Wound Table

The HarnMaster 3e Injury Table

Wound Tables or Injury Tables are a mechanic used by simulationist games like HarnMaster and The Riddle of Steel as an alternative to Hit Points.

The general idea is that, on a successful hit, the attacker chooses or rolls for a hit location. Then, on the victim's character sheet, a wound is recorded for that location and with a certain level of severity depending on the damage dealt.

Wounds typically give you bad effects with names like Pain, Shock, or Blood Loss. These effects last for a certain number of rounds or until medical treatment. In the case of Blood Loss, there is typically a counter ticking down to your death.

Wound tables bypass the problems of HP Bloat, since the most serious wounds cause instant death. They also allow for more exciting combat, since you get more feedback on how you're killing enemies instead of just a damage number, and characters get physically weaker with every wound. Despite this, they remain a niche mechanic, since they require the use of a table (or multiple tables!) for every hit, and require the GM and players to keep track of the multiple values associated with each wound rather than one number: HP.

Hybrid Systems

Some systems use a hybrid form with both hit points and wounds.

• In GURPS, certain critical hits, and any hit that deals more than half your HP in damage causes a Major Wound, which can cripple limbs, knock you prone, and more.

• In RuneQuest, HP is divided between 7 different hit locations on the body. Whenever a single hit location reaches 0 HP, the characer takes a Serious Wound. If the body part is a limb, it is crippled. If the torso or head run out of HP, worse things happen.

• The Grim Hollow 3rd party setting for 5e has an optional rule for Grievous Wounds. Whenever someone is reduced to 0 hitpoints, they roll on the Grievous Wounds table.

• Both the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and FFG Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay systems had Wounds acting as abstract HP, but once those wounds reach 0, any damage suffered would instead inflict Critical Wounds (with different effects depending on the weapon used) onto a certain location of the body (determined by being the reverse of what the hit rolled).

Gallery

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  The Wound Wheels system used by Sword & Scoundrel. Attacker chooses a wheel and rolls 1d6. Swings target the outside of the wheel, thrusts target the inside.