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Originally Posted by Skywalker
Why a D100 and not a D20? Assuming you don't have injury conditions in denominations smaller than 5%.
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Well, occasionally I've considered that. The system's percentile based, and I prefer systems that minimise the number of different dice that are needed (in this case, D10s and D6s - it's the wargamer in my background, I think). On the other hand, there's only a few tables and whatnots that don't break down into increments of five or ten percentiles.
Physique (which is used defensively, as well as offensively as part of melee weapon damage in a Ph+20 kind of way) is a stat, and so rises in irregular chunks (although most NPCs - in games I run at least - would have blocks of 5 to start with, for simplicity, and most starting PCs would as well, I'd have thought).
It's the same with skills (such as Rifle), which are added to the Injury roll as well. Again, NPCs would have skills in 5% increments, for simplicity. Skills are bought in blocks of 5 points at character generation.
Weapon damage is in increments of 5, except potentially where Physique forms part of the value.
Armour is valued in increments of 5.
The potential fiddliness of the mechanic is (hopefully - this particular injury system only recently replaced hit points, and hasn't been playtested) reduced to virtually nil by having a handy box for it on the character sheet.
The whole "5% = 1-in-20" issue is something I've been wondering about myself in certain other parts of the rules, but there are lots of occasions in the system where it's easier to use 5% increments and a D100 than a D20. An example would be the duration of certain spells, where it's equal to the D100 casting roll in minutes. Other times would be particularly rare random mutations, which have about a 1-3% possibility on a D100 chart that's otherwise mainly 5% incremented.
I like consistency in game mechanics, rather than jumping between different dice all the time.
I've made enough drastic changes to the system to go back and change it again if need be, but playtesters (admittedly a limited pool, so far) have said they prefer the flexibility of percentile to the more discrete D20.
Like I say, you've made a valid point, and it's a possibility I've always got at the back of my mind. At some point, I may take a copy of the basic rules and go through converting it to a D20 (not TM) based mechanic.
Or just produce an OGL conversion, depending on what happens with OGL closer to the time of publication.