[Sorloc]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

Yeah,
From what I've read, it seems you sort of take a "blanket impairment" when the adrenaline rush kicks in and can basically ingore most of your injurues, for the short term, unless they are very severe, or make fucntioning impossible (i.e. you can't used severed body parts).

Once the adrenaline wears off, then it all seems to hit at once and the guy crashes.

Not too many RPGs work that way, do they?

I watched this once, and experienced it once.

A few years ago, I was getting back from getting the mail when a woman ran up to me and forced her way into my apartment, begging me to lock the door. When I did, she started to wander around and I noticed blood dripping all over.
As I was calling 911, I found she had been shot three times, apparantly with a .38, once in the wrist, once in the side of her face (cheek and tongue were damaged), and once in the chest below her left breast.
She was up and active for a while, but as she calmed down, she kept starting to fall asleep. The 911 operator was encouraging me to keep her talking, so I tried.
A few months later, she came by to thank me for helping. That was very nice of her, and I was glad to see that she had recovered.

My personal experience was not with a bullet wound, but a fair gash on my head. A metal storage box had come loose off the top of my work van, and was hanging down over the windshield. As I was getting it down, it struck my head pretty hard. There was blood on my hand, but I knew that head wounds bleed like mad, even when they're not serious, so I wasn't too worried. I got the box down (which was full of about 350 lbs of metal pipe and stuff, which I never knew was in there), drove a few miles down the road, then drove back to wait for someone to come pick up the box, helped them load it on the flatbed, then drove to the doctor's, filled out about 20 pages of forms, took a drug test, got x-rays, got a b.p. reading of 145/126 (!), then finally saw the actual doctor and then they finally began treating the wound.
This is three and a half hours after the incident, and I began to get nauseous as they were cleaning the wound. They offered me some water, and I accepted. While they were getting it, I complained of greyed vision and dizziness. The next thing I knew, they were shaking me awake.
I had to rest a while, but was able to leave after about half an hour.
I didn't even need stitches, only had a minor concussion, and was perfectly fine until I knew it was all over and the adrenaline rush had worn off. My b.p. had dropped to 120/80, which is where it normally is.

How do you adjudicate the effects of adrenaline and shock in a game? I really don't know. It does affect different people differently...