Re: [BNW] KO and stunned

[Theo McGuckin <tsm@jlab.org>]

> Anybody else have a problem with the fact that you have to literally beat 
> someone to a pulp to knock them out?
> And that there is no additional effect for hitting someone who is stunned 
> (beyond them being relatively defenseless)? (that is there is no "he's got 
> him on the ropes effect")

It is a bit of a problem. The big problem I have is that the only way to
really "knock someone out" is for them to critically fail a stun check,
which is pretty unlikely for anything but a 2d6 str. reg. (esp. for 
goliaths and their ilk).

> Almost every combat ends up in at least several days of serious rest to heal 
> up. And if you are playing even remotely 'real' they'd have to see a doctor 
> to have any hope of healing fast. And in the real world a doctor MUST report 
> any 'violent' injuries (knife wounds, gunshots, etc.) to the local police. 
> And if you don't think going to a doctor in Delta Prime's USoA is more 
> hazardous to your health than the original fight, you're probably 
> registered. (in my world there are 2 prime squads on station at each 
> hospital. one accompanies any 'hot' ambulance call) the other is there to 
> handle any situations that arise. Hope one of the defiants has a sympathetic 
> doctor as a contact....

Well the easiest way around this is to have someone in the group with some
medical training. An EMT trained char. could easily set bones (with a
splint) and patch up bullet holes. I think that's like 3 pts. in Medical.
It's never that much of an issue in our group:
The tough generally didn't get hurt, and when he did, not very badly.
My bouncer generally dodged most attacks and when he did get hit his str.
	was high enough that he would make his healing rolls.
The blaster generally got knocked out in most fights so never had a chance
	to accumulate many wounds
The TK avoided combat (hung back) so didn't get hit a lot and he had a
	good medical skill so he could work on himself and others.
Of course I also got a lvl. 1 contact which was a mob healer, cost me an
arm and a leg (not literally) but I can get healed almost any time.

> My team was really upset at how long it took them to heal up from a normal 
> fight. and they were really annoyed at having stunned the goliath, and then 
> having to hit him like 5 more times while he was stunned in order to finally 
> knock him out. (by the rules, he should have gotten a stun check on each 
> hit, and would have 'unstunned' himself 2 times if I hadn't thought that was 
> real stupid). This is when we realized they had to do like 9 wounds to knock 
> him out. (basically, break a bunch of ribs, or his jaw etc.) Which is going 
> to take the goliath over a week and a half to fully recover from (only 1 
> wound healed per day).

Well remember that the goliath is SUPPOSED to be hard to take out
(although I agree about your stun check ruling).

Well when you get nailed with two or three bullets being back in full form
in a couple days is pretty good...

Another problem I have (minor) is the disparity between high str. and low
str:
The blaster (2 str) can never have more than a -2 to her rolls (once it's
useless she just has to make those stun checks every round)
My bouncer (3+3 = 6 str) can have a -6 penalty, because he has a higher
str.
It's still better than taking stun checks every round and getting KOed,
but it still seems a little weird.
But then there is the recovery time issue that you mentioned...

> Our fix was to say that if you fail a stun check while you are already 
> stunned, you are knocked unconscious. When unconscious, you get 1 roll per 
> turn to wake up with a target number of 15 (plus any wound modifiers). once 
> you wake up you are still stunned until you make a normal roll to become 
> unstunned.

This seems like a good rule. There's lots of ways you can do it:

1. keep track of the number of stun checks that have been failed and the
guy can only get up once he has passed all of them, and he can only make
ONE roll per action.

2. keep track of the number of stun checks failed and once that number
exceeds your number of wounds you have critically failed your stun check.

But these are all just variaions, like I said any them could work to some
degree.

-Theo McGuckin, operations
"We waste more electrons by 6am then most labs make all day. Be all you
can be!"