Healing and survival

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

I agree that with a rule that says you die on negative ST, then most people who falls will be "fine", as in will die in half a minute or a minute at the most.

Most people that get injured doesn't die instantly. They bleed out or die from internal injuries hours later despite being healed. Even most victims of car crashes or shooting victims doesn't die instantly.

Ok, but even with a physicker, that also ought to still happen to a lot of people. If you just make it a simple IQ roll to stop it, then you change TFT from a game where most of the fallen die, to one where it's usually very likely you will survive to get cut down by swords and axes.

Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

Sure a dagger to the eye should probably kill you and a (1-1) x3 will not do that instantly. But then again some people survived multiple stabbings to the head or a bullet through their brains. And many people who get shot in the head and dies doesn't die instantly. Some victims get beaten unconscious with clubs and such, and then beaten by multiple people after that on the ground and they still survive. I would say this is more common and it definitely doesn't work in TFT where you jump around, then wobble for one hit and then die, usually without passing by the step called unconscious. It works for a war game but not an RPG.

And I agree that the 1-point threshold of unconsciousness is a good thing to widen - I just wouldn't widen it so much that it takes a strong crit to kill anyone.

Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

What I want to give PC are a time buffer. If there is no healing available or no one can get to them in time, then it's over. I would even allow that they are not unconscious but incapacitated so they can whisper their last words in a dramatic way.

And there I'd be more generous, allowing some people to survive without physicking, especially for people just at 0, who just have a lot of minor crushing hits or something. That's why I want the damage done to matter.

Last whispers can be granted by the GM no matter what the damage system.

Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

One could even add a system for the "bleeding" that is 1 per turn. But for each time you try to heal them you change that by a factor; 1/turn, 1/minute, 1/10 minutes, 1/hours, 1/day. And as soon as you fail, you can't do more for them, but must hope for another doctor to do it better. That means that you could end up with a fallen PC that "bleeds" out in a few hours or will die from the infection in a few days. Depending on where you are and how far away proper healing and rest is, can be very dramatic.

Well yes, and this is the sort of thing I do do in GURPS.

Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

And we all know that 1/216 means a very real chance of death. 5 people in a party, 5 attacks on average against them, 5 turns per combat and 5 combats in an adventure. That means 2-3 x3 crits on a PC per dungeon. 6-7 x2 crits. A normal broadsword for 2die damage. That means on average with a little average deviation:
15,21,27 damage hits.
6,10,12,16,18,22 damage hits.
[...]
And crits will kill you sooner rather than later. And yet people manage to get their characters up to 40+ points without dying. Statistically speaking it is almost an impossibility.
[...]

No, it absolutely does not mean that, unless you resolve your adventures with statistics instead of playing them.

If you expose the party to hundreds of 2-die attacks per adventure sure. But that's leaving out the game. Especially because TFT has no active defenses, skillful play of TFT is about avoiding getting attacked as much as possible. You use caution, scouting, tactics, the map, formations, ranged weapons, DX superiority, ganging up, deception, HTH, spells, nets, wounding and taking down the enemy before they attack you, etc etc etc, in order to get attacked and hit as few times as you possibly can.

If you're getting yourself hit by hundreds of 2-die attacks per adventure, then yeah you probably should be cut to ribbons. You learn what you did wrong and develop better tactics for your next party.