Harsh Realism for Mortally Wounded

My main grip with Mortal Wounds in GURPS is this:

- loss of limbs - crippling, or dismemberment, are curable, partially disabling, and have lasting consequences.
- mortal wounds are curable, disabling, and have no lasting consequences.
- in a high-magic game, death is curable, disabling, and have lasting consequences.

So basically, it's better to nearly (but not actually) die than to break a leg in a high-magic environment, because it's easier to fix and has less adventure-limiting consequences. Oh sure, it can kill you, but it's hard to die in GURPS. It says if you are stabilized, you're "still incapacitated" but in practice, that's not really true.

Here is what I'm proposing as a way to make it a little more harsh.

Mortal Wounds: As written in Basic Set, p. 423, except as follows. A mortal wound that is stabilized, either from a critical success or external method, removes the need for further HT rolls to avoid death. However, you are incapacitated until your FP and HP are both above 0. Once both are above zero, you and capped at FP equal to just under 1/3 of maximum FP, and thus your Move, Dodge, and ST are halved, for 1d6 hours. After that, roll against HT each hour with a penalty of -2 for every -1xHP below zero you were (-2, -4, -6, or -8) when you became mortally wounded. On a success, you recover and remove this penalty.

Restoration will remove this penalty but will require the victim to rest for 1 hour. Instant Restoration will remove it instantly. Casters healing themselves suffer the penalty for their theshold of injury (i.e. -2 through -8) as well as any other penalties. Remember: One Try!

Bonus harsh realism: Apply the penalties for negative HP thresholds to any attempt to stabilize a mortal wound, regardless of method used - Surgery, Esoteric Medicine, magical healing. Healing up HP before stabilizing may optionally reduce this threshold, but for really deadly games, keep the penalty of the worse threshold reached while mortally wounded until stabilized, even if the victim is healed up fully.

I will try this is my DF game if my players see eye-to-eye with me on this. Or close to eye-to-eye. It seems pretty fair - you can fix it quickly with enough magic, which is true for everything else. Also, it has annoying consequences, so it's not "better" than losing a limb or eye. I like it so far.