Hit point damage clarification.

You are on your own. The Army is MIA and our government is gone! There are no communications of any kind. Cities and towns have gone dark, and zombies fill the streets. The dead have risen and it would seem to be the end of the world. Help me, Mommy!

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Epically
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Hit point damage clarification.

Unread post by Epically »

On page 37 of the core rule book, it states, "If the damage inflicted depletes the SDC of the head, the skull is fractured and the brain is Vulnerable to additional attack. As before, only a natural D20 roll of 17-20 strikes. If an attack inflicts damage equivalent to the zombie's full hit points (even if it has already suffered previous hit point damage), the skull shatters and the brains are destroyed!".

For the life of me I can't understand what it means in the bold text. If you do full hit point damage to the head after SDC is depleted, it's going to die anyway. Why does it mention the previous damage? It doesn't make any sense.
Grazzik
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Re: Hit point damage clarification.

Unread post by Grazzik »

Epically wrote:On page 37 of the core rule book, it states, "If the damage inflicted depletes the SDC of the head, the skull is fractured and the brain is Vulnerable to additional attack. As before, only a natural D20 roll of 17-20 strikes. If an attack inflicts damage equivalent to the zombie's full hit points (even if it has already suffered previous hit point damage), the skull shatters and the brains are destroyed!".

For the life of me I can't understand what it means in the bold text. If you do full hit point damage to the head after SDC is depleted, it's going to die anyway. Why does it mention the previous damage? It doesn't make any sense.

As much as I like the setting, sometimes the rules can be a bit wonky. Let's say you've been fighting the zombie for a while and all its main body SDC is gone and half its HP. You then get tired of the fight and go for a head kill. You whack it a few times to destroy the location SDC of the head (~20 SDC). In this particular instance, the damage to the head has to deplete the full HP of the zombie... again. This is where it gets weird compared to other settings. The rules treat the head as totally separate from the rest of the body from a HP perspective, since the source of the zombieness rests in the brains and as long as the brains remains undamaged, the monster will keep rising. So the brains have the same amount of HP as the main body. And damage to main body HP does not affect the HP of the head.

My games typically have experienced zombie fighters, so if the main body can be taken down more quickly, it's a small thing to smash the brains when immobile. Or go for a decap instant kill. That said, I would say a reasonable GM might also prorate the amount of HP a fractured skull has, say 50% to keep in line with the SDC ratio of head to main body. But that all comes down to how much effort you want it to be to kill your zombies.
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Epically
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Re: Hit point damage clarification.

Unread post by Epically »

Grazzik wrote:The rules treat the head as totally separate from the rest of the body from a HP perspective, since the source of the zombieness rests in the brains and as long as the brains remains undamaged, the monster will keep rising. So the brains have the same amount of HP as the main body. And damage to main body HP does not affect the HP of the head.


Can I ask where it says this exactly? I can't find it.
Grazzik
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Re: Hit point damage clarification.

Unread post by Grazzik »

If you are looking for a single sentence in the book, you won't find it.

pg 37, to get to HP, deplete SDC of main body OR head... this sets up the two objects to which damage can be inflicted to HP
pg 36, after reducing the main body SDC, reducing HP to zero or lower causes zombie to go inert, not die... this sets a terminal condition for the main body until SDC/HP regenerate
pg 37, reduce "full HP" (a phrase repeated, so it can't simply be dismissed as an error in editing) to zero with damage to head and zombie dies... this sets up the terminal condition for the head
pg 36, for extremities, once SDC is reduced to zero, the extremity is destroyed/falls off, no HP damage required
pg 37, even for neck no HP damage required, but it triggers the main body terminal condition until such time as the head is reattached and regeneration commences
pg 37, for skull/brains "full HP" (not "remainder of HP") required to be inflicted to head even if HP damage already previously suffered... this is the clincher that you have to track main body HP and head HP separately

There's no explained logic behind why this is, my games don't use this mechanic because it makes no sense why "full HP" has to be inflicted to get to brains. So you do what you need to do...
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