[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Wounded

[johndallman]

Wounded [-5] is a mundane physical disadvantage. You have a wound that will not heal, and remains open, increasing your risks of infection, poisoning, and similar problems. This disadvantage seems to be new at GURPS 4e.

You aren’t missing any hit points, but your wound can be targeted at ‑7 by opponents who know about it, and has a wounding multiplier of x1.5. The wound needs to be carefully dressed each day (First Aid or Physician roll), or you get ‑3 to any HT rolls to resist infection. Toxins that normally have to be carried through your skin (e.g., on a weapon) take effect if they reach your wound. It is possible to acquire this disadvantage in play, and the recovery rules for mortal wounds and the Martial Arts Lasting and Permanent Injuries tables provide for this. Some versions of Wounded, such as scalping, would normally reduce Appearance, and it seems like a good justification for Chronic Pain and low HT.

Wounded is an occasional disadvantage option on templates for combatants. Bio-Tech can cure it via surgery, and Disasters: Hurricane points out that flood waters usually carry diseases. Ultra-Tech has nanoware to cure it, and surgery failure can cause it.

A character in my Infinite Cabal campaign took Wounded, and I didn’t make it as important as it should have been. It’s much more limiting in a campaign that involves crawling through sewers or falling into pits of slime than in a game of gentlemanly exploration in the sterile environment of the Astral Plane. It was bought off when the party got good at healing magic, and nobody missed it.

Has Wounded entertained in your games?

[kirbwarrior]

I think I've considered it once ever. It seems like probably the most boring disadvantage to take and any upsides to it would vastly be outbalanced by the inconveniences. I don't think changing the cost would help things, either. No player of mine has ever even asked about it.

But I might consider a more quirk level version of it. Having only the "-7 to have 1.5 damage" seems about worth a point.

[Plane]

This is probably best approximation I can think of to distinguish between "Cyclops" and "born with two eyes but I lost one" in regards to One Eye.

Although 'wounded' has benefit of smaller wound multiplier than brain, and drawback of easier to target than -9. I'm not sure if these balance out if you just use eye rules?

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by johndallman

This disadvantage seems to be new at GURPS 4e.

I believe it’s a generalisation of Scalped from 3e Old West.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Plane

This is probably best approximation I can think of to distinguish between "Cyclops" and "born with two eyes but I lost one" in regards to One Eye.

Although 'wounded' has benefit of smaller wound multiplier than brain, and drawback of easier to target than -9. I'm not sure if these balance out if you just use eye rules?

I feel like Wounded can be taken for a missing eye (in addition to One Eye). It opens up the possibility of attacks that can't normally hit the eye now being able to as per Wounded (-7 for 1.5x) and marks the problems with having to keep the eyeless hole clean and dressed. I'd have attacks that can already hit the eye allow a "Miss by 1 hits merely the wound".

[Plane]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I feel like Wounded can be taken for a missing eye (in addition to One Eye). It opens up the possibility of attacks that can't normally hit the eye now being able to as per Wounded (-7 for 1.5x) and marks the problems with having to keep the eyeless hole clean and dressed. I'd have attacks that can already hit the eye allow a "Miss by 1 hits merely the wound".

I could see that representing a really grotesquely large eye-hole (maybe having part of the cheek ripped off) but it still bothers me we don't have a "2nd window to the brain" statistical representation...

Maybe instead, creatures like Cyclops ought to be compelled to take something like Injury Tolerance: No Eyes (One Eye Only -50%) ? That way we can just assume your standard pirate with One Eye still has a 2nd targetable orifice which can hit the brain in addition to his remaining working eye.

B34 (360 Vision) talks about Extra Eyes being a special effect... but now I'm wondering if that also means more places you can target to hit the brain.

This would be important in situations like say for example you are a Triclops (DBZ) like TienShinhan wearing a pair of protective glasses / spectacles / goggles with DR 1, but since they're designed for humans, this only protects your two lower eyes and not your third eye. That's one extra glass/spectacle/goggle lens you would need to protect your brain!

This isn't a worry if you take "No Eyes" unlimited (it truly is a special effect, you have no hit location) but if "One Eye Only -50%" were applied to a triclops then that would probably mean they have 2 targetable eyes and 1 non-targetable one, in which case, how would you price 2 untargetable and 1 targetable?

"No Eyes" means sometihng targeting what seems to be an eye (such as with No Sig) would just count like a skull hit (encountering your skull DR) so it's still en route to the brain, but whether or not it gets that DR is pretty important.

Another issue is how we would price Nictitating Membrane (different? same?) for triclops/quadriclops/etc. if you wanted it to apply to some vs all eyes.

B34 talks about "Easy to Hit" as "large eyes" or "eyes on stalks" and there is one conceptual distinction I'd draw between them: large eyes should still be a pathway to the brain (ignore skull DR) while eyes-on-stalks probably should not be. How do we reflect that difference though

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Plane

Maybe instead, creatures like Cyclops ought to be compelled to take something like Injury Tolerance: No Eyes (One Eye Only -50%) ? That way we can just assume your standard pirate with One Eye still has a 2nd targetable orifice which can hit the brain in addition to his remaining working eye.

B34 (360 Vision) talks about Extra Eyes being a special effect... but now I'm wondering if that also means more places you can target to hit the brain.

An actual Cyclops would still have a target able location of -9 to avoid skull DR just as much as someone with 9 eyes would without taking further traits. For the pirate, I think it's a special effect that one of the locations for this target happens to no further blind you. It's such a small effect that really only applies to pi and imp weapons (corrosion would hit both eyes already) that I think it's basically a free advantage.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

An actual Cyclops would still have a target able location of -9 to avoid skull DR just as much as someone with 9 eyes would without taking further traits. For the pirate, I think it's a special effect that one of the locations for this target happens to no further blind you. It's such a small effect that really only applies to pi and imp weapons (corrosion would hit both eyes already) that I think it's basically a free advantage.

A cyclops only needs to buy a DR 10 monocle to protect his brain, a pirate needs both a DR 10 monocle AND a DR 10 eyepatch (or just a DR 10 pair of glasses) to protect his brain.

There doesn't really seem to be any upside for the poor pirate here.

Maybe we need some kind of disadvantage called "extra hole to the brain" to reflect unseeing eyes, or maybe people who underwent trepanation? There's a version of that in "Black Sails" except with Mitigator: gold coin stuck in the skull-hole.

[RogerBW]

Never used it, and I didn't notice that the Infinite Cabal character had it.

Like so many of these disadvantages, I don't think it's much use in itself, but it would make sense as an anchor for something else: the price of mystical power, for example.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Plane

A cyclops only needs to buy a DR 10 monocle to protect his brain, a pirate needs both a DR 10 monocle AND a DR 10 eyepatch (or just a DR 10 pair of glasses) to protect his brain.

I'm not sure that scans. It would just be DR 10 'eyewear' in general. It covers the 'same' amount of area. If the cyclops has a single human-sized eye, then it seems less likely to be able to hit the eye, which would be a perk (generally speaking, increasing or decreasing a hit location by one is a fine perk or quirk).