Topic: How to heal a critical?

[uberyoung]

I was toying with the idea of having a secondary 'damage type' table (beside whichever crit table you prefer), such as:

1 (and below) = Arterial
2 = Tendon
3 = Muscle
.
.
8 = Fractured Bone
9 = Broken Bone
0 (and above) = Shattered Bone
(I can't remember all the categories (but you get the idea) 'cause I'm no where near my notes at the moment, but they are roughly based on RM / MERP damage 'types').

The 'damage type' would be based on the 'ones' digit of your attack roll (or attack roll total).
You could adjust for damage type, i.e. Crush = +2 (biasing the table towards Breaks), Punture = -2 (biasing towards arterial / organ damage), Slash = 0 (being equally as likely to do all).

You may need a seperate table for Energy attacks, but with a bit of thought and generalisation of the damage type it would probably fit well enough...

You could then add extra scaling options onto the healing spells (which I'm now making up as I go along here, so need to be worked out properly):
+2pp = Heals Fracture
+4pp = Heals Break
+6pp = Heals Shatter etc.

It would also make herb use (as I use a lot of MERP / RM herbs) a bit more specific...

[Dr_Sage]

Dear fellow,

The idea has merit, but it would have to be more integrated into the Core System. Not every critical in a fantasy setting should cause that enormous organ damage.

And in my opinion its not important the nerve/muscle/whatever damage, becuse it sounds a little too modern to my medieval ears.

As an example: in real life I have just hurted my left knee nerves playing Volleyball. It was a serious twist. If I was on a medieval times there would be no specific diagnostic except what we could observe: I cant walk proprerly and I feel incapacitating pain in the knee, so I can?t move (and fight) properly. No big difference if was "nerve", "muscle", "bone". The big deal would be somehing like: -50% movement and -30 Penalty.

For now what I do in my games is carefuly read the critical description becuse they somethimes brings the organ damage among the lines. But I still believe just a small fractio of medieval fantasy strikes should cause serious organ damage (like in the movies).

Just 2 my cents...

[uberyoung]

The actual degree / severity of the damage would be linked to the penalty, i.e. Light ( 0 to -20) / Moderate (-21 to -40) / Severe (-41 and worse) or similar (and should probably fit in with the standard HARP penalty thresholds / categories).
Thus, a -10 'generic' critical could equate to either:
a) Organ = Bruised lung
b) Bone = Fracture / bone chip
c) Muscle = Sprain
d) Tendon = Strain
whereas a -30 'generic' critical could equate to either:
a) Organ = Lung tissue damage
b) Bone = Break
c) Muscle = Incomplete Tear
d) Tendon = Stretch
whereas a -50 'generic' critical could equate to either:
a) Organ = Collapsed lung
b) Bone = Shatter
c) Muscle = Complete Tear
d) Tendon = Snapped
(I have no 'real' medical knowledge, so these might not be the best descriptions...).

Taking several 'little' injuries could (depending on the total penalty) then increase in severity...
This works best if you track by location (but obviously adds a bit of complexity)...

It is true that the 'type' of damage may not be important to YOU (as you are 'just' feeling the pain), but MAY be important for the poor sap who is trying to heal you (mis-diagnosing and treating your 'real life' injury as a 'break' rather than 'nerve' damage could introduce complications)?
You are correct to say that this may be 'too modern' and 'too knowledgable', but depends on how accurate / specific that a 'fantasy healer' could (or would have to) diagnose.
I like gritty games where injuries hurt and are a hinderance (and not immeadiately solved by magic), so this fits my personal taste...

As I mentioned, I also use the RM / MERP herbs (as I run my games in Middle Earth).
Many describe their effects as 'heals minor sprains', 'heals torn tendons', 'mends fractures (but not breaks)', etc., so this type of method helps makes the individual herbs more individual and useful.

[Alwyn]

Deeman,

Yes I would. 

Martial Law also has more variety in the crits since it has crit results by location.  So it lets you know which bones are broken and results such as falling down to the ground, if the armor in that area is destroyed, if a limb becomes useless until healed, which external or internal organs are destroyed, etc.

I find that the critical results in ML give the healers more to do and repair.

Just my two coppers.