NPCs and Death

I play AD&D by the -10 rule to allow for PCs to bleed out before death. Most battlefield casualties come from blood loss. I have spiced it up a little, though, as PCs lose 1d4 hp per round once they're below zero, not just the standard 1. The real question is, what does this mean for NPCs and monsters? Should they simply fall down dead at 0 hp? Is that likely, desirous, or even fun? No. After playing the excellent playtest rules for Feudal Anarchy (aka Medieval Hack), I have been convinced of the utility and wonder of finding dismembered, bleeding, badly wounded, or unconscious NPCs at the end of a battle. So what is my system for determining if someone is dead?

Currently, I don't have one. I simply let my whim decide if an orc that's been skewered is dying or already dead. This seems to me to be a rather haphazard and, if I may say so, arbitrary way of figuring out if the great lord the PCs just skewered is in his death throws or if they can take him captive and use him as a bargaining tool. The simple fact is NOT EVERYONE TOO WOUNDED TO FIGHT IS DEAD. In fact, generally, in most medieval warfare, those too wounded to fight are rarely dead.

I normally just record foe hp and then cross it out as the foe is damaged. This new proposed system will add marginally more work to that method, but I believe it will (compared to the work added) greatly increase the complexity of player choice and interaction as well as the realism of any given fight. The system I propose is as follows:

If an NPC is reduced to 0, they have a base 10% chance of being mortally wounded at the end of combat.

For every point below 0 they are reduced to, this chance is increased by 10%.

All NPCs below 0 hp will need to be tended to by a healer. In order to recover a character who has been non-mortally wounded, the healer must make a healing prof check. This check suffers a -1 penalty for every ten minutes since the battle has ended. Each attempt to heal a dying man takes ten minutes.

Thus:

Gilberte, Francis, and Hadrian are fighting the men of the Count de Coer. There are three foes, all of whom are downed. One man is reduced to -4hp, another to -8hp, and the last to -1hp. These are 50%, 90%, and 20% chances of being mortally wounded respectively. When the PCs check on the dead, the DM rolls... 19, 27, 76. The first two men are beyond saving, dying messily. The last is not mortally wounded, but will require a healing check to stabilize. None of the men were necessarily unconscious (that's up to the DM). This last man can now be taken as prisoner.

Forever Alow

Low levels. I love 'em. My players love 'em. They actually start to get somewhat disconnected from their characters around levels 5-6, as the powers mount and the challenges grow less about utilizing your brains to prevent your feeble body from being flayed alive by uncountable horrible foes and more about calculating your strength, mustering it, and throwing it where it is needed to topple dangerous enemies that would have, at one time, seemed like certain death.

It's this white-knuckled grip on the dice that interests my players most. The additional resources of high levels actually seem to be a burden. I've had them remark on several occasions that they LOVE playing the low levels. They've done it enough; TPKs, loss of players, and other such nicities have caused party resets a-plenty. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it hasn't all been due to one primary secret driving urge—my players like playing low-level schmucks. Sure, there's the essential draw of taking a paper-thin douchebag and turning him into a god... but do my players get bored of their douchebags long before they reach divine status? It would seem, by all evidence, so.

This is one of the reasons I've always wanted to run WFRP2e, why I love the current (but incomplete) rules for Medieval Hack (now Feudal Anarchy), and why I have sought out Hârnworld over and over again only to be repulsed by its not-quite-early-medieval setting (with its guilds and high medieval nonsense and strange words that look like Baatorian break-teeth languages). We just love the thrill of low-level play, and it seems like we always will. I've only run a handful of games with characters beyond 6th level in my life, and it doesn't look as though that number is going to increase anytime soon.

Play Report: Feudal Anarchy

We had our first real game of Feudal Anarchy last night. I say real, because previously we had never managed to get beyond character creation. The lack of rules for female characters is still somewhat of a drain on the group, so I'm struggling with thoughts about how a female could be tied to the progression of a father or husband; it might make sense for said male to die just as the woman enters play, giving her some institutional freedom. Widows would make interesting characters, though so would the mistresses of parish priests and abbots, or even bishops.

First things first: there's a missing career in the rules. Alderman/Councilor is nowhere to be found, which was a shame because I had someone who had rolled into Guild Mastership. Rather than hastily concoct one, he chose to remain a Guild Master for the final term. Still!

Secondly: It's far too easy, for my tastes, to get into magical careers. Hell, if my players would have brooked it I would have done away with magic all together. Either way, I think I am going to set the entry bar much higher for warlocks and aesthetes in the future. Something like 1-30 instead of 1-60.

As for who we had...

Wulstan the Axe, a young boy from Tunmoss Manor who left home at an early age to join men seeking absolution in the Holy Land. Along with his friend, Darrel (you'll start to wonder where some of these names came from, certainly not an approved source, but I was too eager to argue~), he joined the forces of Roger of Salerno and exhibited extreme bravery at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis but minutes before he could be recognized and knighted, Roger himself was slain. Together, the two men (now hardened with violence and war) returned home. During his time in the Holy Land, Wulstan fell in love with and married a Copt named Aelethia who gave him a passel of daughters and a son.

Darrel of Tunmoss, Wulstan's companion, was a crossbowman and mercenary in Roger of Salerno's host.

Sambart the Hermit, was a commoner who took to the woods for peace and quiet and became a hunter. He went into the service of the Bishop of Hereford as the Forester of Peterchurch for a time, but eventually abandoned his duties to live as a simple religious aesthete in the wild.

Sir Edwart, a knight-bachelor's son and a household knight of Miles of Gloucester, the High Sheriff of Herefordshire. He works for king and country and loves good king Henry most of all.

Brian "le Grande", a base thief and a bandit, le Grande is the most experienced man with a bow in the whole group. He is a skulk and a killer, but has so far displayed remarkable uprightness and brutal honesty.

The game began as Wulstan and Darrel returned home to Tunmoss Manor (to discover it was paltry and shabby compared to their experiences in the great cities of the East). At the same time, Sambart arrived in fear of the local Welsh raiders while Sir Edwart came with a dispatch from the High Sheriff to secure the border. Brian le Grande, after watching his companions be hanged from the eaves of Mortimer Forest, had been skulking around for days seeking to hide out away from the High Sheriff's watchful eyes.

fitzWilliams, the knight who ran the estate, informed them that the Welsh had attacked the night before in numbers no greater than six or so. They were armed with clubs and spears, torches and caused a bit of havoc but harmed no one. After burning down a byre and the thatch of a few roofs, they vanished into the night.

At the same time as Edwart was receiving this news, Wulstan was confronting his father, Arnald who was less than impressed with the path his youngest son chose. After upbraiding him and telling him that his brother Aethelstan had gone on to become a canon priest at the cathedral in Hereford, Wulstan growled and left. Their relationship is not good, and the instant pathos created by real world history was deep and pretty amazing, I feel.

Eventually, the Welsh camp became clear when night fell: an old iron-age hill fort that the local Tunmoss residents thought was a barrow. A heated battle followed in which I used some very general stats for the Welsh. Four were wounded and several died after the battle of those wounds. They tended and saved the rest, bringing them back to Tunmoss in preparation for interrogation and possible ransom back to their lord, the Prince of Powys.

A riotous time was had by all.