have more than 3, and going by your examples here, I think would also have more than 3 FW as well.

You could make FW equal to Toughness or something but it too is already a workhorse. Or maybe a "whichever is higher" compromise.

Not sure what I think about no-soak for bennies, not having played. In a way it does make sense and as you say, would promote more heroic actions - probably. But what about when you DO run out of FW? It seems like it could make your actual Wounds seem even more precious. And there are scenes in any book or movie where people fight through their pain and wounds, which I think is what the bennies represent - overcoming your impairments, through sheer force of will, for the good of others, etc.

Also, either way, I think I'd still allow bennies to soak terminal Wounds, like Fate Point in other game systems.
_________________
http://abstrusedecapod.blogspot.com

[Ultimoose]

I can give it a shot tomorrow, we're also playtesting my power system for the first time 'in production' and starting a new fantasy based setting (our first fantasy) so what's another new thing to throw at them.

I'll use the basic 3 and 3, 3 flesh wounds, 3 wounds. Am I mistaken to assume you still intend to allow spending bennies to get rid of Shaken statuses?

[Ultimoose]

As I was writing up an email (I'm calling them Scratches to make it less confusing) to send to the players it occurred to me (like others) that this will indeed make wounds feel more important. If I have 2 wounds and I know I don't have any way to soak, it could easily change my playstyle. Not saying this is a bad thing.

Once you're into wounds it'll make incaps more frequent as well I think. A one wound attack is pretty common and if you have 3 wounds you're going down whereas with a soak you have some chance of staying on your feet rather than hoping for a raise on the incap roll.

[77IM]

Ultimoose, thanks for giving this a try! I rather like the idea of calling them scratches (or maybe bruises) or something, that might make it easier to read. Yeah, the intent is that you can still use a benny to unShaken, and yeah, being full of wounds means that you are about to eat it. I'm curious what affect this will have on player psychology -- being full of holes and still having a pile of bennies, how do players adjust their tactics? Bennies are still really important on the Incapacitation table so I wonder if players will still hoard them "just in case."

-- 77IM
_________________
Stuff I made: Arcane Abilities · Talent Edge · Savage Fading Suns · Savage Wuxia!

[islan]

I always thought of damage below Toughness as dealing "flesh wounds", but I can see this new take is as a nice alternative to the Soak-hoard RAW.

[Reef]

Ultimoose, I'm curious if you had a chance to try these out? I'd love to hear how they worked out for you.

[Ultimoose]

Not as much as I'd like yet. Some Viral something or other has been kicking my sessions butts lately, if it's not my kids it's my players so I didn't have a real session to try it out on as we had to cancel. (one of my primary players, the lynchpin really, is on the downhill side of T2 diabetes, blind, almost at the dialysis point so he can't afford to be sick as it could be potentially bad or very bad)

In playtesting casually though in set piece battles it definitely changes the feel of damage. At first it was OMG i've got three bruises oh wait, no penalties and the bruises (fleshwounds, scratches etc) end up feeling a bit meaningless? We all knew what they were, buffers before taking real physical damage but in the end once we adjusted to the lack of penalty they weren't a big factor for tactical thinking. But because it was just a fairly sort set piece no one hit a serious fear factor level with 3 bruises and a couple or three wounds.

It definitely opened up Bennies for use for re-rolls on attacks though and really cut down per comment on that felt need to hoard Bennies for soaking wounds which allowed for a little more heroic feel to the game as there were fewer misses as a result of rerolls.

I think it's worthy of continued playtesting. The biggest issue at this point that I can see is the 'feel' of the bruises. Although they're essentially damage soaks, they just feel a little... not sure. Pointless tracking although that's not quite it.

[OSIAdept]

A neat idea for cinematic gameplay
_________________
Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?ref=name&id=1164327586

My online art portfolio
http://paintedsamurai.deviantart.com/

Black Stag Publishing
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Stag-Publishing/223736847644167?sk=wall

[Candi]

I have implemented something kind of similar, one of my design objectives was the same though: stop players hoarding bennies for soaks.

No amount of explaining and even showing (by not soaking with my bennies and instead re-rolling missed attacks) was teaching them that there is a bigger world to Bennies beyond soaking. So I made two adjustments, one is similar to this - I added a single buffer wound so everyone has 4 wounds, but the first one does not incur any penalties.

The second adjustment was to give an alternate use to Bennies, so I added Action Surges. Spend a Benny, take a single action immediately (interrupting turns, Joker bonuses do not apply even if you had a joker and actions that are normally free count as actions).

The net result has been good, Action Surges are sufficiently powerful that they compete with Soaking out of the box, and the single buffer wound did it's job as well. Players tend to take the first hit and grunt it off, but then they're back into the mindset they normally are in - every hit begins the downhill slide to death. With a single buffer they never have so many 'free wounds' before penalties that they forget about them.