Health and Damage
Contents
Health and Damage
Every character has at least 9 health levels, divided among three wound track categories: Healthy, Injured, and Incapacitated. When your character takes damage, you must first mark off your Healthy wound levels, then your Injured wound levels, and finally your Incapacitated wound levels.
Character Sheet Example
O O O – Healthy
O O O – Injured
O O O – Incapacitated
These levels represent your character’s general state of health, as follows:
• Healthy: As long as you do not have any points marked off within your Injured or Incapacitated wound tracks (three wounds or less), you may operate normally.
• Injured: If you have one or more points marked off in your Injured wound track, you are Injured. There is no immediate mechanical disadvantage to being Injured, but some attacks work more effectively on Injured characters.
• Incapacitated: If you have one or more points marked off in your Incapacitated wound track, you are Incapacitated. Incapacitated characters lose their simple action every round until they heal all of their Incapacitated health levels.
Example: An elder attacks Nixx and inflicts 4 points of normal damage. Nixx’s player must mark off all of his Healthy levels and the first level of Injured, leaving him with 2 Injured levels remaining. Later, Nixx suffers an additional 3 points of damage at the hands of a jealous lover, so he must mark off his last 2 Injured levels and his first Incapacitated level, leaving him with 2 Incapacitated levels remaining. While his remaining health level is in the Incapacitated track, Nixx is only able to take one standard action per round.
Stamina Focused
Stamina-focused characters don’t suffer any penalties for being in the Incapacitated wound track. Attacks that have a greater effect on Injured or Incapacitated characters are not blocked by the Stamina focus.
Damage Types
Normal Damage
Normal damage comes from attacks that slash, pierce, or bash your opponent. Unless otherwise noted, assume your attack causes normal damage.
Aggravated Damage
Some supernatural creatures are especially vulnerable to certain types of attacks. Vampires are particularly susceptible to fire and sunlight, while werewolves are famously vulnerable to silver weapons. When a character is hit by an attack to which she is particularly vulnerable, she suffers aggravated damage.
Falling Damage
You take 1 point of damage for every 10 feet you fall. For example, falling off of the roof of a single-story house causes 1 point of damage, while falling from the 15th floor of an office building would most likely be fatal.
Suffocation
When unable to breathe, mortal characters take 1 point of damage every three turns. This damage cannot be reduced or negated while the character is unable to breathe, such as being underwater or in a room filled with unbreathable gas. Stamina-focused characters take damage every five turns, instead of the standard three.
Staking
If you have a weapon with the staking quality, you can attempt to stake a vampire, so long as that vampire is Incapacitated. Staking requires you to use the Pierce the Heart combat maneuver. It imposes a -2 penalty to your attack test pool, but if successful, the target falls into a damage-induced torpor until the stake is removed. Staked vampires automatically awaken when the stake is removed, unless they are also out of health levels.
Normally it is not possible to use the Pierce the Heart combat maneuver unless the target is within the Incapacitated wound track, but a vampire who is in torpor, asleep, or otherwise helpless can be staked, with the Storyteller’s permission.
Drugs and Poison
Poisons are natural or synthetic chemicals designed to harm humans. Drugs and alcohol are often used recreationally to produce feelings of euphoria, but they have severe side effects and can be used by unscrupulous people to incapacitate or kill.
Undead characters are immune to many of the effects of drugs, alcohol, and poisons. Vampires cannot be knocked unconscious and are not inconvenienced by organ failure. Most vampires are incapable of directly absorbing drugs, alcohol, or poison, but they may feel some of the effects by drinking the blood of a mortal who has ingested such chemicals.
Doses: A dose is the amount of chemical that can affect a character in a single turn. Baring supernatural powers, a character can only be subjected to one dose of a poison or drug per turn.
Drug and Poison Types
• Alcohol: When you ingest a dose of alcohol (a glass of beer, a shot of whiskey, etc.), make a static challenge using your Physical attribute + Survival against a difficulty rating of 10. Stamina-focused characters receive a +3 wild card bonus to this test. Each time you ingest a new dose you must test again against a cumulative +2 difficulty. For example, if you have three drinks, you must make three challenges. The first has a difficulty of 10, the second has a difficulty of 12, and the third has a difficulty of 14. Each time you fail to resist a dose of alcohol, you gain a cumulative -1 penalty to all Mental challenges and all challenges involving coordination or manual dexterity (including combat). The negative effects of alcohol fade at a rate of 1 point per hour.
• Hallucinogen: When exposed to a hallucinogen, your ability to tell the difference between fantasy and reality is impaired, and you suffer a -5 penalty to all challenges based on Investigation or Awareness. Intelligence focused characters reduce this penalty to -3. The effects of a dose of hallucinogen last for one hour. Additional doses do not increase the penalty, but add to the duration on a one-for-one basis. For example, if you inhale a hallucinogen for three turns you will experience hallucinations for the next three hours. The effects of hallucinogens fade if you sleep for eight hours, no matter how many doses are affecting the character. If you interact with another character for more than a few moments while hallucinating, you must make a static challenge using your Mental attribute + Investigation against a difficulty rating of 10. Failure means that you do or say something that alerts the person you’re dealing with to the fact that you’re hallucinating.
• Knock Out: When exposed to a dose of a knock-out drug, you must make a static challenge using your Physical attribute + Survival against a difficulty rating of 5. Each turn that you are exposed to a knock-out drug, you must test again with a cumulative +2 difficulty. For example, if you breathe knock-out gas for 3 turns, you will need to make three challenges. The first difficulty rating is 5, the second will be 7, and the third will be 9. If you fail such a challenge, you lose consciousness for one hour. Note that undead characters cannot be knocked unconscious.
• Amphetamine: When you ingest a dose of a stimulant, you become twitchy and hyperactive, and you cannot sleep or rest for the next hour. Additional doses do not increase the penalties, but add to the duration on a one-for-one basis. If you are exposed to more doses of a stimulant than you have dots in your Physical attribute in one 24-hour period, you suffer major organ failure and will die without medical attention. Stamina focused characters can ingest three additional doses of stimulants before suffering organ failure. Undead characters are immune to organ failure.
• Toxin: When you’re exposed to a toxin, nothing happens for a three turns (five turns if you are Stamina focused). After that time passes, you must make a static challenge using your Physical attribute + Survival with a difficulty between 5 and 30 (depending on the poison’s virility). If you succeed, you resist the poison. Failure causes you to take 1 point of damage that cannot be reduced or negated and forces you to test again in five minutes. This process continues until you succeed or die. Undead characters (including vampires) are immune to the effects of most toxins. Toxins that specifically target the victim’s blood are effective against vampires, but they destroy the vampire’s Blood points rather than inflict damage. If a vampire runs out of Blood points before she resists the toxin, the effects of the toxin end. A character with the Medical skill and access to medical supplies can treat you by making a static challenge against a difficulty rating equal to the poison’s virility rating -5. If successful, the toxin’s effect ends.
Sample Virility Rating
• Rubbing alcohol: 5
• Arsenic: 10
• Snake Venom: 15
• A pint of drain cleaner: 30
Losing Consciousness
When a living character has no remaining health levels and takes 1 or more points of damage, she falls unconscious and may die.
It’s possible to revive an unconscious character using the Medicine skill by succeeding in a static challenge using a test pool consisting of your Mental attribute + Medicine skill against a difficulty rating of 10, or 20 if proper medical equipment isn’t available. A revived character who is still within the Incapacitated wound track will fall unconscious again if she does anything physically stressful, like engage in combat.
Vampires (and some other supernatural creatures) can never be knocked unconscious. Note that this immunity also applies to the Knock Out combat maneuver.
Torpor
When a vampire has no remaining health levels and takes 1 or more points of damage, she falls into torpor. Torpid vampires appear to be dead mortals. While in torpor, a character is effectively unconscious and cannot perceive her surroundings.
Any torpid vampire who is given at least 1 point of Blood from a vampire of three generations lower automatically wakes up from torpor. Note that this requirement is calculated by comparing numeric generation, not by comparing dots of the Generation background.
Damage-Induced Torpor
Every night at sunset, a vampire in damage-induced torpor will use 1 point of Blood and heal 1 point of damage (any type of damage). If the torpid vampire has enough Blood to heal all of her damage, she will transition to voluntary torpor and may choose to wake at dusk on the night after she healed her last point of damage. If the vampire doesn’t have enough Blood, she continues to heal 1 point of damage per week until she’s returned to full health. Once fully healed, a bloodless vampire can briefly wake from torpor if a source of fresh blood (a human or vial of mortal blood) comes within 10 steps. Such a vampire may spend 1 point of Willpower per round to remain active. If she manages to feed before running out of Willpower, she will escape torpor’s grasp; otherwise she will fall back into torpor when she runs out of Willpower. Willpower expended in this way does not return normally, but will return automatically after one week.
Voluntary Torpor
A vampire may choose to fall into torpor by spending a point of Willpower and meditating for a few minutes. Voluntary torpor is similar to damage-induced torpor, but the sleeping vampire has a limited grasp of her surroundings. A vampire slumbering in a voluntary torpor will notice any source of mortal blood (a living human or a vial of mortal blood) that comes within 10 steps of her resting place and will recognize that she is in danger if something attempts to harm her. A vampire in voluntary torpor may choose to wake up at dusk (any day after the first spent in torpor) and may wake immediately by spending a point of Willpower, if she senses blood or danger.
Healing
Natural Healing
Humans die easily from normal injury and heal very slowly without medical attention. Mortal life is fragile compared to an immortal. The following system simulates the slow recovery process.
• Heal one level of health per day while Healthy.
• Heal one level of health per week while Injured.
• Heal one level of health per month while Incapacitated.
Treating a living character with the Medicine skill cuts the above healing times in half. To attempt medical treatment, make a static challenge using a test pool consisting of your Mental attribute + Medicine skill versus a difficulty rating of 5 + the number of wounds your target is suffering. If you have proper equipment to treat your patient’s injuries, you receive a +1 to +5 wild card bonus to your challenge. Obviously, medical treatment does not work on vampires as they are undead.
Vampiric Healing
Normal Damage: Vampires do not heal naturally. Spending a point of Blood allows a vampire to instantly heal a point of normal damage. Healing doesn’t require an action, and you may heal at any time (even when it’s not your initiative).
Aggravated Damage: To heal aggravated damage, a vampire must spend 3 points of Blood just before she goes to sleep. When she wakes the next evening, she heals 1 point of aggravated damage. It is not normally possible to heal more than 1 point of aggravated damage per day.
Healing Lots Of Aggravated Damage During Downtime
Sometimes you may have a lot of aggravated damage you need to heal during the week, but you are unsure how much you can heal, and what the consequences are. Here are those answers!
By default, you can heal 1 agg per day by spending 3 blood, while you sleep. That means that at best, you can heal 7 agg between game sessions, at the cost of 21 blood.
Of course, we don't track a lot of blood between sessions, so let's explain how we will track that.
- You are assumed to have enough blood to heal 1 agg for free on Saturday.
- The first dot of herd or feeding downtime allows you to come into game with full blood.
- Each additional downtime you spend safely feeding recovers enough blood to heal 1 additional agg.
- Each additional dot of Herd you have provides enough blood to heal 1 additional agg for free. No downtime required.
- You may spend any amount of blood from your starting pool on Friday night to heal additional agg. You will start game down that much blood.
- You may spend a downtime feeding un-safely. This will be a little riskier, will be a scene, and may provide you (much) more blood.
- Naturally, you may not heal more than 7 agg in total between sessions.
This only applies to aggravated damage. Unless there are special circumstances, so long as you are still walking around and can feed and take care of yourself, normal damage is healed during the week without comment.
Death
“Death has made his darkness beautiful with thee.” — Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam
Living characters die if they have no remaining health levels and take 3 or more points of damage. Additionally, a living character who is knocked unconscious from damage will die in 5 turns unless treated by a character with the Medicine skill. Stamina-focused characters will survive for up to 10 turns without medical attention.
Vampires are more difficult to kill. To permanently destroy a vampire, you must damage all of the target’s health levels, knock her into torpor, and remove her head or destroy her body.
To remove a vampire’s head, you must have an appropriate tool or power and use a full round of actions (consuming both your simple and standard actions). Nearby characters may choose to defend the torpid vampire (using the assist defender tactic). If no one chooses to defend the torpid vampire, an opposed challenge is not needed. To destroy a vampire’s body without beheading her, you must expose her to a damaging situation or inflict significant blunt trauma over three full turns. The three turns needed to kill a vampire in this way don’t need to happen consecutively, but they must happen within 10 minutes.
Examples
• If you use your simple and standard actions to behead a torpid vampire using a sword, feral claws, or supernatural strength, she will die.
• If you light a torpid vampire on fire and she burns for three turns, she will die.
• If you throw a torpid vampire off of something high enough that she falls for three full turns, she will die when she hits the ground.
• If you spend three turns destroying a torpid vampire’s body by beating it with a sledge hammer, she will die.
Turning to Ash
When a vampire is killed, her body turns to ash over the next five turns. If a part of a vampire is removed, the missing piece will similarly turn to ash within the next five turns unless it is mystically preserved.
Chapter 4: Introduction to Core Systems
