1. Notes

Damage and other Nasties

Mechanics

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Damage and other Nasties

Losing Life Points

Life points are a measure of, you guessed it, your life. Lose them all, and your chances of living are seriously reduced. If your character is reduced to 10 Life Points or below, they're severely injured, and take a -2 penalty on most rolls. If reduced below 5 Life Points, the penalty goes up to -4.

Consciousness Tests

When reduced 0 Life Points or below, unconsciousness is likely. Make a Willpower and Constitution Test, with a -1 penalty for each negative Life Point. If Successful, you may act normally (with the -4 penalty from above) but any further damage requires a new Consciousness Test (with new and no doubt greater minuses). The Resistance (Pain) Quality aids in Consciousness Rolls.

Survival Tests

If your character is reduced to -10 Life Points or worse, death becomes a possibility. Make a Willpower and Constitution Test (just like Consciousness Tests), but with a -1 penalty for every 10 points below zero (i.e. a character at -32 Life Points would have a -3 penalty on their Survival Test). The Hard to Kill Quality provides a bonus to Survival Tests. If the character passes the Test, they life. Otherwise, they pass on. Remember those Drama Points!

Slow Death

If a character is below -10 Life Points and makes a Survival Test but doesn't get medical help quickly, she may still die. Survival Tests are required every minute after the first, at an additional -1 penalty per minute (so after five minutes the additional penalty would be -5; half an hour later it would be a near-insurmountable -30). Another character may try to stabilize the dying character with an Intelligence and Doctor Test, with a -1 penalty for every 10 Life Points the patient is below 0. A successful Test stabilizes the character, eliminating the need for further Survival Tests.

Dying Words and Actions

Characters who fail a Survival Test are most likely already unconscious. This is a huge downer, both for them and for the storyline. Thus, a special rule arises in such a scenario.

When a character dies, with the Director's permission, the player may have them perform one last deed, or say some memorable last words. The Last Deed option allows the character to act normally for one or two Turns (without wound penalties). Memorable Last Words can take as much as a minute. These are the character's last acts - make them count!

Resuscitation

Some injuries may be fatal, but some doctors just don't take "no" for an answer. Drowning, gunshots, and similar injuries may not be destructive enough to prevent modern science from saving the character. Common sense obviously applies - If the character was burnt to a crisp or killed by a soul-sucking spirit that stole their life force, CPR ain't gonna be enough for them. Resuscitation uses a Doctor and Intelligence Task, and grants the patient an additional Survival Roll with a bonus equal to the medic's Success Levels, and a -1 penalty per five minutes since their initial death.

Other Sources of Damage

Falls

It's not the fall that hurts - it's the sudden stop at the end. A fall from more than one meter distance inflicts 3 points of damage per meter. A Dexterity and Acrobatics Task reduces the fall's effective distance by 1 meter per Success Level. For example, a character who gets four Success levels would take no damage from a three-meter fall, and would take 9 damage from a seven-meter fall.

Suffocation

A character who is unable to breath or doesn't have access to enough oxygen usually has a pretty short life expectancy. Anybody can hold out for  minute (or 12ish Turns). After that, a Simple Constitution Test is required with a cumulative -1 penalty each Turn. Once unconscious, Survival Tests are kick in, with a cumulative -1 penalty evrey 30 seconds (or 6ish Turns).

Poison

Each poison has a Strength Attribute. Resisting a poison is a Resisted Task, pitting twice the victim's Constitution against twice the poison's Strength. If the poison wins, the victim takes the poison's damage, which is usually either reducing a specific Attribute by the poison's Success Levels, or a certain amount of Life Points. If a poison drains an Attribute reduces an Attribute to 0, the victim is unconscious or incapacitated, and the poison begins to drain their Constitution When their Constitution reaches 0, they die. The frequency of the poison's rolls depends on the kind of poison - very deadly ones may act every Turn, while less powerful agents may roll once per minute, per hour, or even per day.

Disease

This works just like poisons, except the rolls tend to be far less frequent (rarely faster than once per hour, and typically once per day). Sine diseases don't kill, and instead just incapacitate their victims with fevers, chills, or other unpleasant symptoms.

Essence Loss

Most of the time, the only characters who need to worry about Essence losses are Sorcerers, Shamans, Inspired, or users of other kinds of Gifted Powers. However, severe emotional stress and some supernatural attacks may drain the Essence of Mundanes as well.

A character reduced to 5 Essence Points or fewer feels numb, and others may find it hard to elicit any strong emotional reactions from them. This imposes a -1 penalty on most mental rolls until the Essence is restored.

If a character finds themselves with 0 Essence, they fall into a deep depression or similarly debilitating mental state. All rolls suffer a -3 penalty, and the person finds it difficult to concentrate or care about anything. If Essence is reduced below 0, the victim must pass a Simple Willpower Test, at a -1 penalty for every Essence point below 0. If they fail, the character temporarily loses one Level in one mental Attribute, or semi-permanently gains a Mental or Emotional Drawback worth at least 2 points - player's choice.

If Essence is reduced to -10 or below, the character must pass a Survival Test, with a -1 penalty for every 10 points below 0. Characters killed by Essence damage have no apparent cause of death, and medical experts will probably log it as "heart failure".

Fear Tests

When facing a fearsome creature or otherwise encountering the big hairy scary, make a Simple Willpower Test. Various circumstances may apply to make the Fear Test easier or harder. If the result is nine or above, your character may be afraid or apprehensive, but they can act normally. If the result is eight or less, they're mortified.

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