Alright, yet another HP alternative.
Alright, yet another HP alternative.
This is a WIP, so I want your feedback to see what you think of it and what you’d modify.
This time, I got inspired by the Fate Core conditions mechanic.
I always loved how each injury had a narrative impact and the small tactical choice you have to take each time you receive damage. The big advantage is that you don’t need to get rid of the damage system to make it work.
So, the gist of it is that you have 6 Injury boxes (I’ve attached a mockup of how it could look). To each injury is tied a number (from 1 to 6). This is the number of damage that box can “absorb”. When you receive damage, you HAVE to check one or multiple boxes to absord equal or more of the damage received. For example, if you receive 3 damage, you could check both the 1pt and the 2-pts injury boxes, or the 3-pts alone, or even a higher than 3-pt box. Each time you check an injury box, you can also write a short description of the wound for narrative flare. When you check the (6) Fatal injury, you immediately make a Last breath move. These boxes correspond to 21 hp worth of damage, although you can only ever sustain 6 injuries, so you’d still go down after getting 6 injuries of 1 damage each. Armor still works the same.
Scars are optional mechanic (inspired by Uncharted Worlds) where you’d write a few words to describe an injury that left a visible mark, again only for fluff (but still has narrative weight as anything in a pbta game).
Here’s the moves I’ve added/modified to make this work:
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Patch up
When you patch untreated injuries, treat all your injuries then roll +Supply (+WIS if you don’t use Supply rules).
On a 10+, choose 1.
On a 7-9, choose 1 but suffer -1 Supply (or -1 Adventurer’s Gear).
■ Heal both Minor and Trivial injuries.
■ Lower the severity of your less severe injury by 1 degree (slot must be empty).
When you treat a wound, mark a star in its checkbox. A treated wound cannot benefit from the Patch Up move again.
When you heal a wound, clear the checkbox of this wound. When you do so, you can mark an appropriate scar.
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You’d also replace the line “Heal half HP” from Make Camp by:
Lower the severity of all treated injuries by 1 degree, then heal your Minor or Trivial wounds.
When you do so, you can rewrite the wound description to match its less severe state.
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I think it sounds actually way more complex than it actually is, though. In all cases, the wording is not final. I’ll also probably make a move to explain the mechanics. Something like :
Receive damage
When you receive damage, check a number of unchecked injury boxes whose sum equals or exceeds the damage received. If you check the Fatal injury box, roll Last Breath.
So whaddya think?
