Damage (Action)

Heroic Action Role-Play

Damage in Action always uses a similar mechanism, with many variants.

Damage Mechanic

Damage in Action is cinematic; heroes can take vast amounts of damage while others collapse from a single punch. The size of the weapon matters much less than the hand that wields it.

Damage Roll

An attack has an outcome and a damage value. Add the outcome to the damage value, and subtract the target's Tougness. The result is a number of wound points.

Hits

Damage is measured in hits. Each attack that does any wound points inflicts one hit. Creatures have a number of hits depending on their role in the game. Only when they have taken this much damage do they actually suffer any actual injury.

Hero Role	Villain Role	Hits
Action Hero	Archvillain	10
Hero	Villain	5
Supporting cast	Henchman	3
Victim	Mook	1

Hits disappear once the action is over. You brush yourself off, wipe your brow, and examine yourself for wounds, finding that what looked like serious injury was only superficial bruises. More permanent damage is taken as wounds; more on those below.

Critical Hits

Some attacks are severe enough to cause an immediate wound. If the attack roll was a critical success or the attack inflicted wound points matching the target's Body, he suffers a wound in addition to any hits he might take.

Wounds and Injury

A character who falls to zero hits is generally out of the action and starts taking wounds. The attack that knocks you out inflicts one wound for every five wound points inflicted. If you take less than five wound points, there is no wound. You can also take wounds from critical hits. Wounds are similar to hits but have additional effects.

• Wounds are combined with hits to see if you can stay in the action; in effect, each wound is also a hit.
• Wounds last; you need proper rest to recover from wounds, generally at the end of an adventure.
• You suffer Impairment equal to the number of wounds you have taken.
• Depending on how many wounds you have taken, you suffer various degrees of injury.
• A character that takes five wounds dies.

When a character loses their last hit, check the Injury Table to see how bad it is. Depending on the number of wounds taken, this might be a simple knock-out or more serious injury. Each result also includes all the lower results; if you are crippled, you also suffer a coma, are maimed, bleeding, and take a knockout.

Many finishing moves prevent wounds, inflicting some other effect instead.

Wounds	Injury
0	Knockout; You are out of action for 10 minutes, unable to do more than quietly lie still or slowly crawl about and cry pitifully
1	Bleeding; you need medical attention. Every minute make a Body roll difficulty 15; on a failure, you take an additional wound from bleeding. Once you make this roll you have stabilized.
2	Maimed; an arm or a leg is mauled and useless (or some other serious handicap by the GMs devising).
3	Coma. You are out of the action for this adventure, but you will eventually recover.
4	Crippled; This is permanent maiming. Even if you survive, you will be crippled in some way; a good reason to use prosthetics, cybernetics, or that rare-to-find healing magic. Permanent effects of maiming can be used to motivate new schticks and flaws, which give points normally.
5	Dead. There is a point of no return in every heroic career, and this is it.

Healing

Except for maiming, all damage is temporary. Wound points don't accumulate at all. Hits disappear at the end of the fight or action scene. Wounds and other injury effects require recuperation, which takes at least a few days and generally happens between scenarios. The GM might make a short montage in a hospital or the character might just lie low for a while depending on the needs of the story.

Damage Types

Damage in Action comes in many forms.