It's pretty obvious that the time it takes to die in SR is ridiculously fast and ridiculously reliable. Even the strongest troll can't last a minute on the ground in the best of circumstances, and there's no way you'll ever take a shot to the gut and spend three days barely conscious, dying in a ditch.

To my knowledge, this hasn't been tackled anywhere else, so here's my suggestion: roll 2d6 on taking a wound and apply the result to a chart that varies from canon's death speed (which I guess models losing a limb and blowing a couple arteries) to spending the next half week vacationing in your local ditch, averages in the middle. The chart would only deal in the amount of time it takes to accrue another box of overflow, tuned to allowing a body 4 person to die over the course of many days on an extremely (kind of) fortuitous roll.

Descriptions are left up the GM. If he possesses the medical knowledge to know that a solid torso hit can punch through your intestines and graze your stomach before slipping perilously close to your spine on its way out, resulting in slow but steady and largely unstaunchable blood loss, massive but stable drop in blood pressure, blood poisoning as a result of those punctured intestines and stomach, infection, extreme pain, and intermittent consciousness— more power to him. If the GM does not know that a Deadly wound to the leg could graze your femoral artery, shatter your femur, and cause physiological shock and significant blood loss as a result of broad trauma to a lot of generally not significant blood vessels— it doesn't matter. All he has to do is give times to death and very general descriptions, making the system flexible and scalable to the GM's knowledge of general medecine.

And, yes, this will be a part of Canon Revision. Any thoughts?

[edit]

Should also note that there will be an inclusion of incapacitation with consciousness, which basically allows you to take actions at the GM's apporval— very, very slowly, and very, very badly. Also, may include Willpower and Body checks to stay or become conscious.

Uh, no. This can happen to you in real life without recieving any medical care of any kind.

Not to mention that, per canon, you can't, given that you are requisitely unconscious.

*re-reads rules*

Oh... thats right. As per the rules, you only get a self-stabilization test if a biotech test fails. I ignore that and allow a self stabilization test every time your overflow increases. Forgot it was a houserule

Edit: By self-stabilization I did not mean using biotech on yourself, I meant that body test vs TN 10 to see if you stop accumulating overflow. Sorry if that was unclear.

Self-stabilization doesn't really fix the problem, either. You either don't stabilize and die in very short order, or you stabilize and don't die at all, unless you take more damage from some other source. There's no possibility of a slow, painful, lingering death, of the sort where the Vikings would feed you some onion soup, then smell your wound, and if your wound smelled like onions, slit your throat on the spot, because you were a dead man either way, and you'd enjoy having your throat slit a lot more than you'd enjoy the next couple of days.

I think the dying within a minute rules currently in Canon are for balance, really. If 9/10 times you took a deadly wound you didn't die for an hour, then it'd be almost impossible for a SRer to die in a hail of gunfire if his or her side didn't lose. The only two reliable ways to kill a SRer would be explosives and people walking around to cap them in the head if the whole party dies.

Me, I don't kill characters anyway, so I'm all up for pain and suffering wounds as opposed to outright killing. But if you make death usually linger, it takes the individual threat of combat out of the picture. Sure, if the whole team's fragged, you're fragged, but as long as someone stays alive they could walk back to Seattle and call DocWagon for you. Maybe not that extreme, but ya get the picture.

I personally just fiat things like this, but that's hardly the kind of solution you're looking for.

~J

The last thing Shadowrun needs is unnecessary and completely unrealistic hyperrealism. It makes thins absurdly lethal and completely shatters immersion because it's insane. Besides, just because you take a long time to die doesn't mean you're in good shape afterwards, and it doesn't mean the experience is pleasant. And if you really want to make sure someone's dead, just double tap him in the head and finish the job.

Can GM fiat fix the problem without extra mechanics? Of course. But GM fiat shouldn't be required to tiptoe around the holes in a system, at risk of repeating myself too much. Hell, as a player, I know that unless the GM has decided to fuck me, no one will live to talk about what I've done here. That sort of assurance makes it very hard to immerse onesself in the game, and that's just not good.

I should point out that the possibility of dying is still very real, and just because you don't bleed out immediately doesn't make you immune to the joys of sniping and deadlier overdamage, which is what this is designed to work in tandem with.

Oh, come on. Unlike speed in melee, this one actually comes up every single time someone hits Deadly, which is not, you know, exactly outside the realm of possibility for a game in which very often very bad people commit crimes for money.

I know, but it doesn't feel bizarre or stupid, at least not in my games. A minute of game time can take an hour or two of real time, after which it seems pretty natural for someone to have finally bled to death.

Here's how I see it: A (D) wound means you've just caught a big one. Blood splatters everywhere - basically, your guts are hanging lose (well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration). Under those circumstances, I find the rules work fine the way they are.

However, I can see Arethusa's point. I remember watching a documentary (BBC, I think) about the Falkland war, where british soldiers had been shot up badly and left out there for days, yet still managed to stay alive long enough for a rescue team to get them out. I think that's the "lying in a ditch" situation Arethusa was talking about.

If you want rules that allow for this kind of scenario, I think what Arethusa stated at the beginning sounds reasonable, with maybe one or two additions: Start autofilling the physical monitor earlier, but make it slower depending on Body (thus no additional dice rolling). Also, I half-remember reading rules about staying conscious after going into overflow, but I don't remember where. Maybe make a Willpower[8] test (plus any non-wound modifiers), plus every action a character makes that would be considered a complex action requires him/her to roll that test again to see if the character passes out.

The thing is, slow death can become really unbalancing if you've got a competent mage and/or a paramedic in the group, because in that case, taking damage becomes even less of a hassle than it already would be.

Simple rule: Deadly wounds are still deadly wounds, except when they're nasty serious wounds!

IE: Make there be some chance that a serious physical wound will ko a character and leave them immobile, unconcious, and bleeding slowly. IE: Body test against a TN when you take a serious wound. If you pass, you are up as per normal rules. If you fail you are unconcious until you recieve medical attention (As stabilisation on a deadly wound, but with the TN of 8 for a serious wound) and will eventually die (another mechanic for taking boxes of damage. Once you hit deadly you take overflow as per usual).

How about this: If you reach overflow through a (D) or maybe even an (S) wound (or one that would normally be (D), like those reduced by trauma dampeners / platelette factories), standard rules apply. If you reach overflow through a lesser wound, resolve the situation with slow bleeding rules. (On second thought, shouldn't platelette factories provide a bonus here?)

Factoring body in twice (number of boxes, duration of overflowth) does indeed seem odd. Maybe a Body test to determine how long it takes for the next box to fill up?

About staying conscious / passing out: Re-rolling the Will test is actually meant to reflect the fact that the character's body really doesn't want to keep going, while his will still does. Maybe all tests after the first should be made against 6, and not 8.

I have to agree with Lilt. Deadly wounds are deadly wounds. What you're describing sounds like really nasty Serious wounds to me.

Shooting people with heavy pistols and hitting them with katanas can kill in real life too. Just because previous shadowrun rules have said that you can continue at a penalty and won't die dosen't mean that it's not an appropriate analogy for this situation. I personally think the idea of bleeding nastily and possibly falling unconcious or dieing after you take a serious wound makes sense.

[edit]
Hmm... Actually: I think we agree...
[/edit]

I actually really like Arethusa´s idea about a die roll determaning how long you will live when suffering a deadly wound. There are far to few totally random die rolls in Shadowrun. It´s a strenght in most cases because when your good your good, you know. But the problem is that the system is so abstract, especially when you don´t use hit locations (I don´t), that there are very few variations of damage a character can suffer. I think the random die roll is in the spirit of keeping it simple and abstract. And the GM can describe the injuries depending on how long the character will live without medical care.

Frankly this is one of the best house rules I´ve seen on this board, Arethusa.

This is the sorta mechanic that while it isnt very aplicaple in a standered shadowrun, in a more grungy cyberPUNK game, it might. Having someone get shot, and then they spend 3 days stumbeling around dazed and disoranted in the Glow before they die is just poetic.
Prehaps only use it at the GMs discression? Sure if someone takes a deadly from an assult cannon, they are dead, fine red mist style. But if someone takes a serious, 2 lights and then 2 moderates,they are into overflow, but not gonna be missing their torso.

Lying in a ditch for 10 days awaiting rescue after taking a D wound to the guts = Hand Of God.
Thank you.

I belive it's perfecty reasonnable that you die quickly after taking pushing your monitor to Deadly, because it's a deadly wound: YOU ARE DYING. Someone lying in a ditch for a few days after getting shot (like those Fakland soldiers) means they had Serious wounds.

IMO the problem is not that Deadly wounds are too deadly, but that Serious wounds are underplayed. "+3 TN? Damn, that's kind of bad, so I'll just finish up this gunfight and then think about using biotech". A Serious wounds means you are half-way to your grave. You are really fucked up.

Which is why I think more Willpower tests should be rolled when you take damage in that amount. It's perfectly reasonable for a character to drop to the floor, squirm and moan in pain and stop fighting at a Serious wound if they fail a Willpower test.

See this thread for a somewhat linked subject on this matter

A person who takes a Serious wound and then is improperly treated suffers a slow lingering death. This is actually more common than you'd think. Shot in the field, treated with medkit, but a hospital is still 10 days out. A city example is more like: Got shot, Had no insurance, and died in my bed. You can get worse without proper medical care. Orks handing you liquor bottles are no real substitute for a surgeon after you've been shot.

Whihc is why I start a slow bleedout at Serious. It adds a certain sense of... urgency... to some escapes

I'd really like to see some good rules on bleeding (wounds getting worst). That way a Serious wound wouldn't just be a nasty drain on your wallet, but also an urgent thing to take care of.

Backgammon: What do you find bad about what I suggested above?

Oops, sorry, read through the thread a bit fast and skipped a few posts.

I wouldn't even bother with bleeding for Light wounds.
Moderate should be like half a day intervals.
Serious in hours.

I think your time tables go back to the original problem of people dying too fast. We want wounded soldiers to suffer for a good while.

I don't think you should be able to completely stabilize. A Body roll could prolonge the intervals between damage, but a true Biotech test needs to be made to clean out the wound and whatever else to make sure you can start recovering.

There's also the problem of high-level body people such as Trolls and stuff. It's very hard to hurt them, but once they are hurt, they should bleed just as badly as anyone else. Or maybe not.. I'm not sure on that one.

So my alternate time table is:
Moderate: 1 box per hours, multiply by number of successes on Body TN 4
Serious: 1 box per half-hour, multiply by number of successes on Body TN 6

A successful normal Biotech test will stop bleeding. However, if that fails, a character can make a Biotech(3) test to stop bleeding.

You're right, my figures are still a bit too lethal, now that I look at them again. On the other hand, I don't agree with hour-long intervals for Serious wounds. Take the good ole Severed Femoral Artery situation: It can leave a soldier completely capable of fighting, except for loss of function in the respective leg, pain and cumulating blood loss. Yet it can certainly kill you under an hour if the artery isn't tied up.

I agree that stabilization should probably not be complete, but I couldn't immediately think of an easy to way to make it work otherwise. If you do, please post it. It should also have the possibility of complete stabilization with enough successes -- it happens, and often enough to warrant rules for it.

Trolls shouldn't bleed out as fast as humans. They've got a whole lot more blood to lose before their blood pressure drops dangerously low. Even if you buy the amazingly canon low weights for trolls, that's over 3 times as much blood. Their blood pressure won't be that much higher, however, and they certainly won't bleed 3 times as much out of a hole the same size.

I don't agree with your system, because I'd like the bleeding-out for Deadly to use the exact same system as those for Light, Moderate and Serious, just different numbers. Yours makes it a completely different system, with additional tests and all.

If you use all the rules it is *possible*, although not very likely, that you could die from taking a serious wound (or even from a moderate if you're REALLY unlucky).

Say you take a serious wound and your damage resistance test yields very low numbers all round - you'll take a few wound effects as a result. If you're unlucky this could lead to something nasty like your Platelet Factories or Suprathyroid failing completely and dealing you an instant deadly wound, which could kill you right away.

If you have no bio or cyberware of that nature, or none at all, I guess the worst that can happen is that you'd be in really really bad shape, possibly not able to walk, or move at all, or talk, or... anything. You could die as a result, at least if you don't get help.

All in all quite unlikely though.

Why does the title of this thread remind me of an exchange between Bugs Bunny and Witch Hazel in a classic Warner Brothers' cartoon?

Set-up--after Bugs freed Hansel & Gretel (yes, THAT Hansel & Gretel) from Witch Hazel, who was intent upon having them stay over for dinner (as the main course), Witch Hazel has tricked Bugs into eating a carrot containing a sleeping potion.

WH: "AHA! GOTCHA, didn't I, you smart-aleck? That carrot was POISONED!"
BB: "POISONED!?! <ICK! GAK!>"
WH: "Come on! Come on! Hurry it up!"
BB: "Wait a minute, can't ya?!? I got ONE LEFT! <ICK!>"
(Bugs promptly goes limp and falls out of the chair.)



--Foreigner

I've got a little background in trauma medicine, so i'll throw in my .02 nuyen.

Try and look at injuries as being lethal on different scales. Some kill you in seconds, others in minutes, some in hours, some days, some weeks.

If you go down in seconds, something important got hit, and maybe you just didn't notice it yet. You can still function with your heart destroyed for a matter of seconds, although odds are that the shock is going to be pretty debilitating. Doesn't keep that person with the bullet in his heart from managing to fire off a few rounds at you before falling down, though. Our shadowrunner just got jacked straight to "dead."

Minutes? Not hard. Major artery bleeds. Femoral artery can kill you in 3-7 minutes if it's holed, simply because you push so much blood through it. Get your neck slashed open? You're not going to die instantly, but that death is coming on real quick. Deadly wound, runner fails to stabilize and jacks to "dead" in short order.

Hours? Internal bleeding, increased ICP (bleeding or swelling in the brain causes damage and death), a wound that just can't be stopped and is losing blood. Runner manages to stabilize but doesn't get medical attention in time, GM rules that the runner takes another point of physical for blood loss (not in canon, but if you're not house-ruling the drek out of SR already, something's wrong ), and makes another stabilization check. This'll kill him eventually.

Days? If your character took a wound that'll kill him several days from now, that's not a deadly wound. That's a serious, possibly with stat damage (which might explain, say, why he's immobile). Again, you have to improvise this... the SR rules are optimized for gunfights where the players try and stay alive, and the people they're shooting at rarely have to worry about if they survive once they hit the turf.

Weeks? Internal damage, bizarre stuff happening, round lodging somewhere and coming loose later, or character enters coma and sits there forever before finally dying.

Long story short? SR's an abstract-as-hell system. The damage system as written provides you with negative modifiers for damage and a system that'll give you a time limit after someone eats half a mag of APDS before they bite the big one, if they're still breathing. Working out some sort of "how long might my character survive if they're really really badly wounded (although I don't know where because there's no hit locations) but happen to have had the bullet end up somewhere incapacitating but not deadly" in a system where (as written) really tough people don't get hurt by bullets hitting them in the face, if they're tough enough seems like a waste of time.

Figure out a way to do hit locations, add in ballistic performance and "bullets do wacky shit" factors, and make it something I can use without slowing down combat, and I'll think about it

Warning, ignored entier thread to post on original post's question.

You have to decide if the "shot in the gut and take 3 days to die in a ditch" reflects being at Deadly and then dying, or the GM saying "look, Bob, your character got shot with a pistol in the gut and took a moderate; but its been 3 days in the ditch now without food, water, or medical attention... roll a new guy".

Way I see it, the second is far more likley than the first. When youre at Deadly... youre pretty much at the limit of what the human body can endure. You can hang on a little longer, based on how tough you really are, but not much.

Youre going to add some rule regardless of what I say, but be sure that youre seeing it from the point of view of the game writers and why the rule is the way it is, before you change it.