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Message no. 1
From: Richard Gaywood r.gaywood@**********.com
Subject: Damage levels revisted [was Re: Regeneration rules]
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 14:53:25 -0000
Malaegoth wrote:
> >Are you saying your neghbour's a vampire? :o)
>
> They certainly are everywhere. :P

Yikes! Better start paying more attention :o)

> >> So hacking off any major body part (generally anything bigger than a
> >> finger IMO) should be treated as a deadly wound for regeneration
> >> purposes.
>
> >Yup. I'd say that was sensible.
>
> I disagree with that. Given the incredible amount of abuse the human body
can
> withstand before breaking down, I would say that a finger could easily be
> considered a light wound, whole hand moderate, about elbow serious, and
> lopping it off at the shoulder would qualify as deadly. Depending on how
> much realism the GM is using with injuries, a light wound wouldn't always
> cost you a finger, but losing a finger could easily be considered one.
There
> are even a couple documented cases of a person being stabbed in the head,
and
> being fully functional, even going so far as to walk to a hospital
emergency
> room and ask for help.

I'm going to defend my original post. In SR, anything less than a Deadly
wound is inherently stable - only Deadly wounds and above result in
death-or-medical-attention time. Now, if I lop off Joe Schmoe's hand,
chances are he'll bleed to death unless someone bandages the stump, although
he may not fall unconcious. So I reckon it should count as a Deadly, cause
it'll eventually kill him.

What I reckon we want are rules to allow a player to remain concious & (just
barely) functioning at deadly wound level and above, say by making a Body
test with target number = number of boxes damage taken. I once had this come
up in a session and allowed a PC to narrowly avert disaster by remaining
concious like this, at the cost of taking overflow damage loads quicker (I
forget how much). He survived, but just barely, and mostly because he got
lucky with the medical rolls :o)

This allows for exceptional cases of people who can take massive amounts of
damage but walk to hospital, without meaning that Joe Schmoe is going to
suffer damage equivalent to losing a hand everytime he gets shot.

Drifting slightly from the point: descriptive damage is good, but you don't
want to weigh it down with an insane amount to bookkeeping. Having lots of
wound levels for various amputations is more than my poor brain can cope
with.

> Anyway, thats my opinion

Fair enough. This is mine :o)

-=R=-
http://www.clmconsulting.co.uk
ICQ: 66545073
UT ngStats: RichBeard
Message no. 2
From: Mark A Shieh SHODAN+@***.EDU
Subject: Damage levels revisted [was Re: Regeneration rules]
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 15:34:59 -0500 (EST)
Excerpts from ShadowRN: 28-Mar-100 Damage levels revisted [was.. by
"Richard Gaywood"@******
> I'm going to defend my original post. In SR, anything less than a Deadly
> wound is inherently stable - only Deadly wounds and above result in
> death-or-medical-attention time. Now, if I lop off Joe Schmoe's hand,
> chances are he'll bleed to death unless someone bandages the stump, although
> he may not fall unconcious. So I reckon it should count as a Deadly, cause
> it'll eventually kill him.

I've been bored lately, so I'm going to present another point of view...

As you may know, I run things in a cinematic style. In the movies,
a character is not slowed down significantly by the time it takes to
tourniquet the stump well enough that he can finish a fight sequence.
The reason that a maiming of a hand is usually deadly is because the
character will stare dramatically at the stump while he gets
decapitated. :)
While the wound will kill if left completely alone, I would allow
for a heroic, quick stabilization of the injury in a case like this,
especially if a better job is done after the fight. (bonus points if
the wound gets cauterized in the process. :) IMHO, it's not going to
take a base time of 20 combat turns to stabilize the maiming of a hand.
However, I'm not an EMT, and I base off of movies for a lot of things
anyways, it's more enjoyable.

When I think of something as being a Deadly wound, I think of a
wound that can not be feasibly fixed while on the move, something like a
penetrating SMG burst to the torso. You've nailed some internal organs,
you've got bleeding that's harder to stop, etc. Odds are, you aren't
going to stabilize unless someone holds you down and works on you for a
minute or so.

Mark
Message no. 3
From: Sebastian Wiers m0ng005e@*********.com
Subject: Damage levels revisted [was Re: Regeneration rules]
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 15:49:22 -0600
From: Richard Gaywood <r.gaywood@**********.com>

:What I reckon we want are rules to allow a player to remain concious &
(just
:barely) functioning at deadly wound level and above, say by making a Body
:test with target number = number of boxes damage taken.

Or you could just turn to p. 131 of M&M, and use the rules in the
section on Consciousness.

Mongoose

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Message no. 4
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Damage levels revisted [was Re: Regeneration rules]
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 13:10:17 +0200
According to Richard Gaywood, at 14:53 on 28 Mar 00, the word on the
street was...

> What I reckon we want are rules to allow a player to remain concious & (just
> barely) functioning at deadly wound level and above, say by making a Body
> test with target number = number of boxes damage taken.

Rules like that are in Man & Machine. They work slightly differently, but
the effects are pretty much the same: the character is conscious and able
to get to safety (though not very much else, unless you _really_ want to).

IMHO, the opposite may also be a good thing to have: a way to fall
unconscious (or at least become incapacitated for a while) regardless of
how much damage you've taken. This should be done without adding another
die roll, so maybe it could be implemented this way: if the highest-
rolling die on the Damage Resistance Test is less than the total number of
boxes of damage you've sustained (or have just taken, if the GM is feeling
generous :) you are incapacitated for a number of turns equal to the
difference in roll and number of boxes. This need not be unconsciousness,
though -- you're just incapable of doing much of anything for a short
while.

Example: you already have 2 boxes of damage and take a Serious wound,
bringing the total up to 8 boxes. Your highest die on the DRT is a 5, so
you're incapacitated for 8 - 5 = 3 turns.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
What a pretty life you have...
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 5
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Damage levels revisted [was Re: Regeneration rules]
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 13:10:17 +0200
According to Sebastian Wiers, at 15:49 on 28 Mar 00, the word on the
street was...

> :What I reckon we want are rules to allow a player to remain concious &
> (just
> :barely) functioning at deadly wound level and above, say by making a Body
> :test with target number = number of boxes damage taken.
>
> Or you could just turn to p. 131 of M&M, and use the rules in the
> section on Consciousness.

You forgot the <plug></plug> tags :)

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
What a pretty life you have...
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 6
From: Richard Gaywood r.gaywood@**********.com
Subject: Damage levels revisted [was Re: Regeneration rules]
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:36:39 -0000
Sebastian Wiers wrote;
> Or you could just turn to p. 131 of M&M, and use the rules in the
> section on Consciousness.

Could if I owned it, but I haven't played SR since the release of 3rd Ed &
so haven't bought any books. Still, should be starting new group *any day
know*, which only leaves me the crappy state of Cardiff games stores to
overcome...

--
-=R=-

SRGC SR1+ SR2++ SR3+++ h++| web: http://www.clmconsulting.co.uk
b+++ !B UB IE++ RN++ W- | ICQ: 66545073
ri++ ma++ m+ gm+ M+ !P | UT ngStats: RichBeard
Message no. 7
From: Sebastian Wiers m0ng005e@*********.com
Subject: Damage levels revisted [was Re: Regeneration rules]
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 21:05:57 -0600
>>>IMHO, the opposite may also be a good thing to have: a way to fall
unconscious (or at least become incapacitated for a while) regardless of
how much damage you've taken. This should be done without adding another
die roll, so maybe it could be implemented this way: if the highest-
rolling die on the Damage Resistance Test is less than the total number of
boxes of damage you've sustained (or have just taken, if the GM is feeling
generous :) you are incapacitated for a number of turns equal to the
difference in roll and number of boxes. This need not be unconsciousness,
though -- you're just incapable of doing much of anything for a short
>>>while.

Sounds interesting, although to avoid charges of sadism, I'd suggest you
use EITHER that, OR wound effects (aka stress, cyber damage, those %$#@* M&M
rules). The mechanics are similar, and stacking both on at once (while
realistic) would kinda slow down play (although it would give the plaer time
to figure out all the wound effect reults <g>). For folks who don't use
wound effects, temporary incpapcitation in the middle of combat is at least
as nasty (probably more so, actually).

Mongoose

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