Revisions to Combat

Despite not having game yesterday, Morgan and I were going back over the rules to help him think through the party's combat tactics, and he pointed out a key error in my understanding of the combat rules. Previously, I had said that in last week's example Clark would avoid a bleeding effect from a 4-point revolver hit because it was not more than half of his Standard Damage. In fact, the rule is half his BOD score, which is actually a quarter of his Standard Damage, or two points. For clarity, I want to revise the "Clark Getting Shot" scenario to explain how that actually plays out.

After Clark has been shot, falls over, and loses consciousness, he makes a Bleeding Check. The Bleeding Check is an unmodified BOD Check, i.e., a 2D6 roll plus the characters BOD score against a Target Number 12. Clark's BOD is 4, meaning he'd need an 8 or better to succeed -- he probably fails, and starts to bleed. What does this mean?

A Bleeding character suffers one point of damage every turn until the bleeding is stopped, in the End Phase, which means he loses this point the turn he's shot as well. Clark has already taken four points of damage, which means at the end of the fifth turn, Clark will take one more point of Standard Damage than he has, and die. In metaphorical terms, Clark has 25 seconds to live unless somebody can stop the bleeding.

Clark needs a MedTech check modified by his injury modifier to stop the bleeding. If he was still conscious, he could do that himself, but as we ascertained earlier, Clark likely lost consciousness when he was hit. If any of the ComStar personnel can get to him, they each have a +2 to MedTech, canceling the -2 of the injury modifier and making the roll require a natural 7 or better. It is reasonable to assume they'll stabilize him in a turn or two at 5 or 6 standard damage.

A closer review of the party revealed the frightening reality that David's BOD is only two, making him susceptible to bleeding on any hit whatsoever, and meaning that a revolver hit at +1 anywhere that doesn't have a natural damage reduction (such as extremities) will result in an immediate kill. This party has a serious problem the next time they go into combat.