PAIN AND SUFFERING
Injury
There are three measures of injury: Stamina, Health, and Sanity.
A character loses Stamina by taking damage or through heavy exertion. When the Stamina of a character is reduced to zero, he falls unconscious. Stamina can fall to negative numbers. This makes recovery time longer, but has no other ill effects.
An unconscious individual is senseless and can take no action whatsoever. Any attacks directed against him need only hit the spot where he is lying (which means that melee attacks nearly always hit). The character gets no defensive actions, but does get the benefits of his Strength and armor (or Willpower and charm, in the case of sorcerous assaults).
A character loses Health levels through serious injury or disease. Health levels below "OK" give penalties to a character's Strength and Dexterity according to the following table:
| Health Level | Penalty to Strength and Dexterity |
|---|---|
| Hurt | -1 |
| Wounded | -2 |
| Crippled | -3 |
| Dead | NA |
These attribute penalties affect all physical skill, damage, and endurance rolls. They last until the character recovers.
If a character falls to the "Dead" Health level, he is gone forever.
A character loses Sanity levels through serious psychological shocks or certain sorcerous attacks. Sanity levels below "OK" give penalties to a character's Willpower and Intelligence according to the following table:
| Sanity Level | Penalty to Willpower and Intelligence |
|---|---|
| Shaken | -1 |
| Disturbed | -2 |
| Insane | -3 |
| Catatonic | NA |
These attribute penalties affect all mental skill, damage, and endurance rolls. They last until the character recovers.
If a character falls to the "Catatonic" Sanity level, he is effectively dead - though the body still lives, the mind is gone.
Recovery
A character recovers from harm through rest.
Stamina is the easiest to recover. How quickly a character recovers depends upon the Health and Sanity of the character, according to the following table:
| Health Level | Sanity Level | Difficulty of Recovery |
|---|---|---|
| OK | OK | 1 per round |
| Hurt | Shaken | 1 per minute |
| Wounded | Disturbed | 1 per hour |
| Crippled | Insane | 1 per day |
| Dead | Catatonic | NA |
Characters use the worst of their Health and Sanity. For example, a character who is physically OK but mentally Disturbed will recover one hit of Stamina per hour.
An unconscious character recovers Stamina at a normal rate and wakes up when it is greater than zero. However, there is no limit to how far negative Stamina can fall. A character who has taken massive amounts of damage may go into a coma and take a very long time to recover.
Health and Sanity levels are more difficult to recover. Unlike Stamina, they do not return automatically - the injured character must make Strength (for Health) or Willpower (for Sanity) rolls in order to improve. The difficulty of the roll is based on this table:
| Health Level | Sanity Level | Difficulty of Recovery |
|---|---|---|
| Hurt | Shaken | 0 |
| Wounded | Disturbed | 5 |
| Crippled | Insane | 10 |
| Dead | Catatonic | NA |
Recovery checks are made once per day, usually when the character wakes up from a decent amount of sleep. It is possible to recover from being Hurt in a single day, while recovering from Crippled takes at least three days (and probably much longer due to the difficulty of the roll).
The penalties to Strength and Willpower caused by Health and Sanity damage should be ignored for the purpose of recovery. Use the character's original Strength and Willpower attributes.
If a character recovers a Health or Sanity level before he has recovered all of his Stamina, then his Stamina will begin to recover at the increased rate for the better Health or Sanity level.
Rest must be in a comfortable environment with adequate warmth, sleep, and nourishment. Less than comfortable circumstances will slow the rate of healing, increasing the difficulty of the roll. Light exertion, such as walking or moderate lifting, will increase the difficulty of healing rolls as well. The increase in difficulty is at the discretion of The Master.
Strenuous activity, such as fighting or spellcasting, will prevent any healing at all.
Healing
The aid of a skilled healer can make recovery much easier. Once per day, a healer may make a roll versus the same difficulty as the injured character's recovery check. If the roll is successful, the character gains one level of Health or Sanity (depending on what condition the healer spent the day treating).
If this roll fails, the character may still make normal recovery checks. This does not allow a character to improve by two levels per day, however.
Poison
A poison is a harmful substance that does damage to a character internally.
How a character becomes poisoned varies. Some poisons must be eaten, injected, or inhaled. Others take effect simply by direct contact with the skin.
In game terms, a poison is an attack that does damage to a character at regular intervals (once a round, minute, hour, day, etc) for a certain duration. This damage is resisted as an other attack, except only base Strength is used. Armor does not help against poison.
If a character survives until the duration runs out, he fought the poison off.
Some poisons (drugs) may work against Sanity rather than Health. These work the same as the others except that they are resisted with Willpower.
Some poisons work more slowly than others. Most diseases can be treated as poisons with very long durations.
Darkness and blindness
Characters who cannot sense their opponents will find themselves at a distinct disadvantage.
When characters are unable to see, any skill that requires sight will have a -2 penalty to the skill roll. This applies whether a character is somehow blinded or just surrounded by darkness.
For situations that are dim, but not completely dark, The Master should assign a difficulty number - the lower the light, the higher the number. Any character who can make a Perception roll higher than this number is able to see for that round.
These rules apply also to other senses - any skill that requires hearing will be at -2 if the character cannot hear.
Of course, these rules do not apply to Perception itself - if a character is blinded or deafened, he cannot perceive anything with that sense.
Falling
The Master should ignore damage from any falls of less than four yards. A hero is not likely to injure himself falling such a short distance unless he lands on something unpleasant.
For more significant falls, characters should take an amount of damage equal to the number of yards fallen. A character who falls six yards (18 feet) should take 6 damage, a character who falls 15 yards should take 15 damage, and so on up until the maximum of 20 (terminal velocity).
This damage is rolled against the character's strength. Armor does not help protect against falling damage, though it may help to protect the character from any extra damage if he falls on something sharp like spikes or broken rock.
Characters may use an Acrobatics roll to help lessen the pain. The roll can be added directly to the character's Strength for purposes of enduring the damage.