House-Rule: Wounds make the heroes Weary

[Falenthal]

Michebugio said:

Wounded also makes you Weary . I just wanted some more emphasis on the advantages of armour (which, by the RAW maths, is actually a disadvantage in many circumstances).

In another thread, Michebugio shared this (among others) house rule and I liked the idea a lot. I'm trying to think of side implications of it, and wanted some feedback or ideas from people who use it or have given it a thought.

First, I like the fact of making armours more important without changing the numbers (damage received, difficulty for travels,...). One general rule is way more simpler than coming up with adjustments for every armor under different circumstances (battle, travel, movement skill checks,...), and at first glance is as effective or resolutive.

Second thought that came to my mind, the Beorning's Cultural Blessing makes even more sense:

During combat, a Wounded Beorning ignores the
effects of being Weary (whether he was injured during
the same fight or not).

In a fight, we know that a hero can be wounded with nearly full Endurance, or he can reach 0 Endurance without a single Wound. I'd like to think here if the blessing should be changed to: "A beorning doesn't become Weary when Wounded, only if his Endurance reaches his Fatigue Threshold". This way, beornings are encouraged to use light or no armor (animal pelts and such). The Virtue Great Strenght also has some nice synergie with this rule: "Wounds don't make me Weary, Encumbrance does. So I'll keep Encumbrance to a minimum." And, on top of that, this tendency to no-armor may result in Beornings being Wounded more often than other heroes. The Virtue Skin-Coat allows them to have some control over the second Wound that would knock them out, by using their Encumbrance (that, once again, due to beornings not using armour, is a greater resource for them than is for other cultures).

The only thing I think LMs should be very careful about is the conditions under which a Wound is healed. The Revised Book says:

When the Endurance score of an injured character reaches
its maximum rating after a prolonged rest, the hero is
considered to have been finally restored to full health, and
the Wounded label on his character sheet can be unchecked.

I bolded the part that can unbalance things: just by reaching full Endurance (via Rally Comrades, for example) doesn't make a Wound dissappear. You also need a prolonged rest.

Anyone else sees anything with this house rule worth mentioning?

[Rich H]

Anyone else sees anything with this house rule worth mentioning?

Are you getting rid of how the Wearied condition is currently acquired or keeping it and adding it to the Wounded condition as well?

Assuming it's the former... I played with the idea but came to the conclusion that the Wearied condition was very much hardwired into the travel mechanics, and the way skill tests and the like work, so the implications of moving it should not just be considered for combat but for every element of the game where dice rolls are involved. That's not a little tweak and no-one would be able to consider all the implications; with the current rule set and certainly not in the future for any new rules. I therefore dismissed it due to the unforeseen impacts it could, and likely would, have.

Whether moving the Wearied condition to being Wounded as well (or moving it)... I do think that there are options to expand the Wounded status, make it more mechanically interesting, and in turn make wearing armour more reasonable to avoid sustaining Wounds. I created the following for my game but I have yet to use it fully (on account that a PC hasn't been Wounded yet):

CRITICAL WOUNDS
Critical Wounds occur when a player-hero is wounded, resulting in them suffering some kind of debilitating injury determined by the weapon which caused the injury. Within the rules this is represented by the character acquiring a temporary wounded trait, the nature of which is dependent on the weapon dealing the injury. A summary of the Wounded traits and their associated weapons and Weapon Groups follows:

• Simple Weapons, Staffs, Nets and Torches, etc: usually do not result in Critical Wounds unless the weapon description describes them.

• Thrown, Slings, Bows, and Spears: use the Puncture Critical Wound trait

• Hammers: use the Crush Critical Wound trait

• Axes: use the Slash Critical Wound trait (on a roll of 1, 2, 3 on a Success Die) or the Crush Critical Wound trait (on a roll of 4, 5, 6 on the Success Die)

• Mattocks: use the Puncture Critical Wound trait (on a roll of 1, 2, 3 on a Success Die) or the Crush Critical Wound trait (on a roll of 4, 5, 6 on the Success Die)

• Swords: use the Slash Critical Wound trait

INVOKING CRITICAL WOUNDS
The Loremaster may invoke a Critical Wound suffered by the character if it would have a negative effect on the situation at hand. In other words, it must be reasonably plausible that the character would have fared better if he didn’t possess the negative feature detailed by the wound. The Loremaster may invoke a Critical Wound to apply a Feat Re-roll. Usually, the Loremaster cannot apply the effects of the Critical Wound more than once during the same scene.

Feat Re-roll
If the Loremaster rules that a Critical Wound is affecting the performance of a hero, the acting player must roll the Feat die twice, and keep the lowest result.

NEW TRAIT: WOUNDED (CRUSH)
The character has suffered a grievous, crushing blow, which may have resulted in any one of a broken/fractured leg or arm, a staggering blow, concussion or any other similar wound.

These injuries will affect a character's weapon skills and mental capacity (ie, Wits related Common Skills).

NEW TRAIT: WOUNDED (SLASH)
Character's wounded in such circumstances may exhibit injuries ranging from nasty slashes to vicious arterial cuts resulting in significant blood loss.

These injuries will affect a character's weapons skills, vigour and physical well-being (ie, Body related Common Skills).

NEW TRAIT: WOUNDED (PUNCTURE)
A Character suffering from such a critical wound may manifest as internal organ damage or bleeding, muscle damage, or a deep penetrating wound.

These injuries will affect a character's weapon skills and, energy and vitality (ie, Heart related Common Skills).

Treated Wounds
For treated wounds, a character may spend a point of Hope to ignore the effects for a scene, battle, encounter, fatigue check, etc.

I personally prefer this rule to just moving or duplicating the Wearied condition as it adds a new bit of crunch to the rules that other house rules could be hung from but that has a similar (albeit temporary) application of negative traits like Bouts of Madness produce, which are (sort of) like wounds but to a character's spirit.

[Rocmistro]

I love the idea of wounds as a negative trait. In fact I think the whole negative trait (temporary ones) as a mechanic is sorely under-used.

Like Rich, I'm also apprehensive about adding the Weary condition on top of the Wounded status. It seems to have a lot of implications that might upset game balance.

[Rich H]

I love the idea of wounds as a negative trait. In fact I think the whole negative trait (temporary ones) as a mechanic is sorely under-used.

... That was my main reason for using it; I think it's really underused for such a cool mechanic that also offers lots of RPing opportunity as well.

[Falenthal]

Anyone else sees anything with this house rule worth mentioning?

Are you getting rid of how the Wearied condition is currently acquired or keeping it and adding it to the Wounded condition as well?

The idea was to add it. So that characters can become Weary due to Endurance reaching the Fatigue Threshold as well as by getting Wounded.

[Michebugio]

... That was my main reason for using it; I think it's really underused for such a cool mechanic that also offers lots of RPing opportunity as well.

I love these rules too, thanks for sharing!

I usually apply the Weary condition to the Wounded condition as a mean to increase armour importance, and the two mechanics don't seem to step into each other's feet, although applying them both may make Wounds too heavy on the players.

I would even add another rule to yours, Rich, to keep the symmetry with the negative Traits mechanic:

Failure aggravation
If the Loremaster rules that a Critical Wound is affecting the performance of a hero, and the roll he attempted was a failure, the Loremaster may declare that the character suffers Failure aggravation. When such thing happens, the wound re-opens and it is considered no longer treated (another Healing roll must be attempted to treat it again), and the character loses a number of Endurance points equal to the result of one success dice. This is in alternative to the Feat die Re-roll, like for others negative Traits.

[poosticks7]

You could apply it to temporary personality 'wounds' such as: paranoid, embarrassed, cowered, etc from critically fumbling an encounter roles.

Hope you get my point - on my kindle.

[Angelalex242]

...as long as it applies to monsters of great size as well. No fair doing mean things to players without monsters suffering the same.

[Rich H]

...as long as it applies to monsters of great size as well. No fair doing mean things to players without monsters suffering the same.

It's perfectly 'fair'; the rules in TOR are not always symmetrical like this so it isn't a requirement to do so; my rules for Wounds aren't required to work for creatures. It's more about making the long term/ongoing Wound condition interesting and to make armour more of an obvious choice for PCs. The same isn't required of monsters, etc.

[Glorelendil]

...as long as it applies to monsters of great size as well. No fair doing mean things to players without monsters suffering the same.

Ooh...I'm going to start giving my orcs Fellowship Focus. That way they can spend more Hate!