You Wound Me

Lately, I’ve been running Curse of Strahd, but not with D&D.

That would be too easy.

I’m running it with Mothership.

No, not space vampires, although that would be awesome. This is narratively gothic horror fantasy with the d% rules chassis. I’ve made a ton of tweaks that are necessary for the genre, like re-flavoring the classes to actual social classes of early modern Europe. Skills, items, etc.

There is one big change I’ve made recently that wasn’t necessary at all: retooling the damage system.

HP-less Damage

So, for those unaware how damage works in Mothership, here’s a rundown:

• You have HP and also a certain number of Wounds you can take (usually around 20 HP and 2 Wounds)
• When you take damage you subtract from your HP, if it hits zero then take a Wound and reset your HP (account for spillover)
• When you take a Wound roll on the Wounds Table and gain a special condition based on the damage type (sometimes this results in instant death if you roll real bad)

I absolutely adore the Wound Table in Mothership but I super don’t care about the math that gets to it.

So I cut the math. Here’s my current procedure:

• When you take damage compare that number with the Wound chart (stuff like armor reducing damage still applies)
• Take the associated Wound and deal with it’s effects

Other Influences

In a word: Warhammer.

I always loved the critical damage tables in Dark Heresy. One time my character’s head exploded and everyone else slipped in the blood fountain my body turned into. Good stuff.

The Warhammer Fantasy RP crit tables were a big source of inspiration on mine.

Scaling

Where Mothership was a d10 table, I needed something at least double that size given how much damage monster do. Even with my monster damage dialed back from Mothership standards, right now my table goes to 20 but I should probably expand it to 30.

It also seems important for the chart to escalate like Mothership’s can. That is to say, get certain Wounds makes it more likely to get more Wounds later. Where Mothership has Bleeding, I went with something more general that interacted directly with the chart. Also, something to dictate length of injury.

Wound Keywords:

• Add - the next time you take damage add X
• Temporary - lasts until end of encounter
• Ongoing - lasts until resting or treatment
• Permanent - lasts forever (unless something dramatic happens)

Okay, Get to the Dang Table Already!

Still working on other damage types, like Fire and Gore, as well as tweaking the existing chart, but this has been a promising start.

During our last fight the party priest was attacked by one of those animated Scarecrows a few times while exploring a swamp. The first cut just made his allies Stressed (Profuse Bleeding) the second made it hard for him to run (Severed Tendon) and the third put him in a really bad spot (Artery Nicked).

This was all extremely dramatic and changed the party’s calculation every round. Plus there was very little math. So I consider it a big success.

In Closing

So that’s another thing I’m working on.

After all, why bother finishing a project when I can just start another one?

Hope you enjoy the chart!