Injuries
Injuries are physical or mental Maladies that are imposed on creatures in response to damaging attacks. These include broken bones, severed limbs, large bleeding gashes, concussive head wounds, and even hallucinations. Injuries are long lasting and impose persistent penalties that can stay with a creature for days to weeks until the injury is fully healed. If the injury is severe enough, it can even lead to a creature's death.
Each injury currently afflicting a creature counts as a separate Malady.
Injury Checks
When a creature is reduced to 0 Hitpoints, it becomes Disabled and risks suffering a significant Injury. Each time the creature takes damage, including the attack that reduced the creature to 0 Hitpoints, it must make an Injury Check:
The result of the check determines the severity of the injury (See chart). If the creature already has one or more Maladies (i.e. Injuries, Diseases, etc), it suffers a cumulative -10 penalty to this check per malady it already has (i.e. -10 for one malady, -20 for two, etc.) An additional -10 penalty applies if the creature is already Disabled and the damage suffered from the attack exceeds its Healing Value (this reflects the intensity of the attack). Since each injury is a malady that causes further penalty to the Injury Check, the more Injuries (and other maladies) a creature has, the more likely they are to suffer a Critical or Lethal Injury.
Natural 20
A creature that rolls a Natural 20 on an injury check does not take an injury, regardless of the normal result.
| Resilience Check (after penalties) | Severity |
|---|---|
| 20+ | No Injury |
| 10 to 19 | Moderate |
| 0 to 9 | Severe |
| −10 to −1 | Critical |
| −11 or less | Lethal |
A creature must make a Injury Check when:
- An attack reduces a creature's Current Hitpoint Total to 0 and causes them to become Disabled.
- A creature suffers damage while they are Disabled.
- Certain circumstances (i.e. Falling, Traps) and Powers may require a creature to make an Injury Check even if the creature is above 0 Hitpoints.
Types of Injuries
Different damage types cause different types of injuries. Whenever a creature receives an injury, the specific injury and its effects are dependent on the type of damage which resulted in the injury. The GM randomly determines the injury received based off the list of injuries for that damage type. Each individual damage type has its own injury table (see Damage Types).
For creatures with abnormal anatomy, such as Oozes, Constructs, Elementals, Undead and some Monstrosities, the listed Injuries may not be appropriate for a particular creature. For example, you cannot decapitate a creature without a head. Likewise you cannot cause an Undead creature to Bleed or feel Pain. In these cases, the effects of the pregenerated Injuries should be used as a guideline for the GM to determine the particular injury the creature suffers. For example, instead of a bleeding injury an undead creature could suffer an injury that causes it to leak the necrotic energies that keep it functioning (having an effect similar to blood loss).
Blood Loss
Many injuries cause a creature to lose significant amounts of blood, weakening and eventually killing them over time. If an Injury causes significant bleeding, it will state so in the Injury's effect. See Blood Loss for more details.
Lethal Injuries
Most Lethal injuries are deadly, and a creature that receives one automatically dies. Some impose an equally debilitating effect (such as being petrified, or plunged into a permanent coma). Regardless of the exact effect, the creature is definitely out of the action, and will require powerful magics to restore them. Depending on the injury, the creature's body may or may not be intact. At the GM's discretion a creature that receives a lethal injury may have enough time before death (or the like) sets in to utter some last words or take another action important to the story.
Healing Injuries
Injuries heal naturally over time. Each injury has 3 boxes per degree of severity ( 3 for moderate, 6 for severe, and 9 for critical) that show healing progress. As these boxes are filled (or removed), the severity and effects of the injury are reduced until it is eventually healed. The boxes for the more severe effects are removed first, which reduces them to less severe effects (i.e. after healing three boxes of a severe injury, the effects become similar to a moderate injury). Each injury also has a DC for healing effects (10 for Moderate, 15 for severe, and 20 for critical). When a healing check is made (a resilience check) that equals or exceeds the DC, the injury is healed one box. An additional box is healed for every 5 that the DC is exceeded (i.e. a roll of 22 heals two boxes of a DC 15 moderate injury).
Resting
At the end of each successful extended rest a character may make a healing check against each of their injuries (a Resilience check vs the DC of the injury, as described above) to try and reduce each injury by one or more boxes.
Permanent Effects
While all injuries have debilitating effects that can persist for days or weeks, Critical Injuries typically have lasting permanent effects. After they heal, they can add a Trait to your character permanently. Permanent effects cannot be removed except through the use of magic and other supernatural abilities. Lethal Injures are Fatal and usually kill the creature, though it may be possible to avoid death through regeneration and other magical abilities.
- Violet is hit with a Fire Ball spell and suffers 34 Fire Damage. This reduces her to 0 hitpoints and the resulting Injury Check is 17. Since she has no prior injuries, there is no penalty to this check, and she suffers a Moderate Fire injury. The specific injury is determined by the GM by consulting the Fire Damage page (or by using the injury generator tool).
- Subsequently, Violet is hit by a Shout Spell and suffer 25 Sonic Damage. She is disabled and already has one injury, so she suffers a -10 penalty to her injury check. Thankfully since her Healing Value is 30, she doesn't suffer an additional -10 penalty to the check from excess damage. The result of the Injury check (with the penalty) is a 3, giving Violet a Severe Sonic Injury.
- Voilet then becomes the lucky recipient of a Mend Injury Prayer, which removes one box of her Severe Injury automatically and allows her to make a resilience check at a +10 bonus to try and remove more boxes. She rolls well and gets a total of 31. This reduces the injury by 4 more boxes, which means that of the 6 initial boxes only 1 remains and the effects of the severe injury are reduced to the moderate level. Violet is feeling better but is still a bit debilitated.
- An hour or two later, Violet gets unlucky and is hit with a Spear Trap while walking down a corridor, and must make an Injury Check. She suffers a -20 penalty to the check since she has two injuries. She rolls a 15 on the die, adds her modifiers and gets a -2 total. She suffers a Critical Piercing Injury (a Gaping Wound)! Things don't look good for Violet and her friends have to step in to keep her from bleeding to death.
- Deciding that enough is enough, Violet and her fellows return to a small town for a much needed rest. Each day that she rests gives her a healing check against each injury. The moderate Injury has a DC of 10 and is easily healed over a few days. The Severe Injury (with only one box remaining) is healed overnight (Violet rolled a 17 on her check against it). The Critical Gaping Wound Injury is giving her trouble though, the DC of 20 is tough to make, and it takes a few weeks before she rolls well enough to remove all 9 boxes (if she had access to healing magic, this would have taken much less time). After the injury is healed, Violet keeps the permanent effect of the injury: the Trait Anemic.