Unbreakable Bones and injury limits

[Erling]

As stated in Powers, with IT:UB damage to limbs and extremities causes injury, subject to the usual maximums, but the injury needed to cripple these body parts is twice normal.

What confuses me is the second mention of injury. If injury caps (1/2 HP for limbs, 1/3 HP for extremities) are in effect, then it's impossible to cause "twice normal injury" in a single blow. Thus "twice normal injury" may matter only in case of Accumulated Wounds optional rule being in use, since under this rule injury is accumulated for each limb.

But how should IT:UB work if Accumulated Wounds is not in effect? Does that mean that the potential (that is, calculated before applying the injury cap) injury shall be compared to doubled cripping threshold?

[Nereidalbel]

Personally? I'd go with "what would have severed the limb for anybody else is what cripples yours."

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Erling

But how should IT:UB work if Accumulated Wounds is not in effect? Does that mean that the potential (that is, calculated before applying the injury cap) injury shall be compared to doubled cripping threshold?

That's consistent with how Dismemberment (B421) works -- 'If injury to a body part before applying the above limit was at least twice what was needed to cripple it, the body part is not just crippled but destroyed'

[Erling]

Originally Posted by Anthony

That's consistent with how Dismemberment (B421) works -- 'If injury to a body part before applying the above limit was at least twice what was needed to cripple it, the body part is not just crippled but destroyed'

Good point!

[Maz]

Injury is not "HP lost".

The "max 1/2" cap on limbs is for HP loss, not for injury.

So if your a normal HP:10 human and take a 8 damage cutting sword blow to the leg you have 3 different values:

Damage: The 8 damage, used to see if you overcome DR. And to calculate injury.
Injury: Injury for a cutting attack to leg would be x1,5 = 12 injury (assuming you have no DR).
HP loss: This is above the cap of 1/2. So you only lose 5 HP. However the leg still took 12 injury. Which is more than twice the cap.


Apart from dismemberment that Anthony mention is is also used for Bleeding rules.
Different rules such as UB, but also the more detailed it locations from MA affect these 3 values differently... and not always entirely consistent.