Wounds and ailments cause “injury”: a (usually) temporary loss of Hit Points. Thus, your HP score measures your ability to sustain injury;
If any injury reduces you to 0 or fewer HP, you will soon fall unconscious. You can even go to negative HP . . . but if you go too far, you risk death. For the average man, the difference between full HP and negative HP is one or two sword blows or bullets.
General Injury: Lost Hit Points
Repeated wounding eventually causes anyone or anything to weaken and collapse, even if no single injury is very great. The chart below summarizes the effects of being at low or negative HP. All effects are cumulative.
Less than 1/3 your HP left – You are reeling from your wounds. Halve your Move and Dodge (round up).
0 HP or less – You are in immediate danger of collapse. In addition to the above effects, make a HT roll at the start of your next turn, at -1 per full multiple of HP below zero. Failure means you fall unconscious (or simply stop working, if you weren’t truly alive or conscious in the first place); see Recovering from Unconsciousness. Success means you can act normally, but must roll again every turn to continue functioning. Exception: If you choose Do Nothing on your turn, and do not attempt any defense rolls, you can remain conscious without rolling. Roll only on turns during which you attempt a defense roll or choose a maneuver other than Do Nothing.
-1xHP – In addition to the above effects, make an immediate HT roll or die. (If you fail by only 1 or 2, you’re dying, but not dead – see Mortal Wounds, below). If you succeed, you can still talk, fight, etc., as above (until you fail a HT roll and collapse). Roll again each time you suffer injury equal to a further multiple of your HP, whether as a result of one wound or many. For instance, if you have 11 HP, you must roll to avoid death at -11 HP. If you survive, you must roll again at -22 HP, -33 HP, and so on . . .
-5xHP – You die immediately. You have lost a total of 6 times your HP! Nobody can survive that much injury.
-10xHP – Total bodily destruction, if this makes sense given the source of the damage – 200 points of arrow wounds leave a messy but recognizable corpse; 200 points of fire injury leaves nothing but an unrecognizable lump of charcoal. The difference can be important in settings where resurrection, reanimation, etc. are possible!
Shock
Whenever you suffer injury, reduce your DX and IQ by the number of HP you lost – to a maximum penalty of -4, regardless of your injuries – on your next turn only. This effect, called “shock,” is temporary; your attributes return to normal on the turn after that. Shock affects DX- and IQ-based skills, but not active defenses or other defensive reactions.
Major Wounds
A “major wound” is any single injury of greater than 1/2 your HP. Any major wound requires a HT roll to avoid knockdown and stunning (see below).
Knockdown and Stunning
Whenever you suffer a major wound, you must make an immediate HT roll to avoid knockdown and stunning. On a success, you suffer no penalty beyond ordinary shock.
On a failure, you’re stunned; see below. You fall prone (if you weren’t already), and if you were holding anything, you drop it. This effect is called “knockdown.” On a failure by 5 or more, or any critical failure, you fall unconscious! See Recovering from Unconsciousness (below). If you are stunned, you must Do Nothing on your next turn. You may perform any active defense while stunned, but your defense rolls are at -4.
At the end of your turn, you may roll against HT. On a success, you recover from stun and can act normally on subsequent turns. On a failure, you remain stunned; your next maneuver must also be Do Nothing, but you get another roll at the end of that turn . . . and so on, until you recover from stun.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. On any failure, you die. On a success, you linger for another half-hour – then roll again. On a critical success, you pull through miraculously: you are no longer mortally wounded (but you are still incapacitated). You can also recover from a mortal wound with a successful HT roll whenever medical treatment or magical healing restores any number of hit points – even if you’re still in the negatives. 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 an appropriate disadvantage (p. 10) or some other effect (e.g., reduced appearance due to scarring).Death
Decapitation, a cut throat, etc. can kill anyone, regardless of HT and HP. If a helple ss or unconscious person is attacked in an obviously lethal way, he’s dead. Don’t bother to roll for damage, calculate remaining HP, etc. Just assume that he drops 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 him. Game it out realistically. Since it’s a surprise attack, he 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.
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.