DEATH & INJURY, TOO: 0hp is not always the end

While you are planning to carve up the turkey 🦃, here's how to carve up 🔪 PCs.

Death & dismemberment tables are a bit of table "tech" I return to, because I think they are a nice middle ground between killing PCs off at 0 hp and allowing players to potentially save a good stat line (low levels) or a beloved character (high levels).

It also has the knock-on effect of forcing players to run 2+ characters, and gives additional reason for keeping a calendar. After all, how do you know your injured leg is healed in 6 weeks if you don't track time?

One thing I've never been happy about is that most tables I've looked at have a much larger sub-table to deal with injuries. I, for some reason, hate rolling on it and always desire a more immediate result. Also, if they lose a hand or whatnot after they leave the dungeon, its hard, but not impossible, to rationalise how they made it out without bleeding out.

It should always be noted, though, that these sorts of tables will decrease the lethality of the game despite their scary-sounding name.

I decided to mainly affect attributes and saves because they are "chunky" pieces of the game that players can see and that have far-reaching mechanical effects, which I think better mimics the loss of a hand or foot than actually putting "loses hand/foot" on the table.

Here, I also included one result that gives a Darkest Dungeon resolve moment. That is always one of my favourite moments in the game.

DEATH & INJURY

Roll 1d10 on the following table when a PC reaches 0 hp and add any negative hp and CON bonus. For attribute statuses, either (a) lose any bonus or (b) if no bonus, gain a -2.

9 | RESOLVE! Gain 1d4+1 hp and immediately counter-attack!

8 | SHAKEN! Standing with 1 hp, but auto-fail the next 3 saves

7 | VICIOUS BLOW! Go to 1 hp, but go last in initiative order the rest of this combat

6 | BRUSH WITH DEATH! Go to 1 hp, but reduce your max hp by 1d6+1 (no lower than 1)

5 | BONE FRACTURED! Unconscious for 1d6 turns; 1d8 weeks invalid, then roll 1d6 and you are: 1-2 Feebled (STR), 3-4 Off-balance (DEX), 5-6 Sapped (CON) for an additional 1d8 weeks

4 | SKULL FRACTURED! Unconscious for 1d6 turns; 1d8 weeks invalid, then roll 1d6 and you are: 1-2 Concussed (INT), 3-4 Forgetful (WIS), 5-6 Terrorised (CHA) for an additional 1d8 weeks

3 | MORTALLY WOUNDED! Dead in 1d12 rounds unless healing is applied; 2d8 weeks invalid, then increase all saves by +2

2 | FATALY WOUNDED! Dead in 1d6 rounds unless healing is applied; 3d6 weeks invalid, then increase death save by +4

1 | YOU DIED.

0 | GHASTLY DEATH. Oh wow. Geez... So much blood... (All hirelings make a loyalty check)