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 below 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. Any attacks directed against him need only hit the spot where he is lying. The character does get the benefits of his strength and armor (or willpower and focus negation, in the case of sorcerous assaults).

A character loses health through serious injury or disease. If health falls below zero, the character dies.

A character loses sanity through serious psychological shocks or certain sorcerous attacks. If sanity falls below zero, the character becomes permanently catatonic. The body still lives, but the mind is gone.

Recovery

A character recovers from harm through rest.

Stamina is the easiest to recover. One hit of stamina is recovered for each round of inaction. The maximum stamina of a character is limited by its current health and sanity.

An unconscious character recovers Stamina at the 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 may go into a coma and take a very long time recover.

Health and Sanity levels are more difficult to recover. Unlike Stamina, they do not return automatically.

To recover Health, a character must make a Constitution roll against the amount of Health taken from each wound. If successful, that wound is reduced by the Dos. When the amount of Health lost in that wound goes to zero, the wound is healed.

Sanity works the same way, but the character must roll Willpower.

Recovery checks are made once per day, usually when the character wakes up from a decent amount of sleep. Only one roll is made (or two, if the character has taken damage to both Health and Sanity), but this roll is checked against each injury.

Rest must be in a comfortable environment with adequate warmth, sleep, and nourishment. Sanity recovery also requires peace and quiet. Less than comfortable circumstances will slow the rate of healing, increasing the difficulty of the roll. Light exertion, such as walking or moderate lifting (or thinking, in the case of Sanity), will increase the difficulty of recovery 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.

Example:

Juk, Constitution 8, takes three wounds on Monday for 2, 6, and 12 Health. He is at death's door. He makes a Constitution roll when he awakens Teusday morning: 2d6+8 for a total of 15. The Master rolls 6 on 2d6 and adds this to each of the three wounds to get 8, 12, and 18.

Comparing Juk's roll to the Master's we find a Dos of 7 for the first wound, healing it completely, and a Dos of 3 for the second wound, reducing it to 3. Juk failed to roll higher than the third wound; it remains a grievous 12.

Healing

The aid of a skilled healer can make recovery much easier. Once per day, a healer may make a Healing roll for the injured character. This roll is compared to every injury, mental and physical. Every success heals an injury by a number of points equal to the Dos.

Healing rolls are made after the injured character's normal recovery checks.

Example:

Sarah, a healer, spends the day tending to Juk. After hours of treatment, she rolls her Healing trait (10) and gets 19. This is sufficient to heal the rest of the second wound and to reduce the third by 1 to 11 Health.

Poison

A poison is a harmful substance that does internal damage to a character.

Some poisons must be eaten, injected, or inhaled. Others take effect upon 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 any other attack, except only Constitution 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 action that requires sight will have a -4 penalty to the trait 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 action that requires hearing will be at -4 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 the affected sense.

Falling

The Master should ignore damage from falls of less than two spaces. 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 twice the number of spaces fallen. A character who falls three spaces (18 feet) should take 6 damage; a character who falls eight spaces should take 16 damage, and so on up to a maximum of 20.

This damage is rolled against the character's Constitution. 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 break a fall. This roll is made against a challenge level equal to the amount of damage the character faces. The Dos of this roll (if successful) can be added directly to the character's Constitution to help endure the damage.