Combat, for better or worse is one of the more prominent aspects of many tabletop RPGs. However, since it is typically the more mathematically involved part of such games, it’s an excellent way to illustrate how game mechanics matter, and changes to them can influence how a game plays out.

GURPS 4th Edition

We’ll start with GURPS, since this is somehow the simplest of the systems we’ll be talking about here. (Shocking, I know. Rare is the time you can call GURPS simple.) Damage is GURPS is a roll of the dice, subtracted from HP. If you do want to get into its granular details, loss of HP can lead to penalties to various actions, and damage taken can also give temporary penalties.

This setup, is more or less the standard. Some games play around with characters having more or less HP, how much damage is dealt, or how frequently penalties for damage is applied. (If at all.)

HERO 5th and 6th Edition

I started with GURPS since the comment section that brought this topic on compared GURPS to HERO System; which are typically regarded similarly because of their multi-genre nature. Though when you get into the weeds of it, HERO and GURPS do have some significant differences, and damage is one of them.

In HERO, damage taken is divided into two parts: BODY and STUN. Body damage is damage the character takes that represent physical harm that takes weeks and months to recover from. Stun, meanwhile, is damage that represents less severe damage that typically heals in a matter of moments, but with enough buildup could knock somebody unconscious from pain and shock.

Consequently, there are two different methods for dealing damage: Normal, and Killing. Normal damage deals more damage to STUN, making it more likely to knock somebody out. Meanwhile, Killing deals more Body Damage, and, well, kills.

An attack that deals Killing damage is the most similar to what we’re already familiar with: you roll the dice, and that’s how much Body damage is dealt. It’s then followed up with a second, singular die that is used to determine how much Stun is dealt alongside the Body damage.

Normal Damage follows a similar first step to Killing, in that you roll all the dice, and add them up. Contrasted with killing attacks, this number is used to determine Stun damage for the attack. Body damage for Normal Attacks is calculated by taking the amount of dice that was rolled, adding 1 for every six that showed up, and subtracting 1 for every 1.

Shadowrun 4th ~ 6th Editions

If you like the idea of distinguishing attacks that are lethal and not-so-lethal, but prefer a little bit more uniformity in your systems, this is where the Shadowrun games shine. Given that Shadowrun has 6 main editions at this point, as well as a few spinoffs, it’s difficult to go over all of them. However, there is still some common themes.

Particularly, the common theme across all the editions I’m familiar with is that damage is often tracked as either Physical, or Stun. And the damage that was dealt often changed depending on the weapon or spell being used. (Though, in some editions there may be some exceptions, such as armor being able to reduce Physical damage to Stun; or Stun Drain from spells can be upgraded to Physical if you cast a spell that’s too powerful.)

And similar to GURPS, it keeps penalties for taking too much damage of either type!

Tenra Bansho Zero

One of the more interesting games when it comes to damage, is Tenra Bansho Zero. (It’s actually interesting for a whole slew of reasons, but, we’ll stick to just how it handles damage for the time being.)

Some of the notable things it does starts with the roll for attacking somebody; how well you succeed over your opponent affects how much extra damage you deal. Not particularly unique, as anybody familiar with Shadowrun will know, and as we’ll see later on. However, Tenra takes things a little bit further: if you “miss” an attack, it’s entirely possible that your opponent will instead damage you!

Regardless of how you take damage, be it because you got hit by somebody, or missed and left yourself open to their counter, the way damage is dealt out that makes this game shine. Damage is spread out across a few tracks that each signify different severity; ranging from as simple as exhaustion or being winded, to deep cuts and bruises, or even a devastating blow that leaves you on death’s doorstep. This system comes with two features that really set it apart, though.

First being that it’s the character receiving that damage that decides what track it goes onto. If they want it all to go towards Fatigue (which could potentially knock them out and take them out of the scene), they’re free to do so. Or if they want it spread it out over Fatigue, Light Wounds, and Heavy Wounds, they can choose that as well.

The second feature is that rather than having penalties for taking damage, you may also gain temporary bonuses for taking certain kinds of damage! So if you’re determined to regain the upper hand after something goes wrong in a fight, you always have an option available to you for that!

Double Cross and Goblin Slayer TRPG

These last two games are different in many ways, but share a common theme in handling damage. They both dial things back some to the methods described in GURPS: roll dice, count up, deal that much damage. I include these two, though, as an example that in game design, one can pick and choose different complicating factors and arrive at different results.

Double Cross and Goblin Slayer add the trait of dealing more damage with more accuracy, but do not include penalties for being below certain health levels. These features are handled by other systems in their respective games. Goblin Slayer has fatigue measured by characters participating in combat, or taking damage, which THEN leads to penalties. Meanwhile, Double Cross has characters become more infected as the game goes on, which actually grants them more power, at the risk of losing their character at the end of a session.

All of these games have their own idiosyncrasies, which create for different experiences based on how the rules are structured; combat and damage is just one piece of a larger whole!