A more realistic injury/wound ruleset.

Starting Wounds:  Characters have 1d5 + X + Y base wounds. X is equal to that character's Toughness Bonus, while Y is 6 if the character is from a Feral World, 5 if from a Hive or Imperial World, and 3 if Void Born. If a character's Toughness bonus increases, so does his base wound capacity (the opposite is true for decreases).

Blood Loss: This condition automatically inflicts 1 wound each round it goes untreated instead of its normal effect (this wound cannot be negated by any means), unless the afflicted character succeeds at a Toughness test with a cumulative -10 penalty. Blood Loss is suffered automatically by a creature capable of terminal bleeding when its wound count somehow increases to be equal to or greater than 80% of its current maximum wound capacity.

Blood Loss wounds do not result in regular critical damage effects. Instead, they provoke a d10 roll. If the roll is less than, or equal to the amount of critical damage the afflicted character has (including the wound just suffered), he dies immediately.

Characters and creatures with strong regenerative properties are typically immune to Blood Loss, but may be susceptible to this condition when the GM deems it appropriate.

Area Specific Damages:

Less critical areas that are hit result in fewer wounds. More critical areas that are hit result in more wounds. Secondary effects apply if the number of wounds inflicted on a given body part exceed the victim's Toughness bonus, and he fails a Toughness test. For every multiple of the victim's Toughness bonus in wounds beyond the first, Toughness saves made to resist secondary effects are at a -10 penalty. If a victim fails his Toughness check by 2 or more degrees, he suffers a critical failure. The effects of a critical failure are in addition to those of a regular one unless otherwise noted.

Example: Nihilus gets shot in the head for 14 damage. 8 of the damage is absorbed by toughness and armour, and the rest inflicts wounds. Because his head was hit, a particularily sensitive area, the number of wounds inflicted are doubled from 6 to 12. Consequently, he has suffered two Toughness bonus multiples (He has a Toughness bonus of 4) of wounds beyond the first, causing him to make his save versus the Stunning secondary effect at a -20 penalty.

Body Part Damage Effects and Modifiers: 

Head: Any wounds suffered by shots made against the head are doubled. Use this modified amount to determine secondary effects and test penalties.

Secondary Effects:

Failure: The victim is stunned for a number of rounds equal to the number of wounds inflicted on the head in excess of his Toughness bonus.

Critical Failure: The victim is knocked unconscious for an equal number of hours instead, and suffers 5 damage to Intelligence, Fellowship and Perception for each degree of failure.

Arms and Legs: Any wounds suffered by shots made against the arms or legs are halved (round up), but the original number is used for the purposes of determining secondary effects and test penalties.

Secondary Effects:

Failure: If an arm was targeted, whatever was carried with that arm by the victim is dropped. If a leg was targeted, the victim falls prone instead, and his movement rate is halved. In either case, he suffers a -20 penalty to all tests made using the damaged appendage. These penalties last a number of rounds equal to the wounds inflicted on the damaged appendage in excess of the victim's Toughness bonus.

Critical Failure: Use of the targeted limb is lost until it is properly healed or repaired.
 

Torso: Wounds dealt to the torso are unmodified.

Secondary Effects:

Failure: The victim gains a point of Fatigue for each degree of failure.

Critical Failure: The victim suffers 5 damage to Strength and Toughness for each degree of failure.

Exceptional Failures: In addition, if any secondary effect Toughness tests are failed by 3 or more degrees, the victim suffers Blood Loss as well (if applicable). If any of the above Toughness tests are failed by 4 or more degrees, the damaged body part is destroyed. If the head, body, or any other critical body part is destroyed in this way, the victim suffers instant death.

Lastly, if using these rules, called shots made against the head suffer an additional -10 penalty to hit, while called shots made against any of the appendages suffer an additional -5 penalty to hit. This assumes a typical humanoid target in both cases. Exact modifiers may vary per target, and are ultimately at the discretion of the GM.

(As an aside, this change, in conjunction with the Fatal Damage rule, makes sniping actually competitive with fully automatic fire.)

Fatal Damage: If any living creature receives a number of wounds from a single attack or event greater than twice its Toughness modifier, it dies instantly due to shock unless it succeeds at a Toughness test.

Shameless Plug: If you liked this ruleset, you may well like another I've authored that deals with armour and cover degradation, or my collection of weapon upgrades and attachments. 

Comments

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Jas   | Registered | 2008-07-28 01:29:09 First...wow. Your players must be very familiar with the character generation process. This is nasty. Worse than the base stuff, and Dark Heresy is pretty deadly as is. Very nice. Starting Wounds: I like this. Simple, appropriate, and elegant. [b]Blood loss[/i]: Again, simple, and very deadly. Simple is smooth, smooth is good. Area Specific Damages: Too complicated, for my tastes. I think it would be better just to roleplay/GM call the effect, and use his as a simple guide line. But that's just me. Nice and easy, for the most part. Good job.

cylle123   | Author | 2008-07-30 10:05:00 Nasty, but rather complicated... i like the more damage to head/less to limbs rule, and it may work against NPC's. But: its just plain overkill against player characters. They are supposed to have fun afterall, and not be too scared of some faceless goon with a laspistol. suggestion: use the system against 'extra' goons in a figt, and insted use +1 dam to head / ½ dam to limbs against PC's and add 1 level of fatigue to any PC who sustains a head injury that causes at least 1 wound.

LEGION3000   | Registered | 2008-08-02 09:23:52 I don't care for this. Personally I like blowing chunks off of people.

Surrealistik   | Author | 2008-08-02 17:33:20 If you want to blow chunks off of people, that's where critical damage comes in. The rules could easily be adapted to feature an 'super' critical failure involving the loss of a limb, and/or one that triggers automatically when 'fatal damage' has been done to a body part, unless the target succeeds at the Toughness test with one or more degrees of success (loss of the head obviously means death). Also yes, these rules are harsh. They're supposed to be (realism considerations and all). Definitely only for the hardcore.

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.