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Torch wrote:How do you feel characters should react to pain? For the sake of argument lets say a Hardware character with 40 s.d.c. gets shot with a .45 for 20 pts. of damage. Now it is going to hurt like hell, right? Now what about a Mutant with 200+ s.d.c. How should he react? The same amount of pain or less since it is a smaller percentage of his total amount? What about characters who normally don't feel pain, like Mutants with Invulnerability or Zombie Flesh? Say the Mutant with Invulnerability gets hit with magic, and feels the unfamiliar sensation of pain, how should he react? How do you handle characters with healing abilities and pain? Does the injury hurt the whole time, or just until the healing factor kicks in?

Thank you for your time.

i use the Save vs Pain from Ninjas & Superspies to determine if the character is affected by pain.

The specific effects of pain on a character should be role played; that Hardware character who lost half his SDC should feel like he's dying and doubled over in pain - no attack that round, penalties to dodge or parry, etc. The Mutant should be much less affected since the same amount of damage is more of a scratch or flesh wound to him - no penalties. Mutant with Invulnerability who feels pain for the first time should be shocked - roll against Horror Factor perhaps or (if they take a lot of damage; feel a LOT of pain) a save vs. Insanity with a penalty attached, like a -4 to save.

i think the wound would hurt while it is healing, but not after

Pain is often overridden by both adrenaline and fight/flight mechanisms in the brain. At least during the time of danger. However, its shock that often takes down humans in combat. And shock is not always associated with the direct size of the wound.

Also, those who have endured a lot of combat are far less likely to suffer from shock. Thus, most PCs will start 1st level pretty capable of handling combat pain. Keep that in mind if you create any houserules.

And alien & supernatural physiologies may deal with pain/shock in a very different manner than a human being.

In general, I don't worry about it. Zero SDC equals unconscious in most of my games. The SDC rates the amount of suffering until the body gives out and collapses on the floor. In SDC games, I often have crits do equal damage to SDC and HP instead of just x2 damage.

Spinachcat wrote:Pain is often overridden by both adrenaline and fight/flight mechanisms in the brain. At least during the time of danger. However, its shock that often takes down humans in combat. And shock is not always associated with the direct size of the wound.

Also, those who have endured a lot of combat are far less likely to suffer from shock. Thus, most PCs will start 1st level pretty capable of handling combat pain. Keep that in mind if you create any houserules.

And alien & supernatural physiologies may deal with pain/shock in a very different manner than a human being.

In general, I don't worry about it. Zero SDC equals unconscious in most of my games. The SDC rates the amount of suffering until the body gives out and collapses on the floor. In SDC games, I often have crits do equal damage to SDC and HP instead of just x2 damage.

that's a good point. In the games i run, i generally ignore the pain issue unless i feel it will add some good dramatic tension to the story. if it does, i just do a Save vs. Pain. otherwise, it doesn't really matter

Spinachcat wrote:Pain is often overridden by both adrenaline and fight/flight mechanisms in the brain. At least during the time of danger. However, its shock that often takes down humans in combat. And shock is not always associated with the direct size of the wound.

Also, those who have endured a lot of combat are far less likely to suffer from shock. Thus, most PCs will start 1st level pretty capable of handling combat pain. Keep that in mind if you create any houserules.

And alien & supernatural physiologies may deal with pain/shock in a very different manner than a human being.

In general, I don't worry about it. Zero SDC equals unconscious in most of my games. The SDC rates the amount of suffering until the body gives out and collapses on the floor. In SDC games, I often have crits do equal damage to SDC and HP instead of just x2 damage.

This is what I use...generally...except for spell and psionics.

As for the after effects...(Someone with 40 vs 200) I keep it simple, and just say how much % SDC is removed determines pain if the need (rarely does) arise. So someone with 40 SDC is going to be in a lot more pain than someone with 200.

If you just try and apply mechanical penalties, it wont make it the character feeling pain. It'll just be mechanical penalties.

I'd suggest offering XP for players who act out their characters pain and take penalties to hit for X amount of time.

If it's not an expression of character, then it's just a penalty to hit, not a character in pain.

I just encourage people to roleplay it.

Balabanto wrote:I just encourage people to roleplay it.

I had a guy many moons ago who excelled at that. Played a special forces type in the old Robotech Southern Cross sourcebook on a botched mission entry. Ran the whole mission wounded and even let his character die, in large part, due to his injuries.

It's great when the roleplay is embraced along with the mechanical aspect of things too.