Jewelsea RPG - Injury
I've been mulling over how I want to handle injuries for quite some time. Critical damage and mortal wounds are both good systems for knocking people out of combat, but I'd like something with a little more meat on the bones that can tell me a bit more about the situation on the ground rather than leaving all the severity up to fiat.
I've decided that Mythic Bastionland's mortal wounds are a bit more elegant than critical damage saves - it means there's no need to stop the fight for another die roll. When a character gets wounded by taking half or more of their remaining Prowess from a single attack, they are wounded and drop. They can't do more than crawl. After the fight is over, they make a check to see how bad the wound is. If first aid is applied immediately or medical facilities are available, this check is made with advantage.
The size of the die used for the check is equal to their remaining stat - a character with four Prowess remaining would roll a d4. On a 1, the wound is traumatic - life threatening if not immediately treated. On a 2, the wound is severe - it needs care to avoid causing real problems. On a 3 or better, the wound is moderate - it should heal on its own, but it will still slow a character down. Stat damage that doesn't cause a wound is scuffs and scratches that heal when the stat is recovered.
Wounds bleed - a traumatic wound will bleed until the victim receives first aid, a severe wound for three turns, and a moderate wound for one turn. When first aid is applied, the treated character recovers 1d3 Prowess.
Wounds give a -1 penalty to all rolls per tier, including saves and damage, until they are recovered. They don't stack with each other, using only the most severe penalty.
Wounds recover during downtime starting with the most severe. A character makes one recovery test per downtime period. By taking bed rest as a downtime action, they can make an extra recovery test. Recovery tests are Prowess saves. Traumatic wounds take four recoveries, Severe take two, and Moderate wounds recover automatically without a test.
I'm thinking about giving characters a last chance to avoid death if a wound takes them to 0 Prowess as well, which would involve something like a Steel save to avoid dying immediately, followed by a very long road to recovery. I also want to develop some form of scar system to track the lingering effects of wounds (both what characters have learned from them and how they are slowed by them), but that's still in the future.
Addendum
Because I talked about this on Prismatic Waystation while I was in the process of writing this post and Beneath Foreign Planets asked for it, here's the (incomplete) critical damage based version I was originally worked up before I shifted gears.
What I've come up with is inspired by many injury tables I've seen over the years, combined with Mothership's panic system.
Characters who hit zero Prowess from damage die, but they're far more likely to fail a Prowess save on an injury check before that point. When a character takes critical damage, they're down for the count. They fall where they stand and can't do more than crawl. At the end of the turn or when someone else comes to aid them, they roll a Prowess save. A success means no additional complications - they have an injury that will dog them until they can fully restore their saves, giving a -1 penalty to all tests, but they'll heal fully with time. A failure on this wound check means it's something more severe. Look up the result on the following table:
This is where I stalled out, because I was going to put the traumatic, severe, and moderate wounds on this table as well as some situations where it turns out the damage broken arms or armor instead. Since the table was based on a failed Prowess save, the truly bad options were only possible if the stat had been drained quite a ways. I like what I came up with better (in large part because it means I won't have to consult a table every time a wound happens), but I still think this is a neat idea.