Critical Injuries
A particularly dangerous type of harm is a Critical
Injury. A Critical Injury is often the result of an
attack during combat, but characters can also suffer one
from exceeding their wound threshold or through other
means. Each time a character suffers a Critical Injury,
the player rolls d100 on Table I.6–10: Critical Injury
Result, on page 115, to determine the injury’s severity
rating and effects.
The short-term effects of some injuries are temporary, and may only disorient or afflict the character for a brief amount of time. Other injuries are more serious and represent some sort of long-term debilitation or impairment. These injuries continue to affect the character until they receive the proper medical treatment to recover from the injury.
Regardless, a Critical Injury remains with the character until properly healed; even if the short-term effect of the Critical Injury has passed, the status of having a Critical Injury remains. Each Critical Injury a character suffers from adds +10 to any subsequent Critical Injury roll. Essentially, Critical Injury is cumulative, and left untreated, even a number of relatively minor Critical Injuries can lead to devastating results.
Strain Damage and Critical Injuries
Although not always likely, some attacks that deal strain damage (notably weapons with the Stun Damage quality) can also trigger Critical Injuries. Although this may seem odd, it actually makes sense. When a player character inflicts a Critical Injury on an adversary that can be incapacitated by a single Critical Injury (such as a minion), then the adversary is simply incapacitated by being rendered unconscious. If a PC or nemesis NPC suffers a Critical Injury from a weapon dealing strain damage, the outcome can be anything from adverse long-term effects from the weapon, to tangential injuries from being stunned (for example, the character could be knocked off balance and take a nasty crack on the skull when they hit the ground). Of course, since these Critical Injuries would have to be triggered by the players or GM, both parties can always decide that a Critical Injury would not make sense in that narrative, and choose not to trigger them.
The short-term effects of some injuries are temporary, and may only disorient or afflict the character for a brief amount of time. Other injuries are more serious and represent some sort of long-term debilitation or impairment. These injuries continue to affect the character until they receive the proper medical treatment to recover from the injury.
Regardless, a Critical Injury remains with the character until properly healed; even if the short-term effect of the Critical Injury has passed, the status of having a Critical Injury remains. Each Critical Injury a character suffers from adds +10 to any subsequent Critical Injury roll. Essentially, Critical Injury is cumulative, and left untreated, even a number of relatively minor Critical Injuries can lead to devastating results.
Strain Damage and Critical Injuries
Although not always likely, some attacks that deal strain damage (notably weapons with the Stun Damage quality) can also trigger Critical Injuries. Although this may seem odd, it actually makes sense. When a player character inflicts a Critical Injury on an adversary that can be incapacitated by a single Critical Injury (such as a minion), then the adversary is simply incapacitated by being rendered unconscious. If a PC or nemesis NPC suffers a Critical Injury from a weapon dealing strain damage, the outcome can be anything from adverse long-term effects from the weapon, to tangential injuries from being stunned (for example, the character could be knocked off balance and take a nasty crack on the skull when they hit the ground). Of course, since these Critical Injuries would have to be triggered by the players or GM, both parties can always decide that a Critical Injury would not make sense in that narrative, and choose not to trigger them.
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