Beneath their armor, and behind their courage, characters can withstand a degree of punishment before any lasting injury is caused. This ability to endure is represented by the character’s ability to take Stress, while any lasting wounds they do suffer is called Injury.
Stress
Once any reductions have been made for Soak, any damage remaining affects the target, turning into Stress. Each point of damage beyond, adds a single point of Stress. A character can only take a finite amount of Stress at any one time. Characters may be able to increase their maximum Stress through other means as well, such as Merits, Edges or Talents. Having any Stress does not, by itself, cause any problem for the character: it imposes no penalty, nor does it impair a character’s actions or choices.Stress Builds
Health & Injury
Health represents a character's ability to sustain real damage while injuries are lasting harm to their bodies. Injuries are also known as Wounds or Harm.Less Health
More Health
Example Health
Example Health
Receiving Injuries
If your character suffers too much stress, they receive an injury. You can receive more than one injury at once if two or more of the conditions are met. The ways in which you can receive an injury are as follows:
Aggravated
Certain types of damage are so horrific they cause immediate, grievous injuries that often take much time to heal and may leave lifetime scars. If a certain type of damage would be considered aggravated, the target takes stress as normal and any injuries have an Aggravated condition attached to them. Any such attack that successfully generates stress deals a minimum of 1 Aggravated Injury. Aggravated injuries generally take twice as long to heal and recover from. Some examples would be acid used against mortals, silver used against werewolves, sunlight or fire against a vampire or cold iron used against a changeling.
Defeated
The exact details of Defeated are determined by the Storyteller using the most appropriate narrative description to remove your character from the scene. They could be sprawled in a daze as the rest of the event unfolds around them. This could be knocked unconscious, knocked unconscious and dragged off by the enemy, this could be dramatically injured or even killed. This could be falling off the bridge into the raging river, drifting away to later be discovered by the mad hermit and nursed back to health. It is also possible that your allies are not aware of the situation until the dust settles. There are opportunities to accept Dramatic Injuries and avoid Defeated, which have long lasting traumatic effects. It is also not unheard of for a very driven or dedicated character to achieve a Last Ditch effort before succumbing to Defeated. This is where the stories of legends and martyrs are told. Also known as Taken Out.
Note: Storytellers are encouraged to continue engaging the player once they have been Defeated which could be giving them control of an ally or contact, maybe an interesting NPCs or quite possibly one of the enemy force if they are up to the challenge. Players will not be well pleased to sit while hours of game unfold without their involvement. This also depends on how much session time if left.
Healing
After being beaten to a pulp, characters need time to heal. Normally, a character can heal without medical attention, though use of Medicine Skill helps them recover. The only exception is if the storyteller has specified that a character is bleeding out or near death they need urgent medical attention.Healing & Recovery Times
Given a brief rest between scenes most characters recover themselves. All stress boxes clear automatically as long as the storyteller agrees that you have a lull between scenes.
Many supernatural creatures handle injury and healing differently. For example werewolves regenerate damage quickly, vampires only heal using up their Vitae and mages may use Life magic to repair their pattern.
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