Damage and Resilience

[Quire]

So, this uber-heroine is fighting a dragon, okay? And she's got this astonishing attack - truly world-shattering stuff - and does 52 points of damage to the dragon's head. 12 are absorbed by the foul beast's natural armour, leaving 40, resulting in -20 hps on that location and a Major Wound.

Dragons have a Resilience of 120%. Which means that, over 61 rounds, there is only a five per cent chance per round that the dragon with a Major Wound to its head will die, and then expire after the alloted (CON+POW/2)x5 seconds (in this case, a little over two-and-a-half minutes).

Okay, so even Majorly smooshing a dragon's head in may mean it won't die for a couple of minutes. But if our heroine only did 33 points of damage ('only', lol, just bear with me), and the dragon's Seriously Wounded head is at -1hp, that infernal reptile is going to keep going ad infinitum until it rolls 96% plus at the start of a combat round.

My four questions are:

1) Does this make sense to anyone else? I feel my grognard-side (RQ2 [GW Boxed Edition] was the very first RPG I ever played ...not wanting to give away my age, ahem) saying: ooh, THAT doesn't feel very Runequesty!

2) What are the benefits of a Resilience higher than 95%? I haven't exactly completely absorbed the new rules, but haven't seen an application for it yet. (Maybe on a critical check in combat you could REGAIN hps??? j/k!)

3) Why tuck Resilience away in Skills? Give it to me to hand in a statblok, if I need them in combat!

4) Just what is the Resilience of a Giant? 49%? If Resilience isn't listed as a skill in the SRD Creatures descrips, am I supposed to quickly figure it from CON+POW? (Hey, I know that aint rocket science, but on the fly, I'd rather see the figure I'm rolling against in that statblok [see question 3, above]).

- Q

Edit - A Resilience of 100+ will result in a failure rate of only 1% - ie a fumble? :S Edit - No, Q, only at 500% and it's a Fail, not a Fumble.

Edit - Actually got Major Wounds and Serious Wounds in context.

 

[atgxtg]

I've been compalining about this sort of situation for some time now.

In the long run this is just going to kill off more PCs as thier foes will stay up a few extra rounds and inflict leather wounds on the player characters before expiring.

IMO I think the resilience roll needs to be opposed by the damage taken (say damage x5%). Otherwise, it does matter if you do 52 points, or 520 points.

 

[Melkor]

Ouch. I hadn't even considered this yet.
My headache just got worse. :?

 

[Utgardloki]

I've been thinking of this. How about:

If a location has a negative hit point total, any skill checks made that involve that location have a -5% penalty per hit point below zero.

So the dragon at -20 in the head has to make Resilience rolls at a -100% penalty, and only has a 20% chance. If Ms. Heroine can knock his head down to -23, the dragon only has a 5% chance per round of staying conscious.

As long as the hit point total is above 0, it's only a "flesh wound". This means that large creatures will naturally be able to shrug off greater amounts of damage than smaller creatures.

Something a little more realistic, but requires more math, would be to say that a creature at -hp in a location has a 100% penalty, and each hp below zero has a proportionate effect. (So the dragon loses 5% per hit point lost while a person with 8 points in the head loses 12.5% with each hit point lost -- representing the idea that for the dragon an equivalent blow is less of a deal than for a human.)

Unfortunately, the level of math in that last idea has a little more complexity than I'd like to deal with in a combat situation, so I'd just stick with a -5% per hp below zero.

 

[Arkat]

How about your Resilience skill drops by -10% every round after you make the test.

 

[Utgardloki]

My idea is to assess a penalty to skill checks when a hit location goes below zero. This penalty should be based on the size of the creature and on the number of hit points lost, but in my previous post, I only had a good idea for taking number of hit points lost into consideration.

However, perhaps a table can be drawn up which, instead of a straight -5% per hit point lost, assesses a penalty per hit point lost based on the creature's Size.

The table could look like this:

SIZE Penalty per Hit Point below 0
---- ----
0-10 : 10%
11-20  :  9%
21-30  :  8%
31-40  :  7%
41-50  :  6%
51-60  :  5%
61-70  :  4%
71-80  :  3%
81-90  :  2%
91+  :  1%

This table is just something I threw together in about 5 minutes. Suggestions are welcome.

 

[Quire]

Many thanks for your suggestions, Utgardloki and Arkat.

I find Uttie's Penalty per SIZ a little over-complicated for my liking (I always try and do as little math as possible!), but I will be using Arkat's cumulative -10% to Resilience tests for consciousness and death on each repeated attempt.

(Note that, to clarify, each PAIR of tests for death and unconsciousness on a Serious Wound will be at -10%.)

I will also be adding that for a Major Wound to Abdomen, Chest or Head: If the location is not restored to 1+ hit point(s) within CON+POW Combat Rounds, the character dies, conscious or not.

Furthermore: A character who suffers a Major Wound to the Head dies immediately. END OF!

- Q

 

[GoingDown]

...I will be using Arkat's cumulative -10% to Resilience tests for consciousness and death on each repeated attempt.

Mee too - simple and works. Or I might even go without any penalties, but so that if your chest/head has gotten major wound, you cannot fight but only try to stay conscious and heal yourself.

I will also be adding that for a Major Wound to Abdomen, Chest or Head: If the location is not restored to 1+ hit point(s) within CON+POW Combat Rounds, the character dies, conscious or not.

On the book: Both tests will have to be repeated at the end of every Combat Round, until the location is restored to 1 hit point or more, or the character receives First Aid. If the location does not recover within a number of Combat Rounds equal to half the character’s CON+POW, the character dies from blood loss, shock and internal injuries.

That is almost the same on the book already? Except that receiving succesfully first aid gives life back.

 

[Quire]

On the book: Both tests will have to be repeated at the end of every Combat Round, until the location is restored to 1 hit point or more, or the character receives First Aid. If the location does not recover within a number of Combat Rounds equal to half the character’s CON+POW, the character dies from blood loss, shock and internal injuries.

That is almost the same on the book already? Except that receiving succesfully first aid gives life back.

I'm looking at the SRD (the book is waiting for me at my previous address, agh!), and you appear to be quoting Serious Wound penalties rather than Major Wound penalties for Ab, Chest and Head. I'm suggesting the Major Wounds should incurr a similar time limit, but use 1x CON+POW instead.

- Q

 

[GoingDown]

I'm looking at the SRD (the book is waiting for me at my previous address, agh!), and you appear to be quoting Serious Wound penalties rather than Major Wound penalties for Ab, Chest and Head. I'm suggesting the Major Wounds should incurr a similar time limit, but use 1x CON+POW instead.

Oh, you are right - I was quoting Serious wounds. I see and got your point

 

[Trifletraxor]

Where did the old total hit points go? 0 total hit points = death. As a house rule, I added severed head, chest or abdomen = death. Death should be swift and brutal I think, not drawn out.

Just yesterday one of my players got killed by two newtlings with nets and tridents. A maimed arm and some minor wounds -> death from total hit points damage.

Now that total hit points have been removed from the rules, how do MRQ handle poison for example? Recilience to death as a skill sounds a bit strange to me.

SGL.

 

[simonh]

My brother and I were going through the combat system last night and tripped over this issue - the amount of excess damage you do makes no difference, and doing additional wounds to that location doesn't either. Still, characetrs suffering major wounds are in a bad way and will die unless treated. Excess damage makes treating them very difficult.

Dragons are big and tough. Maybe a long-term lethal wound realy could take a lot longer to fell them from blood loss, etc. After all they have a LOT of blood.

I'd perhaps tweak the rules a little. Maybe -1% to the Resilience test per excess HP. More than that is punitive IMHO. This would be enough to give Dragons suffering, say, 100 point wounds (how much damage does a Trebuchet do?) a lot more difficulty.

 

[Quire]

Now that total hit points have been removed from the rules, how do MRQ handle poison for example? Recilience to death as a skill sounds a bit strange to me.

I'll admit that I found it very odd at first. I couldn't get my head round not having Total HP. Then it suddenly struck me that with location-based effects, it didn't really matter.

I was tempted to Houserule Resilience tests out of damage completely...but decided it could be interesting to keep them in, to reflect a character being on the verge of death and needing urgent medical attention to survive. So I've settled on my plan as outlined above, and will see how it works out.

As for poisons, they are covered in C5 of the RQ SRD. 'A character must make an opposed Resilience test versus the poison’s Potency test in order to avoid or mitigate the damage of the poison' and 'Effect: Usually hit point damage that affects all locations of the victim'.

I guess specific poisons could be geared at specific locations, too.

- Q

 

[Quire]

I'd perhaps tweak the rules a little. Maybe -1% to the Resilience test per excess HP.

Yeah, I'd be happy to play in a game using that.

- Q

 

[iamtim]

Dragons are big and tough. Maybe a long-term lethal wound realy could take a lot longer to fell them from blood loss, etc. After all they have a LOT of blood.

That's why I haven't yet replied to this thread: dragons are just about the baddest of the bad, as far as I'm concerned. They should be all sorts of tough to beat. If you can get it to the point where it's going to die in five minutes from blood loss, back up and shoot arrows at it to prevent it from healing during those five minutes.

Or concentrate your attacks on that one spot to get it to -HP or beyond, giving it a Major Wound which, if it fails the Resilience check, will cause it to die much sooner.

The argument almost seems like a "duh" thing to me, no offense intended. "Dragons and other big, huge, scary, monstrous bad guys are almost invincible!" Well... duh.

 

[Quire]

The argument almost seems like a "duh" thing to me, no offense intended. "Dragons and other big, huge, scary, monstrous bad guys are almost invincible!" Well... duh.

Yeah, I get you there - really I was just looking at that example to just try and get a grip on the system. The thing that had borked my mind was the idea of ANY character/thing being reduced to -HP in the head and still wandering around. A Serious Wound to the Head means decapitation or a smooshed brain to me.

But yeah: 'duh' indeed!

- Q

 

[Utgardloki]

I guess I wouldn't have too much trouble with the occasional dragon being almost immune to getting killed.

But a runelord could also easily build up a 120% effective Resistance skill level. If I wanted guys who didn't have to worry about taking massive amounts of damage, I could play D&D.

I think I'll try drawing up a table that rates a penalty in proportion to the total hit points of the location. That way, when the character sheet is filled out, the player can just note both the hit points and the resistance penalty for each location, e.g. "8/-12%"

 

[Utgardloki]

Okay, for anybody who wants it, here is a better table that rates the penalty taken per hit point below zero to the hit points of that hit location.

HP in      Penalty
location    per HP lost
1           100%
2           50%
3           33%
4           25%
5           20%
6-7         15%
8           12%
9           11%
10          10%
11          9%
12          8%
13-14       7%
15-16       6%
17-20       5%
21-25       4%
26-33       3%
34-50       2%
51 or more  1%

 

[RMS]

I'm mentioned this elsewhere but will put it here again for consideration. I've thought about making resilience = CON x 5% (or (CON + POW)/2 x 5% if you want POW still in it) and not letting it increase through experience or training, unless CON is trained up. That's basically just replacing it with a good old fashioned CON roll that works with the new opposed skill mechanics.

In fact, you could do the same with persistence = POW x 5%, for a similar deal.

Any thoughts?

 

[iamtim]

I'm mentioned this elsewhere but will put it here again for consideration. I've thought about making resilience = CON x 5% (or (CON + POW)/2 x 5% if you want POW still in it) and not letting it increase through experience or training, unless CON is trained up.

I'm trying it at my next session.