Does bleeding stack???

[Bhurano]

Woah,

so many cool ideas. Thank you guys.

Do you mind if I lift some of your ideas?

Definitely, "There Will Be Blood" , I so gonna use this quality.

Just need to talk with my group... how lethal bleeding should be...

Thank you guys, this forum is great. I wouldn't have tried this all on my own, fearing to break something.

[Sheena-Tiger]

no need to ask me in that case Bhurano, you have my go for aegis last version ^^
not sure how it will play out in the long run, guess needs testing on some enemies.

[Big_Jim]

I think aegis's version of bleeding is too vicious, especially if you enhance the chance of getting it rolling with the keen modification. I modified my version with his 'out of combat' time modification, and Mr. A's 'drop a grade @ scene's end' suggestion. I left my 1d4+grade lethal damage option, as I think it's a happy medium between Mr. A's 'grade doesn't matter for the lethal, keep it at 1d4' and aegis's '1d4 per grade quick-death by cuts' options. Aegis's is so powerful that weapons not upgraded with bleed will become the rarest items in the world. It's a no-brainer in a campaign with that version of the condition.

There will be Blood (2 Action Dice)
The Bleed weapon quality, Bleeding condition and Bandages consumable supply are replaced with the following modified versions:

Bleed: An opponent struck with the weapon must make a successful Fortitude save (DC equal to the the damage + keen quality after DR and Resistances are applied) or begin bleeding.

Bleeding (I-IV + special): The character suffers 1 point of subdual damage at the end of each round per grade suffered. If he takes 1 or more actions during the round, he suffers (1d4 + grade suffered) lethal damage instead. DR and Resistances do not reduced this damage. Out of combat these effects occur every minute. If a character with bleeding IV is bled again, he instead falls unconscious from blood loss. While unconscious, the character continues to suffer 1 point of subdual damage at the end of each round until treated or consciousness is regained. This condition is automatically reduced by one grade at the end of a scene, but may be completely eliminated earlier with a successful full-round Medicine check (DC 20 +  twice the grade suffered).

Bandages: Sterile strips of cloth, boiled leaves, and other antiseptics negate one grade of the bleeding condition.

[Bhurano]

Hi there,

nice job, Big_Jim. We play tomorrow, and it seems that - for now - we will give aegis variant a chance. To be honest, this might be a potentially gritty and extreme deadly game. But on the other hand... it would be quite rewarding if we pull it of to survive.

Should that be to deadly for us, I would definitely incorporate your variant. Maybe some of us might buy this per Action Dice for a scene to reduce the deadlyness of aegis variant. Which would also good, because we still trying to get the hang on the Action Dice system.

I'll post how it worked... even if we have to roll a bunch of new characters...

[Bhurano]

Ok, so here we go,

as I said I would post how it went.
Short version: Not very far.
Long version: The GM who took over from me, has problems with english (to be true with any language, except german) and we tried to sell him on these really vicious bleeding rules.
He was skeptic and said we should start and see how it goes.

So we started and ran in half a dozen guys with muskets... (note to self: guns are freakin' dangerous) which we offed, but on the other hand we were barely able to stand on our feet. Both of us had left 1 Wound Point. Mainly because the GM made 3 criticals and chose to use them. At that point we decided, that we for now will use the standard bleeding system. To be true, I wanted trouble just to see if my orc mage would survive.

But quite likely we will upgrade it later, when we understand the system even more. And the option to upgrade it for a scene per Action Die still stands. Such a fight would tend to end sooner than later.

[aegis]

I should have mentioned: the version of There Will Be Blood I proposed is meant for highly lethal games where you want a lot of "wounds" realism:
- a bullet has real chances of killing you (oooh, Doomed Heroes)
- if it doesn't, you will die of bleeding if you don't get serious medical attention rapidly!

That's great for very historically grounded games, where you want even a peasant with a fork or a crossbow to be able to kill a king by chance (yes, just like it did happen). In such a game, I would say that an encounter against 6 gunmen that ends up as a victory but with all PCs severely wounded is a good thing. Because they realize how fragile they are, how freaking vicious a gun can be, and how diplomatic (or sneaky) solutions should be preferred whenever possible.

But again, it's a question of tone. If the players want to play heroes that can stand several battles in a row, that's probably not such a good idea.

Edit: The problem of using this quality as non-permanent is: what happens when you're bleeding III at the end of the scene and the quality is not applied in the next?

[Bhurano]

Hehe,

yeah, for really highly lethal games. I agree with that. For now my buddy who took over GM'ing is quite satisfied that he hasn't erased us with these musketeers.

Only problem for him he needs to be guided through the whole system step by step, because his english is bad, really bad. So he decided that for now we play it straight as given. Lucky us.

This encounter - and the subsequent ones - lead to my decision to create for now characters who have regeneration - and because I like Ogre Blood. For the orc mage I thought of it as a gimmick, something nice to have. But after that fight... yes, more regeneration please... even one point can make a big difference.

It has the added benefit of stopping bleeding... if I assume correctly.

Fighting several battles in a row is nice, but not necessarily a must have. So I would be happy with a deadly quality as yours. I have to admit that my mages can be quite diplomatic, while my fighter characters tend to be trigger happy. Might be the reason why they keep tellin' me to use wizzies. I hear them yell: "Use fireballs, not swords."

Using a quality as this as non-permanent I would wing it the following way: Any bleeding aquired during that scene would stay the way as intended by "There Will Be Blood" until treated. A bit harsh, but seems ok for me. I would allow the use of Action Dice to bring it down to Big_Jim's version of "There Will Be Blood". That should be enough time to treat the wounded and would emphasize the fact that the players are tougher and luckier than "mere" mortals.