Keeping you players alive for dummies

[johndallman]

First, your characters need Combat Reflexes. That's the basic "I do combat" advantage. Extra HP and HT are always good. To keep characters alive as GM, avoid using the bleeding rules.

Fit [5] gives +1 to all HT rolls, and is as helpful for survival as a level of HT, at half the price.

Hard to Kill [2/level] gives +1/level to HT rolls to avoid dying. You could reasonably allow characters who've survived HT rolls to avoid death to buy it as part of their legend.

Increased Speed [20/level] lets you win contests of Fast-Draw and improves your Dodge. Enhanced Dodge [15] is cheaper, but only improves Dodge.

Something else that helps is a willingness to accept that you're wounded badly enough to be out of the fight. Example: Bob took a rifle hit, which took him from healthy to beyond -1*HP. Assuming he makes his HT roll, if he doesn't move after that, he probably won't get shot at any more. If he tries to carry on fighting, he will take more fire, and another rifle hit is likely to take him to -3*HP, requiring two more rolls to survive.

Having someone around with good Surgery/TL skill is very helpful. If you fail a HT roll to survive by 1 or 2, you're mortally wounded (p. B424), but won't die immediately. You need Surgery (or magical healing) to recover, and having your own surgeon on hand helps a lot. For example, Bob has HT12, Fit and Hard to Kill 1. When he has to roll to stay alive, 14 or less means he's alive, 15 or 16 mean he's mortally wounded and 17+ mean he's dead. Rounding the numbers, that's 91% chance of survival unaided, 7% of possible survival if you get Surgery, and 2% being dead outright.

Don't encourage the characters to have High Noon confrontations, unless they're much faster and more skilled than their opponents. Ambushes are far more effective, and those need skills like Stealth, Camouflage and Tactics. Night Vision is a good low-key supernatural advantage, and a huge advantage in night battles.