Healing and survival

[Nils_Lindeberg]

The popular rule about a full ST hit in order to kill your. How does that work? If I have full ST at 15 and I take one 15 hit I die, and if I have 2ST left due to earlier wounds and get a 14ST hit I am knocked out but not dead? Seem a little strange to me, but I can see it working. D&D5E uses a similar system. You go down on any hit and end up at 0 HP. If you go all the way to negative max HP in one attack, you die. Otherwise you end up at 0 HP. And at 0 HP you roll to survive so no one knows how much time you have.

I am not too fond of the -3 ST before you die. Sure it gives a margin of error which is better than the current rules, but in my opinion it is too small. There is no tension to try to save the dying guy like you have in many other systems that have "bleeding out" or the equivalent. And your actual ST doesn't matter much, once you are knocked out you are just as easily killed as anyone else. -Negative half your max ST would work. I go with fST instead of negative ST for two reasons. Once you start to bleed and get healed you will at least be tired. And if you are exhausted from exposure and what not, everyone will care, since it lessens their ability to survive after unconsciousness. And it also provides a natural step go from exposure fST damage to real damage once you go unconscious. I even allow mages to cast spells that are too big for them and they knock themselves out and take the rest as real wounds. But I realize that might skew the power level too much and might not be for everyone. So it is not part of my suggestion.

Either way. A system that lets you get knocked out of the fight, so the fights doesn't get longer or less "deadly". But at the same time your character might survive to continue the story. Maybe going below 0 put you in a mortally wounded category and you heal naturally at half speed...

Healing 3+3 points might seem like a lot. But it represent the best medical attention you could get. And a 6p wound is a lot, but if you don't die at 0, but at negative ST, etc. 6p is just a half assed hit with a sword. A good hit with a sword will linger, even if you heal half of the wound, the rest will put you in sickbed and might force a retreat. And do you feel that 6 points would be too much to heal from potions as well in a high experience campaign? In a starting group 1+2 would probably be the more common amount of healing available. So healing gets better, people can also take more damage without dying. People can soldier on in a dungeon crawl and so on. More than one parameter changes with the suggested rulings.

My main point is to take them as a whole, or switch some parts with other similar parts, but they should go together. And these are the ones I think leaves the smallest footprint with the biggest positive effects.

But if 3+3 per wound still feels like too much. Increase the IQ needed for the wizard spells. Maybe (9),12,15,18 and use the Aid spell as the first "step" and a poor man's healing. You can heal fST at the cost of fST. And then the three Heal I, II and III spells. Then only the best guilds or healing places can offer that last point. And so, being healed by the king's own physician significantly lowers your recuperation time. And wizardly average IQ is generally higher than a Hero with Physicker skills.