How Much More Can He Take?: Difference between revisions

** ''[[Mutants and Masterminds]]'' does the same thing. It seems that in the games where systems other than hit points are used this is extremely prevalent.

*** Although, in the default implementation, wounds and bruises only affected your ability to take further damage. An optional rule (usually invoked for Iron Age games) stipulates that all rolls suffer a penalty. Taking a significant enough blow can leave you stunned, staggered, unconscious, disabled, or dying (specific states that hamper your actions).

** ''[[Champions]]'' uses two stats; Body and Stun. An attack that inflicts Body damage has actually injured the character; enough injury results in the character's death. Stun damage can leave the character dazed (lose an action) or result in the character becoming unconscious.

** ''[[Shadowrun]]'' uses a two stat wound tracking system - lethal and nonlethal damage. Characters accumulate ever greater penalties to all actions as those tracks fill up.

*** The old Alternity system had ''four'' stats for wound tracking. Damage in some of them came with associated penalties to all actions; damage in others didn't.

** ''[[The World of Darkness]]'' games track "health levels", with descriptions of what each means (Bruised is the first level of damage, for example). The more damage you take, the greater the penalties to your rolls; once you're down to one level left, you can barely walk.

** ''[[Exalted]]'', which uses a similar system, does have this problem with high-powered exalts fighting. Since raising your damage is much easier than raising your resistance to damage, and perfect dodges and parries are cheap and reliable, most fights between non-lunar celestials are utterly bloodless until one runs out of juice and is summarily splattered all over by the opponent's Ultimate Doom-combo. This is even worse since you don't necessarily know how much juice your opponent has left.

** Interestingly, in the PDQ system this is the only way damage is tracked at all - damage is taken directly off of your skills and you lose the fight when you have none left.

** ''[[GURPS]]'' notes shock penalties for each hit (pain from being struck), crippling damage (broken bones or joints) and has penalties causing by losing too much HP.

** ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' has a rarely-used optional rule: The Clobbered rule. Taking half your hit points in physical (non-magical) damage, total, in a single round, reduces your ability to act in the next round. However, since no-one uses that rule, most of the time D&D uses the traditional [[Critical Existence Failure]] rule.

*** The D&D Miniatures game follows the RPG's lead. Most creatures have to make a morale roll after losing half their Hit Points, or run off the battlefield. Otherwise, there's no difference between being at full HP or nearly dead. By contrast, games like [[Hero Clix]] or [[Mage Knight]] have characters get progressively weaker (and lose special abilities) as they take damage.

** ''Star Wars Saga edition'' battles can either follow or avert this trope depending on how much damage is being dealt per attack. Lots of weak attacks can bleed off hp without any noticeable effect until you suddenly drop dead from being hit with a toothpick but powerful attacks will move your character down a condition track, making you suffer penalties to everything until you've recovered.

* ''[[Burning Wheel]]'' has a wound meter, but rather than filling up with damage, you just mark each hit under how much incapacitation it inflicts. It's actually very difficult to land a killing blow; most combat ends when one fighter's will breaks and he flees or surrenders, but between strong-willed fighters, they can keep going until one is so penalized by wounds that he can't move.