DEPRECATED USE health INSTEAD!
-In House Games, your character's "health" is represented by an ascending series of Wound Levels. Taking damage will cause your Wound Level will increase, from Bruised all the way up to Incapacitated. If you hit Incapacitated, you lose consciousness; damage beyond Incapacitated will probably result in death.
Getting Wounded
Taking damage and increasing wound levels is not a one to one exchange. Rather, House Games uses a threshold system for damage: if you take x amount of damage, you will move up to Wound Level x. For example, if a player gets shot in the gut and takes 4 damage, they will jump to Wounded. If the damage dealt is lower than their current Wound Level, then their Wound Level will instead just move up by 1. So if the same player who just got shot is subsequently hit by a rock, which deals 2 damage, his Wound Level would only go up by 1, to Mauled, rather than by 2, which was the amount of damage dealt.
Wound Level | Description | Wound Penalty | Recovery Time |
---|---|---|---|
1 - Bruised | That's going to leave a mark, but it's not going to interfere with getting the job done | No Penalty | One Day |
2 - Hurt | You've acquired a wound, and the pain from it will distract you slightly from the task at hand. | -1 die | Three Days |
3 - Injured | You've been genuinely injured, and require some time to recover fully. | -1 die | One Week |
4 - Wounded | Being injured to this degree at one time may leave marks that will never fully heal. | -2 dice | Two Weeks |
5 - Mauled | You've seen far better days. When injured to this degree, you will lose health over time until you either receive proper medical attention or die. | -2 dice | One Month |
6 - Crippled | When in this state, it will usually take a supreme act of will to do anything more than lie on the ground | -5 dice | Three Months |
7 - Incapacitated | You're out cold. This generally means your survival is in the hands of your teammates. Hope you're on good terms with them. | Unconscious | Five Months |
The standard human has 7 Wound Levels. There are some powers, as well as some Merits or Flaws, that affect a character’s total number of Wound Levels. The relevant powers or abilities will explicitly detail the system they use for increasing or decreasing your total Wound Levels.
Wound Penalties
Each Wound Level has an associated Wound Penalty, which subtracts dice from most actions, in addition to making stabilization increasingly difficult. Some rolls which are not affected include any Willpower rolls and any actions that don’t require any physical movement or mental concentration, such as shooting a gun from a sitting position, or singing a song.
You can ignore Wound Penalties for one turn by spending 1 Temporary Willpower. Some Merits and Flaws affect the way Wound Penalties are handled. Pain medication can reduce Wound Penalties by 1 (-5 becomes -4, -2 becomes -1, and a penalty of -1 is eliminated).
Treatment and Recovery
—First aid may be performed through a Wits + Medicine roll. Secondary skills can be used when appropriate.
Damage of Mauled or beyond will worsen by one level per day if not treated. Mediocre medical care (up to 3 ranks in medicine, limited supplies) can reduce healing times by one degree. Excellent medical care (4+ ranks, excellent facilities) can reduce it by two degrees, but such care costs $50,000 per month. Thus, a character who is Incapacitated and receives excellent medical care will require two months to recover. Such a character will miss a game, unless he chooses to begin the game Crippled.
Even with excellent medical care, it is entirely possible that a character will suffer permanent scarring or even maiming, depending on the nature of the injury.
Death
If a character is Incapacitated and takes additional damage, the results are as follows:
- 1 past incapacitated: Die in 10 turns per point of Stamina.
- 2 past incapacitated: Die in 5 turns per point of Stamina.
- 3 past incapacitated: Die in 1 turn per point of Stamina.
- 4 past incapacitated: Die instantly.
—A dying character can be stabilized with 5 successes on a Wits + Medicine check. The Difficulty would typically be 7, but may vary with circumstances. Such checks may be impossible without proper medical equipment. —
A character who takes more damage than his total Wound Levels from a single attack (not attack sequence) dies instantly.
Cheating Death
—Powers that allow a character to "cheat death" to a certain degree are occasionally allowed for high seasoned and veteran characters, provided it fits squarely within their character archetype. Some pop culture examples are:
- Voldemort's Horcruxes
- Diablo's ability to consume the soul of the adventurer who killed him
- A possessing wraith's ability to transfer their consciousness to another being before their body is destroyed.
- Wolverine's ability to regenerate his body from a single cell (he does that, right?)
Note that such powers generally protect only against death by one particular avenue. If a creature relies on wolverine-style regeneration to protect against bodily harm, they can still be killed a psion's mind-melting power. The rare powers that cause immediate death should therefore be specific how they kill, to clear up interactions with other high-level powers.
Resurrection
A Gift cannot be used to resurrect a dead character. By definition, the Harbingers consider dead characters to be "losers" not worth the effort, regardless of what the players want. Resurrection abilities, when allowed at all, involve hefty permanent stat penalties. Resurrection after a week or more results in reduction to 1 Permanent Willpower. This is almost exclusively the province of Mythos casters.