Critical Wounds

One of my major complaints about Twilight is the personal damage system. While in real war people are as fragile as can be (see Saving Private Ryan or The Big Red One), in Twilight it is almost impossible for a character to be killed - or even suffer permanent damage.

And this is a good thing - this is a game, not reality. People play games to escape reality!

But I’ve always felt some balance was in needed - when a critical wound takes only a week to recover, there just aren’t enough consequences to combat...

Serious Wound Process

This is unchanged from basic Twilight - except that, in order to heal, the wound needs to be immobilized for the recovery period.

If the character rolls Formidable: Constitution, this period is halved.

Critical Wound Process

If a character receives a critical wound anywhere, he/she follows this procedure:

The character still loses consciousness, and needs medical (Trauma Aid) care within ten minutes, as in the original rules.

Within eight hours, the character must receive surgery (a character with Medical(Surgery) must treat the character). Both characters roll D20 - the character against Constitution, the Surgeon against the Medical(Surgery) skill. If no surgeon is available, the character rolls on the surgeon’s Catastrophic Failure row.

Cross-reference the die roll results on the table below.

See Effects, bottom, for results.

Character> Surgeon V	Outstanding Success	Success	Failure	Catastrophic Failure
Outstanding Success	Wounds have no effect	Effects until healed to Slight level	Effects until healed to slight level	Effects until completely healed
Success	Effects until healed to slight level	Effects until completely healed	Effects until completely healed	Effects Permanent
Failure	Effects until healed to slight level	Effects until completely healed	Effects until Permanent	Effects Terminal
Catastrophic Failure	Effects until completely healed	Effects Permanent	Effects Terminal	Character Dies of Wounds

No Effect - Disregard any critical damage from table below. Wound heals as a severe wound.

Effect Until Slight - Observe effects (from table) until wound is healed to “slight” level.

Effects until Healed - Observe effects from table until wound is completely healed.

Effects Permanent - self-explanatory

Effects Terminal - Limbs are lost. Treat others as “Effects Permanent”

Die of Wounds - Self-explanatory

Effects

Head: Observation halved, Pain 3 (See below)

Upper Chest (4 on original hit location roll): Constitution halved, strength halved, Pain 2

Lower Torso (5 on original damage roll) - Strength halved, Pxain 2

Abdomen - Maximum speed trot (no run), Strength halved, Pain 3

Arms - Arm unusable, Pain 1

Upper Leg (7 or 9 on original hit location roll): Strength halved, Pain 2, maximum speed Walk (no trot or run)

Lower Leg: Pain 1, maximum speed walk.

Pain

Treat as Fatigue. Pain reliever will neutralize 1 level of pain. Sedatives are needed for stronger effect - but it’s hard to fight on sedatives. (Driving tanks is right out).


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