Quote:
Originally Posted by Lameth
things can go off the story and come down to numbers., which is against the purpose of a story, tension, drama, and role playing.
If you needed that PC to know that if you do this, that NPC woman's throat will be cut and no matter how fast you think you are in combat, she will die. Yes she has a HT of 8, and yes she can go down to x5 before auto death, and yes she will be making health rolls for death, but no...if you press the bad guy blood will flow.
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I'm not sure what problem you're experiencing here.
Passing your HT check to avoid immediate death doesn't mean the blood doesn't flow...
Where exactly is the drama in hand-waiving "I'm not even rolling, she's just dead" ?
I think there's a lot more drama in using the optional blood loss rules, and she's losing an extra HP every 30 seconds and you can't stop the blood flowing fast enough with your First Aid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lameth
Or when the PC walks into the dark room and from behind they hear the light click of the gun to their back...
if you move you will not just take 2d6 to vitals, no, you may take maybe x4 or x5!!, and its automatically a major wound and stunning and so forth, due to you not being prepared for the attack and are at a disadvantage in this.
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Is the x3 vitals gets not enough? You're talking an average of 21 damage on 2d6 (7x3) which puts you below -1xHP if your HP is 10.
If that HT check is somehow passed you should be applying those optional blood loss rules.
Slowly bleeding out is way more dramatic than insta-die.
About the only thing I'd want to tweak is having more prequent intervals than 30 or 60 seconds for those optional rules. It's rather spread out. Like how about chop that time by 1/10 and every 3 or 6 seconds you do a HT roll to avoid losing 0.1 hp ? Maybe 0.1 fp to boot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lameth
If there is no sense of danger or automatic crippling or death in those rare movie drama moments, and a simple healing spell or a fast compress to the throat can stop any tension, then what is the best middle ground?
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Who says the healing spell is simple? Maybe there's low (-5) or very low (-10) mana, or you can only heal ceremonially (10 seconds, not 1) or you're too far away (-1 per yard)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lameth
No im not looking for auto death of the PCs, but to give a higher sense that there is true danger outside of your hit points pool totals, and the death rolls with a 16 that you will always make.
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Cole's Last Gasp rules for FP can help here, -1 to HT per 20% missing FP if I recall right.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gnome
I don't know if this helps, but here's what's on B423:
Instant Death
Decapitation, a cut throat, etc. can kill anyone, regardless of HT and HP. If a helpless or unconscious person is attacked in an obviously lethal way, he’s dead. Don’t bother to roll for damage, calculate remaining HP, etc. Just assume that he drops to -5xHP.
The GM is left to define what "helpless" means, but if a strong thug has an ordinary person grappled with a knife held to the person's throat, you could as a GM rule the person is helpless.
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GM is also left to define what "obviously lethal" is. It's a bad first since that can be a blurry line with weak weapons and strong characters.
Handwaiving this also seems to be a contradiction to 4e abandoning 3e's decapitation rules because it too easily caused deaths.
If the absolute minimum damage is guaranteed kill then yeah sure, ignore it, but otherwise I'd just say to follow the rules.
Veins/Arteries might possibly be redone so that it doesn't cause higher immediate HP loss and instead make the bleeding rules way more extreme and regular.