1.  ATTACKING THINGS

Earlier I was reading some online promotional materials from a company that teaches tactical training methodologies to military and law enforcement organizations, and they had some interesting articles on the distinctions between physical action in training and in actual combat; a lot of brief discussion on the effects of the sympathetic nervous system on perception and motor skills, particularly the fact that once the SNS kicks in ("fight or flight") fine motor skills (like shooting a gun or doing complicated maneuvers) deteriorate badly while gross motor skills (like punching someone or swinging a stick) remain relatively unimpaired.

In game terms, the skills that are written on the character sheet are treated as the effectiveness of the character at performing the action in actual combat; a character with a 50% handgun skill can be assumed to hit the bullseye pretty consistently at a range, while only occasionally getting the bullet into the target when the target is shooting back or extending sloppy tentacles or whatever.  As a rule of thumb, I would suggest doubling the attack skill in a situation where the attacker is not being attacked or shot at, and thus doesn't have to worry about instinctive flinching and all that business interfering with his or her aim.

This works just about right for guns, but not quite as well for hand-to-hand attacks, where according to the standard rules you have the uninspiring spectacle of normal human beings flailing about in thin air with something as simple as a club.  I would solve this with a new melee attack option, by which a character can flail about and have a better chance to connect with the target, but would be less likely to connect with something vital; characters with high skills would be adept at hitting the good bits and doing real harm.

I'm calling the new option "Strike" (imaginative, huh?), and it just means that a character can opt to attack at double skill, but will inflict half weapon damage; as a collory (sp?), impales would only be possible on a roll of 01-05, but would inflict their full damage (double the normal weapon damage). The damage bonus applies after halving the Strike damage or doubling the impale damage. 

So, your Arnold Swartzenegger clone with the +1d6 db but base club skill could swing a baseball bat at 25%, to inflict 1d8+1d6, or could Strike at 50%, to inflict 1d4+1d6. Using a switchblade, he could attack normally at 25%, inflicing 1d4+1d6 (2d4+1d6 on an impale), or he could Strike at 50%, for 1d2+1d6 (but still 2d4+1d6 on an impale). 

It is noted that at base skill of 25%, the chance for impale is the same between a regular attack and a Strike, but altering that would mean making things more complicated than I'm willing to bother with at this point.  ;-)


2.  ATTACKING THINGS REALLY WELL

First off, special success attacks.  You have impales for puncturing weapons, which is appropriate.  According to "The Book of the Sword," a 19th century treatise on primitive weaponry, the puncture wounds of bayonets were more deadly than the cutting wounds of swords; this was due to infection as much as the immediate shock of having an organ pierced, but the Impale rule is a handy way to represent that extra deadliness. 

But that leaves cutting and blunt attacks out in the cold.  I would suggest adopting "Incapacitation" as the special-success result for non-impaling attacks:  a special success cutting or blunt attack is treated exactly as a special Knock-out attack, but without the reduction of total damage:  compare the rolled damage against the victim's current HP (after the new injury) on the Resistance Table to get the percent chance that the victim has been incapacitated by the blow, due to a cut muscle or tendon, a strike to the groin or head, or whatever your fiendish imagination (a property of every good Keeper) can come up with.  If the attacker is using a weapon which can cut or stab, use the effect that makes the most sense:  if the player said, "I'm going to slice him with my knife," then use incapacitate, not impale.

There are also specially-aimed shots, like when the expert pistoleer in your group wants to take out the cultist with one head shot to save the hostage. Easy enough:  the attack is performed at half normal skill, but the result is automatically a special success (impale for double damage, or incapacitation). Extras like laser sights or aiming for a full round or two will increase the final attack chance normally.  Fully automatic fire will not increase the chance to hit on such an aimed shot.


3.  HITTING THINGS WITHOUT A WEAPON

The Martial Arts skill is boring.  Double damage: your foot is better than your rifle.  Scary, but <yawn>.  Here are some options: 

• You can use Martial Arts skill to block melee weapon attacks.  In the official rules, the target of an attack with a hand weapon can either (a) parry with another hand weapon, or (b) Dodge and forfeit all attacks, or (c) soak it up and hope for the best.  With this option, a martial artist can block a melee weapon attack with a personal weapon parry (Fist, Kick, or Grapple) if the parry roll is lower than both the personal weapon skill andthe martial arts skill.
• You can use the Martial Arts skill percentage instead of a characteristic-based resistance roll when resolving Grapple attacks (great for that Aikido expert doing joint-locks with STR 8--in real life, it happens); as a follow-up option, you could use the MA skill to determine the TARGET's resistance roll percentage instead of using stats:  if the attacker's MA skill is 55%, the defender's resistance roll would be 100 - 55 or 45% (or his or her own MA skill, if any) instead of rolling STR vs. STR.
• You can Dodge and still attack in the same round (melee attacks only!). If the Dodge takes place before the character attacks that round, then if the MA fails the character can Dodge but cannot attack; after attacking, failing MA means the Dodge fails.

To keep the martial artists humble, I would recommend allowing only one of these options (OR double damage) to be used in a single round. 

As a side note on martial arts, I advise dropping Kick attacks to 1d4 damage, not 1d6.  I mean, take your pick:  .45 slug in the chest, or Bruce Lee's foot? Neither would be fun, but I mean, really... Look at a gunshot autopsy sometime if you don't take my word for it. ;-)


4. INFECTION

Ordinarily this is one of those things that role-playing games gloss over with a blurb like "if you feel like playing this out, go for it."  Even the first edition of AD&D had infection rules for hanging out in a swamp, but not for taking a rusty knife into your skin. 

For a quick and dirty way to work it into your game, do this:  If a character is recovering from injury under unsanitary circumstances (such as in the wilds, on Yuggoth, or in the 1890s), roll the damage taken vs. victim's CON in a Reistance Roll.  Double the chance if the victim took mainly puncture wounds; halve the chance if they were all blunt wounds.  If the damage beats the CON on the resistance roll, bad infection sets in:  the victim takes 1d3 damage per week until dead, until fully recovered despite infection, or until successfully treated with the Medicine skill for one week.  If infection sets in and no medicine skill is forthcoming, it could take a long time to recover: 1d3 recovered per week - 1d3 taken per week.


5. GUNS!  GUNS!  GUNS!
(or, "Settle down, Beavis")

.357 damage:  The official rules have .357 damage at 1d8+1d4 (avg. 7, max 12, with a 3% chance of maximum damage), and .45 damage at 1d10+2 (avg. 7.5, max 12, with a 10% chance of max damage).  A .357 is less dangerous than a .45? The bullet is smaller, but it moves at a terrifically greater velocity and thus has greater penetration and kinetic impact and accuracy.  Move it back up to 1d8+1d6, not 1d8+1d4.

.45 ROF:  I haven't fired either enough to make a reliable first-hand comparison, but a couple of studies I read indicated that the accurate rate of fire for the .45 semi-automatic was not much different from that of the 9mm; it sometimes came in slightly higher, in fact.  For game balance and to give the venerable .45 semi-automatic some respect, move its ROF up to 2 per round.

10mm damage:  Velocity and kinetic energy for the 10mm round are frighteningly high; it's not a step between the .45 and the 9mm, it is more powerful than either one.  Damage should be 1d10+1d4, equivalent to the other Magnum rounds.

.50 AE damage:  Scary as it sounds, the Desert Eagle pistol can be chambered for a .50 round (just in case that .44 magnum round didn't make quite a big enough hole in your enemies before).  This will be bigger and badder than the .44 that is listed in the rules.  When your players find out about this and want to carry one, put its damage at 3d6+1 (yep, that's a whole lot of dice on an impale--"Are you SURE this isn't a Dark Champion game??"), with base range of 30 yards, ROF 1 per round, Fumble/Jam rating of 97-00, and a clip of 7 (I think).  Don't let them talk you into allowing a silencer on one or hiding it from prying eyes in a shoulder or ankle holster.   "Is that a tank in your shirt, or are you just happy to see me?"