RuneScape Forum Archive | Basics of Taking Hits

heretic hary

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‘’ But the blow being strongly made, takes sometimes clean away the hand from the arm, has many times been seen. Again, a full blow upon the head or face with a short sharp sword, is most commonly death. A full blow upon the neck, shoulder, arm, or leg, endangers life, cuts off the veins, muscles, and sinews, perishes the bones. These wounds made by the blow, in respect of perfect healing, are the loss of limbs, or maims incurable forever.
And yet more for the blow. A full blow upon the head, face, arm, leg, or legs, is death, or the party so wounded in the mercy of him that shall so wound him. For what man shall be able long in fight to stand up, either to revenge, or defend himself, having the veins, muscles, sinews of his hand, arm, or leg clean cut asunder? Or being dismembered by such wound upon the face or head, but shall be enforced thereby, and through the loss of blood, the other a little dallying with him, to yield himself, or leave his life in his mercy? ’’

-George Silver: Paradoxes of Defence , 1599.

If we only focus on how to deal harm in combat, and not how to correctly apply taking it, we are being quite self-centered. There are roleplayers who, in spite of demonstrating an excellent handling of technique for attacking other characters, ignore the effects of the hits his/her character takes, and are despised for it. So, this subject is just as important as every other aspect of combat, if not more so.

A General Explanation of the Body for Taking Hits
Nerves, muscle, blood and bones - there are simple rules for accurately taking hits for these. Each part has an immediate effect on the character’s fighting ability, but how much they are affected depends upon the extent of injury. As you read each section, compare it to the quote at the beginning of the thread.

10-May-2014 04:08:29

heretic hary

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Nervous System
The nerves branch off the spine and the brain, spreading to the rest of the body to relay commands. So if these are completely severed, the nerves from that point on won’t do anything. They can’t, because the nerves from that point on aren’t connected to the rest and therefore won’t receive anything. Attacks that sever the nerves in the spine are not only cripplingly painful, but also paralyze the body from the injury and below. Nerves that aren’t completely cut through will give off an extreme amount of pain. Electric attacks can prevent nerves from sending the right messages, or being able to send any at all (i.e., electrocution).

Note: the ‘’berserker’’ reaction to injury, which often involves ignoring the character’s reaction to hits, does not justify ignoring the effects of the hit. The pain is tolerated, but still there, along with the other consequences of the injury, and the wound*s effects still apply to the character. There are many examples of this ‘’berserker’’ reaction in history, but the damage of the hits still had an effect.

Muscular System
Damage to muscles is one of the most improperly roleplayed injuries, yet one of the simplest to roleplay. Muscles contract to pull on bones through tendons, in turn causing the bones to move. If the muscle is completely severed (often described as ‘’cut to the bone’’), then the muscle can’t contract to pull on the bone. So if a character’s bicep is completely severed, then he/she couldn’t pull the forearm up to the shoulder. Until the muscle heals, it is just dead weight and as if there was no muscle there at all. A quicker route to disabling a muscle is severing the tendon, which connects the muscle to the bone. Less to cut through to have the same result.

10-May-2014 04:08:58 - Last edited on 10-May-2014 04:11:24 by heretic hary

heretic hary

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If the muscle is only partially cut through, then that muscle becomes weaker. A weight lifter with this kind of injury may only be able to lift a fraction of what he normally could. A common problem caused by injuries to the legs is that the muscle that helps support the body can no longer do so, and the character either shifts all weight to the other leg in an effort to stay standing, or falls to the ground. If trying to stay on one leg, remember it is very easy to be knocked to the ground, as the second leg no longer absorbs the force of attacks to help your character remain standing.

Even how your character chooses to develop strength or muscle plays into how well he/she can stand hits that harm muscles. Muscles and strength grow by wearing down the muscles to a small extent, so that they heal (through rest) and can handle more in the future. Since the idea is to increase the amount of physical force the body can generate, there are two options:

Bulk Training - This increase the amount of muscle tissue available to exert force. Bulking up happens by heavy weights (or other forms of resistance) done with low repetitions. Trying for heavy resistance with high repetitions causes too much harm to the existing muscles, and by the time the body is done healing there is little or no benefit. The downsides of this is that bulk muscle often weighs more than it can support, and requires strength training (see below) to compensate. Excessive bulk hinders flexibility, and cuts down on physical speed.

Strength Training - This increases the ability of existing muscle tissue, down with low amounts of resistance and high repetitions. Moving to low repetitions does almost nothing, and without the use of bulk training (as you should’ve read in the above paragraph) can only go so far. In combination with good exercise to keep the nervous system working well, this is how speed is built.

10-May-2014 04:09:07 - Last edited on 10-May-2014 04:12:00 by heretic hary

heretic hary

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With more bulk, its not as easy to cut muscle to the bone, but the remaining muscles will be less effective at their duty. With the emphasis on strength, muscle is cut to the bone more easily but intact muscle will be able to function better than bulk muscle. Though against weapons with excellent muscle-cleaving ability such as scimitars, katanas and other weapons with curved blades, this won’t matter too much as many instances will have the muscle cleaved to the bone anyway.

Circulatory System
As any and all roleplayers should know, blood travels through blood vessels, and carries oxygen to the rest of the body. So when a blood vessel is cut and blood starts pouring out, there’s going to be a problem: parts of the body won’t get the oxygen they need to function. When your character has an artery cut, imagine that a timer appears above your character’s head. As more time passes with the bleeding not stopped, the closer the timer hits zero. At zero, your character is dead. The body did*’t have enough oxygen to keep working, and shut down.

As blood loss continues, a character will become progressively weaker and often less capable of thinking clearly as the brain isn’t getting what it needs. So, if your character is fighting someone, end the fight as soon as possible, or have a friend to switch with. Definitely treat the wound as soon as possible, as there may not be a chance to treat it later.

Due to how much blood will travel through some arteries and the size of the wound, it is possible to have a character die of blood loss before a healer would have time to charge or begin a healing spell. Fully piercing the aorta (an artery that is closely connected to the heart) is an example of this, though that also depends on where the aorta was pierced. In really severe cases, the victim may die even while being healed.

10-May-2014 04:09:14 - Last edited on 10-May-2014 04:13:57 by heretic hary

heretic hary

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Note: using any kind of fire or heat doesn’t prevent the bleeding with cauterization. Cauterization is properly done with the application of metal heated to a dull red glow to the wound, and this takes time - simply being hit by a fire spell while bleeding isn’t going to fix the problem. Yes, the bleeding can be reduced, but you’re going to be in a worse situation than you started. Also, cauterization leaves a high chance of infecting the wound (think poison) and can burn perfectly fine parts of the body nearby.

Skeletal System
Bones are very important, as these are what muscle is anchored to. While various weapons often excel at cleaving through blood vessels and muscle, the ones that will break bones before cutting flesh are just as dangerous. If a character tries to use a limb with a broken bone, this will require using the muscles which will use the tendons to pull on the bones, and if a bone is broken, it’ll just start to break more. Worst case, your character is tearing up their own blood vessels, nerves and muscle trying to using the area with a broken bone before the bone pops out of their skin.

Note: many characters seem to be able to fight just fine after having a fractured skull, or regain consciousness a few actions after being knocked out in a fight. While it is possible to keep fighting with a fractured skull, the odds are very high that your character will be bleeding in the brain, and later go from feeling fine to wondering why they're dead. While the weapon used and location of the fracture do play an important role, 80% of skull fracture victims die. Many of them, instantly. ( Skull fracture and hemorrhage pattern among fatal and nonfatal head injury assault victims - a critical analysis , Chattopadhay & Tripathi.)

10-May-2014 04:09:20 - Last edited on 02-Jun-2014 14:07:58 by heretic hary

heretic hary

Posts: 3,137 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

With being knocked out, there are some cases that let a character regain consciousness that quickly. However, with IC time=/

OC time, most cases of regaining consciousness within the remaining time of the roleplay is unrealistic, rofling, and gives a valid reason for other roleplayers to ignore the character’s regaining consciousness and actions from that point on.

Taking Hits to the Torso
Editing for quality, this will be up the later half of Saturday.

EDIT: I lied. I'll finish it later.

10-May-2014 04:09:25 - Last edited on 12-May-2014 03:17:20 by heretic hary