HP, HD, Wounds, Dismemberment, and Death (DCC)

So I get in a fight with three people. Not an argument - it's a physical, fist-throwing, kick 'em while they're down fight. The odds are not in my favor, and I kinda get stomped.

After the event noses are leaking, there're some black eyes, a sore hip, and someone has a busted lip, but at the end everyone walks away without anything broken or fatally ruptured. I focused on survival (winning is for suckers, y'all) and am none too worse the wear. In D&D terms I still have HP.

If I had 0 HP I'd be Dying (or Dead, depending on which variant you're using), but in a pretty non-specific way. If I'd gotten hit by a Critical Hit I'd either get double damage (non-specific) or a nasty surprise from a Critical Hit Chart (very specific), depending (again) on which D&D variant you're into.

In any case, for most editions you're only healing 1-2 HP per day, which is a debilitating amount. It practically requires magical healing of some sort if any sort of continuous adventuring is to occur.

....surely this could be better, right?

So here I go, down the path trod by many minds before mine, in search of some HP, HD, and death rules which abstract sensibly for me.

Roll HP anew for every combat!

You know what's really unsatisfying for me?  Gambling on the HD roll when I level a character. I'm often tempted to go for the median HP, but that's the boring/safe way out, so I always roll. Sometimes it's high on the die, but sometimes it's a 1 or 2, which kinda sucks right? I mean, here we are risking imaginary life and limb for (more than our fair share of?) wealth and power, and then our much-vaunted Next Level adds a negligible amount of  ability to survive the adventures leading up to the next level.

So I say flip it: make the important part of the level-up the HD gained, which is re-rolled at the beginning of each encounter. If reinforcements arrive before the encounter is over then the current HP roll stands: this represents endurance, good moment-by-moment tactics, level-headedness under the stress, and other such fickle defenses which slowly wane away. The longer the fight continues, the more likely someone is going to get seriously injured, and most people's resolve to effectively defend themselves will crumble quickly once the injuries begin.

But say you survive an encounter and get a few minutes to catch your breath, get your heart rate back to resting, and tend to the injured maybe. In that case you're ready again -on edge and focused by adrenaline- so you re-roll your HP for the next encounter.

This will of course result in variable HP. Sometimes your warrior will be ready when action occurs (you rolled really high for the encounter's HP) and sometimes you will be distracted and unready for combat, or maybe just tired by the long slog of dungeoneering, and somehow the party's wizard has more HP than you (for once).

It's still not "fair" all the time, but at least it allows for a cycle of correction so that you don't have to deal with a poor HD roll for the remainder of the character's adventuring career - just for a single encounter. Plus your HD become something relevant to play: they are how likely you are to be ready when combat occurs. Warriors and Dwarves are usually ready, but Wizards are often distracted by something (abstract theories, the weird writing that they keep seeing on the walls, or whatever) and the sudden hubbub catches them unawares. Everyone else sorts out somewhere between those extremes.

But what about actual wounds??

Because, you know, people really do get injured and/or killed while fighting, and those wounds take time to heal, and generally make you less effective while you are busy healing. So when does that happen in game?

After 0 HP, that's when.
It happens when you too tired to dodge or parry, when your primal instincts are overwhelmed by the chaos around you, and you cease making sound decisions. You're already tired and the blows get hard -nearly impossible- to dodge, so you start getting hit.

Now Death & Dismemberment charts are pretty popular (for good reason, I feel), but they're often SO VERY DRASTIC in terms of injury. I want something a bit pared back, something to indicate that you have been injured, are hurting, and are seeing (maybe) your own end rearing up in the near future, but not OMGYOURARMGOTRIPPEDOFF!!!!! ...at least not immediately.

Luckily there're some amazing Critical Hit charts that come with DCC, and after a quick glance I realized that they're pretty much exactly what I want. Plus someone else already made them - huzzah!

So how it goes is that, after you drop to 0 HP or below, every strike which hits you is a Critical Hit. Doesn't matter if it's a 20 or not, as long as they match your AC and hit, you're taking serious damage. Maybe your kneecap just got busted and you're hobbling around. Maybe you got "lucky" and the pain of being hit by that arrow only made you drop your weapon. Or maybe that flailsnail just smashed your rib cage.
In any case, the damage accrued during the attack (both the initial damage rolled, plus any extra from the Crit Table roll) is recorded as a discreet Wound.

It's already in the rules that the additional consequences of a Critical Hit (slowed movement, minuses to attack, or whatever) don't go away until the damage associated with them is healed, and that's awesome. I'll riff off that:
So you've a 6 point Wound, let's say, are a 3rd level Thief with a +1 Stamina bonus, and are slowed by 10' per round because your kneecap is busted. Two things happen for you going forward:

1. When HP are rolled for an encounter you subtract your Wounds from the roll, though you always get at least 1HP for each HD. So you roll your 3d6+3 HD and get a 15 HP, but you subtract the pain and damage from that busted kneecap (which keeps bothering and distracting you and limiting your mobility) and end up with only 9HP for the encounter. If you'd rolled really bad and only got 5+3 HP the -6 would erase the Stamina bonus and 2 more and knock you down to your minimum of 1 HP for each HD. Ouch.
2. Your busted knee keeps being busted until you are healed for 6 points of damage either through rest or by magical means. That's 6 good night's sleep or 3 days of bed rest in DCC, which seems legit to me.

If someone scores a natural 20 (or whatever their Crit. range is), this too is a Wound. In this way it is possible for a character with many HP above 0 to be seriously damaged, which I feel is appropriate for a natural 20. Yes, this means that if you're up against a hard-hitting enemy (dragons, giants, demons, fireball throwing wizards, or whatnot) they could conceivably score a Crit. and kill you even though you still have 33HP (harsh, but I like the severity of the consequences)....and speaking of that...

But what about dying?

As you accrue wounds, keep a running total. If the total exceeds your Stamina (or CON, or whatever) score, you're dead. Simple as that. No save, no fancy chart to roll on - you kept pushing and fighting even though injured and someone finally got lucky. Brutal and uncompromising, as Death should be.

In this way it's still possible -if the initial damage roll is high, if the Critical Hit result adds a lot of extra damage, and if your Stamina is low- to get killed by one final blow/injury. But most of the time, I'd argue, it's not that one hit took you to 0HP and then the next hits are injuries - it's that someone matches your AC while you're at 1-5HP and they take you into the negative. In that case only the negative points are considered a Wound (somehow you managed with your last bit of luck or skill to roll with the blow or something, and it's not as bad as it would have otherwise been, but now you're hurt) but a Critical Hit is still rolled and extra damage from the result is added to the negative HP for the total Wound number.

For instance: 

You have 3HP and you get "hit" for 5 points of damage. The first 3 points take you to 0HP, but since there's still more damage from the attack a Critical hit is landed. Let's say the monster rolls a 7 on the Crit. chart and busts your jaw - they roll another 3 points of damage on top of the 2HP you fell below 0 from the first damage roll, plus you lose 3 teeth and are probably experiencing a lot of pain and blood. You've got a 5-point Wound now, but your Stamina is 11, so you're still alive...for a little while. You might want to consider retreating.

But what about NPCs?

That's a good question, but probably another blog post. Until then, cheers!