Negative Hit Point effects

[Langy]

Originally Posted by jsbrewster1

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for all of the information. I have a lot more insight now as to how movement can affect combat. In my mock combat, I basically had 2 fighters toe to toe slugging it out, so to speak. But if the unslowed character moves out of range of the injured character, isn't it a Move & Attack at -4 to get back into range without being attacked herself? Otherwise, they are back on even footing again, as long as the injured party keeps making HT rolls.

I will definitely look at the effects in the Martial Arts books, and I'm already considering some house rules around repeated shock. In my combat, the injured party was kicked for at least 3 points of damage every turn for 5 rounds, but missed in the 6th round, so no penalty to his attack after that. I'd think he'd be reeling for more than 1 second after being kicked 5 times in a row.

Why would the uninjured fighter need to move back into range? They should just stay out of range - they've already won the fight, after all. The injured fighter only has a few seconds left before they'll inevitably lose their HT roll (even a high-HT individual will fall unconscious after a minute or two below 0 HP) unless they just sit around and Do Nothing, and any attempt by them to attack *you* is now much more doomed to failure due to the Move and Attack penalties.

[Edges]

Originally Posted by Skarg

I tend to play with one or more house rules that involve things like:
* not using the 4e limit of Shock to -4
* having Shock drop by half per turn, rather than 100%
* penalties to all rolls from major wounds
* modifiers to knockdown, stun, and consciousness rolls based on damage amount
* reworking how Berserk and High Pain Threshold work, so they just reduce injury effects but don't remove them

Even without house rules like that, however, in practice, people who are injured below 0 HT tend to be stunned, on the ground with no ready weapon, knocked back behind the fight, and/or roleplayed to do something other than keep attacking (especially since I also usually use the optional bleeding rules and track each wound separately, so people below 0 HT tend to be in danger of dying, and not wanting that outcome).

However when a fighter has high HT and/or advantages that let them reduce/ignore effects of injury, it can make them annoyingly hard to stop with torso attacks. I do like to nerf that with house rules, but you can also do other things to put them down, like leg/foot/weapon-arm/heat/vitals attacks.

I would be interested in knowing the specific rules you use and how those rules are received by the players.

[jsbrewster1]

Thank you all for the insights. I think I understand much better about the options for GURPS melee combat and the results of negative hit points. I will probably use the bleeding rules at a minimum, and perhaps apply shock to consciousness rolls as well. That would mitigate high HT to an extent. Or possibly incorporate some sort of surrender mechanism. Thanks again!

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by jsbrewster1

Thank you all for the insights. I think I understand much better about the options for GURPS melee combat and the results of negative hit points. I will probably use the bleeding rules at a minimum, and perhaps apply shock to consciousness rolls as well. That would mitigate high HT to an extent. Or possibly incorporate some sort of surrender mechanism. Thanks again!

Bleeding is pretty much irrelevant to combat, especially melee combat. The earliest it can have any effects is 30 seconds after being wounded.

I do recommend using it, but it doesn't seem to have much bearing here.

[Bicorn]

Originally Posted by jsbrewster1

I don't see movement penalties as combat penalties, if a character has a relatively high health, he can fight pretty much normally until he keels over dead. That seems very unrealistic to me.

The idea that damage must cause death-spiral penalties is one of those "common sense says" things that don't really pan out in reality. Adrenaline is a heck of a drug - there are real life accounts of people continuing to fight after suffering mortal wounds without even noticing they've been injured.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Bicorn

The idea that damage must cause death-spiral penalties is one of those "common sense says" things that don't really pan out in reality. Adrenaline is a heck of a drug - there are real life accounts of people continuing to fight after suffering mortal wounds without even noticing they've been injured.

Usually what happens is that people are conditioned to think they have to stop, and so do.

Using SIMTAC rounds, you are normally instructed to go down and stay down when hit. When I did Stimulus Response Training they said to ignore that and fight as long as you can stand the pain. This was because there's evidence that the first way trains people to give up when they don't have to.

Using the rules in Tactical Shooting for the psychological effects of combat stress and trauma goes a long way to actually making combats less about people fighting until they are burger.

[AlexanderHowl]

Historically, it was often the side that routed in battle that suffered the most injuries, as their giving up and running allowed their foes to cut them down without any consequences. If a unit fought valiantly, even when outnumbered and outclassed, they could sometimes force their better opponent to retreat or even rout. Even a fighting retreat was better than a rout, as individual soldiers could protect each other from opportunistic attacks.

In the case of individual combat, this plays out when characters suffers -HP. If they do not attack, their enemy only has to wait until they collapse. If they do attack, they have a chance of taking out their enemy before they go unconscious and, if they are lucky, they wake up on their foe's corpse. In fact, this is when Berserk becomes an advantage, as you do not suffer stun, wound penalties, or move penalties from your injuries. A Berserk combatant can potentially disable a dozen opponents before they collapse from their injuries.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

The key thing to remember is that the character with negative HP is in trouble. They're going to be standing for a few more seconds, at best. If they try anything besides moving at a slow walking pace (1 yard per second), including anything that requires serious mental effort (a Concentrate maneuver is not a Do Nothing maneuver!), they'll pass out in fairly short order. If my opponent is at negative HP and I'm not, and the opponent doesn't have allies to fight instead of them, they're basically defeated, it's just a matter of time.

B364 says that 'Do Nothing' allows no movement. Thus if they move at all, they risk collapsing. If you can force Dodges from range, as people have noted, they either take the hits or risk collapsing. Even with enough HT+Fit, etc. to get a 16- for their roll their chance of making 30 checks without fail is only 39%, and it's about 15% to make 60 checks. Thus in a minute or two the person in negative HP is on the ground if you can force them to keep acting/reacting.

Alternatively, you can just run off a safe distance and then walk away and leave them for dead.

[NineDaysDead]

Nitpick

Originally Posted by Rupert

Even with enough HT+Fit, etc. to get a 16- for their roll their chance of making 30 checks without fail is only 39%,

(212/216)^30 = 57.077%

Originally Posted by Rupert

and it's about 15% to make 60 checks.

(212/216)^60 = 32.578%

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Rupert

B364 says that 'Do Nothing' allows no movement. Thus if they move at all, they risk collapsing. If you can force Dodges from range, as people have noted, they either take the hits or risk collapsing. Even with enough HT+Fit, etc. to get a 16- for their roll their chance of making 30 checks without fail is only 39%, and it's about 15% to make 60 checks. Thus in a minute or two the person in negative HP is on the ground if you can force them to keep acting/reacting.

Alternatively, you can just run off a safe distance and then walk away and leave them for dead.

EDIT: No I'm wrong (see below by mlangsdorf)!

I think given the "Do Nothing" choice specifically allows active defences I would rule you can actively defend and still count as "doing nothing". I.e "move" in this case refers to movement in GURPS terms of hexes/yards not any actual physical movement that may be required to actively defend.

Their dodge is already going to be halved as is.

(although retreating would count as movement).