Have you ever had a clever NPC villain sneak up on a party member, hold a dagger to his throat, and try to hold him hostage? If your players are anything like mine, it probably didn't work out the way you expected.

The AD&D battle system is kept simple, and therefore does not offer specific damage scenarios. While this is great, and leads to greater speed during game play, there are times when a specific damage system is desirable. Time and time again, we came across a problem when a slit throat situation occurred. Did the character die immediately? That seemed a bit harsh. Yet 1d4 damage seemed a bit too light, considering that the character just had his neck carved open.

The problem is, the basic AD&D game system offers no ruling on a throat slicing scenario (apart to mention that it is an evil act). So, how does the Dungeon Master (DM) rule this scenario? Here is a example of a throat slicing situation, played the wrong way.

Corag surges to his feet. Verid, his bluff called, slashes Corag's throat, doing 5 hps damage. Corag is down to 69 hit points, and is now very, very angry. He pulls his battle axe and makes short work of the thief.

Slitting throats has always been one of the hardest attack forms to adjudicate in my AD&D gaming sessions. How exactly do you handle this admittedly nasty attack form? Do you allow the attacker to automatically kill his victim? Double or triple the damage? These solutions were never totally satisfactory. I prefer not to place my PCs in a instant death situation, but I don't want to underplay the danger (and sheer horror) of having their throats slit, either.

I developed the following system to deal with this problem. First off, in order to slit a character's throat, the would be attacker must first be in a position to sneak up and place his blade properly. This implies that your victim is sleeping, stunned, or unconscious.

I suggest that the optional called shot situation (in which a character declares he will be placing his weapon at the enemy's throat, and takes a -4 to hit penalty) not be allowed in this situation. The victim must be unaware of the attacker, and his plan to place a dagger at his throat. Only small, bladed weapons (size S weapons) should be usable in a throat slitting situation. A dagger or short sword is fine, but it is difficult to slit a throat with a two handed sword!

Once a character is placed in a situation in which his throat may be slit, the attacker is in complete control. He can, at any time, without rolling initiative (consider the attacker as having a delayed attack), slit his victim's throat.

If this occurs, the attacker automatically does double the weapon's full damage, plus any bonuses for strength or magical weapon pluses. In the case of Verid (who was using a dagger +2, the damage would be 10 (4 x 2 + 2). This becomes the base damage. (In the case of a specialized fighter with 18/00 strength and a short sword +3, the base damage would be a truly staggering 21!).

Once a character's throat is slit, he is, to put it mildly, in big trouble. Apart from suffering the initial base damage, the character takes an additional amount of damage equal to the initial base damage, every round. He must also make an initial system shock roll, or pass out from the blood loss. In our above mentioned scenario, the victim would take 10 hps of damage per round, due to blood loss.

This, of course, assumes that the character is taking no action every round, other than attempting to stem the flow of blood. If the character foolishly ignores his wound to try to do battle, or chase after his attacker, then the base damage should be doubled (this represents the increased blood loss due to heightened activity). Note that, if the character is unconscious (failed the system shock roll), then he suffers only the base damage.

Naturally, spell casting with verbal components is impossible if one's throat is slit. It is possible to cast spells with only somatic and material components, but doing so will double the base damage, as the character is doing nothing to stem the blood flow. Furthermore, the character must pass a system shock roll every round in order to be able to retain the level of calm necessary for spell casting.

There are several ways to slow or halt the flow of blood from the damaged character.

Help from a Friend

If another character attempts to block or stem the flow of blood, then the damage is reduced by 1d10 points per round. Bear in mind, this represents a damage reduction, and in no way heals or closes the wound. Use of this rule assumes that the helping character possesses no real healing skills. The amount the damage is reduced by is always 1d10, regardless of the number of friends helping (only one person at a time can effectively treat the wound).

Help from a Skilled Friend

If another character attempts to block or stem the flow of blood, and has the healing or anatomy non-weapon proficiencies, then the helping character roles 1d10. This indicates the amount of damage reduction per round.

Unlike an unskilled character, however, half of this number also represents the number of hps of base damage of the wound that can be sealed in this round (divide the d10 roll by 2, rounding up - this number is the amount of damage which is subtracted from the base wound).

This effect is cumulative, until the wounded character stops bleeding entirely (i.e., if a 6 is rolled, then the helping character can prevent 6 hps of blood loss that round, and reduce the base wound damage by 3). The wounded character must then rest for at least an hour afterwards, while the proficient character tends to the wound, lest it reopen.

Help from a Cleric

Curative spells cast by a cleric will work to close the wound before they can actually begin healing damage. Any cure spell (i.e.. cure light wounds, cure critical wounds, and cure serious wounds) will close a number of hit points of the wound equal to the amount of healing rolled.

For instance, for a base 13 hp wound, a cure light wounds is cast, resulting in a 5. Five hps of the wound are closed, reducing the base damage down to 8 (the slit throat now does 8 hp of damage per round). No actual damage, however, is healed. Once the wound has been closed, then the various cure spells work normally. A heal spell will, of course, completely close the wound and heal all damage suffered.

Lets see how the previous scenario differs under these new rules.

Corag groans softly, and slips into unconsciousness.

In total, Corag has taken 37 hps of damage. A far cry from the 5 hps suffered in the original scenario. Next time, he may be more likely to pay more attention to his captor's demands!