A Semi-Cumulative Wounding System
In GURPS, wounds accumulate in a linear fashion,
with undesirable effects occurring once you pass set
thresholds. In real life, wounds do not accumulate like
this. People can take many small wounds without any
real danger - twenty chicken pecks, bruises or cigarette
burns do not accumulate and cause unconsciousness
or death. With gunshot and knife damage, the place-
ment of the individual wounds is all important. People
can survive many ill placed stabs or shots, but a single
penetrating blow to a major blood vessel or vital organ
is deadly.
However, damage clearly can accumulate to some
degree. When you chop down a tree, you don't go for a
single well placed or exceptionally powerful blow. In-
stead, you whack away until enough of the tree is miss-
ing that it falls over. Likewise, if you shoot a person
enough, eventually he will be blasted into hamburger
even if, miraculously, every single shot misses the
heart, brain, spinal column, and major vessels. This
latter effect can be important when dealing with con-
structs and undead that lack blood and vital organs, or
when you are being eaten alive by rats.
Here, then, is a system for tracking wounds that falls
somewhere between the linear "ablative hit point" mod-
el of GURPS and an independent wound system pro-
posed by some other authors.
When you take damage, compare the points of
damage sustained to your HP score. Do not subtract
from your current HP! Under this system you always
have "maximum HP."
If the damage is 1/16xHP or more but less than
1/8xHP, you sustain a Scratch (you can simply ignore
all damage less than 1/16xHP).
• You take a -1 shock penalty to DX and IQ on your
next turn.
• Do not record scratch wounds from crushing dam-
age. The wound is too trivial to worry about. Even if
you do not record the wound, the shock penalty still
applies. (Damage that is technically crushing for
game purposes but that does break the skin, such
as the bites of many animals, is recorded.)
If the damage is 1/8xHP or more but less than
1/4xHP, you take a Minor Wound.
• You take a -2 shock penalty to DX and IQ on your
next turn.
• If struck in the head or vitals, make a HT roll to
avoid stunning and a HT roll to avoid knockdown. If
you fail the sunning roll by 5 or more, you are
knocked unconscious.
• Do not record minor wounds from crushing damage
delivered by blunt attacks. You may get bruised, but
take no real injury. You are still affected by shock,
stunning, and knockdown caused by the blow, how-
ever. (Damage that is technically crushing for game
purposes but that does break the skin, such as the
bites of many animals, or flanged maces, or war-
hammers, is recorded.)
If the damage is 1/4xHP or more but less than
1/2xHP, you take a Moderate Wound.
• You will have a -3 shock penalty to DX and IQ on
your next turn.
• Blows to the head and vitals require HT rolls to
avoid knockdown and stunning, as above, but the
roll is at -2. Failure by 5 or more on the stunning roll
causes unconsciousness.
• If you fail your impairment roll (see below), you suf-
fer from moderate pain, and are at -2 to DX, IQ,
skills, and self-control rolls. You must succeed a will
roll to use any limb or extremity with a moderate or
greater wound. If the wound is to a leg, your move is
halved.
If the damage 1/2xHP or more but less than 1xHP,
you take a Major Wound.
• On your next turn, you have a -4 shock penalty to
DX and IQ.
• An extremity is crippled by one major wound; an
arm, by two; and a leg, by three.
• Make a HT roll to avoid knockdown. Make a second
HT roll to avoid stunning. These rolls are at -5 if the
injury occured to the head or vitals. Failure by 5 or
more on the stunning roll causes unconsciousness.
• If you fail your impairment roll (see below), you are
in severe pain, and take -4 to all IQ, DX, skill, and
self-control rolls. In addition, if you are impaired your
move and dodge are also halved.
If the damage is 1xHP or more but less than 2xHP,
you take a Critical Wound.
• You take all the effects of a Major Wound. If you
failed your impairment roll (see below) you are in
terrible pain (-6 to DX, IQ, skills, and self-control)
and you must succeed a HT check before you take
any physical action or Do Nothing that turn. High
Pain Threshold gives a +2 to this HT check, Hard to
Subdue is added to it.
• If wound was from a single the blow to the vitals,
you must pass a HT check or you will either lose 2
FP per second from bleeding or you are permanent-
ly paralyzed (GM's option, or roll randomly). If the
wound was from a single wound to the brain, you
must pass a HT check or immediately die. A critical
wound resulting from a single blow to the neck re-
quires a HT check, failure means you are either
permanently paralyzed or lose 1 FP per second
(GM's option). The Hard To Kill advantage adds to
HT for this roll.
 • An extremity is dismembered by one critical wound; wound. Once out of combat for a minute, the effects of
an arm, by two; and a leg, by three. A dismembered adrenaline and endorphins wear off, and you automati-
extremity or limb can take no further damage. cally suffer from impairment. Notes - High Pain Thresh-
• Three critical wounds to the neck caused by cutting old halves the penalty from pain and gives you a +2 to
damage causes decapitation. This is usually instant- resist impairment. Hard To Subdue adds to your HT to
ly lethal. resist impairment. If you have Injury Tolerance (unliv-
ing, homogenous, or diffuse) you never suffer from im-
If the damage is 2xHP or more but less than 4xHP, pairment.
you take a Massive Wound. Once you take a wound, you can ignore shock pen-
• This causes all the effects of a Critical Wound. alties from equal or lesser wounds.
• You must make a HT check. If you fail, you break. If An option to reduce the granularity of this system is
you are broken, you are immediately incapacitated if you take damage that is one quarter of the way or
and automatically lose 2 FP per second from bleed- more from one wound threshold to the next, take two
ing. Inanimate objects are useless for their intended wounds of that severity instead of one. If the damage is
purpose. halfway or more from one wound threshold to the next,
• This much damage to the head destroys the head, take three wounds. If it is three-quarters of the way
severs the neck, or causes instantly fatal brain from one threshold to the next, take four wounds. Only
damage, as appropriate. This much damage to the roll once for the bad effects of these multiple wounds -
vitals destroys a vital organ, causing 2 FP per sec- the only effect of taking multiple rather than one wound
ond or permanent paralysis (GM's option, or roll is for wound accumulation purposes, crippling, dis-
randomly). memberment, and bleeding (see below). When round-
ing to whole numbers of HP, the threshold for one
If the damage is over 4xHP but not over 8xHP, you wound always takes precedence, then for three
take a Gawdawful Wound. Major structural elements of wounds.
your body are destroyed. Keep track of each wound individually. However, if
• This causes all the effects of a Massive Wound, but you take six wounds of the same severity to the same
HT checks to avoid breaking are at -4. location (head (including brain, eye, face, and neck),
• Even if you do not die, you are at half Move and torso (including vitals), right arm, right hand, left arm,
Dodge. You are at -1 to DX for every Gawdawful left hand, right leg, right foot, left leg, left foot), they
wound you have. Inanimate objects are so badly combine to form one wound of the next higher severity.
damaged that there is a -1 to skill to use the object Erase those six wounds that were combined. Immedi-
for every Gawdawful wound it has. ately apply all effects of the higher severity wound you
just took instead of the effects of the lower severity
If the damage is 8xHP or more, your body is de- wound. To conveniently keep track of these wounds,
stroyed, either crushed to a pulp, chopped to bits, you can write out a chart on your character sheet or a
blasted to shreds, ripped to pieces, burned to ashes, or separate sheet you keep with your character sheet:
whatever. Death is automatic, there is simply not
enough of you to keep functioning. Wound HP Hit Location
Severity 1 2 3 4 Head Torso
Impairment: When you are first injured for a Moderate
Scratch __ __ __ __ [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
or greater wound, make a HT roll. If you are not in an
emergency situation you have a -3 on this roll. If you Minor __ __ __ __ [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
succeed, you are so juiced up on adrenaline and en- Moderate __ __ __ __ [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
dorphins that you feel no pain. If you fail, you suffer Major __ __ __ __ [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
from the effects of pain. The degree of pain depends on Critical __ __ __ __ [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
the injury you took. The penalty from the pain does not Massive __ __ __ __ [ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
stack with the shock penalty; use only the larger of the Gawdawful __ __ __ __ [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
two. Only make additional impairment rolls when you
Destruction __ __ __ __ [ ]
suffer a wound of greater effect that what you have al-
ready taken or every time you take a critical or greater

Wound HP Hit Location

Severity 1 2 3 4 R. Arm R. Hand L. Arm L. Hand R. Leg R. Foot L. Leg L. Foot
Scratch __ __ __ __ [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
Minor __ __ __ __ [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
Moderate __ __ __ __ [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
Major __ __ __ __ [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
Critical __ __ __ __ [ ][ ] [ ] [ ][ ] [ ] [ ][ ][ ] [ ] [ ][ ][ ] [ ]
 Under the HP column, write the HP threshold at
which you take one, two, three, or four wounds of that
severity. Simply mark off the appropriate entry as
wounds occur. Once you fill up one row for a particular
body part, if you take another wound of that severity
erase all the wounds on that row and mark off one
wound on the row below it. Note that this can lead to a
cascade effect if all five wounds of that severity are al-
ready filled.
Large-Area Injury
When you take large area injury as defined on p
B400, roll damage once but apply it to every hit loca-
tion. DR protects each location normally. Reduce
wound severity by one for the head, arms, and legs,
and by two for the hands and feet.
Fatigue
Rather than treating fatigue beyond -1 × FP as a
wound, use the following rules:
• FP lost never cause HP of injury.
• At 0 or lower FP, you must make a HT roll to do an-
ything other than talk or rest. If you succeed, you
can act normally. If you fail, you must Do Nothing
that turn. Hard to Subdue adds to this roll.
• Your accumulated FP can fall below -1 × FP. Make
a HT roll when you reach -1 × FP and every addi-
tional ½ FP thereafter. On a failure, you fall uncon-
scious. On a failure by 5 or more, you die. You are
at -5 on this roll for every additional -1 × FP taken
(i.e., -5 at -2 × FP, -10 at -3 × FP, etc.). Hard to
Subdue helps this roll for the purpose of falling un-
conscious, Hard to Kill helps for the purpose of dy-
ing.
• If you are below 0 FP, "normal" fatigue recovers at 1
FP per hour. It can take over a day to recover from
complete exhaustion!
Any attack that causes "fatigue" type damage and
that is not resistable does not cause fatigue directly.
Roll damage normally and find the wound severity. Do
not mark off this wound; its only effect is to tell you how
much fatigue is lost:
Severity FP Lost
Scratch 0 Make a HT check each day. On a success, you recover
Minor 1 1 FP. On a critical success, you recover 2 FP. The
Moderate 2
Major 5
Critical 10
Massive 20
Gawdawful 40
Destruction 80
Bleeding
Wounds bleed to cause FP. The rate at which you
take FP depends on how badly you are wounded. You
bleed separately from each wound.
Severity 1 FP lost every
Scratch 1 day (cutting damage only)
Minor 6 hours (not crushing)
Moderate 1 hour
Major 10 minutes
Critical 2 minutes
Massive 30 seconds
Gawdawful 5 seconds
For the purposes of bleeding, all bites are treated as
cutting even if they technically cause crushing damage
in game terms.
You can avoid fatigue from bleeding by making a
HT roll plus any levels of Hard to Kill. If you succeed,
you do not take any FP this time interval for that partic-
ular wound. If you critically succeed, or succeed nor-
mally twice in a row, your rate of bleeding for that
wound decreases by one level of severity. Exception:
For Minor wounds and Scratches, roll every hour. Any
one success means you do not take FP this time inter-
val. Any two successes means the bleeding stops. For
simplicity, you can ignore bleeding from Minor wounds
and Scratches unless you have the disadvantage He-
mophilia. A hemophiliac always fails HT rolls to avoid
bleeding.
Bandaging a wound will make it bleed at one level
lower severity if the bandager makes his First Aid roll.
This takes one minute. By spending extra time as listed
on the First Aid Table p B424, the healer can make a
second First Aid roll to stabilize his patient and prevent
any further bleeding. These First Aid rolls are at -2 for a
Critical wound, -4 for a Massive wound, and -6 for a
Gawdawful wound. Only one bandaging and one stabi-
lization attempt are allowed for any given patient.
Surgery can be used to completely stop bleeding.
This takes one hour, with the penalty to Surgery skill for
wound severity the same as for the First Aid rolls. On a
success, the patient no longer bleeds.
Fatigue from bleeding does not recover normally.
Rapid Healing advantage will affect this normally. If you
get blood transfusions of the correct blood type, all your
bleeding fatigue is recovered as soon as enough blood
is put back in your veins.
Poisons and Disease
Only poisons or disease that causes actual physical
damage will cause HP of damage and thus wounds.
Rattlesnake venom, spider venom, caustics such as lye
or acid, and flesh eating bacteria fall into this category.
All other diseases and toxins cause FP instead of HP.
Symptoms occur either when you reach a certain frac-
tion of your FP or when you take a wound of a given
severity.
Recovery
Every week in which you are wounded, make a HT
roll for each wound. On a success, that wound de-
creases in severity by one level. All wounds heal at the
same time. If you do not have sufficient rest, food, and
water, you are at -4 on the HT roll.
If you are under the care of a competent healer, you
get a +1 on your HT roll for recovery. In addition, the
healer can roll periodically to help you recover. The
frequency at which the healer rolls depends on TL:
TL Frequency of Healing Rolls
0-3 Monthly
4 Every 3 weeks
5 Every 2 weeks
6-8 Weekly
9 Every 3 days
10 Every 2 days
11 Daily
12 Twice daily
Other Notes
Those with Injury Tolerance (unliving) never suffer
from shock penalties, impairment, knockdown, or stun-
ning. However, unliving characters take full damage
from piercing and impaling attacks. This form of Injury
Tolerance (unliving) includes High Pain Threshold, do
not purchase it separately.
Those with Injury Tolerance (homogenous) have all
the benefits of unliving injury tolerance. In addition,
piercing, impaling, and tight beam burning attacks
cause only one point of damage per die. Inanimate
homogenous objects take a flat three points of damage
per die from all other damage types.
Those with Injury Tolerance (diffuse) have all the
benefits of homogenous injury tolerance, and never
take worse than a Minor wound from any single blow,
unless the injury was from an area effect, cone, or ex-
plosion attack.
Fragile (unnatural) characters die when they take
their first Critical wound to the head or torso.
Treat Regeneration as follows:
• Those with Slow Regeneration have each wound
decrease in severity by one level every three days,
in addition to normal healing. Fatigue from bleeding
is recovered at one point every 12 hours.
• Those with Regular Regeneration have each wound
decrease in severity by one level every six hours.
Fatigue from bleeding is recovered at one point eve-
ry hour.
• Those with Fast Regeneration have each wound
decrease in severity by one level every six minutes.
Fatigue from bleeding is recovered like any other fa-
tigue.
• Those with Very Fast Regeneration have each
wound decrease in severity by one level every six
seconds. Fatigue from bleeding is recovered like
any other fatigue.
• Those with Extreme Regeneration have each
wound decrease in severity by two levels every
second. Fatigue from bleeding is recovered like any
other fatigue.