RCS:Limb Damage
From MegaTravellerWiki
| ←[Characteristic Damage] | [Main] | [Called Shots]→ |
Contents |
Limb Damage Categories
Body parts have five "Categories": Healthy, Injured, Incapacitated, Wrecked, and Ruined.
A Healthy body part is completely functional; if any damage has been suffered, it is painful but cosmetic only and does not interfere in the person's ability to use the body part.
An Injured body part is semi-functional; use of the body part or limb is possible, but only at a reduced effectiveness. Head injuries increase difficulty of fire combat, looking around, and any tasks which require concentration. Arm injuries reduce fine and gross motor control and increase difficulty of using that arm in a task. Leg injuries reduce speed and prohibit running. Torso injuries prevent strenuous activity due to severely reduced lung capacity and pain.
An Incapacitated body part is non-functional; the body part or limb no longer works at all. An Incapacitated upper arm cannot be used in combat, though the lower arm can still be used to hold objects. An Incapacitated lower arm cannot be used at all. An Incapacitated leg cannot be used for walking or running. An Incapacitated torso or head means the person is comatose, and will remain comatose until the locational injury heals to Injured.
A Wrecked body part is non-functional and mangled beyond repair, but still there. A wrecked arm represents the arm being damaged to the point where it requires amputation. A wrecked head or chest means death due to being staved in or blown open. A wrecked abdomen also means near-certain death due to disembowelment. In higher-tech cultures, Wrecked limbs can be replaced with prosthetics, and Wrecked internal organs in the chest or abdomen can be replaced if gotten to in time. A Wrecked head, however, is always fatal.
A Ruined body part is no longer there: it has been severed, incinerated, smashed to pulp, or blown through from the attack. If any part other than a limb is Ruined, it is fatal. A Ruined arm generally represents a semi-clean detachment. A Ruined chest means the head, arms, and lower body all separate from one another—the person is split into four chunks. A Ruined abdomen indicates the chest, head, and upper arms becoming separated from the legs—the person is bisected at the waist. A Ruined head means a rather messy loss of the entire head area—the person is decapitated.
The number of Damage Points body parts may suffer before they drop a single wound category are presented as the "Damage Threshold" in the following chart:
Location Damage Threshold Min ------------ ------------------ --- Head Endurance * 1.5 4 Chest Endurance * 3 9 Abdomen Endurance * 2 6 Upper Arm Endurance * 1.25 3 Lower Arm Endurance * 0.75 3 Upper Leg Endurance * 1.5 4 Lower Leg Endurance * 1.0 3
Multiply Endurance by the indicated number and round all fractions down to calculate Damage Threshold. If the person has an Endurance less than 3, assume their Endurance is 3. Also, the final resulting Damage Threshold can be no less than 3 either.
For example, a person with UPP 777777 has the following Damage Thresholds:
- Head: 10
- Chest: 21
- Abdomen: 14
- Upper Arm: 8
- Lower Arm: 5
- Upper Leg: 10
- Lower Leg: 7
Handling Limb Damage
Each time the person suffers damage to a body location, it is added to a running total for that location and the location moves to the most appropriate wound category. Using the above statistics for an average person, the person's Upper Leg is Injured at 10-19 points, Incapacitated at 20-29 points, Wrecked at 30-39 points, and Ruined at 40+ points. Given that the person above has an Integrity of only 42, any impact which Ruins the Upper Leg -- causing destruction of the thigh and a complete detachment of the lower leg from the body -- will cause the person to have only two Integrity points remaining after the leg is ruined; the person can easily bleed to death.
Non-Lethal Damage is as dangerous as Lethal Damage for purposes of locational damage -- for instance, if a UPP 777777 person is hit in the head enough times to suffer 30 points of damage or more directly to the head, the head is crushed in from physical damage or the brain is damaged to the point of brain death from electrical or neural damage. 40 points of damage would be enough to smash the head with physical damage or literally cook the brain with electrical or neural damage.
Arms and legs may be blown off as a result of a very forceful impact, but in most cases these forceful impacts are severe enough that a character would be all but killed by the impact anyway and the player would probably want to roll up a new character rather than play as a disabled veteran. A player may, of course, choose to continue to play a character disabled in this way if they want to -- cybernetic prosthetics are expensive but not entirely unreasonable.
In most cases, the categories of Wrecked or Ruined will never be experienced in vital locations before the person is killed; it requires at least 63 Damage Points to blow the average person's chest open and 84 Damage Points to blow the person apart entirely. However, if you want to be graphically detailed when a person is killed by a particularly forceful weapon, feel free to compute the actual damage suffered.
Note that you can be killed due to your Integrity being exhausted regardless of whether your Chest, Abdomen, or Head have been Wrecked. Even if none of a person's internal organs have been made non-functional, the cumulative effect of pain, trauma, and blood loss represented by each point of Lethal Damage will spell inevitable death once all of the boxes on the Personal Integrity chart are marked off.
Maximum Damage
A bodily location can suffer no more damage than its Ruined rating -- all damage that an attack inflicts beyond the Ruined rating is ignored. Generally, even though excess damage is completely ignored, the full damage is enough to be fatal as it is. On rare occasions a healthy person can lose an arm or leg and remain alive; assuming a person has more health than Endurance * 5 (most people have around Endurance * 6), the wound will be survivable provided the person has not already suffered some form of wound trauma.
Specific Limb Damage Effects
Head
- Injured
- +1 Difficulty to all Determination rolls
- -2 DM to all attack rolls
- -1 DM to all ranged attacks at Long range or greater
- Incapacitated
- Automatically rendered unconscious; lapses into coma
- Remains comatose until limb heals to Injured or better
- Wrecked
- Killed due to fatal head trauma:
- Skull is shattered or broken
- Brain is partially or significantly damaged
- Ruined
- Head is decapitated and/or destroyed
Chest
- Injured
- +1 Difficulty to all Determination rolls
- -2 DM to all tasks due to pain
- Sprinting is no longer possible
- Incapacitated
- Automatically rendered unconscious; lapses into coma
- Remains comatose until torso heals to Injured or better
- Wrecked
- Killed due to severe trauma:
- At least one internal organ is destroyed
- Chest cavity is exposed to environment, lungs collapse
- Cardiac arrest
- Ruined
- Fatal, unrecoverable injury is guaranteed
- Torso is pulped or reduced to gibs
- Limbs detach from the chest; head, arms, and lower body are separated
Abdomen
- Injured
- +1 Difficulty to all tasks due to severe pain
- Sprinting is no longer possible
- Incapacitated
- Total loss of strength; person collapses and becomes helpless
- Wrecked
- Viscera severely damaged and exposed
- Death due to peritonitis likely unless surgery is performed
- Ruined
- Fatal injury is guaranteed; cybernetic replacement and resuscitation is still possible at High Stellar technology
- Viscera, liver, and stomach are destroyed
- Abdomen and spine are separated, causing upper body and legs to detach
Upper Arm
- Injured
- +1 Difficulty to all tasks which depend exclusively on that arm
- -2 DM to all tasks which use that arm in conjunction with the other arm
- No penalty to tasks which can be accomplished entirely with the hand and fingers (e.g., typing)
- Incapacitated
- No capability to use that arm; all tasks which require that arm are rendered impossible
- If lower arm is intact the person can still grip objects but otherwise has no function
- Wrecked
- Arm is mangled and requires amputation
- Lower arm also becomes entirely unusable
- Ruined
- Arm is severed or crushed
- Lower arm is detached
Lower Arm
- Injured
- +1 Difficulty to all tasks which depend on that arm or hand
- -2 DM to all tasks which use that arm or hand
- Incapacitated
- Any object held in that arm is automatically dropped, the arm cannot pick up or hold objects
- No ability to use that arm for any purpose
- Wrecked
- Lower arm and/or hand are mangled and require amputation
- Ruined
- Forearm or hand are severed/crushed
Upper Leg
- Injured
- +1 Difficulty to all physical tasks that involve the legs (jumping, lifting, kicking, etc.)
- Cumulative with penalties for other leg, but not with penalties for the attached lower leg
- Sprinting is no longer possible
- Incapacitated
- Person automatically falls if not already down
- Running is no longer possible
- Neither the upper leg nor attached lower leg may be used
- Person may still stand back up using good leg (if available) and hop at Speed 1
- Wrecked
- Leg is mangled and requires amputation
- Ruined
- Upper leg is severed or crushed
- Lower leg is detached
Lower Leg
- Injured
- +1 Difficulty to all physical tasks that involve the legs (jumping, lifting, kicking, etc.)
- Cumulative with penalties of other leg, but not with penalties for attached lower leg
- Sprinting is no longer possible
- Incapacitated
- Person falls if moving at the time of impact
- Running is no longer possible
- The leg cannot be used; although the knee can still be lifted or bent, no power can be transmitted to the foot for standing, moving, or kicking
- Wrecked
- Lower leg or foot is mangled and requires amputation
- Ruined
- Lower leg or foot is severed/crushed and is no longer present
| ←[Characteristic Damage] | [Main] | [Called Shots]→ |
