I want to add a bit more drama and sense of urgency when someone gets hurt. I also don't want to go into too much detail and do it abstractly. So I have come up with the following. I still need to do more playtesting with it but am interested in getting some feedback on it.


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A Severe Wound causes ongoing damage, such as bleeding and shock, to a character. Any damage, be it Physical or Stun, can cause a Severe Wound. This damage can be the result of an attack, drain from a spell, a fall or any other source that brings harm to the character. This rule replaces the Optional Rule: Severe Wounds (Augmentation p. 120).

Whenever a character takes damage they must make a Severe Wound Test. Note that Zilching applies. The attacker makes the test with a dice pool equal to the damage caused. For Physical damage the threshold is (2), for Stun damage the threshold is (3). If there is no attacker, as the damage came from a non-combat source, then the character makes the test.

If the character glitched his damage resistance test reduce the threshold by 1. On a critical glitch a Severe Wound happens automatically.

If the damage results in a Severe Wound then note the Severe Wound Level (SWL) which is equal to half the damage, rounded up, that caused the Severe Wound.

One of the impacts of a Severe Wound is that the Severe Wound Level is treated as a wound modifier and is added to any other wound modifiers the character may be suffering from. This applies for all tests where a wound modifier would apply.

A character suffering from a Severe Wound may take an additional box of Stun damage every (Body) Combat Turns. Roll a dice pool equal to the Severe Wound Level. If any hits occur the character takes one additional box of Stun damage. If the Stun damage track is filled in then this additional damage carries over into the Physical damage track. Note that a character can have more than one Severe Wound with each one needing separate attention.

To stop this ongoing damage the character must be stabilized (SR4A p. 253) as per Physical Damage. Characters attempting to stabilize themselves must apply wound modifiers to the test. If the Stabilize spell (SR4A p. 208) is used, its Force needs to be at least equal to the Severe Wound Level with a Drain Value of the Severe Wound Level - 2.

Once a Severe Wound is stabilized it no longer causes ongoing damage. Also the Severe Wound Level is halved, rounded up, and this new value is now used as the wound modifier. To remove this wound modifier permanently, the character must be fully healed. Basically, once the character has no filled in Physical or Stun damage boxes left the Severe Wound ceases to have any effect on the character.

Trauma Surgery (Augmentation p. 126) can be used to stabilize and remove the wound modifier caused by the Severe Wound. The threshold of the test is equal to the Severe Wound Level. If successful, the Severe Wound will no longer cause ongoing damage or contribute to any wound modifiers.

I'm also using an houserule to deal with severe wounds.

Everytime a character is hit, the location of the hit is decided, according to the situation (or a roll on a location table if it can't be decided). The location is considered as having 3 damage boxes more than the attack dealt. So for example if someone is hit in the arm for 3 damage boxes, the arm will have 6 damage boxes. Because of this, all actions using this arm will suffer a -2 wound modifier cumulative with the general -1 modifier. Depending on the nature of the wound, using the arm can also worsen the wound.

If the location's damage exceeds the character condition monitor, it means that the limb (or an organ if the location is something like the chest) is nearly destroyed. If the character doesnb't receives first aid before (Body) combat turn, he loses the limb or the organ.