Getting Hurt and Recovery
Hit Points vs. Power Points
Every character has a certain number of Hit Points and Power Points. Hit Points represent the amount of damage a character's body can absorb before being wasted. A character with no Hit Points remaining has been beaten to a pulp, and any additional damage sustained once a character's Hit Points are gone must come out of the character's Power socre. No Hit Points equals Incapacitation.
Power Points represent the amount of bio-energy/adrenaline that the character has. Power is normally used to fuel the use of one's super power or to perform other strunuous reats. A character with no Power remaining is Fatigued, and immediately receives the following penalties:
- All movement (excpet that which employs Devices/Items or other [outside] forms of transportation) is cut to one-half normal speed.
- All Basic Characteristics, for purposes of Saving Throws, are cut to one-half. Device and Item bonuses are not halved.
- The character's effective Carrying Capacity is cut to one-half.
- All damage inflicted (except that which is caused by Devices or Items) is cut by one-half, rounded up.
In addition, any further Power expenditures are extracted from the character's Hit Points once the character's Power is gone.
Note that a character might run out of Power part-way through an action. Spend the extra required Power from the character's Hits as usual, but Fatigue will not set in until after the action is complete.
Whenever a character takes damage to his/her Hit Points, there is a 1% chance per point of damage sustained that he/she will fall temporarily unconscious.
Any Hit Point expenditure, not just "damage," causes this effect. Also, the straight 1% per Hit Point chance of unconsciousness tends to produce a "glass jaw" effect in those with a lot of Hits. Some GMs might consider a % chance based on the percentage of Hits lost. For example, if Wimpboy takes 4 of his 5 Hits, there's an 80% of unconsciousness; if Gigantor-Man takes 4 out of his 200 Hits, there's only a 2% chance. This makes unconsciousness more common, so the GM may wish to institute an Endurance save to avoid it. In my campaigns, I think I'll stick with the straight 1:1% chance, at least for now. -B.
A character with no Hit Points or Power Points left is dead. Once dead, the character's Basic Hits are his body's Structural Points (with a Structural Rating of 1 for flesh); excess damage after death goes into Basic Hits. A corpse with no Basic Hits remaining is damaged beyond repair. (Ewww. -B.)
Waking, Resting, and Healing
An unconscious character (one who still has Hit Points) has a chance of waking up each turn. His/her first action phase on each subsequent turn after becoming unconscious is used to attempt a wake-up roll: this is a saving throw in percentile dice vs. the character's Endurance score. If successful, the character is able to resume activity on his/her next phase. If unsuccessful, the character may roll again on his/her first action phase on the next turn, and so forth. Other characters may also attempt to awaken him/her: for each action they spend in doing so, another wake-up roll may be attempted.
An incapacitated character (one with no Hit Points remaining) rolls to wake up only once per hour, though others may attempt to awaken him/her exactly as described above [for unconsciousness]. Upon waking up, the incapacitated character may attept to regain some of his/her lost Hit Points (see below).
Regaining Lost Power Potential
For each minute [4 turns] of rest, a character regains one point of Power, up to a maximum of his/her original score. No strenuous activity may be undertaken while [so] resting. A character who is unconscious or incapacitated is counted as being at rest. Per hour a character remains active past his/her normal time of sleep, two points of Power are lost, which can only be regained during sleep at a rate of 2 per hour of sleep past eight hours. (Actually, this would make an hour-for-hour situation, and sleep studies show it's not quite like that. I use a benchmark of 4 of these lost points regained for each extra hour of sleep. -B.)
Healing Hit Point Damage
This is explained in the discussion of Healing Rate. The rules for Medical Assistance have changed since the original rulebook (where an acual physician's care multiplied the patient's effective Healing Rate by 1/10 the doctor's Intelligence and non-physicians multiplied it by 1/20 their Intelligence). See the skill description for Medicine for full details. (The old way may still apply under "field conditions" and/or when the caretaker(s) aren't doing actual Medicine skill rolls. -B.) A character waking up from incapacitation will always receive at least one Hit Point.
