Death and Injury

Before you read the table, you need to understand Flesh, Grit, and how damage effects them. If you're already familiar with the concept, feel free to skip ahead to Death and Injury.

Notes:

• I first learned about the concept of Flesh and Grit from Logan Knight, though my version isn't 100% the same.
• If you're not into my system, here's my favorite system other than my own.
• The goal of this system is to be specific, deadly  and minimal while still giving players meaningful decisions to make, generating tension, and encouraging narrative variety for the referee. 

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Damage

Every Damage roll removes Grit from the victim in an amount equal to the result of the roll. When there is no Grit, remaining damage is applied to Flesh instead.

Grit

• Grit is derived from HD. It's basically the same thing as HP, just renamed.
• Grit is an abstract measure of a PC's well-being and fitness for combat. Losing Grit represents bruises, scratches, dented armor, torn clothing, aching muscles, depleted breath and so on.
• Sneak attacks ignore Grit and apply damage directly to Flesh.

Flesh

• Flesh loss represents broken bones, torn and punctured flesh, blood loss, et cetera.
• You have 1 HD of flesh. You never gain more.
• When a character loses any amount of Flesh, use the Death and Injury system below.
• Rest heals 1 Flesh per week.

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Death and Injury

If any Attribute drops to 0, the character is dead.

Flesh Loss

When your character loses any Flesh, make a Saving Throw. Success indicates Injury. Failure indicates death. Additionally, if the Save is succeeded by a margin of only 1 or 2 points, gain a Scar in the affected area (see below.)

When Gaining an Injury, roll 1D6 for anatomy and 1D6 for severity, below. Your character will also lose consciousness.

Injured characters may be revived after combat with 0 Grit. Any further damage to an Injured character results in immediate death.

Injuries may be treated in a settlement.

Injury Table

D6	Anatomy	D6	Severity
1	Head	1	3D6 days to recover
2	?	2	3D6 days to recover
3	Arm	3	3D6 weeks to recover
4	Leg	4	Permanent injury (partially disable anatomy or reduce related Attribute by 1D6+1)
5	Hand	5	Severe bleeding
6	Foot	6	Permanent horrible injury (maimed, severe bleeding)

A maimed body part is no longer functional. It might be removed or crippled.

Severe Bleeding

Severe bleeding causes -1 CON per Turn until the bleeding is stopped. (This Con may be healed at the usual rate for damaged Attributes.) Also roll 1D4 each round that the bleeding continues: on a 4, you die. At the moment battle ends, anyone may attempt to stop the bleeding. If they fail to do so, you die.

Anyone may Check INT, once per round, to attempt to reduce the bleeding (so you will only have to roll 1D4 once per turn) and then anyone may Check INT to attempt to stop the bleeding.

Scars

When you gain a Scar, gain 2 max Grit, and roll 1D6.

• 1: Just a dent.
• 2-4: Quite a mark.
• 5-6: Disfigured.

Your scar can be used to impress or intimidate. If it's more than a dent it can be used to disgust and will also modify some reaction rolls (sometimes negatively, sometimes positively) if it's visible.

Death and Debilitation

If a player's character is dead or temporarily debilitated, the player should create a new character or take control of a Henchman, Hired Hand, or neutral character.

Cavegirl's (Emmy Allen's) Horrible Wounds formatted for print (the best Death and Dismemberment system)

I made this as a Google Doc, so you can edit it or just export it as a PDF and print it. You can get it here, but don't forget to read the original blog post and tell her what you think about it.

Emmy's Horrible Wounds is the best system for "Death and Dismemberment" I've seen... by a longshot. Other than the very minimal one I wrote, it's the only one I would every actually use in a game. It's wonderful, evocative, and suits lots of situations - probably even all of the ones you'll ever face.

Injuries and Death and Dismemberment v1.0 - Below 6HP, Abstract, Simple, Lethal

EDIT: I don't like this anymore. Find my current system here.

I've been collecting Death and Dismemberment tables since I started this hobby. I've found several I like very much, but none of them quite suit my game.

Goals

Injuries Before 0 HP

Philotomy's Musings recommends describing all injuries that place below 6 HP as doing physical damage and to describe the rest as "muscles getting tired, sweat getting in [...] eyes, [...] breath running short, [...] resolve weakening, [...] reactions slowing, and [...] reserves of skill and luck being used." This is because, in OD&D, the average person only has 1-6 HP and every weapon does 1-6 damage.

This made me think about making damage below 6 HP mechanically different. Relatively minor injuries are incurred when damage brings a character below 6 HP.

Abstract

My favorite Death and Dismemberment Table (from Perdition by Courtney Campbell) is specific to his rules system and also has very specific flavor text such as: "A cut to your chest punctures a lung and makes it hard to breathe." My mind feels limited by such concrete, descriptive sentences. I should feel free to interpret the result as I like, but my imperfect mind has to navigate that wall first.

Simple

I've read several Death and Dismemberment tables that I wanted to use but never tried because they were more too complicated. They take too much time to understand and use. I wouldn't feel comfortable handing them to a player without at least a minute of explanation.

Lethal

Odd as it may sound, most Death and Dismemberment tables make it difficult to die. They don't just mitigate death a little, they make it improbable. My table makes it very difficult to roll on it more than once without major consequences.

Credit

A lot of the ideas here, though mostly unrecognizable now, were inspired by Courtney Campbell's fantastic book, Perdition. Perttu Vedenoja made some great suggestions.

Death and Dismemberment

When a character's HP is reduced to fewer than 6, roll 1d6 on the Injuries table.

At 0 HP, a damaged character must roll 3d6 on the Injuries table. HP cannot drop below 0.

If an Attribute drops to 0, the character dies.

All attribute damage may be recovered as usual unless noted otherwise.

Injuries that are interpreted as severe bleeding or any kind of head trauma cause unconsciousness.

Injuries

Roll	Effect
1	-1 to related Attribute (roll on Body Part Table)
2	-2  to related Attribute (roll on Body Part Table)
3	-4  to related Attribute (roll on Body Part Table)
4	-1/4th Movement (foot injury)
5	-1/2 Movement and knocked to ground (leg injury)
6	Minor Brain Damage (Roll 1d4 on Brain Damage table)
-	Critical Injuries
7	Severe Brain Damage (Roll 1d4+4 on Brain Damage table)
8	-10 to related attribute (roll on Body Part Table)
9	-6  to related attribute (roll on Body Part Table)
10	Maim/remove body part (save vs CON)
11	Maim/remove body part (save vs CON)
12	-6  to related attribute (roll on Body Part Table)
13	-10  to related attribute (roll on Body Part Table)
14	Death
15	Death
16	Death
17	Death
18	Death

Body Part

Roll 1d4 when appropriate. Reroll if the result does not fit the situation.

Roll	Effect
1	Head (D6: 1-2 Intelligence 3 Wisdom 4-5 Charisma 6 Blind)
2	Torso/Groin (Constitution)
3	Arm (Strength)
4	Hand (Dexterity)

Brain Damage

Become unconscious, then save vs Constitution to prevent permanence. (D4 for minor damage and d4+4 for severe damage.)

Roll	Effect
1	-1 Intelligence and -1 Wisdom.
2	-3 Wisdom.
3	-3 Intelligence.
4	Save vs lowest Attribute (Wisdom, Intelligence, or Constitution) at the start of battle. Flee on failure. Permanent, no save.
5	Unable to speak. Permanent, no save.
6	Change personality and lose one level. Permanent, no save.
7	Intelligence and Wisdom become 3.
8	Intelligence is 1.