Health

Health is denoted by two attributes, Stamina and Wounds. In turn these are divided into subsets which are recovered at different rates and are trackes seperately.

Physical damage occurs when exhausted which may be identified by scars, missing limbs...

Wounds

These give the amount of physical damage your body can take before giving up the ghost. The number of WP is given by :

2 x (Constitution + Height in feet)

Life points (1 / month)

Major breaks (arm, leg), cracked ribs, internal injuries, torn ligaments, crushed limbs.

-2 to all skills (for each point), body location out of action.

Wound Points (1 / week)

Minor breaks (fingers, toes), sword cuts, bruised ribs, light to medium sprains

-1 to all skills (for each point)

Stamina

Exhaustion (1 / day)

Fatigue (1 / hour)

Tired (1 / 5 minutes)

Breather (1 / round)

Although tracked seperately they are all referred to as Stamina points, though there are a few effects which target Exhaustion points specifically or exclude breather points.

Health is not all recovered at the same rate, after exercise a short breather will enable a person to carry on for a little while longer but after strenuous exercise the body needs a long time to recover fully. Running a marathon at race pace drains the muscles so much that it takes about a month to fully recover, whearas after a 100 yard sprint you may still think you are exhausted but you will recover in a few hours. This is modelled by having the first health points lost regained more quickly than the later ones.

All characters start with stamina (excluding Breather Points) = 1/2 wounds (round up) and 5 breather points.

Active characters will increase this by training and adventuring.

A character 5'6" tall with +2 Contitution who had bought 3 extra stamina points would start as (13 wounds, 10 stamina, 5 Breather)

Points are created equally split across the columns starting from the slowest to recover.

Losing Health

Damage may be caused by being hit in combat, poison, getting caught in fireballs, falling on pointy objects.

In normal combat only stamina points are lost not wound points. Points are lost across the columns from left to right.

1. For each WP lost a SP (day) is prevented from recovering.
2. For each Life point lost a row of stamina is prevented from recovering

i.e. your maximum stamina has been reduced. If all the day points are already locked then it locks the hardest to recover.

Frank takes several hits, the first for 6 points

and the second for 8 points. Where a type of Stamina is exhausted skip the column and apply it to the next column instead.

The third hit is for 4 points, this fill up the remaining stamina points and then works down the wound points column.

The loss of Wound Points caused the permanent loss of Stamina Points (day) until the wound is healed.

The 4th hit causes another 4 points damage

This gets a little tricky.

First apply the locks for the wound point (Y), then apply the lock for the Life point (Z). This means that some spoints end up with double locks. You don't need to track double locks though as you can always easily see what is locked since for each WP a stamina (day) is locked and each Life Poiunt a row is locked.

So after maximum healing Franks health would be

• 6 WP damage = 6 Stamina locked (4 day and 2 hour)
• 1 LP damage = 1 row of stamina locked

At this point although Frank is not exhausted since he has free stamina points, he is at -8 on skills (-6 for lost WP and -2 for a lost LP).

Combat

Combat stamina loss it through exerting to dodge blows or by getting caught by a number of small nicks, cuts and bashes. They are lost in strict order of easiest to recover (Breather points) are lost first then through ach section in turn. Only when a complete section has been lost are ones from the next section lost, this carries on right trough stamina, wounds and life points at which point you are DEAD.

Half the damage from piercing ranged weapons causes wound points directly.

Falling

Damage increases exponentially the further you fall

• 10' = Level 1 SP
• 20' = Level 2 SP + Level 0 WP
• 30' = Level 3 SP + Level 1 WP
• ...

with a difficulty of 9. The character is also prone and must make a stunned save.

A save vs Acrobatic (difficulty 11 +1 per 10') will reduce the damage by 10'.

Armour has no effect.

Fatigue

Fatigue is caused by extended physical activity such as running, fighting and lifting weights. When exhausted further activity causes a wasting effect on the muscles.

Running

Normal speed is 6x height per round

Each minute roll Endurance (Con) against difficulty to halve the SP lost.

Running at x3 speed or greater always costs at least 1SP

Regaining health

Health is normally regained through rest, although certain priests can speed up the healing process. Any exercise such as walking, riding or adventuring will prevent recovery though pottering whilst getting lunch or walking around town (without chasing the bandits) is OK

A constitution check will add the success level in WP to the number recovered per month .

The Wound Point recovery rates is halved if characters are not resting the affected area.

Life Points cannot be regained if the affected area is not totally rested (arm in a sling, no walking/riding for cracked ribs). Pottering around a house is acceptable. Trying to perform any activities with a broken arm (even a left arm) will incur penalties.

The trait fast healing enables an extra wound (WP or LP) to be recovered each week / month.

Herbalism

The herbalism skill may be used with the application of the correct plants to mitigate the effect of wounds. If you suffered 3 or more wounds in a single strike, a herbalism skill check of 13 will reduce the number of wounds suffered by 1, this takes 10 minutes.

Herbalism also add 1 wound recovery per week / month on a successful check.

Problems of Low Health

Exhaustion

Initially all damage comes off stamina. When stamina is reduced to zero further damage applies as wounds and the character is exhausted. When exhausted all skill checks only use 1d8 instead of two.

Wounded

Below half wounds creatures are unable to fight due to the pain. They fall to the ground or stagger away clutching the wounds staunching the blood flow and gritting their teeth (or screaming in agony).

At 1 Life Point it is possible for characters to bleed to death or fall unconscious. If bleeding to death there is always a 10% chance that they will be too far gone to be helped by curative magic.

Chases

Chases frequently occur within towns on foot or in the country on horseback. In both cases similar rules are used to determine the outcome. If running in a straight line in open areas the only factor affecting the outcome is the relative speed of the two participants. If there are obstacles such as a market place or bushes the participants also have an opportunity to outmanoeuvre the other and gain ground. Each round roll a manoeuvre roll is made The difference between the two rolls is converted to a success level. Each success level adds 10% to their speed for that round. At any appropriate point the character fleeing may attempt an additional manoeuvre roll to lose the chaser.

If riding or using transport then the skill with the transport is used instead of manoeuvre.

Example

Eludom (weighed down by a purse of gold) is being pursued by an angry merchant 30 feet behind through a market square. Eludom moves at 88 feet per round (6mph, 3x normal speed) and the merchant at 103 feet per round (7mph, 2x normal speed)

Eludom's manoeuvre skill is 5 and the merchant's 3.

They generate totals for the first round for totals of 16 and 15 respectively. This gives Eludom an average success and 10% speed increase as he forced the merchant to go round a barrel he pushed over. This gives relative movements of 88 + 9 = 97 and 103 feet, The merchant gained 6 feet to come within 24 feet.

The next round totals of 17 and 15 are generated and the merchant closes another 6 feet to 18 feet. Eludom realises this is a race which will quickly lead to the dungeons so he attempts to slip away. This is a multi-action so he takes a +3 to each difficulty

The first attempt he roll 18 against 15 for manoeuvre but the -3 takes this to 15 so as he did not win the manoeuvre he cannot attempt the escape. The merchant moves to within 3 feet. As a last desperate attempt he attempts another escape but rolls a manoeuvre of 10 against 14 using a hero point he raises this to 18 which with the -3 takes it to 15. The first manoeuvre succeeded so he can attempt the escape. Rolling a 21 -3 = 18 beats the merchants 14 so Eludom dives under the wheels of a cart grabs hold of the underneath of the seat and is pulled quickly away.