Fatigue Point Use for Wizards AND Warriors

[flankspeed]

I’m thrilled that people are contributing great ideas and food for thought. I like creating separate pools of HP and FP because some damage types or situations are meant to wear out a character’s endurance rather than to outright kill them. Climb a sheer, vertical cliff making stressful saving throws along the way, and that’s FP loss. Failing a save and falling from a great height, that’s HP loss.

Enough Fatigue loss will eventually start to eat into Hit Points and become lethal, but it never sat well with me that a wizard who was merely getting tired from casting spells was effectively committing suicide by also reducing the number of Hits he could take before dying. However, I do still like FP loss to be a significant thing that could result in unconsciousness or even death on a critical failure.

Wizards must exhaust their FP before being able to cast using Hit Points. This forces wizards to pass through the state of reaching 0 FP, falling prone, and needing to save vs ST to remain conscious (plus save again to get back on their feet). And they will also need to deal with being at -2 to attribute rolls after becoming exhausted, making their Hit Point casting in the heat of battle less likely to succeed.

I also like how having separate HP and FP allows a wizard to cast a healing spell on himself, regaining HP for the temporary expenditure of FP. This doesn’t make sense in the original rules where using Fatigue ST for a healing spell would reduce the same pool of ST points that the character is trying to increase through healing.


BRAWLING & STRIKING TO SUBDUE

Giving characters separate HP and FP allows for most unarmed fighting to be non-lethal by default, inflicting FP loss instead of HP loss. Only when a character specifically states an intent to inflict permanent bodily injury would the damage reduce HP as per normal, armed combat.

Characters may also strike to subdue with blunt parts of their hand weapons so long as the attack does not include any fire-based damage (fire always inflicts lethal damage unless there are extenuating circumstances). Such attacks do only FP damage rather than HP damage, but the damage is halved (round down).

If the weapon has no blades, spikes, or pointed edges (such as a sap, club, staff, or blunt training weapon) or if the weapon/attack is unusually suited to doing non-lethal damage (such as a rock, boomerang, sling bullet, Magic Fist spell, low-ST Lightning Bolt, Taser, or beanbag shotgun round), then the attack inflicts full FP damage (not half).

Pacifist characters will be sure to use only blunt weapons striking for non-lethal damage, priestly wizards might rely on Magic Fist so as not to kill a potential convert, and everyone will find non-lethal weapons/attacks useful for capturing prisoners.

Note that when FP=2 or less, the character is at -2 to Attribute rolls, and when FP=0, the character falls prone and must roll 3d6 vs ST to remain conscious. On subsequent turns, if still conscious, the character may attempt to stand up by succeeding on another roll of 3d6 vs ST. Note also that wound effects of taking 5 Hits of FP damage in one turn will cause a -2 DX on the next turn, and 8 Hits of FP damage in one turn will cause the character to fall prone.

Any excess FP damage after reducing FP to 0 is carried over to HP as lethal damage. This is how continued beating of a helpless foe may result in death, whether intended or not. One cannot keep kicking someone on the ground or stoning someone in the biblical sense without almost certainly killing them.

When an attack inflicting non-lethal FP damage scores a critical hit of double or triple damage, any excess damage beyond FP=0 carries over to become HP damage instead. Alternatively, the GM may rule that a double-damage result inflicts full, normal, lethal HP damage that is not doubled, and a triple-damage result inflicts the full, normal amount of damage rolled (not triple) to BOTH of the character’s FP and HP simultaneously. Any excess FP damage would become HP damage as usual.

Now go enjoy the relatively friendly fisticuffs of a good-natured barroom brawl! And as long as you’re taverngoing, you might as well also enjoy some rules for intoxication by yours truly:

Tavern Fun Time: Alcohol, Drinking, Intoxication, and After Effects

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=159492