Serious Injuries in the Mutant Future

Some more grim and gritty fun for Mutant Future campaigns, serious injuries. Combat in MF by the rules is generally a war of ablation and gimmicks, being wounded has little direct consequence generally. Adding in one or more of the variants in this post could seriously alter the feel of a campaign.


Stopping Power and being knocked down-
If a character is hit for STR or more points of damage in a single blow they are knocked down and stunned for 1-4 rounds if they don't make a CON check. Characters immune to stun effects can still of course be knocked down.


Infections-
If a character is wounded they have a 1% chance per point of damage of becoming infected. (A ML who doesn't want to roll all the time for this can save the check for the end of the day.)

After having an infection for a day the character must make a save (use save vs poison chances) or suffer the effects of being exposed to an intensity 1 poison. Each hour that follows per point of CON the character must make another save, each failed save exposes the character to a higher intensity level of damage. If one makes three saves in a row the infection has passed and they will recover. If one fails three saves in a row they are incapacitated by fever and are unable to care for themselves.

Special attacks and septic conditions can greatly increase the chance of infection and apply negative penalties to saves. Medical care, rest and clean conditions can modify the chance of infection and apply positive modifiers to the save.

Infections turn any wound into a life threatening event and may reduce the zeal with which PCs enter combat.


Grievous Wounds-
A character that takes damage from a single attack equal to three times their CON or more must make a save vs death or find themselves to be horribly wounded. They suffer a -2 penalty on all attack rolls and saves until they begin to recover.

A Grievously wounded character will lose 1 hp a round. They may make a save vs death each round to slow the rate of loss. If they make this save the HP loss slows to 1 hp per 10 minute turn and they are allowed a save every 10 minutes to slow this loss. The rate of loss slows to 1 hp an hour and then 1 hp a day. The rate of loss is further slowed to 1 hp a week. If a save is made following a weekly loss of HP the character is considered to begin recovering.

Firstaid will slow round, turn or hourly based loss of HP, more extensive and successful medical treatment will slow longer loses (and can lead to recovery).
Any method of HP restoration (other then normal healing) that restores HP = CON in a single application will allow the victim to begin recovery.

Tracking of grievous wounds can take some time but can also increase the grittiness of combat when the big weapons come into play.


Maiming
Any blow that hits on a roll of 19 or 20 that doesn't require a score of 19 or more to hit may maim the target. A victim of a potentially maiming blow must save vs death or roll on the chart below-

Maiming Table
1-Muscle Damage- lose 1d4 points of STR
2-Nerve Damage- lose 1d4 points of DEX
3-Brain Damage- lose 1d4 points of INT
4- Internal Damage- lose 1d4 points of CON
5- Maimed limb- a limb is lost or crippled by the blow, a lost arm results in loss of use of that arm, a lost leg reduces speed by 50% (mutants with more then 4 legs may not suffer as much speed loss)
6- Sensory loss- eye, ear, nose lost. effects vary. Losing one eye for a two eyed character typically results in a -2 penalty in combat.

If quality medical treatment isn't applied within 3 days the loss is permanent. Even permanent loss can be fixed by some mutant powers or advanced medical treatments.

Yup, maiming is a critical hit system that makes ordinary primitive weapons as dangerous as advanced weapons.

All of the above injury related rules could be applied but, all applied in the same campaign could seriously alter play style. Any fight has the chance of being lethal or having lingering effects when most of these rules are used.