> Thanks Rob, Mike, for your replies. I'm definitely
> talking BTW about
> what the HQ rules refer to as physical injury -
> being stabbed by a
> sword, falling off a mountain, mauled by a dream
> dragon, etc, rather
> than injured pride, exile from the clan, etc, etc.
OK, that makes it simpler.
> I'd completely missed the fact that the injury (etc)
> penalties only
> apply to "appropriate abilities" - I'm going to have
> to go away and
> think about that, as it sounds like it's an open
> door to the Dreaded Arbitrariness ...
It definitely sounds as if your prefered style of play is exactly opposite to mine! Which of course does not to imply that there's anything wrong with that: if we all had the same tastes, there'd be a terrible shortage of haggis :)
Right, some ideas that I'd probably never use myself but that might be worth looking at.
One is that most physical injuries have two things in common. They hurt, and they involve blood loss. So they are relevant to any contest where being distracted by pain is relevant, or where feeling dizzy and weak is relevant. Which covers just about everything!
Does it stack? I'd say so, myself. The theory of treading on your own toes to distract yourself from the toothache doesn't work for me. But the -100% isn't "dead", it's either "unconscious" or "totally incapacitated by pain". Sorry, choosing which is arbitrary :( Roll against Brave?
If your players are told that they've been physically injured, what do they want to happen next?
Mine then sit down and write pages of loving description of exactly how it happened, including the damage to the bracers they inherited from Uncle Horace and how they get on with the rather good-looking healer (shame she isn't here) - and that's for a -1 hurt to a follower :) So I really don't want to prompt them any further, it's the last thing they need.
You might want to grab yourself a Random Hit Location chart (RQ is as good as any) to find out where they've been hit, if it's relevant. No more arbitrariness.
Or do they simply not care? Is the game-level -3 more important to them than the blood dripping from their leg and the nagging suspicion that they won't be able to outrun that scorpion-man any more? If so, what you want is Generic Internal Injury - the character has no idea what's specifically wrong, either, they just know something in their middle hurts a lot. That covers anything from a stitch to a broken rib to a punctured lung to a heart attack, which should do you fine.
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