D D2 20 0 M Mo od de er rn n: : W Wo ou un nd ds s P Po oi i n nt t s s

Written, Edited, and Distributed by: Darin La Sota

This rule set is designed to translate the Wound and
Vitality point system into d20 Modern as a replacement for
the hit point system. The information in this document is
as OGL compliant as possible, considering that the main
reference used (Star Wars d20) is not OGL, and nor is the
Polyhedron mini-game version of Shadow Chasers.
However, many third-party publishers have released
versions of these rules, so here is mine. With this
document I tried to preserve as much of the original
system as possible while still applying a Wounds and
Vitality system. The damage conventions were stolen
from Charles Ryan, one of the original designers of the
d20 Modern Game. Enjoy.

Definitions
Your Wound Points and Vitality Points represent how
hard your character is to kill and injure. As with Hit Points,
damage accumulates and eventually both point pools are
0 or less and youre in trouble. In defining these concepts,
its better to look at what a LOSS represents than what the
points themselves represent, as shown below.

Vitality Points
Represent a mixture of toughness, quickness, training,
and pure luck that allows you to turn a potentially fatal
blow into something you can shrug off and continue doing,
well, whatever it was you were doing when you got hit
(this would usually be fighting). A loss of vitality points
represents bruising, black eyes, bloody noses, minor
gashes and lacerations, being grazed by gunfire, and
basically any injury that will only have a short term effect
on your ability to stay standing and avoid injury.
Vitality points are calculated by your hit dice and your
constitution bonus, just like Hit Points were. If converting
a character over from one system or another, Hit Points
exchange with Vitality Points directly.
Not everyone has Vitality Points. Depending on your
GM and campaign, Vitality Points may be dramatic
(important NPCs have them, random cronies do not) or
realistic (people with formal combat training or experience
have them, regular everyday people do not), or a mixture
of the two. PCs typically will have Vitality Points, unless
the GM wants to have a really deadly game. A GM should
never give Vitality to some PCs and not to others.

Wound Points
These represent your characters overall health and
physical condition. A loss of Wound Points represents
broken ribs and other broken bones, gunshot wounds,
major gashes and lacerations, and basically any injury
that would conspire to ruin your day (or at least slow you
down and be noticed the next day).
Wound Points are calculated as your constitution score
multiplied by a size modifier, as noted in the following
chart:
Table WV-1: Wound Points by Size
Creature Size Wound Points
Colossal Con x 8
Gargantuan Con x 4
Huge Con x 2
Large Con
Medium-size Con
Small Con
Tiny Con 2
Diminuti ve Con 4
Fine Con 8
Everyone with a constitution score has Wound Points.
If the creature does not have a constitution score, its
either dead or has vitality (assuming it was alive to begin
with). In the case of Undead both cases are true. At any
rate, creatures without a Constitution score should be
given Vitality Points (which are treated like hit points).
Note in many cases they are harder to kill (use examples
from Shadow Chasers).
Undead should be given special conditions required to
fulfill in order to cause their death. Constructs are
basically objects, so treat them like vehicles as per
disabled/destroyed.

Effects of Damage
Practically all damage effects Vitality Points, unless you
are tired (or untrained) or just plain unlucky.

0 Vitality Points
When your Vitality Points have been reduced to zero,
you can no longer avoid physical damage. Any additional
damage you receive is applied to Wound Points.

Critical Hits
Critical hits apply strait to Wound Points. All weapons
that do Ballistic damage have one die added to their
damages. There is no damage multiplier. Now when the
damage multiplier of a weapon is above x2, you take the
excess and lower the die type by that many steps, and
increase the die number by the same (you actually do it
once, make sure the damage potential is equal to or
greater than before, then repeat). So our Battle Axe goes
from 1d8 20/x3 to 2d6 20 (putting it on par with the katana
for damage, though the katana scores a critical hit about
twice as often). Since your average pistol now does 3d6,
there is no inconsistency.
Heroism Method (optional rule): Is more for D&D
than modern, and was done to use WP/VP in a
Swashbuckling Adventures game. In it, you ignore
everything under Method 1, and use critical hits as they
are. So a battle axe is 1d8 20/x3, but thats a 3d8 critical
to your vitality, not your wounds. You may also give the
character the option of selecting when he scores a critical
hit, so that he could do 1d8 to wounds or 3d8 to vitality
when scoring a critical hit (note, if youre out of vitality, that
3d8 to vitality goes to wounds as per normal). This avoids
having to worry about armor, but still allows people to hide
behind their hit points.

Saving Throws
Any damage source that requires a save to avoid or
halve the damage (such as falling, a grenade, a Fireball),
applies its damage to Vitality Points as normal. However,
if the target rolls a critical failure (i.e. a natural 1) on his
saving throw, he has to roll again. Upon second failure,
the damage is applied to Wound Points. All other failures
are applied to Vitality Points as usual.

Loss of Wound Points (Fatigued)
When a character loses wounds points, he becomes
Fatigued, as per the rules on page 140 in the d20 Modern
Core Rulebook, except that the fatigued state lasts as
long as you have Wound Damage, not until you get 8
hours of rest (this usually requires more than 8 hours of
rest).
In addition, whenever the character suffers Wound
point damage in a combat round, he must make a
Fortitude save, the DC equaling the amount of Wound
Damage suffered, or fall unconscious for 1d4+1 rounds
(as being knocked out).
When your Wound Points reach 0 or lower, then:
At 0 Wound Points, youre disabled.
At -1 to -9 Wound points, youre dying.
At -10 or lower, youre dead.
For more details on these states, see page 141 of the d20
Modern core rulebook.

More Knock-Outs (optional rule): Add 5 to damage
suffered in order to determine the Fort save to avoid being
knocked out.

Massi ve Damage
The Massive Damage rules on page 141 still apply.
Youre Massive Damage threshold is still equal to your
Constitution Score. When failing a Massive Damage
save, its your Wounds that reduce to -1, not your Vitality.
Your armor now affects your Massive Damage threshold,
see the sections on both armor and damage reduction for
more details.
Severe Bleeding (optional): This has you lose all
vitality when you fail a Massive Damage save, and begin
bleedingwhile still standing. You lose 1 wound point a
round until bandaged. If you do more than one move or
attack (as per being at 0 wound points), you take an
addition point of bleeding damage. Note the Treat Injury
check to stop a character from bleeding out may be used
on a character who is still conscious and bleeding under
these rules (in first aid, its the hurry case severe
bleeding). You also take 1 wound point of damage
immediately (this models the drop to -1 hit points MAS
rule from the hit point system). Multiple failed MAS saves
cause multiple wounds, each one requires a separate
Treat Injury check to stop the bleeding.

Nonlethal Damage
The Nonlethal Damage system has changed slightly
due to Critical hits no longer having Damage Multiples.
Now when you take Nonlethal Damage, you suffer Vitality
Damage as if it was from a normal (lethal) attack. When
an attack dealing Nonlethal Damage would affect your
Wound Points, however, you suffer no Wound Damage,
but the Nonlethal Damage is still factored in your Fortitude
save to remain conscious.
Example, lets say our unlucky rifle victim Alexandra
Gorden were to not only make that fateful saving throw
but also to escape her shooter and then immediately run
into a thug. The thug connects with a right hook, dealing
6 points of Nonlethal Damage. From the example on
page 141, we realize that Alexandra only had 3 Vitality
left, which means 3 points of Nonlethal spill over into
Wounds. She takes no Wound damage, but needs to
make a Fortitude save, DC 8. If she were to fail it, then
shed be knocked out for 1d4+1 rounds.
If you take Nonlethal Damage to wounds (does not
get absorbed by vitality) that equals or exceeds your
Constitution Score, then you are still Dazed for one round,
as you would be by the standard Nonlethal damage rules..

Healing and recovery
Recovery from 0 or less Wound points is handled the
same as it was for Hit Points, see page 142 of the d20
Modern core rulebook. Healing, however, is a bit
different. For general healing effects (such as first aid,
spells, etc.), healing affects Wounds first, and then Vitality
(unless the user of the spell, skill, or ability states
otherwise).

Natural Healing and Vitality
Vitality Points are healed at the rate of 1 per character
level per hour of rest/light activity. For example, if a high
school kid gets into a fight on your way to school and loses 7
Vitality, he would heal 6 of it back (assuming school is still 6
hours long and hes 1
st
level). If he were 2
nd
level, then all
would heal (hed heal a total of 12). Anything that would
increase your healing rate under the hit point system has the
same increase for Vitality, but per hour not per day (like bed
rest, medical care, etc.)

Natural Healing and Wounds
Your Wound points heal back at the rate of 1 per evening
of rest. Any effect that heals hit points heals Wound Points
as if you were a first level character (does not multiply by
level). For example, a successful use of the Treat Injury skill
on a healing character heals 3 points per night as opposed
to 1 (or 3 times character level).

Temporary Hit Points
Are now temporary Vitality Points. Otherwise, all
information on page 142 of the d20 Modern core rulebook
still applies.

Increases in Constitution Score
An increase to a characters constitution affects both his
Vitality Points and his Wound Points. Use the rules on page
142. Note that Wounds are calculated directly from your
constitution score.

Class Talents and Feats
Any class talent that adds to hit points now adds to
Vitality. The feat Toughness, however, adds to Wound
Points.

New Feat (general, fast)
This feat was taken from Star Wars.

Quickness
You are quicker than normal.
Benefit: You gain +3 vitality points.
Special: A character may gain this feat multiple times. Its
effects stack.

Other New Rules
Armor
Armor now provides an Equipment Damage Reduction in
place of a Defense Bonus (equal to the defense bonus it
gave before). This equipment DR only affects damage that
would be applied to wound points and has no affect on
vitality. Natural Armor does not provide an equipment DR
but rather calculates into Defense as normal. The DR is
Defense Bonus/- (unless you want to set armor qualities in
games such as D20 future, where you can have armor be
DB/plasma to allow plasma to penetrate older armors, etc.).
Damage Reduction now applies to your massive damage
threshold as well, although Damage Reduction from armor
still follows all rules as for armor (if someone can bypass
armor, they also bypass the addition to your MAS). See
table WV-2 for an updated armor list.
Striking Around Armor (Optional Rule): When attacking
an armored opponent with a melee attack, you may take a
penalty to your attack equal to the opponents Damage
Reduction in order to ignore it. Note, this only works on
Damage Reduction provided by armor, and you must take
the full penalty in order to do it (to take a little but not all is
the same as a power attack, which this is not).

Table WV-2: Armor
Armor Type
Equip.
DR
Nonprof.
DR
Max
Dex
Bonus
Armor
Penalty
Speed
(30 ft.) Wt.
Purchase
DC Res.
Light Armor
Leather jacket Impromptu
1/Ballistic
or Fire*
1/Ballistic
or Fire* +8 0 30 4 lb. 10
Leather armor
Archaic
2/Ballistic
or Fire*
1/Ballistic
or Fire* +6 0 30 15 lb. 12
Light undercover
shirt Concealable 2/Fire* 1/Fire* +7 0 30 2 lb. 13 Lic (+1)
Pull-up pouch
vest Concealable 2/Fire* 1/Fire* +6 1 30 2 lb. 13 Lic (+1)
Undercover vest Concealable 3/Fire* 1/Fire* +5 2 30 3 lb. 14 Lic (+1)

Medium Armor
Concealable
vest Concealable 4/Fire* 2/Fire* +4 3 25 4 lb. 15 Lic (+1)
Chainmail shirt
Archaic
5/Ballistic
or Fire*
2/Ballistic
or Fire* +2 5 20 40 lb. 18
Light-duty vest Tactical 5/Fire* 2/Fire* +3 4 25 8 lb. 16 Lic (+1)
Tactical vest Tactical 6/Fire* 2/Fire* +2 5 25 10 lb. 17 Lic (+1)

Heavy Armor
Special
response vest Tactical 7/Fire* 3/Fire* +1 6 20 15 lb. 18 Lic (+1)
Plate mail
Archaic
8/Ballistic
or Fire*
3/Ballistic
or Fire* +1 6 20 50 lb. 23
Forced entry
unit Tactical 9/Fire* 3/Fire* +0 8 20 20 lb. 19 Lic (+1)
*Fire is the damage type for lasers, hence its use here. If you dont like Forced Entry Units being susceptible to fire, than change
everywhere you see fireto laser.

Ordinaries
We now have two types of ordinaries, instead of just one.
We have Brute Ordinaries and Henchmen Ordinaries
(optional). Henchmen are calculated just as explained in the
rulebook, and get the same Vitality as they would have had
hit points, with the same Challenge Rating.
Brutes (or just Ordinaries if you prefer) are identical to
ordinaries from the book, but do NOT have Vitality. Their
Challenge rating is half that of an ordinary with Vitality, with a
level one Brute Ordinary having a CR of .
Brute Squad Rule (Optional Rule): If you want a more
heroic game, force Henchman to add 5 to their DC to avoid
being knocked out, have Brutes add 10.

Challenge Ratings
In general, when converting a creature to Wound Points,
its challenge rating is unchanged when it has Vitality, is cut
in half when it doesnt. This was already factored in to the
ordinary rules above.

Damage Reduction (rules replacement)
A creature with this special quality ignores wound
damage (and only wound damage, DR has no effect on
vitality damage) from most weapons and natural attacks.
Wounds heal immediately, or the weapon bounces off
harmlessly (in either case, the opponent knows the attack
was ineffective). The creature takes normal damage from
energy attacks (even nonmagical ones), spells, spell-like
abilities, and supernatural abilities. A certain kind of weapon
can sometimes damage the creature normally, as noted
below.
The entry indicates the amount of damage ignored
(usually 5 to 15 points) and the type of weapon that negates
the ability.
Some monsters are vulnerable to piercing, bludgeoning,
slashing, or ballistic damage.
Some monsters are vulnerable to certain materials, such
as alchemical silver, adamantine, or cold-forged iron. Attacks
from weapons that are not made of the correct material have
their damage reduced, even if the weapon has an
enhancement bonus.
Some monsters are vulnerable to magic weapons. Any
weapon with at least a +1 magical enhancement bonus on
attack and damage rolls overcomes the damage reduction of
these monsters. Such creatures natural weapons (but not
their attacks with weapons) are treated as magic weapons
for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
When a damage reduction entry has a dash () after the
slash, no weapon negates the damage reduction.
A few creatures are harmed by more than one kind of
weapon. A weapon of either type overcomes this damage
reduction.
A few other creatures require combinations of different
types of attacks to overcome their damage reduction. A
weapon must be both types to overcome this damage
reduction. A weapon that is only one type is still subject to
damage reduction.
Damage Reduction also applies to the creatures Massive
Damage Threshold. However, any attack that would ignore
the creatures Damage Reduction also ignores the addition
to their Massive Damage threshold, as if massive damage
threshold acted like wound points.
If a creature is immune to critical hits and has only vitality,
then DR applies to vitality (as they do not have wounds).

Energy Reduction
Any type of energy reduction or resistance is effective
against both Wound and Vitality damage.

Called Shots (optional rule)
Occasionally a character may want to aim at a specific
body part for some reason or another. Most of the time,
their reason is handled under some other rule (hitting an
arm to make someone drop a weapon is a Disarm, a leg
to knock him over is a trip, etc.). However, when you wish
to attack someones limb for the sake of attacking the
limb; such as to deaden an arm in a knife fight, to hit a
creature in its weak spot, etc., then these rules are
designed to model it in a way thats not too grotesquely
unbalanced.

Making a Called Shot
A called shot is made as a special attack that provokes
an attack of opportunity, and does not stack with other
types of special attacks (such as burst fire or double tap).
The attack suffers a penalty as outlined in the table below.
Called shots generally have no effect unless they inflict
wound damage or the creature youre fighting suffers
some penalty for being struck there. The effects below
are for human targets, nonhuman targets may or may not
suffer these effects, its up to GM Discretion (though
generally any human-like organism or animal suffers
these effects, fantastic creatures may or may not, and
creatures immune to critical hits generally do not suffer
any ill effects, though a called shot may get around some
other defense.

Table WV-3: Called Shots
Location Penalty to Attack
Legs -5
Arm (either) -6
Head -8

Legs: If the creature takes wound damage as a result
of the called shot, then the creatures speed is reduced by
5 feet until its wound damage is healed. A creature
reduced to negative wound points by a called shot to the
leg is instead at 0 wound points.
Arm: If the creature takes wound damage as a result of
the called shot, then the creature suffers a -2 penalty to all
rolls involving that arm (attacking with a weapon in that
hand, etc, note that this effects martial arts, even though
they can use their feet, as it removes an option) until its
wound damage is healed. A creature reduced to negative
wound points by a called shot to an arm is instead at 0
wound points.
Head: A called shot to the head ignores any Damage
Reduction the creature might receive due to armor if the
creature is not wearing some sort of head protection (like
a helmet). If a called shot to the head brings a creature
down to negative wound points then the creature is killed
(-10 wounds). If the optional Severe Bleeding rules are
being used, than if a called shot to the head inflicts wound
damage, the creature must make a Massive Damage (if it
does enough damage to force a massive Damage save,
than the creature only makes one save, not two).

Called Shot Feats
The following feats are intended for campaigns where
the Called Shots rules are in use.

Limb Strike
You are trained to hit people in the limbs.
Prerequisites: Combat Expertise, Int 13+
Benefit: You no longer provoke an attack of opportunity
when making a melee called shot to the limbs. You also
receive a +4 bonus to the attack.

Head Hunter
In melee confrontations, you have a tendency for going for
the opponents head.
Prerequisites: Combat Expertise, Int 13+, Limb Strike
Benefit: You no longer provoke an attack of opportunity
when making a melee called shot to the Head. You also
receive a +4 bonus to the attack.


Called Shot
Youve learned to go against traditional training and can
effectively aim for your opponents limbs.
Prerequisites: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot
Benefit: You receive a +4 bonus when making a ranged
called shot to your opponents limbs.

Head Shot
Maybe you like the challenge, maybe youve played too
much Counterstrike, but youve learned to go against
traditional training and can effectively aim for your
opponents Head.
Prerequisites: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Called
Shot, Wis 13+
Benefit: You receive a +4 bonus when making a ranged
called shot to your opponents Head.
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