Human Scale Combat System
This is a system I cobbled together a while back to make human scale combat more workable. I've been using it for a few months in my game, and it seems to work well. The unarmed combats go MUCH better, and gunfights are a tad more realistic. It came about because my players wanted to be able to slug obnoxious NPCs without being put on trial for attempted murder (just try to use that spin kick on someone without killing them. I dare you). Since I was not running "Fist of the North Star," I came up with a way for them to do it.
MEKTON ADVANCED RULES ADDENDUM:
HUMAN SCALE COMBAT SYSTEM
The basic premise of this system of combat is that there are two distinct types of damage: Wounds and Bruises. Wounds are the standard Mekton Z type of damage, and are not being changed by this system. They will still work as normal. Bruises are a new type of damage, and are caused by unarmed combat attacks (punches and kicks), and blunt attacks (clubs, tonfa, sticks, saps, barstools, and thrown bottles). Really big impacts (falling, being run over by a fancar, or being drop-kicked by a 78 ton Mekton) are still considered wounds.For simplicity's sake, all Bruises heal at the rate of 1 (that's one per hit location) for each full hour of rest. Not necessarily sleep, but the injured party cannot be doing anything more strenuous than reading, talking, or watching TV)
A character can take the same amount of Bruises as he can wounds to a given area. The difference is that the amount of hits that would kill a character in Wounds to the head or torso, will only render him unconscious with Bruises. Similarly, the amount of hits that would cost the character the use of a limb with Wounds, will only apply a modifier with Bruises (The modifier, incidentally, is -4 to all skill rolls involving the use of the affected limb, due to the pain. And yes, it is cumulative).
You do not need a separate damage monitor for Wounds and Bruises. They both use the same monitor, and are cumulative with each other. Say, for example, Jeff can take a maximum of 10 hits of damage to his torso, and he takes 5 hits of Wounds and 5 hits of Bruises, he then has 10 hits of total damage to his torso. This is his maximum, and he is unconscious. He will not be dead until he has a full 10 hits of Wounds.
This brings me to the next point: wraparound damage. Suppose Jeff took the 5 hits of Wounds, then he gets hit with 7 hits of Bruises. Since he only has the capacity to take 5 more hits of damage, the remaining 2 hits of Bruises wrap around, converting 2 of the Bruises he took into Wounds. He therefore ends up unconscious, having taken 7 hits of Wounds and 3 hits of Bruises. Put simply, each hit of Bruises OR WOUNDS you take to a given location which exceeds your damage capacity for that location will convert one hit of Bruises to Wounds. You never go into negative numbers until all your Bruises have become Wounds, in which case you either die or lose a limb.
Before you panic, this is not as complex as it sounds. I found it to work best when you monitor damage with checkboxes. Just mark Wounds with X'es and Bruises with slashes. Then, if you get any wraparound, it is easy to just double up the slashes, making them X'es. See how easy that works? When all your checkboxes are full, you're unconscious. If they are all full of X'es, you're taking the long dirt nap.
One last note: Armor and Blunt Trauma. Ballistic mesh and most other soft armors offer NO protection against Bruising damage. (I've found that this makes PC fistfights actually practical) Also, any ballistic weapon hits stopped by the armor are converted to Bruises and applied as normal, since the armor is designed to stop the bullet, not the impact. (It will keep you alive, but not necessarily conscious. If you have ever seen Plastic Little, it has an excellent example of this principle when the villain pumps several bullets into Tita's ballistic mesh, nearly rupturing her internal organs without ever breaking the skin.) Any armor designated as padded armor gets half its SP against Bruising damage (in exchange for possiby reducing the character's mobility). Hardened armor (Helmets, polymer plate, stove doors under a serape', etc.) are designed to stop impacts, and therefore work as normal against either Bruises or Wounds. Beam weapons, of course, have no impact and are immune to this effect.
A word of warning: The Armor rules may make it a bit too easy to take someone out with a gun. I didn't mind, since it was realistic and fit in with my game, but it may be too nasty for some campaigns. If so, ignore the part about ballistic damage hits which are stoppped by the armor converting to Bruises. Consider it an optional rule.
Original Source: Mekton Bastion Text Archives
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