The biggest thing about Dark Future that I dislike, is the damage resolution system for characters. I mean, the game is supposed to be simple, yet realistic, so how come higher skilled drivers are harder to kill simply because they have a higher skill level? If you take this literally, then a little old gran with a drive skill of 6 has more chance of surviving a crash than a body building passenger. Not entirely realistic. Thus, I introduce the following system.
Every person has a Constitution Level. This represents their physical fitness, endurance, resistance to pain and injury. It is represented in an abstract way, that of CON points. The CON value for a typical person is 3, while frail people and young adults might have 2, and trained boxers and fighters 4. As they take damage, these points will be reduced, and when they reach 0, the character is unconscious. When they fall below 0, the character is dead.
Whenever a character takes a driver critical, roll 1d6 as normal. Pedestrians add the damage value of the weapon, while all characters subtract the armour value of any body armour that their character is wearing. Then, with this final value, consult the new driver critical table. Note that the results can have differing effects depending on whether the character is a driver or pedestrian.
All results effect everyone, including drivers and pedestrians (who thus may have two results which effect them).
Driver results effect anyone driving any sort of vehicle, be it a car, bike, jetcopter or whatever.
Pedestrian results only effect people not driving cars. Note that a pedestrian result may effect a driver if they subsequently leave their vehicle.
| Die Roll | Wound Status | Wound Effect |
|---|
| 1 or less | Near Miss | Drivers: 40 mph safety limit. |
| 2,3 | Light Wound | All: -1 CON point, -1 to all skill ratings, roll for stun.
Drivers: 40 mph safety limit. |
| 4,5 | Serious Wound | All: -2 CON points, -2 to all skill ratings, roll for KO.
Roll for possible limb disablement.
Drivers: 20 mph safety limit.
Pedestrians: Half movement from now on. |
| 6,7 | KO'd | All: -2 CON points, character is KO'd for the rest of the game.
If this is a driver, then the vehicle has no driver |
| 8+ | Dead |
All: The character is dead.
If this is a driver, then the vehicle has no driver |
All injuries are cumulative, thus two light wounds would be -2 CON points and a -2 to all skill ratings. Skill ratings cannot be reduced to below 0.
Penalties to skills are actually a reduction to all skill levels, so a character with skill ratings of close combat of 3, driver 2 and gunner 1 recieves a -2 penalty, then their skills would be close combat 1, driver 0 and gunner 0. This can effect handling.
Roll 1d6. If the result is over the characters total CON points, then the character has been stunned. This means that for the rest of this turn, the character may no longer move and fire (if a pedestrian) or shoot and manoeuvre (if a driver). A car doesn't immediately lose control - make a control roll with a 30 mph safety limit. If this fails, then the car is considered is have no driver for the rest of this turn. At the beginning of the next turn, all characters recover from stun.
Roll 1d6. If the result is over the characters total CON points, then the character has been KO'd. This means that while the driver is knocked out, the car is treated as having no driver. In the end phase of every turn (including the turn where the wound was sustained), roll to see if the character is still KO'd for next turn - this is the same roll as checking for KO. If it succeeds, the character wakes up - whether or not this is a good thing is another matter though...
Roll 1d6. If the result is greater than the characters total CON points, then they have received a limb disablement. Use the table from Dead Mans Curve, part 2.
Whenever a side or tail gunner is hit, roll once on the above chart instead of the usual gunner critical table.
It takes about 1 week (average 1 contract sequence) for 1 CON point to heal. 1 CON point healed will clear away a -1 to skill penalty. It only takes about a day to treat a wound, so there is no reason why a character shouldn't miss out the next contract sequence if they so desire, however wounds will not heal at all until a character does allow them to, and thus miss contract sequences. This is due to the body requiring rest and recuperation as well as medical treatment.
Disabled limbs will not heal (as normal), and thus will require cybernetics.
Unaguemented humans require normal medical facilities (such as a hospital) to recover, while cyborgs require a technician of some sort to repair their cybernetics.
Even with modern medicine, some wounds leave the patient at less than one hundred percent. In game terms this can mean that recovering characters can permanently lose CON points due to their wound status.
Whenever a character is recovering from a KO'd or limb disablement result, roll 1d6. On a 6, the wound will leave the character weaker than normal, and they lose 1 CON point from their total. Make a roll per wound, but they will only lose a total of 1 point, and this will never reduce their total below 1 (the character would be permanently unconscious!).
