Color Criticals

by Laura Trauth

Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 13:11:21 -0400 From: S003LLT@nova.wright.edu To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: Called location attacks

Some of the other replies to this post have commented that the critical potentially looses its severity with this method. There is a slightly different method that a couple of us have been using off and on for a few years now, that might be what you are looking for.

This all started because I was unhappy with the "black or white" character of RM crits. There are very few crits that kill you, which DON'T do so within a couple of minutes. Think about it -- if this were rally true, how many people suffering from internal injuries (for example) would make it to the hospital for treatment? Well,I'm not an MD or anything, but I went to the library and got some paramedic and emergecy room nursing books and read up on symptoms/effects of shock and various other sorts of injuries. At the same time, I went through the crits and "totalled" each entry, giving a numerical value to roudns of stun, etc.

So, for example, a crit that did 10 hits, 2 rnds stun, 1 hit/round bleeding and put you at -10 to act would have a total "crit value" of 50 points (1 for ea. hit, 1 for ea round of stun, etc.). This was totally arbitrary but it gave me a way to compare all the different crits numerically. From this nubmer and whether or not the crit was said to cause death, I divided all the charts up into some basic categories:

Green crits:  Not too inconvienient, don't kill (unless via later 
		infection, etc)
Yellow crits: Noticably inconvienient, may cause long-term slow-to-heal 
		damage if not treated (a detached retina is a good 
		example -- you will go blind in that eye and stay that way 
		w/o treatment).
Red crits:    Serious inconvieniences, prevent most NORMAL, non-crazy 
		people from fighting any more.  Will eventually kill or 
		cripple without treatment (i.e. a shattered bone)
Black crits:  Seriously inconvienience or incapacitate (-50 to -100) the 
		victim.  The person WILL DIE without treatment, anywhere from 
		instantaneously to a few hours down the line (bleeding into 
		the skull, sucking chest wound, etc) 

Now, having done this, I went to those books I'd checked out and used them to do two things. First, I made up a bunch of additional crits, Yellow, Red, and Black, for every area of the body: head, arms, legs, upper torso, lower torso. The second thing I did was make sure that there were black crtis that took a while to kill you, where you had internal bleeding or organ damage and would die in 1d10 hours, for example.

This gives the GM a lot of options. If he rolls a "die instantly" crit against a character that the player has put in weeks of hard work developing, and doesn't really want to turn his brain to jell-o, he can choos a dift. Black head crit that gives the group a couple of hours to get him healed. It also lets a GM say: O.K., ya wanna hit that guy in the head huh? Well, give him an extra 50 DB. If you hit well enough to roll a crit, do so and I'll deal out one of the appropriate "color" for the correct body part.

Unlike some of my other (perviously promised) references, I know where this stuff is, and if y'all are interested, I'll post the break-points for the different "colors" (though you could probably get some similar ones just by looking at the charts w/ a "critical eye" (pun intended)). Perhaps more importantly, I'd be glad to post the alternative crtis as well (but only if there is interest, since typing ain't my favorite past- time (not that you can tell)!! :-)

But in all seriousness, having these kinds of alternatives has been really useful to us, so if you're interested let me know.

Laura Trauth
Realist and Cynic

Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 07:18:29 -0400 From: S003LLT@nova.wright.edu To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: Alternative Crits Part 1

This is the first part of the alternative crit system I devised. I went through the AL & SL crit charts, plus some of the others, and gave each component a numerical value (ex: sun = 10 points/round, bleeding = 10 points per hit/rnd, must parry = 10, hits =2 points per 1 taken, etc). I averaged these arbitrary numerical values across the charts, and (ignoring a few that didn t fit in), assigned an average value to each box on the chart (yes, I had a LOT more free time in those days!). From these values I determined break points. Green crits generally had a value of less than 50. Yellow crits ran from 50-100, Red from 110 on up to where the crits state they kill you. The ones that actually say foe dies are the Black crits (though red should often eventually do so as well. You generally didn't survive a bad gut wound in pre-Modern times (peritonitis). This will vary a bit by table. Essence crits are really lethal, for example. Once you get the feel of how I'm dividing them, you should be able to adapt the system to all the charts, and, of course, modify it to suit the tone of your game.

 Average  Crit Chart       

|_________|_A_ |_B_ |_C_ |_D_ |_E_ |
|1-5      | G  | G  | G  | G  | G  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|6-10     | G  | G  | G  | G  | G  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|11-15    | G  | G  | G  | G  | G  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|16-20    | G  | G  | G  | G  | G  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|21-35    | G  | G  | G  | G  | G  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|36-45    | G  | G  | G  | G  | Y  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|46-50    | G  | G  | G  | Y  | Y  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|51-55    | G  | G  | G  | Y  | Y  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|56-60    | G  | G  | Y  | Y  | Y  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|61-65    | G  | Y  | Y  | Y  | Y  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|66*      | R  | R  | R  | B  | B  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|67-70    | Y  | Y  | Y  | Y  | R  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|71-75    | Y  | Y  | Y  | R  | R  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|76-80    | Y  | Y  | R  | R  | R  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|81-85    | R  | R  | R  | R  | B  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|86-90    | R  | R  | R  | B  | B  | 
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|91-95    | R  | R  | B  | B  | B  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|96-99    | R  | B  | B  | B  | B  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |
|100      | B  | B  | B  | B  | B  |
|_________|___ |___ |___ |___ |___ |

G=Green,  Y=Yellow, R=Red, B=Black

Now, if a PC in your game wants to hit someone in the arm, and succeeds in rolling a crit even after the extra DB you give the opponent, then see what color of crit he/she rolls. If it is not an appropriate crit, look up one of the same color on my Alternative Crit list (next post) and use that one instead. The GM can also decide to give a PC an alternative crit (that takes longer to kill, or is more LGOF (pronounced el-gee-oh-ef -- looks good on film ). If this is useful, please feel free to use it and tell all your friends what a brilliant person you got it from! :)

Laura Trauth
s003llt@desire.wright.edu

Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 11:51:44 -0400 From: S003LLT@nova.wright.edu To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: Called location attacks

Here are the alternative crits I developed.

But First: I never did any alternative Green crits, because they are all pretty non-specific. You can apply +3 hits, stunned 1 round to any body part.

When I say medical care, I mean at least Second Aid Magic will do as well, of course. If I ve said the cure must be magical, then I m figuring a pre-Modern level of medicine isn t good enough. The physician would need anaesthetic, antibiotics, intra- venous medication/fluid replacement, etc. If this is present in the world, then the players may not need magical spells or herbs to heal their comrade.

Internal bleeding can be dealt with in several ways. Obviously it can t be stopped w/ normal first aid procedures, and is going to be far harder to diagnose than surface bleeding. In our games, we say that because it often has multiple small sources (i.e. 3 hits /rnd from 6 different. 1/2 hit locations), and because it is hard to locate, it requires 2x the amount of clotting type spells. Two stop 1 hit/rnd is like stopping 2/rnd of normal bleeding. Another way to do this would be to require a spell mastery roll from the caster. Of course, all this assumes you want to make internal bleeding a really serious thing. In a less realistic, more four-color game you probably wouldn t want to make it harder to magically heal internal bleeding.

One last interesting thing is SHOCK. This is a very complicated phenomena that I am in no way qualified to expound upon, but I remember one or two interesting things from my reading. Shock is normally caused be blood loss, though there are other types as well (like anaphylactic shock from an allergic reaction, etc). When a person looses too much blood, they will die. There is a critical threshold that is passes while the person is still alive. Even if they are given enough blood to stabilize them, if they crossed that threshold, they will always die. This is because of the damage to the organ systems when their blood supply fell past critical. Within a few hours, even if, as I said, they seemed well on the way to recovery, all their organ systems will begin to fail, and they will die in a few hours.

In game terms (if you want to bother), I d say that this critical point is somewhere in the negative hit points --i.e. when you are dropping towards negative-your-constitution, the point of death. Off hand, I d say, maybe around 50-75% of the way to neg. con. would be a good point. If a character passed this point, even with an Unpain spell or the like up, and even if they received many hits back before reaching -con, they will die. [NOTE: this is one good way of toning down those over confident Noble Warriors, etc. with high-level Unpain spells and lots of hits who go around saying What, me worry? I can take 325 hits and I ll still be conscious. Heck, I can take 330 hits before I have to worry about stress crits or anything!]. What is needed to prevent this sort of death? Depends again on how serious you want the situation to be. They might need an Organ Repair spell or two, possibly w/ spell mastery, or maybe they just need to get back double the negative hits they lost, to represent fixing the microscopic organ damage before it gets any worse. You could also make it time dependant -- how long do they wait before seeking aid?

You may notice that some crits seem worse than others of the same color. They may stun for longer, or put one at more minuses, etc.. This is based upon the clinical symptoms of such injuries. If anyone would like more information, I would suggest going to the library of any local school that has a nursing or paramedic program. Emergency room manuals, etc. provide very concise and relatively non- technical information such things. Somewhere I have similar info dealing with assorted diseases (plague, cholera, etc). Again, if anyone is still interested after reading all this, I can dig it up and post it.

*                    Head/Face/Neck

Yellow:   Blow to head -- detached retina. 
          Foe at -25 to all maneuvers/combat
          (blurred vision, seeing spots). 
          Stunned 3 rnds, no parry next, +4
          hits.  Blindness in 2-20 hours
          unless person remains immobile for
          duration or is magically healed.
Red:  Blow to throat.  Fractured larynx. 
      Severe pain in face and neck, foe at -
      40 to all actions (pain, lack of
      oxygen from partially obstructed wind-
      pipe) and stunned no parry for 3 rnds. 
      + 6 hits. Permanent disability unless
      fixed magically or surgically.
Black:    Blow to head severs/crushes artery. 
          Bleeding inside skull (effectively <
          1 hit/rnd).  Foe OUT 3 rnds, then at
          -30.  Falls into a coma after 1-6
          hrs, death in additional 3-30 hrs.

*                    Chest/Upper Back

Yellow:   Blow breaks two ribs, foe at -25 to
          all actions.  Stunned three rounds,
          no parry next.  Internal bleeding, 1
          hit/round, +3 hits.
Red:  Badly fractured ribs.  Minor damage to
      lungs, liver or kidney. Stunned 4 rnds,
      no parry next rnd.  + 4 hits, 3 hits/
      rnd internal bleeding.  At -40 to all
      actions.  Eventual death (even if
      bleeding stopped) w/o medical care and
      bed rest.
Black:    Compound fracture of ribs.  Damage
          to two internal organs (pick from
          lungs, liver, kidney). Stunned 6
          rounds, no parry first 3.  At -70 to
          all actions.  6 hits/rnd internal
          bleeding, +10 hits.  Foe drops in
          2d10 minutes, dies in an additional
          2d100 minutes without magical
          healing.

 *                  Abdomen/Lower Back
      (These represent organ damage and/or internal
	bleeding + shock)

Yellow:   At -15 to all actions, and an
          additional -20 to maneuvers and
          combat.  2 hits/rnd internal
          bleeding.  Stunned 3 rnds.
Red:  Foe at -30 to all actions, -25
      additional to maneuvers/ combat.  4
      hits/rnd internal bleeding.  Stunned 4
      rnds, no parry next.  Eventual death (2-
      4 days) even if bleeding stopped, unless
      person has medical care and bed rest.
Black:    Foe at -40 to all actions, -30
          additional to maneuvers and combat. 
          6 hits/rnd internal bleeding, + 10
          hits.  Stunned no parry 4 rounds. 
          Foe OUT in 2d10 minutes, death in 1-
          10 hrs without magical healing.
                            
*                    Pelvis/Upper Leg

Yellow:   Minor fracture of pelvis.  Stunned 2
          rnds, must parry next at -20.  2
          hits/rnd internal bleeding.  +6
          hits.  At -25 to all actions.
Red:  Fractured pelvis.  Internal bleeding at
      5/rnd.  Foe is down and stunned 6 rnds. 
      -50 to all actions.  +10 hits.  Eventual
      death without medical care and bed rest. 
      
Black:    Severe fracture of pelvis.  -70 to
          all actions.  Internal bleeding at 8
          hits/rnd.  Foe is down and OUT for
          two rounds, then stunned for 4 more. 
          Foe dies in 10-100 minutes due to
          shock

*              Upper Leg [or Arm/Shoulder]
	To apply these to the arm, replace femur with
	humerus, scapula, and/or clavicle, and it will
	be the brachial artery that is damaged, not
	the femoral.  The crits will also tend to be
	reduced a level in severity -- black becomes
	red, red becomes yellow, yellow b/co green.

Yellow:   Minor fracture of femur.  -30 to all
          actions, +10 hits and 1 hit/rnd
          internal bleeding.  Must parry at -
          20 next 2 rnds.
Red:  Closed fracture of femur.  -50 to all
      actions and 3 hits/rnd internal
      bleeding.  Stunned 2 rnds and must make
      a maneuver (at applicable minuses) to
      remain standing (difficulty based on
      specific situation). +15 hits.  Death
      due to shock/bleeding if not treated and
      set.  May well cripple.
Black:    Compound fracture of femur.  5
          hits/round external bleeding + 3
          hits/rnd internal bleeding.  Foe at
          -100, down, and stunned no parry 6
          rnds.  +20 hits.  Death in 10-100
          mixtures even if bleeding
          controlled.  Must have magical
          healing.

Laura Trauth
s003llt@desire.wright.edu
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