Excess is lost is a recurring phrase with several variations referring to either damage or injury in multiple points throughout the books.
Basic[]
- B399 "beyond the minimum required to inflict a crippling injury is lost." .. "excess damage is still lost"
- B400 Large-Area Injury "If a single limb (hand, arm, etc.) is exposed, damage in excess of that required to inflict a major wound is lost."
- B420 Accumulated Wounds Excess injury is still lost under this rule. For instance, if you have 11 HP, a total of 6 HP of injury cripples your arm. Ignore further injury, except for the purpose of determining dismemberment.
- B431 (falls) "do not ignore injury in excess of that required to cripple it. Instead, subtract the full amount from HP"
- B552 "excess damage is still lost"
- B554 Caterpillar Track) and B555 (Exposed Weapon Mount, Helicopter Rotor, Mast, Runner or Skids, Small Superstructure, Wheel) "excess damage is lost"
Martial Arts[]
An exception to lost excess for limbs is introduced for cutting weapons in MA136 Extreme Dismemberment
Also:
- MA71 Eye-Gouging "This can cripple and blind the eyes but never gets the x4 wounding modifier for the skull"
- MA72 Eye-Pluck and Eye-Poke "Injury over HP/10 cripples the eye. Any excess is lost."
- difference between these, Poke but NOT Pluck mentions "A miss by 1 strikes the protective bone around the eye, damaging the face instead – but as you’re hitting bone, skull DR (usually DR 2) protect"
Lethal Eye-Poke does not mention this. It stands to reason that an eye ought to provide HP/10 cover DR in lieu of the standard DR 2 of the brain which eye hits bypass (holes in skull).
There should probably also be other ways to exploit holes in the skull (such as the jaw) to get the x4 brain multiplier besides the eyes, but this is never explored.
High-Tech[]
GURPS High-Tech pg 62 introduced Optional Wounding Rules. It references GURPS Martial Arts having "related options". This begins in the 2nd paragraph with the 1 in 6 chance of hitting vitals on a torso hit, which was introduced on MA137.
The 3rd paragraph introduces a couple different options, which vary depending on the use of bleeding rules;
- If you don’t use Bleeding, injury can’t exceed twice the target’s HP.
- Any excess is lost.
- If you do use Bleeding, injury can’t exceed the target’s HP.
- Any excess is lost but still counts when determining the HT penalty for bleeding rolls.
See also[]
- Cover
- Overpenetration
- Partial Cover
- Severing