Injury

Damage from Falling, Large Area Injuries, Area Damage, Explosions, Damage from Collisions, Hazards, Poisons, and Illnesses have special rules.

Being Injured wears you down, the more injured you are the more debilitating the penalties can become.

HP < ⅓ max  HP
Halve Move and Dodge (round up)
When your current hit points are lowered to one third of your maximum your Move and Dodge skills are halved.

0 HP or less
When your hit points first reach 0 or less Make an HT roll, you you fail you fall Unconscious
You suffer a -1 penalty on all DX and IQ based rolls per full multiple of your total HP below 0
Success: May act normally, but you make another check the next round if you did anything other than ‘Do Nothing’

HP x -1
When your hit points first reach or surpass your normal maximum into the negatives Immediately make a HT roll or die, (Fail by only 1 or 2, and you have suffered a Mortal Wound instead, see below)
Roll again at each multiple of your HP (-2 x HP, -3 x HP, and -4 x HP).

HP x  -5
You Die
No roll, you've suffered so much damage your body just stops working.

HP x -10
Your body is Incinerated / Obliterated / Minced / Mashed / Vaporized or otherwise destroyed.

Shock

Whenever you suffer damage from any source you receive a penalty for one second as you recover from the shock of the pain and or impact of the injury.

HP Lost = Penalty on your next turn to all DX and IQ skills (max -4)

More than 20 HP?  HP / 10 (round down) = Number of HP lost per -1 Penalty.  (eg.  23 = 2, 29 = 2, 37 = 3, 41 = 4)

Major Wounds

Any single attack that deals at least half your total HP or more, or an attack that cripples a body part is considered a Major Wound  and requires an HT roll to avoid knockdown and stunning

Knockdown and Stunning

Any attack that causes a Major Wound, and Attacks to the Head that cause Shock, force an HT roll to avoid Knockdown and Stunning.

Modifiers:
-5 for a major wound to the face or vitals (or to the groin, on a humanoid male)
-10 for a major wound to the skull or eye
+3 for High Pain Threshold
-4 for Low Pain Threshold

Failure: You are Stunned and fall Prone, dropping whatever is in your hands.
Failure by 5 (or critical failure): Lose consciousness

Stunned Condition:
Take the ‘Do Nothing’ action, and active defenses are at -4
Roll against HT at the end of your turn, Success ends the effect.

Crippling Injury

When using hit locations damage to certain body parts can cause crippling injuries.

Damage to a specific location will cripple it but can’t exceed these amounts (round up):

• Limb: Injury over HP/2
  arm, leg, wing, striker, or prehensile tail 

• Extremity: Injury over HP/3.
  hand, foot, tail, fin, or extraneous head

• Eye: Injury over HP/10.

If you have 11 HP, you can take 6 to a limb, 4 to an extremity, and 2 to an eye.
If you deal 9 damage to a limb that is crippled at 6 HP, you do 6 damage and the limb is crippled

• Hand:
  You drop anything you were carrying in that hand. If you were using two or more hands to hold an object, roll vs. DX to avoid dropping it.
  You cannot hold anything (e.g., a weapon) in that hand. You can wear a shield on that arm and use it to block, but you cannot attack with it.
  Until healed, you have the One Hand disadvantage.

• Arm:
  As for a crippled hand . . . but while someone with a crippled hand could at least carry something in the crook of the arm, you cannot use a crippled arm to carry anything! You do not drop a shield on that arm (unless the arm is severed), but you cannot use it to block – and since it’s just hanging in front of you, reduce its usual Defense Bonus by one. Until healed, you have the One Arm disadvantage.

• Foot:
  You fall down! You cannot stand or walk without a crutch or something to lean on. You can still fight if you brace yourself against a wall. If you have nothing to lean on, you may assume a kneeling or sitting posture. Until healed, you have the Lame (Crippled Legs) disadvantage.

• Leg:
  You fall down! You can still fight if you assume a sitting or lying posture. Until healed, you have the Lame (Missing Legs) disadvantage.

• Eye:
  You are blind in that eye.
  Until healed, you have the One Eye disadvantage – or Blindness disadvantage, if you lose all your eyes.

Additional locations:

• Extra Arms:
  If you have three or more arms, a crippled arm (hand) simply reduces the number of arms (hands) you can use. You only suffer an actual disadvantage if reduced to fewer than two arms (hands). 

• Extra Head:
  If an extraneous head is crippled, you lose the benefits of that Extra Head; see Extra Head.

• Extra Legs:
  If you have three or more legs, see Extra Legs for the effects of a crippled foot or leg.

• Striker:
  You cannot use your Striker to attack. If your Striker is also a wing or a tail, see below for additional effects.

• Tail:
  Any advantages the tail provides (e.g., Extra Arm or Striker) no longer function. As well, your balance is off: -1 DX, except for close manual tasks. If you’re a swimmer or winged flyer, the DX penalty is -2 and you are at half your usual water or air Move.

• Wing:
  If you have Flight (Winged), you cannot fly – and if you were airborne, you fall.
  If your wing is also a Striker, you cannot use it to attack.

Duration of Crippling Injuries

If you suffer a crippling injury, make a HT roll to see how serious it is. For battlefield injuries, roll at the end of combat.

Success: the crippling is temporary

• Temporary Crippling:
  Until you are back at full HP, you suffer the disadvantages described under Effects of Crippling Injury, above. Once you are fully healed, these effects disappear. 

Failure: the crippling is lasting

• Lasting Crippling:
  You suffered a broken bone, badly torn (or burned) muscle, or other lingering damage. Roll 1d. This is the number of months it will take for the injury to heal fully. (If the injury is treated by a physician, subtract 3 from the roll at medical TL7+, 2 at TL6, or 1 at TL5 – but the period of healing is never less than one month.)

Critical failure: the crippling is permanent. 

• Permanent Crippling:
  You lose the use of that body part. It is either nonfunctional or gone. Either way, you acquire a new disadvantage appropriate to the injury you recieved. You get no extra character points for this! It simply lowers your point value. In some settings, even this degree of injury is curable; see Repairing Permanent Crippling Injuries.

Note that Dismemberment is automatically permanent

Mortal Wounds

If you fail a HT roll to avoid death by 1 or 2, you don’t drop dead, but suffer a “mortal wound.” 

This is a wound so severe that your internal injuries might kill you even after you stop bleeding.
If you are mortally wounded, you are instantly incapacitated. You may or may not be conscious (GM’s decision). 

If you suffer further injury and must make another HT roll to avoid death, any failure kills you. 

While mortally wounded, you must make a HT roll every half-hour to avoid death. 

• Failure = you die. 

• Success = you linger for another half-hour then roll again. 

• Critical success = you pull through miraculously: you are no longer mortally wounded (but you are still incapacitated).

If you’re alive but mortally wounded, surgery may be able to stabilize your condition – see Stabilizing a Mortal Wound (p. 424). At TL6+, “trauma maintenance” can keep you alive while waiting for surgery. This involves CPR, oxygen, transfusions, etc. Instead of rolling vs. HT every half-hour, roll against the higher of your HT or your caregiver’s Physician skill every hour – or every day, if you are on a heart-lung machine or similar life support. You do not need to roll at all if you’re put into magical or ultra-tech suspended animation!

If you recover from a mortal wound, make a HT roll. On a failure, you lose a point of HT permanently.
On a critical failure, the GM may apply the Wounded disadvantage or some other effect (e.g., reduced appearance due to scarring).

Death

If your character is killed, you may still wish to keep track of further injury. In certain futuristic or magical worlds, the dead can be brought back to life by prompt treatment, as long as the body is mostly intact (not reduced to -10 x HP).

Instant Death

Decapitation, a cut throat, etc. can kill anyone, regardless of HT and HP. If a helpless or unconscious person is attacked in an obviously lethal way, they're dead. Don’t bother to roll for damage, calculate remaining HP, etc. Just assume that they drop to -5 * HP.

This does not apply to a merely unaware victim. If you sneak up behind a sentry with a knife, you can’t automatically kill them. Game it out realistically. Target the vitals or neck. Since it’s a surprise attack, the guard won’t be hitting back: make an All-Out attack! Your attack roll will almost certainly succeed. Your victim gets no active defense at all. You will probably inflict enough injury to incapacitate or kill him. But it isn’t automatic. 

Dying Actions When a PC or important NPC is killed in any but the most sudden and thorough fashion: 

The GM should allow a “dying action.” If this is a final blow at the enemy, it should take no more than a turn. If it’s a deathbed speech, the GM should stretch time a little bit for dramatic purposes!  This has nothing to do with realism, but it’s fun.