RULEBOOK

Damage & Health

A hit does not become damage automatically. It passes through a Damage pipeline that accounts for how hard you swung, how tough the target is, and what they are wearing. Health is tracked in points out of 100. When it reaches 0, the character falls unconscious and starts dying.

The Damage Pipeline

Every successful hit follows these five steps in order. Each step can reduce the damage further — occasionally to zero.

  1. Degree of success. Subtract the defender’s total successes from the attacker’s. This is your raw margin. A higher margin means a cleaner, harder hit.
  2. Multiply by weapon damage factor. Each weapon converts the raw margin into points. A dagger is 10, a sword is 25, a greatsword is 50. A degree of success of 3 with a sword becomes 3 × 25 = 75 points of potential damage.
  3. Subtract Physical Toughness. Each dot of Physical Toughness reduces damage by 5 points. Three dots reduces incoming damage by 15 points. This cannot reduce damage below 0.
  4. Subtract armor and shield absorption. Armor and shields each absorb a flat number of points. Add them together and subtract that total from remaining damage. Weapons with the Armor Piercing property reduce the combined armor + shield value before this subtraction. Physical Toughness is unaffected by Armor Piercing. This cannot reduce damage below 0.
  5. Apply to health. Subtract the remaining points from the target’s current health (maximum 100). A character who reaches 0 falls unconscious and begins Dying.
Example: Tilly’s Dagger

A bandit has cornered the party in an alley. Tilly would rather have walked away. She is not going to get that option. She attacks with her dagger.

Tilly (Wits 3, Melee 2) rolls 2d6: her Wits die comes up 2 (3 − 2 + 1 = 2 successes) and her Melee die comes up 1 (2 − 1 + 1 = 2 successes). Tilly’s total: 4.

The bandit (Body 2, Defending 1) defends with 2d6: his Body die comes up 5 (0 successes) and his Defending die comes up 6 (always −1). Total: −1. Since his total is negative, the −1 becomes a +1 bonus to Tilly, and his total becomes 0. Tilly’s adjusted total: 5.

Degree of success: 5 − 0 = 5.

Step 2 — Weapon factor: Dagger is 10. 5 × 10 = 50 points of potential damage.

Step 3 — Physical Toughness: The bandit has 0 dots. No reduction. Still 50 points.

Step 4 — Armor and shield: The bandit is unarmored and carries no shield. No absorption. Still 50 points.

Step 5 — Apply to health: The bandit drops from 100 to 50 health. He is Wounded but still on his feet.

Tilly notes that a dagger is a tool of precision, not spectacle. This is presumably fine with her.

Health and Condition Bands

Health is tracked in points out of 100. As it drops, characters enter worse condition bands that impose escalating penalties. The base AP per round is 3.

HealthBandAP PenaltyFree Movement Penalty
75–100Uninjured——
50–74Wounded——
25–49Badly Hurt−1 AP−1 FM
1–24Crippled−1 AP (cumulative)−1 FM (cumulative)

The penalties from Badly Hurt and Crippled stack. A character at 10 health has entered both bands and suffers −2 AP and −2 FM per round. Crippled characters are still dangerous — but they are running out of time.

All penalty values are playtesting values and may change before final release.

Dying

At 0 health, a character falls unconscious and enters the Dying state. They are no longer a combatant. They are a problem.

How it works:

  • A Dying character loses 5 points of health per round.
  • At −100 health, the character is dead.
  • This gives roughly 20 rounds from unconsciousness to death.
  • A dying character can be saved by a successful Medicine check.

Twenty rounds feels like a long time. In active combat it is not. Spending AP to stabilize someone means not spending AP on the fight that made them need stabilizing. This is a real choice.

The 5-point bleed rate is a playtesting value.

Medicine — Stabilization

A character with the Medicine skill can attempt to stabilize a Dying character. The check is Wits + Medicine , though the GM may allow other Gift + Medicine pairings depending on approach.

The number of successes required depends on how far below 0 the patient has fallen. A patient who just hit 0 is easier to stabilize than one who has been bleeding for several rounds.

Patient HealthSuccesses Required
−1 to −251
−26 to −502
−51 to −753
−76 to −1004

Outcomes:

  • Success: Patient’s health is set to 0. They are unconscious but stable — no longer bleeding out.
  • Failure: No change. The healer may try again next round.
  • Fumble (a 6 on any die): The patient takes an additional 25 points of damage . Medicine is not a forgiving skill when the stakes are high.

All medicine values are playtesting values.

Example: Tharis’s Best Work

The fight is over. Bran is not — or at least, not yet. He is at −30 health and losing ground. Tharis crouches beside him and breaks the seal on a Restoration rod, pressing it to Bran’s shoulder.

Bran at −30 falls in the −26 to −50 band. Tharis needs 2 successes.

Tharis (Wits 3, Medicine 3) rolls 2d6: his Wits die comes up 2 (3 − 2 + 1 = 2 successes) and his Medicine die comes up 3 (3 − 3 + 1 = 1 success). Total: 3 successes. He needed 2. Bran’s health is set to 0. Unconscious, but stable.

Tharis exhales, rises to his feet, and notices the stranger from earlier is gone — along with the coin pouch he had set down to free both hands. Well. That’s fine. The world works in mysterious ways.