I've been dissatisfied with Hit Points for a while. They don't help with immersion, which is one of the priorities of my games. I want to experiment with "qualitative harm", wounds described in more detail and organized in broad categories, with different effects, like these ones from @PanicPillow 's uber-cool blog: https://tabletopcuriositycabinet.blogspot.com/2022/03/ordering-chaos-qualitative-harm-and.html Here's the outline of a FKR combat resolution system inspired by that post and Skerples' old post about medieval armor
When armor PROTECTS, weapon damage scales down one step. When armor is IMPERVIOUS, weapon damage scales down 2 steps. Incurable wounds > lethal wounds > serious wounds > light wounds/bruises > unharmed Leather PROTECTS against slashing weapons like swords or axes Chainmail is IMPERVIOUS to slashing weapons Plate is IMPERVIOUS to slashing and bludgeoning weapons, and PROTECTS against piercing weapons like sword thrusts, daggers and arrows Shields PROTECT against all 3 kinds of damage Improvised weapons cause light wounds Light weapons like arrows from bows and daggers cause serious wounds Medium weapons cause serious wounds if wielded in one hand, lethal wounds if wielded with two Heavy weapons, including crossbows, cause incurable wounds
As explained in Skerples' post, some monsters may have damage immunities so slashing isnt always the worst option. There's also elemental damage and magical damage involved, and magical healing may get rid of incurable wounds. I would suggest putting things in the world that get rid of the nastiest wounds, so that the PCs don't become useless after a while, but still change: for example, if someone loses an arm, they may visit a biomancer to graft a crocodile arm instead.
I suggest using an oracle like Ask the Stars to determine the specific damage, but here are some examples:
Slashing
- Light cut on hand, finger, brow, neck, nose, cheeks, parts of ear severed
- Serious: cut tendons, eye blinded, deep cut on shoulder, liver cut, deep cut on arm,
- Lethal/incurable: jugular/carothid slahed apart, belly opened and spilled guts, arms or legs severed or partly severed
Piercing - Light: hits sternum, glances head, fall on your back - Serious: goes through arm or shoulder, leg, foot or an organ, gouges out an eye - Lethal/incurable: neck pierced through, genitalia pierced through, pierced lung, heart... Bludgeoning: - Light: almost dodged hit on head or liver, limb that parried goes numb for a moment, teeth flying out or bit tongue - Serious: busted foot or knee, shoulder dislocated, broken ribcage or other bone - Lethal/incurable: cracked skull, busted balls
