System grab-bags:Damage
System_grab-bags > Damage
Contents
Damage Generation[edit]
Critical table (Rolemaster)[edit]
Post-conflict fallout (DitV)[edit]
Roll determines damage[edit]
The amount by which a character succeeds at an attack determines the amount or type of damage dealt.
Example System; World of Darkness- A player rolls a pool of 4 dice for their attack and obtains 2 successes. The target then suffers 2 wound levels of damage.
Separate damage roll[edit]
After succeeding at an attack succeeds a separate roll of one or more die is rolled to determine how much or what kind of damage is inflicted.
Example System; D&D- A character wielding a dagger rolls a D20 to hit, having obtained a successful strike they then roll a d4 and add any other modifiers to determine the amount of damage done. If they were using a different weapon they may have rolled a die with a different number of sides or possibly multiple dice.
Tracking damage[edit]
Overall Health[edit]
Often referred to as Hit Points though other terms (Vitality, Life, Wounds) are also used. This simply tracks the character's health level from full to zero (or below).
Example System- D&D
Health levels[edit]
Characters have several health levels, such as Healthy - Lightly wounded - Heavily wounded - Incapacitated - Dead. Typically, pushing the character to the next wound level requires an attack to exceed a certain threshold of points. Each wound level typically causes progressively greater penalties.
Example system- World of Darkness
Setting / story consequences[edit]
This form of ”damage” is often pretty straightforward - if the character loses the conflict, then the setting or storyline is affected in some way he didn't want to happen. It's possible to make this more formalized, however. A character in a debate may need to make concessions each time he takes damage (Burning Wheel), or a god's realm may be transformed for the worse each time the god is injured. In Universalis, the winner of a conflict gets points which she can then use to add, remove or alter existing story elements.
Statistic damage[edit]
Some of the character's attributes are increased or decreased (depending on which one makes them worse), either temporarily or permanently. Some statistics that typically take damage are: hit points, attributes, experience points or levels, clones.
Wounds[edit]
Each attack may cause different kinds of wounds, each causing separate penalties (a wound on the right harm harming attack rolls and a wound on the leg slowing movement, for instance).
