Editing Samsara:Checks (section)

===Variation: Checks as Hit Points or Wound Levels===
To mitigate the “Death Spiral”[http://random.average-bear.com/TheoryTopics/DeathSpiral] effect of receiving checks, the game could played with the checks functioning more as counters (like the archetypal “hit points”), than as active, negative modifiers.  In the basic form of this variation, characters receiving checks mark them as usual, but the checks do not apply as modifiers to their subsequent actions in the contest.  The checked actor continues to function at full effectiveness throughout the contest.  The contest still ends when the total checks received provide a net -6 to his contest rolls.  So an actor functions at full effectiveness in the contest until he loses.   This can be a bit more over-the-top than the default rule.

Another way to implement this would be to regard the checks as counters along a wound level chart, which can be as simple or complex as preferred.  As above, checks do not act as active, negative modifiers, but as counters.  For example, one could make the rule that for every 3 checks received in the contest, the character does make subsequent rolls in the contest at a cumulative -1.   This means that actors will function slightly less well as they begin losing the contest, though not nearly so badly as in the default rules.  Characters with a higher initial modifier will have farther to fall than those with low beginning modifiers; an average actor will take 3 checks and perform at -1, and then be out of the contest at -6.