Damage & Conditions
Health and Will are measurements of your general wellbeing. The tolls of taking damage, pushing yourself to your limits, or commanding unnatural powers are represented by these traits. Further complications are defined by Conditions.
Health, Suffering, and Death
Endurance. Your Endurance is equal to 1 plus your vigor attribute. If your vigor is 0 or lower, your Endurance is 2. When you take damage, a damage die is rolled. If the result is lower than your endurance, you suffer a scrape. If the result is equal to or greater than your endurance, you suffer a wound.
Scrapes. Scrapes are easier to heal than wounds. When your scrapes exceed your endurance, you reset them to 0 and suffer a wound.
Wounds. The number of wounds you can endure is determined by your archetype and level. Once you mark off your last wound, you suffer an injury and are dying. Your game master may assign an injury or roll on the injury table depending on how you were wounded.
Injuries. An injury can be treated or untreated. While you have an untreated injury, you make all rolls with disadvantage. Treating an injury is a medicine roll. Whenever you gain a new injury, it is considered untreated. If you gain the same injury a second time, it is exacerbated. A third injury has a permanent effect, which can only be mitigated with magic or sufficiently advanced prosthetics.
When suffering an injury, the game master may ask you to roll on the injury table or assign an injury based on its source.
Injuries to each hand/arm or foot/leg are specific to that limb.
| 1d10 | Injury | 1st Injury | Exacerbation | Permanent | Treatment DR | Treatment Effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bleeding | You suffer one scrape at the end of each of your turns. | +1 Scrape at the end of each turn. This can be exacerbated again. | Bleed is never permanent. Each new injury exacerbates further. | 6 | -1 scrape per turn. -2 scrapes per turn on seraphs. |
| 2-3 | Hand/Arm | You must risk will to take actions with the injured limb. | You have disadvantage on skill challenges, attacks, or rolls to cast spells with somatic components using the injured hand | You lose the injured limb. | 8 | Do not risk will on the next action taken with the limb. |
| 4-5 | Foot/Leg | You must risk a will point and succeed on a DR 7 Athletics (Finesse or Vigor) roll to move more than half your speed. | The DR for the Athletics roll increases to 9 and a success is required to move. | You lose the injured limb. | 8 | Do not risking will on the next Athletics roll. |
| 6 | Eyes | You have disadvantage on sight-based challenges. | You are blinded. | You lose one eye for each additional injury. | 10, requires short rest | The next eye injury does not exacerbate. |
| 7 | Ears | You have disadvantage on hearing-based challenges | You are deafened. | The 1st Injury cannot be healed. A second permanent injury makes the exacerbation permanent. | 10, requires short rest | The next ear injury does not exacerbate. |
| 8 | Head | You have disadvantage on Brilliance, Finesse, or Presence rolls | You must risk will to attempt rolls that require . | You are unconscious until you receive treatment and complete a long rest. (This is not truly permanent.) | 12, requires short rest. | The next head injury does not exacerbate. |
| 9 | Body | You suffer one level of fatigue. | +1 Fatigue | +1 Fatigue | 15, requires long rest. | -1 fatigue |
| 10 | Compound Injury | Roll 2d8 on this table. suffering an injury for each result. |
Story elements may negate or complicate treatment. A bandage or soothing gel won’t stop someone with focused malice from taking out your eye.
Dying. You must spend a will point to make one standard action, bonus action, or motive action. At the end of each of your turns, make a death saving throw. A death saving throw is a Difficulty 7 knucklebones roll with no attribute added. Most creatures are not proficient with death saves. Successes and failures on these improve or worsen your condition. If you suffer one or more scrapes while dying, you make the next saving throw with disadvantage. If you would suffer a wound, you automatically fail the next saving throw and the wound becomes a new injury.
Number of Successes
- You can spend a will point to make one standard action, bonus action, or motive action.
- You are dazed, but do not have to spend will points to take actions
- You are stable and no longer dying. You remain dazed until you heal one wound
Number of Failures
- You gain the bleeding injury.
- You gain the ability to see invisible ghosts and agents of death.
- You suffer a body injury.
- You are dead.
Fatigue. There are multiple degrees of fatigue you can suffer. When an exhausted creature suffers an effect that causes the creature to become exhausted again, they suffer one more degree of fatigue. The degrees of fatigue are as follows.
- Disadvantage on skill challenges
- Slowed
- Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws
- Dazed and must spend a will point to take a standard, bonus, or motive action
- Dying and cannot heal wounds
If you would gain an additional degree of fatigue after the 5th, you take a wound instead.
One degree of fatigue is lost upon completing a long rest. If dying from fatigue, death saving throws are rolled every hour instead of at the end of your turn and your first failed save does not result in the bleeding injury. Stability only lasts for 12 hours, at which point the creature resumes dying.
If you are dying from wounds and fatigue, use the rules for dying from wounds.
Health – Legacy
These rules are presented as an alternative while the new Health, Suffering, and Death rules are being tested.
Health Points. An overall measure of your physical wellbeing. When you suffer attacks or get hurt, you lose health points. A creature with 0 health points is dying or incapacitated. When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, you can choose whether they are dying or unconscious and stable.
Health Dice. You have a number of will dice based on your level and archetype. During a short or long rest, you can expend any number of health dice. Expending a health die during a short or long rest allows to regain a number of health points equal to the result plus your Resilience.
Temporary Health Points and Dice. You can only have temporary health points from one source at a time. Temporary Health Dice can be spent whenever an ability would allow you to spend a health die. However, temporary health dice only grant temporary health points.
Will
Will Points. Will points are used to push yourself to your limits. Will points can be risked, spent, or lost. Your maximum number of will points is set by your archetype and does not increase as you level. An effect that causes you to lose will points can never reduce them below 0.
Will Dice. You have a number of will dice granted by your archetype. These are granted at 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th level. Unlike health dice, you can always expend a will die without using an action. Doing so allows you to recover a number of will points equal to the result plus your Resilience. When you expend a will die, you gain one degree of exhaustion.
Temporary Will Points and Dice. Like temporary health dice, you can only have temporary will points from one source at a time. When you expend a temporary will die, you gain temporary will points. Whenever you would normally expend a will die, you can instead use a temporary will die if you have one. Expending a temporary will die does not cause you to gain a degree of fatigue.
When your will points reach 0, you automatically roll and expend one will die and regain a number of will points equal to the result plus your Resilience modifier. If you are at 0 Will Points and unable to recover them, you are incapacitated. You regain all your will points at the end of a long rest.
Risking Will. Risking Will always involves a challenge with a chance of failure. If you succeed on the roll, you do not lose the risked will point.
When you reach 0 Will Points, you must spend a will die if you have any remaining.
Spending Will. When you use an ability (such as spellcasting) that allows you to spend will, the will points are lost until you take a long rest or expend a will die.
Rolling with Determination. Any creature can spend a will point to roll with determination. When making a knucklebones roll, you roll an additional d6 on the side. This die can replace any other d6 that does not show a 1. If you roll snake eyes on a determination roll, you lose an additional will point. If you roll seraph eyes, you regain the point you spent. Determination allows you to ignore disadvantage.
Once you have rolled with determination three times, you cannot do so again until you expend a will die or complete a long rest.
Conditions
While many conditions are detrimental, a few can be generally or circumstantially beneficial.
Blinded. A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails any challenges that require sight.
Dazed. A dazed creature is also slowed and cannot take reactions. On the creature’s turn, it can do one of the following:
- Take a standard action
- Take a bonus action and a motive action
Deafened. A deafened creature can’t hear and automatically fails any challenges that require hearing.
Dying. A dying creature is also either dazed or incapacitated. On each turn, a dying creature must make a Death saving throw at a difficulty of 7. After accumulating three successes, the creature stabilizes and is no longer dying. A creature that accumulates three failures is dead.
Frightened. A frightened creature has disadvantage on skill challenges and attack rolls while the source of its fear is in sight. The creature can’t willingly move closer to the source of its fear.
Grappled. A grappled creature’s speed is zero and it can’t benefit from any bonus to its speed. The condition ends if the grappler is incapacitated or if an effect moves the grappled creature out of reach of the grappler or grappling effect.
Incapacitated. An incapacitated creature cannot take actions or reactions.
Invisible. You cannot be seen. Attacks and abilities that rely on sight cannot target you.
Unconscious. An unconscious creature is incapacitated and unaware of its surroundings. Attack rolls have advantage and all successes are treated as critical.