Vitality and Wounds

Instead of abstracting a character's health in a catch-all hit point system, Secret Wars uses a Vitality and Wounds system to represent the type of damage inflicted upon them. These two replacement points are tracked separately, with Vitality Points (VP) representing general health and endurance, while Wound Points (WP) represent potentially life-threatening injuries.

Wound Points

Your wound points are calculated through the following calculation:

WP=10 + Constiution Modifier + Spirit Modifier + feat modifiers

When your wound points reach one-half their maximum, you cross the Wound Threshold, and you gain the Wounded condition.

When your wound points reach 0, you fall Unconscious and begin Dying. 

Wound points are meant to be low, and taking wound damage is supposed to be scary. Thankfully, Wound damage is only dealt in the following circumstances:

• Execute Attempts: As a three-action attack against a helpless opponent, you can convert the standard damage dealt by a single attack against a single target into Wound damage.

• Out of Vitality Points: When you run out of Vitality points, all damage taken goes directly to your Wound Points.

• Vulnerabilities: Supernatural creatures tend to be weak against certain forms of damage, either a particular form of energy or a specific material. Damage dealt from a source that a creature is vulnerable to also deals an amount of Wound damage equal to the number of damage dice rolled, in addition to the standard Vitality damage. A horror stabbed with an orichalcum dagger will always take 1 point of wound damage in addition to the standard 1d4 points of physical damage to Vitality, while a vampire struck by a torch will take 1 point of wound damage in addition to the standard 1d6 fire damage to Vitality.

The wound damage from Vulnerability affected by a weapon's bonus damage die from a critical hit.

Vitality Points

Vitality points represent your endurance and ability to avoid serious injuries. Damage to wound points usually doesn't involve serious injury, but instead involves stress, near-misses, and bruising that slowly wear you down until you slip up and actually get hurt.

Your Vitality Point total is equal to:

VP=10 + Constitution Modifier + (2x Stamina Proficeny Bonus) + Background Bonus + Origin Bonus + feat modifiers

Vitality Points are far more abundant than Wound Points and are easier to increase. A new character in Secret Wars should start with at least 25 Vitality Points, with some starting in mid-to-high 30s.

Unless noted in Wound Points above, all damage is dealt to Vitality Points. If an attack reduced your Vitality Points to 0, all remaining damage is dealt to Wounds.

Special Rules

Non-Lethal Damage

Weapons that deal only non-lethal damage only affect Vitality Points, even on a critical hit, so long as the target still has Vitality Points. 

• Non-Lethal damage is measured as a positive value. A creature who has taken an amount of Non-Lethal damage equal to their Vitality Point total gains the Unconscious condition. 

• If a character receives more Non-Lethal damage than their Vitality Point total, the excess damage is dealt to the character's Vitality Points. 

• If a character has 0 Vitality Points and takes Non-Lethal damage, it takes 1 point of Wound damage per damage dice.

• If you have taken both non-lethal damage and vitality damage, healing is first applied to non-lethal damage, and then to vitality damage. If a healing effect reduces your non-lethal damage to 0, any healing left over is applied to your vitality.

NOTE: An Execute Attempt made with a non-lethal weapon always deals the weapon's full damage as Wound damage, as when you make an execute attempt, you are deliberately trying to kill your target. 

Temporary Vitality Points

Some spells or supernatural abilities can grant temporary vitality points. Any attack that deals vitality damage reduces these temporary points first. Attacks that deal wound damage ignore these temporary points. Most temporary Vitality Points last for a limited duration. You can’t regain lost temporary Vitality Points through healing, but you can gain more via other abilities.

You can have temporary Vitality Points from only one source at a time. If you gain temporary Vitality Points from a new source when you already have temporary Vitality Points from a previous source, choose whether to keep the amount you already have and their corresponding duration or to gain the new temporary Vitality Points and their duration.

No spells or abilities will grant a character temporary wound points.

Dying

Player characters, villains, powerful monsters, and other significant NPCs don't automatically die when they reach 0 Wound Points; they gain the Dying condition instead.

A dying character is near death. Each round at the start of their turn, they must make a Stamina check to stabilize. The DC for this check is equal to 15+your negative wound total.

A Stable character is at negative wounds, but they have succeeded at a Stamina check to stabilize and so are no longer Dying. A Stable character must make a Stamina check every hour to remain stable. If they fail this check, they start Dying again. The character remains Stable until they achieve a critical success on their stamina check, or they are restored to 1 Wound Point through rest or healing. Any damage dealt to a Stable character will immediately return them to Dying condition. 

Drowning & Suffocation

You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to 5 + your Stamina Proficiency Bonus. Reduce your remaining air by 1 round at the end of each of your turns, or by 2 rounds if you attacked or activated any supernatural abilities. You also lose 1 round worth of air each time you are critically hit. If you speak (including casting spells) you lose all remaining air.

When you run out of air, you fall Unconscious and start suffocating. You can’t recover from being unconscious and must attempt a DC 20 Stamina check at the end of each of your turns. On a failure, you take 1d10 Vitality damage, and on a critical failure, you die. On each check after the first, the DC increases by 5 and the damage by 1d10; these increases are cumulative. Once your access to air is restored, you stop suffocating and are no longer unconscious (unless you’re at 0 Hit Points).

NPC Health

Most minor NPCs only have a single Health Points (HP) pool to simplify combat. They gain the Wounded condition when they fall below 1/4 HP. Hostile NPCs typically die at 0 HP, while allied NPCs gain the Dying condition and die at -10 HP. 

Certain NPCs, such as recurring villains or allies, may possess Wound Points and Vitality Points.

Item Health

Like NPCs, items have a single Health Points, or HP, pool. 

An item has a Hardness statistic that reduces the damage the item takes by that amount. The item then takes any remaining damage. If an item is reduced to 0 HP, it’s destroyed.

An item also has a Broken Threshold, which is similar to a Wound Threshold. If its HP are reduced to this amount or lower, it gains the Broken condition.

Damaging an unattended item usually requires attacking it directly, and can be difficult due to that item’s Hardness and immunities. You usually can’t attack an attended object.