Simple Skullcracking - Weirdhack?

DEAD AND DYING

When you’re out of Heart Points (HP), you are GUARDBROKEN. Immediately gain a Nasty Scar. Stay standing. 

Every time you take damage, roll the damage against the following instead of your HP.

1-2 Nasty Scar. Coin flip, on heads its wicked cool, on tails its horrifying

3-5 Ruined. Until it is treated, become Deprived and can’t use the ruined body part. If a ruined body part is wounded again, it gets Hacked Off. 

6+ Hacked Off. If it was your stomach or head then you’re dead. Otherwise, taken out of the fight, die if not rescued afterwards. For a week, Deprived if the wound isn’t treated daily.

Also, d6 for location. 1. R leg 2. L leg 3. R arm 4. L arm 5. head 6. stomach

Stomach wounds mean your endurance sucks, head wounds mean your awareness and initiative suck. 

Deprived characters can’t regain HP through mundane means while resting. 

Wounds turn into Nasty Scars once they are treated.

When Non-Player Creatures are GUARDBROKEN, they are at the whims of the players, their sword sent skittering, their morale crippled. Describe what you do to them (run them through, slice their arms off, tie them up, etc). Grand beings may choose to battle on or flee at 0HP, taking wounds like a player.

By me :3

EQUIPMENT AND OTHER SUCH EXTRA STUFF

Medicinal Herbs or Healing Oils. One use treats a wound for a day, OR restores +1d6 HP over a night of rest. Witches or surgeons will sell them for as much as a day of rations, everyone else charges double.

Bandages. Rescue someone bleeding out (usually from a dismembered limb). Double the cost of herbs, but replace witches with soldiers.

You can rip clean clothes into bandages, but roll a d4 each time. On a 1, the clothes are now visibly tattered and can only be ripped into bandages once more before falling apart. 

Note. "Usage Dice" from The Black Hack RPG work best when they're used for things you can't easily count, like chalk or swigs of a drink, as opposed to torches or arrows. Counting things adds to immersion, probably. Maybe.

    Optional rule. Require fresh bandages each day for a week for dismembered limbs, or else risk an infection (1in3 chance). Infections make you Deprived and deal 1d4 damage each day until they're treated.

    Optional rule 2. Require rolls for using bandages or herbs but let people trained in surgery or herbalism skip the rolls. (No party members are trained? Great time to hire a field surgeon)

FURTHER USELESS THOUGHTS ON THE NATURE OF ARGG MY ARM

"[In reference to disabilities] In general it is valuable not to think in terms of costs or bonuses, as games tend to do, but think laterally in terms of how it changes a characters interaction with the world. The taxonomical math nerd urge to assign mechanical reward or mallus must be ignored."

- The Cosmic Orrery on Delegation, Dismemberment, & Disability (a very excellent post that inspired in part the main chunk of this)

Oh also yeah, this system is basically CHOPWOOD OPERA by Bottomless Sarcophagus, except with automated hit locations and traditional HP.

Also, another cool post is the body which knows war. until it breaks under the weight of that knowing. Because you can never have enough cool posts. Its similarly about dismemberment defined more around things that you can't do anymore, rather than just -2 to sword holding or whatever.

Sometimes people wonder why you would want dismemberment in your game. To that I think I'd reply...

Chomp. Princess Mononoke, in all its gloriousness

And secondly, go read this story from the Last Gasp Grimoire cause its so absurd. 

Besides if you think about it, like reaaallyyy think about it, this is kind of less lethal than 5e. Ironically. 

Also, I think its kinda funny and nice the idea of retiring your one legged swordsman... Of to go live in some crumbling folly with his husband... How whimsical... 

I ultimately think, if playing the game doesn't somehow permanently alter your character FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE then why did they go on an adventure at all? Hot girls go into dungeons to come out irreversibly changed.

Shoko my beloved. Ideal Character