Some Words About Lethal Force:

          This is supposed to be a game about fun loving catgirls doing battle against their nefarious bunnygirl rivals.  Yes, there are loads of violence inherent in such a setting, but the intent here is cartoon style mayhem where standing in the middle of a room full of exploding TNT earns you nothing more than charred clothes, a blackened face, and a really bad hair day.  We know that despite the fact that all characters have their hit points restored to full strength at the end of any given scene, it is not realistic to insist that getting shot, stabbed, folded, spindled, and blown up have no real consequences - but that is exactly what we are going to do! 

          The best solution to this issue is to stubbornly insist beyond all reason that catgirls and their chief rivals the bunnygirls never really get seriously hurt by fragmentation grenades, gunfire, and flaming chainsword hits: only singed, stunned, grazed, or nicked - which is enough to put them out of action for the scene as they are reduced to absently blinking their eyes and smoldering if they’ve been the victim of an explosion, or else wailing in misery at their ruined clothes or that nasty (but not life-threatening) gash on their arm.  Headmistresses are also encouraged to employ more indirect means of resolving attacks that don’t put the girls in the morgue, such as having swords, bazooka rockets, and 20mm miniguns rip apart the scenery around the character, mortifying her into inaction for the rest of the scene rather than cutting her in half or blowing her cute little brains out. 

         These rules apply to catgirls, catboys, the bunnygirls, and any innocent bystanders.  In fact, just about everyone gets off lightly when it comes to real weapons in play.  The only exceptions to this are perverted tentacle monsters (can there be any other kind?), evil robotic minions, the undead, ninja assassins, shambling Lovecraftian horrors, and similar cannon fodder monsters that no one would ever miss or mourn when they get creamed - these are fair game to get cut to steaming ribbons, blown to greasy kibbles and bits, or otherwise perforated with extreme prejudice and suitably graphic detail.  It’s silly, but it’s also the Catgirl Avengers idiom.  Players who absolutely insist on playing a game with a highly lethal and ultra realistic combat system are encouraged to find a copy of Leading Edge Games’ excellent Phoenix Command™ Small Arms Combat System instead.

          Did you try looking for it on an online auction site, or in a used bookstore?

          Sigh…

          If you simply must play this game with more realistic violence, it’s an easy thing to do.  All damage from lethal weapons, hand-to-hand blows from someone with the Kung-Fu Fightin’ talent, and any magic/psychic attacks are real, and do real, immediate damage.  Hand to hand blows from unskilled characters; characters using Clobber or Pounce; gag weapons like cream pies, rattlesnakes in the can, or laughing gas; and special damage such as from using talents like Taunt are real enough to KO, but not real enough to kill or cause lasting injury.

          Catgirls who are reduced to 0 hit points or less are KO’d as normal, only they don’t get fully restored at the end of the scene.  At the end of the scene, everybody gets back 1 hit point automatically, plus any damage they took from attacks that didn’t do “real” damage.  They may also use magic or an appropriate talent to heal additional damage.  If healing or the end of the scene hit point restoration brings a character back to 1 hit point or more, that character regains consciousness and can act.  Until the character’s hit points are brought back to above the halfway mark between zero and full hit points, they will perform all tasks at one additional level of difficulty.  Once they get above the halfway mark in hit points, they can act and perform tasks normally.  Catgirls do not suffer the penalties for getting reduced to half their original hit points or less unless they were actually KO’d during the scene.

          White Magic works a little differently in a Realistic Violence game.  Instead of fully restoring a character’s hit points, a reduced number are restored.  For a talent check at Easy difficulty, 1D+1 of hit points are restored.  For a talent check at Average difficulty, 2D of hit points are restored.  For a talent check at Hard difficulty, 3D of hit points are restored.  And finally, for a talent check at Very Hard difficulty, 4D of hit points are restored.  Magic healing spells may only be administered once to a character who has been KO’d, and may not be tried again until the next scene change after the spell was cast.  Any failed roll means that magic healing spells may not be administered for the rest of that scene on any character by that person.  Headmistresses should avoid declaring scene changes on a frequent basis if it is determined that the players are abusing them for the purpose of healing.

          A catgirl can go into negative hit points to the extent of her BOD score plus 1 before succumbing to her wounds and dying.  Dead catgirls aren’t very appealing to play, but then who was the smartass who wanted to play with realistic violence, hmmm?  We recommend wearing good armor and plenty of it when using realistic lethal force.  If the game is being played with lots of healing magic and/or ultra-technology, it may be possible to revive a dead character.  The details of such a feat are left to the Headmistress, and should reflect on the means by which a dead character will be revived, how much time has passed since the moment of death, and how much of the deceased actually remains to work with.  (As a general rule of thumb, tac-nukes and heavy plasma cannons don’t leave much for the undertaker…)  Again, the players wanted to run with realistic violence rules, so Headmistresses are encouraged to make ‘em pay for it with characters who stay dead.  Otherwise, what was the point of playing that way, since the violence was always real when used against the bad guys?

          Playing under these rules makes it easy to get killed, but as you can see from the example below, if you actually manage to survive a battle and have healing magic or ultratech healing on hand, it is just as easy to get back into the action.  Is that good enough for you?

         Example: Diana gets hit with a sorcerous blast from a vile necromancer and fails her save against the damage.  The blast does 11 points of damage, and Diana has a BOD of 7, and it just so happens that she only has 9 hit points.  This puts Diana at –2 hit points, which KO’s her in a coruscating spray of light and heat.  Should the evil necromancer wish to finish the job, he need only do enough additional damage to bring Diana to –8 hit points (BOD of 7 plus 1) or worse (in this case a mere 6 more points of damage), at which point she will be dead and beyond help.

          Diana has luck on her side though, and her friends manage to remove the necromancer with a timely blast from a rocket-propelled grenade, ending the scene.  She automatically gets 1 hit point back because of the scene change, bringing her up to –1 hit points, which is not enough to rouse her from her injuries.  A spellslinger comrade casts healing magic on her at Average difficulty and succeeds in her roll.  Diana gets two dice worth of hit points back, which ends up being 7 points.  This brings her to +6 hit points, which is above the halfway mark of her original hit points and zero, meaning that she wakes up healed sufficiently to act normally from then on.  If the two dice of healing magic had only brought her back to 1 to 4 hit points, Diana would have to make all of her talent and chracteristic checks with one additional level of difficulty, until she healed to 5 or more.  If the healing had failed to bring her above 0 hit points, Diana would remain KO’d until the next scene change, where she would get back another hit point and an additional use of healing magic could be tried on her.  It’s probably for the best that she became ambulatory the first time around, since everyone on her team remembers how she hogged the éclairs that morning at breakfast, and probably don’t feel like carrying her greedy, unconscious body with them…

         Again, if you want to use realistic violence rules, we can't stress enough the importance of wearing armor or using magic or ultratech which can substitute for armor.  Being Nigh-Invulnerable probably doesn't hurt, either.
 

*Phoenix Command is a registered trademark of Leading Edge Games, incorporated.