Health, and Death... again...

 So, The Human body, as I understand it, does not 'die' as instantly as we think it does

How Does Actual Death change the rules

On a cellular level, most of the body lives on for hours and even days after 'death'. This means many, many things for roleplay. 

Firstly, lets look at Health. 

When the human body takes an amount of damage too much for the consciousness to handle, the body shuts down the consciousness. This might not reboot the system, and we refer to that as a coma.

For the longest time, I used 'fate' and 'luck' to be this factor. The body takes damage beyond the 'death' score, and the player determines, ok. I'll spend a fate. If the party manages to best the monster, they revive their friends from their unconscious state, and begin the healing process. preferably in a nice warm tavern.

BUT if the whole party is 'killed' they all 'wake' in a witches home, or a wizards tower, or some place 'nearby' enough that makes enough logical sense that someone had rescued them, possibly including the party members themselves that were 'less' damaged.

The GM has a nice 'out' for the group, it often introduces a NPC for the players to rely on in the future, as they obviously owe a boon/debt to, and can introduce new plot hooks, or provide higher level access to information or goods.

But beyond that, we also allow for death to actually occur, and yet be rolled back. If the players can retrieve their friends body, and get to a healer within a few hours to days, they might still be brought back. The consciousness is shut down by the body, and once healing applied, is re-awoken by the spell casters or priests.

IF and only IF we have gone past the point of no return, do we now need actual resurrection spells.

This adds the benefit, plot wise, that our players are not 100% lost to us, and plot paths can continue beyond death. provided the resurrection is made cheap enough by plot economics. 

That's the TL;DR of my notes on death. 

Three lives

 A throwback to Nostalgia, a concept I was playing with, but recently with my neck injury, came to a focus point:

The Three Lives System:

Maybe you're a bit young for this, and you've not experienced it in computer games, but back in the day when we paid a coin to play a game. it gave us 3 lives. 3 attempts. Three Strikes your Out! You could learn enough in a life or two on how to play, and then attempt to complete the level with the last life. It allowed for simple mistakes, something out of the ordinary or a misstep.

The FATE system, gives a player a single one of these. death cheat code. Something extreme happened, you died, and you can 'wake up' on a beach nearby, having escaped the entire ordeal to return at a later time.

The LUCK system, gives you micro changes. You botched a single dice roll, or you want to buff that damage roll, or you just need better odds at something.

But it always worried me about the middle ground. What if you copped a blow of some decent damage, something harrowing, a broken arm, or leg or spleen. The damage dice modifier from luck is only 1 dice, its usually enough, but what if you fell 12 metres for a 6d6 damage roll. game wise, you can burn through your luck, to survive the roll, but story wise, maybe it doesn't make much sense, or character wise, you've now used up all your luck. its too expensive to spend fate. 

So it got me thinking, 

As a young man, I have been in a scrape or two, and survived. Things that now, as an older man, I have some more pressing issues. how is it that my body can take the same damage, the same severity, and then I was ok within a few days, and now, I'm laid up in bed for 2 weeks.

DNA and all that aside, I don't want to have some kind of 'age system' where you need to track time and then consult tables (Dungeon World does that) It needed a simpler system.

So, the Three lives, popped into my head. How about if all players have 3 'lives'. When they take some serious injury, they can negate the permanent effects by spending a life.

1. Players become aware of the possibility of permanent damage, and how it will, in effect, knock a few levels worth of points from their character.

2. It allows for logical progression of the story, allows for some cool story telling points. rather than retroactively taking back the event, it just allows the event to exist without ruining game play.

3. It gives players a micro sense of dread. Gaining or Losing extra lives becomes a way for players to identify their characters fallibility, it creates tension.

4. The character, in effect, has a lifespan. Certain mechanics such as resurrections might rely on lives too. Players can only 'rev' their character so many times before that character is dust. Making it all the harder to actually rise to legendary levels, giving players that do, a real sense of accomplishment.

This, would be the DD12 simple format for the Age & Health rules. Using actual Age rules would likely negate this, as it already uses a permanent damage rules and negation system. though I might tweak that to somewhat match this.  

Burning Through the Luck.. Why it will always fail long term

A Strange New issue occurred when We started playing Blood Rain & Cataclyzm. At first I was worried that I'd forgotten a rule and broke things..

Luck, Burning stats, and Health.

If you're unaware, players can choose to 'burn' a stat in DD12, to gain an instant advantage, The most common of which are Reflexes, Strength and of course Luck.

Reflexes
With an instant burst of speed, a character increases their Combat Initiative by their reflexes, besides the reflexes going down 1 point (after the bonus is applied) the player gains exhaustion equal to their new reflexes score. Typically players use this to get in an extra final hit, or perform an extra action, just in time before something happens beyond normal control.

Strength
With an instant burst of strength, a character increases their Damage by their strength score, or a bonus +3 to a strength roll, besides the strength going down 1 point (after the bonus is applied) the player gains exhaustion equal to their new strength score. Typically players use this to get in extra damage for a killing blow, or perform an feat of extraordinary strength.

Note, the similarities in description. Both are physical stats, and as such, gain physical exhaustion, Mental stats gain mental Exhaustion, but are the same, either a +3 to the same stat, or plus its score to a value related.. they are listed in the rulebook.

But Luck, is a stranger one. Coming from Dragon Warriors, and Warhammers Fate, The idea was to allow players the chance to avoid that blow, that telling deadly blow, or vice versa, to push for a hit. In any case, luck allows a player the ability to modify a die roll, 1 single die, to be rolled differently. If the player NEEDS this next roll to pass, they can spend a luck to change the results of the die, after it has rolled. If, they just wish the whole roll to change (i.e. attack roll + extra dice) they can 'roll' their luck, and if they pass, spend 1 luck, and if failed, spend 2 luck, to negate the entire roll against them.

Because players spend these more often, sometimes 2-3 in a given combat, having some kind of exhaustion, really slows down the game.. the STR or REF ones above are so rare, players will understand the cost, but with luck, we have to think a different way.

This was more obvious in Cataclyzm, and Blood Rain, where players would spent 5-10 luck in their first session, just to survive.. players literally were running out of luck.

And Luck isn't fixed to your own rolls, anyone can luck any roll.

But, Younger, Wiser, well rested me, was smart enough to put in an interesting rule about luck. Its relevant to your ability to take wounds, and your healing.

When a Character has taken damage, A lot of people consider their Health Max to be the value to check against. If Damage > Health, do I die.. well, yes but no..

First, we check if the individual blow is greater than your health + pain threshold bonuses, if not.. you shrug it off, if it IS, then we check your luck, If you pass, lucky you.. proceed, else, suffer consequences (see below)

BUT if the individual blow is above your Luck score.. you're out of luck.. no roll (except now, you'll probably spend a luck, to change the damage die roll to its minimum)

Next, lets see if your total damage so far, is above your ability to cope,

The quick rule is, if Total Damage > Luck + Health + Constitution, then you're going to make a luck check to see if you might die or not. For most people, this will be in the range of 30-50.

Furthermore, Your luck score ties directly to your healing rate, luck is added to the healing rate WHEN its calculated, (not before) so a person travelling with a healing rate of 27% and a luck of 16, gets a 43% chance to heal per day, When rested, they double this to 86%, when under care of a physician, they add their luck again to 102%, Even with a 10 point wound (-81%) they'd have a 1% chance to heal, but a player having reduced luck to 10, this would be -16%, unless their friends can come up with some cash to the local temple, this character is done for.

Given Base healing, Rested Healing and Physicians Luck, maintaining your luck above 10 is worth 30% but, in the moment, burning your luck, and avoiding the damage in the first place.. well, damned if you do, damned if you don't?