How does your heartbreaker handle... Damage?

[ETortoise]

I know that a bunch of people on the board are working on their own Fantasy Heartbreaker systems. I was hoping that we could talk a little about how we're handling different design challenges and goals.

I have several goals for my own heartbreaker that have informed what I'm doing with damage. I'd like to be only about 1 step removed from D&D so that monsters can be converted fairly easily. I'd like monster HP to be closer to Pre-3rd edition numbers so things can be killed with damage. I like the idea of characters gaining wounds that have to be treated with magic and mundane healing. I would also like characters to have similar hit points to older edition characters at higher levels, while being more resilient at lower levels. In aid of these goals, I wrote up all this crap on my lunch breaks and thought I'd ask you guys to poke holes and call me an asshole before I try to playtest it.

Damage and Health

Character health is represented using three interconnected systems; hit points, wounds, and conditions.
Hit Points
Each character and creature has a variable number of hit points (HP.) Hit Points are an abstraction that represents a character’s ability to fight effectively. A character who is reduced to zero hit points is incapacitated, they are out of the fight unless they are treated with certain magical effects. Characters who are incapacitated have to roll on the Incapacitation table at the end of the fight, whether or not they were successfully brought back into the fray.
Hit point loss does not affect a character’s ability to fight until they become incapacitated. A character can however restore hit points by digging deep. The character rolls a number of d6 equal to their level and gains that many HP (not exceeding their max) they then immediately roll on the wound table. Digging Deep does not count as an action and can be done at any time. Wounds provide a stacking penalty to actions and are more difficult to treat than hit point damage. Often a character with the Surgery ability is needed to treat a wounded character.
Characters can restore themselves to full HP with a night’s rest of at least 6 hours, provided they have sufficient food, water and shelter. A character needs shelter (or a very hospitable climate) to restore HP through rest. Going one day without water or one week without food similarly prevents a character from resting to restore HP. Once a character has been without food or water long enough to be unable to restore HP their ability to go without is lessened until they’ve had a week of sufficient sustenance. For example, Turgon the Magnificent runs out of water while crossing the Endless Sands. After three days without water he is unable to restore HP. Luckily on the fifth day he finds a full canteen. He drinks his fill and can restore Hp that night. That water only lasts one day however, so when it is used up he can once again no longer get HP back from resting. But, when he finds a town he is able to drink his fill for a week and can once again go a day without water if needed.

Wounds
Wounds represent significant physical damage to a character. Small bruises, scrapes and scratches are not modeled. Wounds come in several levels and require different kinds of healing and have different recovery times. Characters can gain wounds in several ways. The most common is by pushing through hit point damage as described above. Other ways include, poisons, certain spells or combat maneuvers, and traps.
Wound Table
When a character receives a wound during combat they roll on the wound table.

1d6 + Might	Wound Type	Effect
1	Serious Wound!	-2 to AC and all rolls. Character may only take 1 main action in a turn (they can trade that action down for a move action as normal.) Counts as a universal Tier 1 condition.
2-4	Medium Wound	-2 to AC and rolls. Cannot use immediate actions. Counts as a universal Tier 1 condition.
5-7	Light wound	-1 to AC and all rolls.
8	"That's gonna sting."	-1 on rolls until end of combat.
9+	‘Tis but a scratch!”	No penalty.

With the exception of “That’s gonna sting!” penalties last until the wound is healed. In addition, each wound (including “‘Tis but a scratch!”) provides a further -2 penalty on successive rolls on the Wound and Incapacitation tables.

Incapacitation Table
If a character is reduced to zero hit points they become incapacitated. An incapacitated character may not move or act until they are healed or checked on at the end of combat. At the end of the encounter in which a character becomes incapacitated they roll on the Incapacitation Table to see how badly they were harmed. If a character is magically healed during combat, they may get up and re enter the fray. They will still roll on the table at the end of the encounter when they check their wounds. Magical healing that returns a character to the battle does not count towards healing the effect of their wound. Yes, this means a character may be healed, fight on valiantly, then notice they’ve been disemboweled and die a few hours later.

Roll 1D8 + Might mod	Wound Type	Effect
0 or less	Mortal Wound	The character cannot move. Magical healing is needed within 1D4 hours or character will die. Afterwards, treat as critical wound.
1-3	Critical Wound	Character will die if not treated in 1D4 hours. They take a -2 penalty on their AC and all rolls and may only take 1 move action each turn. Counts as a universal Tier 2 condition.
4-6	Serious Wound	The character may only crawl until they receive magical healing or are treated with a TN 8 Surgery check. They will need to rest for an hour before continuing.
7-9	Medium Wound	The character moves at half speed until they receive magical healing or are bandaged and treated with a TN 8 Surgery check. They will need to rest for ten minutes before continuing on.
10-11	Light Wound	Only the effects described in the table above.
12+	Just dazed.	Lucky you! No wound is dealt.

Wounds are not as easy to heal as hit point damage. Most wounds will not heal on their own, they require medical attention. Magical healing is also typically insufficient on its own. Most forms of healing accelerate the body’s natural abilities. So, for example, a broken bone healed solely with magic will be crooked. Because of this, skilled surgeons are in great demand all across Arde. Surgery, when combined with magical healing, can help people recover from even highly traumatic injuries.

Healing Table

Wound Type	Example	Surgery TN	Recovery Time*
Light Wound	Large gash	12	2 days**
Medium Wound	Dislocated shoulder	14	2 weeks
Serious Wound	Compound fracture	16	2 months
Critical Wound	Torn intestines	18	***

*Characters will not recover from wounds if they are unable to restore HP due to privation.
**This is the recovery time with medical attention. A light wound will heal on its own after two weeks.
***Critical wounds require magical healing in addition to skilled surgeons, so recovery time is based on the power and quality of the healing magic.

Magical healing will accelerate recovery times. The speed of recovery depends on the strength of the magic, but if it is powerful enough a patient might be able to walk out of their open-heart surgery.[/td][/tr][/table]

I'd also be interested if anyone has worked out a damage roll vs. resistance stat system that's compatible with damage rolled on D&D polyhedral dice. My players like rolling them.

I can post an example monster later, but my break is just about over.

[Foxwarrior]

Technically, you could roll a bunch of d6s and d8s and d10s and add them together against a DC and you would get some probability of success. You gotta be a bit more specific about what sorts of patterns you want from a damage roll vs resistance stat system.

Is Might an ability modifier on the same scale as 3.5e ability scores? Is your roll on the wound and incapacitation charts affected by your -1/-2 penalty to all rolls from wounds? Can someone with +8 Might Dig Deep every turn without fear?

At what level does having a Healing Mage in the party render this whole subsystem obsolete?

[angelfromanotherpin]

Jadeclaw and the other games in its family roll a variety of polyhedrals and take the highest, including for damage. That might be worth looking at.

[Foxwarrior]

Rolling a bunch of dice and taking the highest very quickly starts giving you the same number with every roll.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The Jadeclaw pools are rarely large enough or uniform enough to be that normative. Most of the time it’s like d6/d10 or d4/d8/d12. I don’t remember ever rolling more than 3 dice.

[Ancient History]

I don't know why that happened.

[Ancient History]

I'm sorry, it won't let me delete the other posts.

[Ancient History]

I think there was an error when it tried to resolve my circle characters.

[Ancient History]

Really sorry.

[Ancient History]

Just one more.

[Ancient History]

Space Madness! uses two damage tracks, for mental and physical damage - a sort of compromise between Shadowrun's dual health tracks and Call of Cthulhu's dual hit point/sanity point system. Like Shadowrun, the number of "health circles"/"mental health circles" is set. Unlike both, there's a wound system.

Every human character has eight unmarked health circles (?); animals, aliens, etc. may have more or less. As characters take damage, these circles are marked off (???), and as they are healed the checks are removed. If a character runs out of unmarked circles (?), they convert one ? to a wound (???) per point of damage.

A wound represents a more significant injury; the character receives a one-die penalty to all tests for each ? they have. If all of a character’s health circles are filled (by any combination of ? and ?), they fall unconscious, and remain unconscious until they have at least one unmarked health circle (?).

If all of a character’s health circles are filled by wounds (i.e. ????????), they die. A character naturally heals one ? every 24 hours. Additional damage may be healed with a successful Medicine (X) test, where X equals the number of ? to be healed.

Wounds (?) represent more significant injuries and do not heal naturally; removing a wound requires a successful Medicine (X+1) test, where X is the number of wounds a character has.

[/edit]

OKay, you can't see them, but each ? was actually a circle representing a health circle. so you had unblemished circles for healthy (), then a strike-through for damaged (/), and then a double-strikethrough for a wound (X).

[Kaelik]

You can only delete the last post in a thread. But I think if you delete the last one then you can delete the new last post ect.

But now that I posted this you are trapped.

[ETortoise]

For a moment, I was pretty pleased with myself after I saw the number of replies in this thread...

Is Might an ability modifier on the same scale as 3.5e ability scores? Is your roll on the wound and incapacitation charts affected by your -1/-2 penalty to all rolls from wounds? Can someone with +8 Might Dig Deep every turn without fear?

Might is indeed an ability modifier similar in scale to 3.5e scores. A good Might score for a staring PC is +3. The penalties from wounds do apply to rolls on the wound and incapacitation tables. Additionally, NPCs usually have to make a morale check before digging deep.

At what level does having a Healing Mage in the party render this whole subsystem obsolete?

Healing magic will probably come in three basic tiers. The most basic healing magic simply refreshes hit points. The next level can heal minor wounds and lower the recovery time after surgery. (Think of it like accelerated natural healing, a bone needs to be set properly first or it will heal wonky.) Then there’s healing magic that can just bing people better. That last one is the one that’s restricted to higher tier characters.

[merxa]

After some back and forth and asking this community I went with a wound system. I'm writing a typical fantasy rpg.

Everyone gets 10 wound boxes, here is the basic chart

1 more winded than anything, a light scratch, stubbed toe, heals in 5 minutes rest; lvl 0 healing
2 an ache, tweaked knee, a temporary pain; heals in 1 hour rest; lvl 0 healing
3 light bruising, small puncture; heals 8 hour rest; lvl 1 healing
4 major bruising, moderate laceration; heals 1d6 days rest; -1 penalty; lvl 1 healing
5 torn muscle, minor fracture or sprain; heals 1d6 weeks; -2 penalty; lvl 2 healing
6 multiple fractures, severe laceration; heals 1d6+3 weeks; -2 penalty; lvl 2 healing
7 broken limb*; heals 1d6 months; -3 penalty; lvl 3 healing
8 multiple broken bones; heals 1d6+3 months; -3 penalty; lvl 3 healing
9 severed limb*; never heals or 2d6+3 months; -4 penalty; lvl 4 healing
10 unconscious, possibly dying

The damage descriptors were written with typical combat in mind, but would be flavored according to damage source like fire or acid.

Generally damage is resolved by rolling damage(after being hit or failing a save), subtracting from the toughness and resulting in X number of wounds.

Additional complications will be damage source resistance, such as adding an additional X to your toughness when its fire damage. Alternatively Damage Penetration -- overcome X in toughness / resistance before applying damage to toughness. Finally PC classes are expected to have various abilities to avoid being hit, or to reduce incoming damage on some limited schedule.

Penalties wouldn't be cumulative, take the worst that applies. Magical healing works on some wounds but not others depending on the level of heal. Wound 7, 9 are marked as special, that wound is checked off a stress test is applied -- on failure a special additional condition applies like a severed or broken limb.

I have some rules for less lethal damage -- I found the after sunset rules for non-lethal / aggravated a little confusing but I understand why they are that way, but I wanted something simpler, hopefully I can achieve that goal.

I envision writing monster stat blocks with special stress checks, like say a hydras fire breath may have a wound 6 'nerve damage' toughness check. I'm still kicking around details but those are the basics.

[MGuy]

There are a lot of things that go along with my system in the works and some quibbling with myself about how lethal/debilitating I desire getting caught without hp to be. It's a basic d20 to start with. So a typical attack will go like this:

Attack roll made.

Result compare compared to opponent's dodge. Unmodified 'average' dodge is 10/13/16+ with each section being a threshold that indicates a better hit. 5 possible results.

Critical Miss, Miss, Glancing hit, clean hit, critical hit. A critical miss means you missed and rolled within your error range (typically just a 1).

Damage is determined based off of success. A simple miss means just that the attack didn't land. A critical miss puts you off-guard. Glancing means half damage, clean is full damage, crit is double.

Damage is fixed and the base is determined by the attack rating of the weapon used in the attack (rating for most physical weapons is determined. by the size of the weapon). The resultant damage with modifiers then gets compared to damage resistance. Damage resistance can be raised with armor, block actions, barriers, high constitution bonus, etc.

I think it goes without saying there is a lot more that goes into this but that's where I'm at right now.

[OgreBattle]

Accumulate wounds rather than lose boxes. It's just a wording difference, but some studies show that people are more risk averse when they feel like they're losing something to lose a game, and more risk taking when they're accumulating something to lose a game.

My approach is to look at solid skirmish scale or fast paced, satisfying tabletop wargames as my starting point. So Fantasy Flight's space fighters, Bloodbowl, Epic 40k (that's the one with the good rules set right?).

So in that case taking damage has to be a 'universal' mechanic instead of tracking specific hit points. I'm going with...

1) Characters become KO'd at 4 wounds, exceptions are exceptional. I picked that number because it sounds like "Death" in Japanese n' Chinese and we're used to tracking things in quarters, such as the passage of time
2) Wound count = penalty on character's rolls
3) Hits are rolled for at the end of the round in it's own phase, this is for 'last stand' type actions being a core part of play and not a lvl20 samurai only ability. 'Overkill' is encouraged too as we see in fiction, reality where a martial artist punches his foe many times in the head for the ref to step in or historic weapons accounts have people immediately dropping dead from one clean cut or fighting through a dozen skewerings
3A) Exception, some attacks can cause wounds/damage immediatly, perhaps critical hits do that

4) Not all hits cause wounds, some cause stun which goes away after a turn or so
4a) Just attacking someone creates a 'condition' even if you don't hit, deal damage, representing suppression and the effort of effective defense. So encouraged to engage all foes instead of focus firing

For reference, how Epic 40k does Blast Markers:
https://thehobby.zone/resources/Downloa ... ampPDF.pdf

Game effects of Blast markers

During a game of Epic the formations under your command will receive Blast markers when they come under fire,
take casualties, fight in assaults, or fail Initiative tests.
You can remove Blast markers from these formations when they rally (in the End phase), or when they regroup (as
part of Marshall action).

The effects of Blast markers will make more sense when you have read the rest of the rules. But in summary, unless the
rules specifically state otherwise:

l A formation receives one Blast marker every time it is shot at by an enemy formation, even if no casualties are
caused — this is called coming under fire.
l A formation receives one Blast marker every time one of its units is destroyed.
l Each Blast marker prevents one unit in the formation from shooting — this is called suppression.
l Blast markers affect a formation’s ability to carry out actions, win assaults, and rally.
l A formation becomes Broken when the number of Blast markers equals the number of units in the formation. A
Broken formation is very vulnerable — it is easily destroyed, can only move by making a withdrawal at certain
times, and may not take actions in the Action phase (so it can't shoot either, for example). You must try to rally
Broken formations in the End phase.

I'll be doing something that feels like that

I'm thinking of making equal power level unwounded combatants have a low chance (less than 50%) of dealing just 1 wound, but getting in those first 1 or 2 wounds causes enough of a wound penalty that a KO or fatal blow can be landed. I want to design it in a way where firing off your super move first thing is likely to whiff/glance, but firing it at a 2-3 wound foe has a high KO chance

[Blade]

In my Shadowrun system, the characters have one condition monitor (similar to the one in Shadowrun rules, with 8+Body/2 boxes).
The armor has its own condition monitor that's drawn above the one of the character.

When a character is hit, the player marks one box per damage point (with a small tick, not crossing out the box), starting with the armor's monitor. If the armor monitor is filled, the last box is crossed out and will not count for further hits (to represent armor degradation).
The character suffers from negative modifiers for every three boxes of his condition monitor that are ticked.

If the character is hit again, it's resolved the same way, adding new ticks to each box.

This means that additional damage will make the character less and less able to act, but won't make him more likely to die. The only way to kill a character is to fill his condition monitor in one hit. (NPC will be considered out of action if they suffer a big enough wounds or too many wounds.)

Narratively, each tick of the condition monitor represents a single wound, which helps keep track of what the character suffered. A player chan choose to exchange a wound for a long-term handicap. In that case, he ignores the negative modifiers of the wound until the end of the adventure, but will then suffer from a severe problem (like losing a limb, lowering an attribute, etc.). Spending Edge also allows a player to ignore all wound modifiers for a limited time.

The aim of these rules is to characters who rarely get killed but can get to a point where they can't act anymore. It's then up to the player to decide if he wants to go all the way or retreat. I find it adapted to cyberpunk stories where the characters end all beaten up but just won't go down.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Huh... I've been playing around with taking damage rolls out entirely and having different amounts of damage be a result of other choices, like choosing to blast one dude super hard or blasting a dozen dudes moderately hard. I have met some minor resistance to this, but I don't see the point in rolling shit like 2d6+40 damage.

[deaddmwalking]

I may be misunderstanding...

But let's say I 'dig deep' so I can avoid my Hit Points dropping to zero. As a result, I make a roll on the Wound Table and I get a 9+ (Tis but a scratch). I'm now at a penalty on the wound and incapacitation table. It is not clear if I'll heal on my own (it's not a light wound) or whether I'll take the penalty beyond the current fight.

In any case, we have a SECOND fight, and I am dropped to 0 HP. I once again have to roll a Wound (and even with my penalty I get a 'but a scratch'). But because I was incapacitated, I have to roll on the Incapacitation table. If I have '2' 'tis but a scratch' it is not clear if I'm rolling at -2 or -4. In any case, I roll badly, but I had a bonus sufficient to get me to 9+ twice... Even with a -4 penalty I had to have a+5 bonus so I'm at net +1 - I roll a 1 and I get a 2 for 'critical wound'. I could die...

If the amount of hit point damage that low-level opposition provides, it seems that high level characters will never be 'safe'. Even small loss of (a small hit point total) can leave them vulnerable to a more significant attack (like a fireball or a dragon's breath weapon).

Dealing small amounts of damage tends to be less satisfying for players than rolling handfuls of dice. If you attacks increase in power with your level/HD, then you automatically worry about level-appropriate threats. In your system, it sounds like damage totals will remain generally static... Even if you address hit point inflation, it can become that higher level opponents take progressively longer to attack.

From a player perspective, incapacitating an enemy is the goal - once they're dropped from the fight they cease to be of concern. For the PCs, the consequences of getting dropped are more serious - they risk losing (as always) plus additional negative effects from the consequences of the battle.

If you add magical healing, it seems like all of this becomes a moot point - players will use magical healing and never engage in the injury recovery rules.

There does not appear to be an indication of what happens when you're hit while incapacitated. Should players stab people who are down to keep them from jumping back in the fight? Can you 'dig deep' while you're incapacitated?

[Dean]

Hey Kaelik I generally like how Fortresses and Fiends does damage/wounds but my eyes glaze over a bit when I try to parse the actual numbers in your system. Do you think you could write out an example of two people hitting each other in your system? Not a whole combat, just the numbers involved in two people hitting each other and how you got those numbers.

[ETortoise]

I may be misunderstanding...

But let's say I 'dig deep' so I can avoid my Hit Points dropping to zero. As a result, I make a roll on the Wound Table and I get a 9+ (Tis but a scratch). I'm now at a penalty on the wound and incapacitation table. It is not clear if I'll heal on my own (it's not a light wound) or whether I'll take the penalty beyond the current fight.

Good catch, I should specify that “Tis but a scratch” and “that’s gonna sting” clear at the end of a fight.

In any case, we have a SECOND fight, and I am dropped to 0 HP. I once again have to roll a Wound (and even with my penalty I get a 'but a scratch'). But because I was incapacitated, I have to roll on the Incapacitation table. If I have '2' 'tis but a scratch' it is not clear if I'm rolling at -2 or -4. In any case, I roll badly, but I had a bonus sufficient to get me to 9+ twice... Even with a -4 penalty I had to have a+5 bonus so I'm at net +1 - I roll a 1 and I get a 2 for 'critical wound'. I could die...

If you are dropped to 0 you don’t roll on the wound table. At the end of the fight you roll on the incapacitation table. You could potentially get several wounds in a fight before being incapacitated; or be revived, then take wounds by digging deep and end up with a hefty penalty on their incapacitation roll. C’est le guerre.

If the amount of hit point damage that low-level opposition provides, it seems that high level characters will never be 'safe'. Even small loss of (a small hit point total) can leave them vulnerable to a more significant attack (like a fireball or a dragon's breath weapon).

Dealing small amounts of damage tends to be less satisfying for players than rolling handfuls of dice. If you attacks increase in power with your level/HD, then you automatically worry about level-appropriate threats. In your system, it sounds like damage totals will remain generally static... Even if you address hit point inflation, it can become that higher level opponents take progressively longer to attack.

Well obviously there’s going to be some math that needs doing to find the right balance of damage and hp at each level. I’m not sure exactly what you’re saying here, since these two paragraphs seem to be contradictory.

If you add magical healing, it seems like all of this becomes a moot point - players will use magical healing and never engage in the injury recovery rules.

Since healing magic comes in different tiers (hp, accelerating wound recovery, removing wounds), characters will effectively earn the ability to engage less with this system by leveling up and becoming more powerful.

There does not appear to be an indication of what happens when you're hit while incapacitated. Should players stab people who are down to keep them from jumping back in the fight? Can you 'dig deep' while you're incapacitated?

I don’t really want monsters or PCs to go out of their way to murder downed opponents, so I wasn’t going to have anything happen when you attack an incapacitated opponent.

[OgreBattle]

If digging deep is dependent on allies then the focus will be shifted towards taking the allies out
Like in gears of war you revive if an ally reaches you to give you a hand

Another approach is to have a Staggered/Dizzy state that signifies you can be taken out of the fight, but then your allies are incentivized to drag you away or stand whirling their greatsword so you can catch your breath. So in that system, a downed character is downed but the staggered status that one is in before being downed can be shaken out of

[ETortoise]

If digging deep is dependent on allies then the focus will be shifted towards taking the allies out

In my conception, Digging Deep is a free action you can take after taking damage, even if it's not your turn. (So, not dependent on allies.)

Another approach is to have a Staggered/Dizzy state that signifies you can be taken out of the fight, but then your allies are incentivized to drag you away or stand whirling their greatsword so you can catch your breath. So in that system, a downed character is downed but the staggered status that one is in before being downed can be shaken out of.

That's interesting. Correct me if I misunderstand; a character who went down to 0 HP would be Staggered and the next hit against them (and they'd be easier to hit) would Incapacitate them. Characters could remove the staggered condition on themselves either by making a roll on their turn, or by having enough time pass. Their allies can have a range of options from dragging them away, protecting them from attackers, or somehow helping them shake off the condition. It seems like curing someone else of the staggered condition should be an ability characters have to select, rather than a freebie everyone has at level 1, otherwise there's no reason to drag people out of harm's way.

Aside from incentivizing teamwork, this system also keeps wounds from accumulating until a character gets incapacitated. Unless becoming Staggered could also make you roll on the wound chart. Alternatively, there could be a cleanup phase at the end of a fight (or every couple rounds) where characters roll on a bigger wound chart and have penalties based on whether they've been Staggered, Downed or what. Any characters who were hit might roll, or just ones who were Staggered.

This system also eliminates the choice between Digging Deep now to get back some HP and probably take a wound, and waiting and risk being reduced to zero and incapacitated. I kind of liked that choice, but I don't know if it's necessary.

In any case, here are some monsters:

Satyr
Level: 1 Challenge: 1
Number Appearing: - in dungeon/1d4 wandering/1d6+1 in lair
Typical habitat:
Languages: Horntongue
Hit Points: 10
Morale: +1 [/td][td]Stat[/td][td]Bonus[/td][td]Defense[/td][td]misc[/td][/tr]

Might	+2	12
Cunning	0	10
Agility	+2	12	AC 16
Perception	+1	11
Will	0	10

Skills: Alertness, Athletics, Hide, Insight, Move Silently
Attacks: Javelin +3/1d6, Short Sword +3/1d6+2, Headbutt +3/1d6+2
Special Defenses: Natural Armor +2
Leaping Charge - A satyr’s powerful legs let them jump and leap over obstacles as they run and charge. They may ignore obstacles under 5’ high and difficult terrain less than 10’ across when charging or running.
Equipment: 3 javelins, short sword and shield.

Ogre
Level: Brute 4 Challenge: 4
Languages: Fae, Giant, Horntongue
Hit Points: 32
Morale: 0 [/td][td]Stat[/td][td]Bonus[/td][td]Defense[/td][td]misc[/td][/tr]

Might	+7	17
Cunning	-2	8
Agility	-1	9	AC 15
Perception	+1	11
Will	-1	9

Skills: Alertness, Athletics, Hide, Insight, Move Silently
Attacks: Greatclub (large) +11/3d6+7 (3 squares away), meaty fist +11/1d6+7
Sweeping Strike - The ogre attacks up to 4 foes within melee reach on one side of it. +7/2d6+7
Overbearing Blows - Ogres do not have to follow their opponents to push them more than 5’. When an ogre pushes an opponent they take 1d6 damage for every 5’ of forced movement.
Special Defenses: Natural Armor + 4
Toughness - Brutes do not need to roll morale before Digging Deep. They will still check morale if they take a wound of Light or greater severity.
Large - Ogres are well over eight feet tall. They are able to reach and engage with targets two squares away and have a +4 bonus on push checks against smaller creatures.
Too Dumb to be Frightened - Ogres get a +4 bonus to resist fear effects and morale shocks caused by creatures smaller than them (this does not include morale shocks caused by wounds dealt by smaller creatures.)
Treasure: Poor quality light armor, greatclub, a sack with odds and ends including 3d10 silver marks and 4d6 silver pennies.

[tussock]

Just a casual vote against death spirals in RPGs involving characters doing things that would trigger them. Unless it's supposed to be a form of avoidable game ending fail state, and even then.

It's just that people keep wanting to do it, and it's not even particularly realistic for people plus adrenaline to be better or worse at combat until their injuries are great enough to kill them.

Like, having people who are almost dead still be able to take some reduced actions is reasonable, but otherwise, being in a real fight stops you being target-shooting accurate anyway and beyond that if you're still moving it's much the same thereafter.

--

Also you can't use D&D damage vs a damage resistance stat. Fire comes a single packet of 35 and swords come in three packets of 12 and obviously that doesn't work.

I dunno, man, hit points are awesome, just use 'em. If you want the post-combat trauma stuff, just roll once post-combat and find out how everyone's holding up for travel and whatever at that point.

[OgreBattle]

I figure the wound penalty death spiral problem and benefits can be adjusted with making people do a 'specialized action' rather than a 'general attack/defense' action

In fiction and real life combat sports it's fun to watch the injured protagonist dig deep and deliver a fatal blow to a foe that thought them exposed, it's also fun to watch the injured protagonist barely hold on defensively as they're pushed back.

So the wound penalty would be something that applies to your defense, not so much your offense, but if you take a total defense action the penalty is removed or lowered.