Possibly awful idea: Wounds (and Supportware?) as States

Okay, hear me out. Right now, Infinity tracks everything that might happen to your model using States except two: Wounds/Structure, and temporary equipment effects.

Dead? State. Unconscious? State. Disconnected? State. Wounded? Hit points. Overclock? +1B and an Overclock marker.

This occurred to me as I was mulling over the commentary in the thread about whether or not you can have multiples of the same State under RAW in C1/N4, and I realized that it would possibly be cool/disambiguating to eliminate the whole idea of "points" of W/STR and just use the model's W/STR to compare with an escalating State. It'd do more or less the same thing, but would mesh better with the game's system of States, and makes for a bit of additional character in the rules.

Right now, Wounds/STR damage are the only thing you put a marker (token) down for that isn't a state, an order type, or a reminder that a skill/equipment effect is applied—which is arguably just another kind of state, since (for example) supportware could just as easily put a REM in an "Assisted Fire" or "Overclock" state. The fact that the effects of supportware, etc. aren't defined as states even though they more or less work like states is a design quirk, not a necessary system feature. Finding things that "work almost like X" and wrapping them into "X" explicitly makes for more streamlined design even if it does make "X" more involved.

Treating the effects of things like supportware as states is really easy. Switching damage to a state-based system instead of hit-points-until-you're-out-and-then-states-apply is a bit more complex, but not really in practice, and it might clear up some interactions like Maestro. (And if you make the Unconscious state independent of the Wounded state, you could apply Unconscious while leaving the Trooper with full Wounds, although that's not what the below assumes.)

Taking Damage

• The first time a Trooper fails an ARM or BTS save, they sustain a wound and enter the Wounded 1 state during the Effects step of the Order Expenditure Sequence.
• If the Trooper is already in Wounded 1 state, each subsequent ARM or BTS save failure replaces the current Wounded state with the next higher level (Wounded 2, Wounded 3, etc.).
• Whenever a Trooper's new Wounded level would equal his Wounds attribute, that Trooper enters the Unconscious 1 state instead.
• Whenever an Unconscious Trooper fails another ARM or BTS save, they enter the Dead state.
• Whenever a Trooper fails multiple ARM or BTS saves during a single Resolution step, total the number of failed saves to determine how many levels of Wounded are applied. If this results in a Wounded level that exceeds the Trooper's Wounds attribute, they enter the Dead state directly without becoming Unconscious.
• Troopers with Structure instead of Wounds: Troopers with Structure instead of Wounds enter the Damaged state instead of the Wounded state when they fail one or more ARM or BTS saving rolls. Levels of the Damaged state are compared to a Trooper's Structure attribute. Damaged functions identically to Wounded, but some rules (such as Engineer) apply to the Damaged state but not the Wounded state, or vice versa.

Wounded (State)
Activation:

• A Trooper with a Wounds attribute fails one or more ARM or BTS saving rolls, or suffers a game effect that applies the Wounded state.

Effects:

• When a Trooper in any level of the Wounded state meets a condition to enter the Wounded 1 state, increase the Trooper's Wounded state level by +1 instead (from Wounded 1 to Wounded 2, etc.) and replace the Wounded token by their model with the appropriate token for their new Wounded state level.
• A successful use of a Skill or Equipment that heals (Doctor, Paramedic, Regeneration, Protheion, etc.) reduces the level of this state by 1.

Cancellation:

• If this rule would result in a Trooper entering a Wounded level that equals the Trooper's Wounds attribute, this state is immediately cancelled and the Trooper enters the Unconscious state.
• If this rule would result in a Trooper entering a Wounded level that exceeds the Trooper's Wounds attribute, this state is immediately cancelled and the Trooper enters the Dead state.
• A successful use of a Skill or Equipment that heals (Doctor, Paramedic, Regeneration, Protheion, etc.) on a Trooper in the Wounded 1 state will cancel this state.

 

Unifying the game mechanics so that the following sentence is an accurate, uniform way of describing what weapons do: "When a Trooper is affected by a weapon, one or more states is applied to the Trooper."

Right now, because Unconscious, NWI, Dogged, and Dead are all states, the eventual result of being hit by an attack is generally the addition or removal of states. Special ammo also applies states. However, for damage to Wounds/STR, first you subtract Wounds/STR and then if you run out you apply the state. Only, instead of marking off boxes or something on a sheet, we place tokens...which mostly represent states or state-like persistent effects. We're already performing a similar operation by placing a marker for damage dealt, but players have to learn that those specific markers don't represent a state, they basically represent lost hit points, only those hit points are actually attribute points.

Wound tokens are the only markers that represent the absence of something, because we don't talk about "adding a Wound to a trooper," the trooper "loses 1 point from its Wounds/Structure attribute." This doesn't match the way the rules do other things. Models don't generally track gaining or losing points to any attributes, they get circumstantial MODs instead. We don't say "Troopers in a Fireteam with 5 members add 3 points to their BS attribute." But the effect of damage isn't described as a MOD to W/STR because you don't use that attribute to make rolls.

The whole idea is that if you're teaching someone new, there's immediate clarity: Weapons apply states to targets. Some states apply special effects, others indicate the Trooper is wounded, unconscious, or dead.

Believe it or not, this streamlines the rules a bit.

Leveled states already exist: Normal becomes IMP-1 during deployment or when you spend an Order on Impersonation. IMP-1 becomes IMP-2 when the enemy succeeds on a Discover roll. Protheion's use of Power-Up and Power-Up 2 markers to indicate "negative Wounds" also work similarly.

Protheion works almost as written, but needs to explicitly say that Power-Up markers cancel out Wounded markers one-for-one, and technically needs to be modified to apply the Wounded state instead of reducing the target's Wounds attribute.

Replace the seventh Effects bullet of Protheion with:

• The target applies 1 level of the Wounded state for every failed BTS roll.

Add the following Effects bullet to Protheion:

• If the Protheion user is in Wounded-2 (or higher) state when it would place a Power-Up marker, reduce the level of the Wounded state by 1 instead. If the Protheion user is in Wounded-1, cancel the Wounded-1 state instead of placing the Power-Up marker.

The rewrite happens to the rules for the Active Symbiont Armor state.

Replace the third Effects bullet with:

• In this state, the first failed ARM Roll caused by Fire Special Ammunition cancels the Active Symbiont Armor state instead of applying a level of the Wounded state, and subsequent failed ARM Rolls caused by Fire Special Ammunition will apply levels of the Wounded state to the trooper's Inactive Symbiont Armor profile at the end of the Order.

Replace the first two Cancellation bullets with:

• The Active Symbiont Armor state is automatically canceled at the end of the Order in which the trooper's Wounded state level equals or exceeds the Wounds/STR of the Active Symbiont Profile. When this state is cancelled for this reason, reduce the trooper's Wounded state level by the Wounds/STR of the Active Symbiont Profile and apply the remaining levels of Wounded to the Inactive Symbiont Armor profile at the end of the Order.
• The Active Symbiont Armor state is automatically canceled at the end of the Order in which the trooper fails one or more ARM Rolls caused by Fire Special Ammunition. When this state is cancelled due to a failed ARM Roll caused by Fire Special Ammunition, cancel all levels of the trooper's current Wounded state, and apply levels of Wounded caused by failed ARM or BTS rolls during this Order to the Inactive Symbiont Armor Profile at the end of the Order.

Transmutation, apply the following changes...

Change Requirements bullet to:

• For this Special Skill to activate, the user must enter the Wounded-1 (or higher) state.

Change the second Effects bullet to:

• Replace the user's model with his alternate form at the end of the Order in which he entered any level of the Wounded state. From that moment on, the user adopts his alternate form's Troop Profile.

Change the last Effects bullet to:

• Reduce the user's Wounded state level by 1 at the end of the Order. Any remaining levels of the Wounded state carry over to the alternate form's Troop Profile.

Lo-Tech just becomes a version of NWI where you swap profiles. Unconscious, NWI, Dogged, etc. all potentially also merit some wording tweaks.