Specific Injuries

The critical hit charts include a number of specific injuries that go beyond a simple loss of hit points. Wounds are divided into five degrees of severity: grazed, struck, injured, broken, and finally shattered, severed, or crushed.

Wounds should be recorded on the character sheet. Attack and movement penalties remain until the injury that created the penalty has healed. Wounds are always accompanied by some loss of hit points, but a specific injury isn’t damage per se; consider it a temporary penalty that the character has to put up with until it is restored.

For example, Feodor the Bold is fighting an ogre armed with a club. The ogre scores a critical hit, rolling a 6 for location and a 7 for severity. Feodor’s torso has been struck, a wound that reduces him to 1/2 his normal move and gives him a –2 penalty to any attack rolls he makes. (It also puts a healthy dent in his nice plate mail.) Feodor’s penalties remain until he recovers from his “torso struck” specific injury.

Let’s say that Feodor had 16 hit points, and the ogre’s blow inflicted 12 points of damage. The missing 12 hit points can eventually be recovered, but Feodor’s penalties remain until the “torso struck” specific injury heals.

Severe injuries can temporarily reduce a character’s maximum allowable hit points. In other words, a fighter with a broken leg will not be allowed to enjoy his full allotment of hit points until his broken leg is repaired. If the character has more hit points than he is currently allowed, he is reduced to the injured value when the current battle is over. This represents the increased vulnerability of badly wounded characters.

For example, if a fighter with 30 hit points receives 10 points of damage and an “arm destroyed” injury that reduces him to 50% of his normal hit points, he drops from 20 to 15 when the battle is concluded and remains at 15 until his ruined arm is somehow healed. Remember, though, that specific injuries are only inflicted if the victim fails a saving throw vs. death.

Grazed: Grazes are minor injuries that may prove troublesome if they bleed. A cure light wounds spell or other healing magic capable of restoring 4 hp will heal a graze. (The cure light wounds spell doesn’t have to actually restore that many points; it just must be capable of doing so.) Grazes also heal naturally as if they were a loss of 1d6 hp. In other words, if a graze is the equivalent of a 3-hp wound, two days of rest heal it completely, since characters normally recover 2 hp per full day of rest. Note that the graze isn’t tied to the character’s actual loss of hit points in any way. If a grazed character receives healing magic, the graze is healed and he gets to recover hit points.

Struck: A body part that has been struck is often penalized in a small way for the effects of the wound. For example, a critical hit that reads, “weapon hand struck, –2 penalty to attacks,” means that the character has a –2 attack penalty with his weapon hand until the wound is healed. Injuries of this type can be healed by a cure light wounds spell or other healing magic capable of restoring 5 hp of damage. Struck areas heal naturally as if they were a loss of 2d6 hp.

Injured: Wounds of this severity can trouble a character for weeks; they heal naturally as if they were a loss of 10d6 hp. A cure serious wounds spell or other healing magic capable of restoring 10 hit points can also repair the injury. Injuries almost always entail serious combat penalties for the wounded character.

Injured arms, legs, or tails reduce a character to 75% of his normal hit points. An injury to the abdomen, torso, or head reduces a character to 50% of his normal hit points. A 25-hp character with a chest injury can have no more than 13 hit points until his injury is healed (and could have a lot less than that if he continues to suffer damage!)

Broken: Broken bones run the gamut from minor fractures that don’t hinder a character at all to life-threatening compound fractures. Generally, the previous two injury categories are considered to include minor breaks or cracks; this category is reserved for severe fractures. Broken bones can be mended by a cure serious wounds spell that is devoted just to knitting the bone; unlike grazed, struck, or injured, the character regains no hit points from a spell used in this way. Broken bones heal naturally as if they were 20d6 lost hit points, so bed rest in the care of a proficient healer is a really good idea if the injured character is planning on resuming his adventuring career anytime soon.

Broken arms reduce a character to 75% of his normal hit points. Broken ribs or legs reduce a character to 50% of his normal hit points. Any other broken bones reduce a character to 25% of his normal hit points.

Crushed, Shattered, or Destroyed: Limbs that suffer this kind of catastrophic injury may never be usable again; hits to the torso, abdomen or head of this magnitude are often lethal. If the victim survives, he will never naturally recover to his normal self. A limb damaged this way will be useless for the rest of his life, and hits anywhere else will leave the victim incapacitated. The victim will be bedridden for at least one to eight months before he can even regain a semblance of mobility.

A cure critical wounds spell or other healing magic capable of restoring 20 hp of damage can repair the damage of this kind of injury. In addition, the bones of the affected area (if any) are assumed to be broken and may require another application of healing magic to repair.

Destroyed shoulders, hips, or limbs reduce the victim to 50% of his normal maximum hit points. Any other wounds of this magnitude reduce the victim to 25% of his normal total.

Severed: Obviously, a creature that has a limb severed can no longer engage in activities that require the use of that member. A human with a severed leg can’t walk or run and is reduced to crawling until he gets a crutch. A character with a severed shield-arm can’t use a shield anymore, and so on. The only way to undo this kind of damage is by means of a regeneration spell.

The shock of losing a limb will prevent a character from moving independently or attacking for 2d10 weeks. At the DM’s discretion, a character who “only” loses a hand or a foot may actually be able to perform limited activities after being stunned 1d6 rounds, but only by passing a System Shock roll. However, characters who sustain such massive injuries are best off abandoning the field to their enemies.

The loss of a limb will reduce a character’s maximum normal hit points by 25% for a partial loss, or 50% for a more catastrophic loss. If the character can compensate with a wooden leg or hook, the hit point loss may be reduced by one step.

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