Health and Injury
Health and Injury
Embedded Files
HEALTH AND DAMAGE
HEALTH AND DAMAGE
In gameplay, a character's vitality is represented by their Health track. The Health track contains a number of empty boxes equal to their Health trait. For player characters, their Health is calculated by their Stamina + Size. Supernatural abilities that change either of these traits also adjust the character's maximum Health, unless otherwise noted. Non-player characters may calculate Health differently.
As the character sustains injuries, the severity of the damage is marked in the boxes. Characters can suffer three types of damage. From least to most severe:
Bashing: Low-impact trauma, punches, kicks, etc. Minor injuries that can usually be recovered from quickly, but can rapidly accumulate when there isn't a chance to rest
Lethal: All weapon damage, burns, broken bones, etc. Serious injuries that require at least a few days of rest.
Special: Supernatural or severe mundane injuries, like acid burns, necrotic disintegration of flesh, etc. The average person will need serious medical attention and rest to recover.
WOUND PENALTIES
WOUND PENALTIES
Damage impairs a character's ability to act. When one of their three rightmost Health boxes has damage, they suffer a cumulative -1 penalty for each of these boxes with damage. Note that the damage type does not change the severity of the penalty.
This penalty applies to all rolls (such as actions, Dodging, resisting effects, and determining Initiative) except for Stamina rolls to stay conscious as a result of a full Health track.
Note that these types are abstractions. Of course, a broken wrist would need more than two days to heal in real life. You probably wouldn't need to be stabbed four times before your ability to act is hampered - just one would probably be enough for most people. Getting hit by a car sounds like it should do more than "just" Bashing damage, until you realize that the sheer amount of damage dealt makes it functionally Lethal. This is where mechanics, roleplay, and reality don't align perfectly, but do your best.
MARKING DAMAGE
MARKING DAMAGE
Tracking damage comes down to two points:
Injuries are marked left to right. More severe damage is marked on the left of the track, pushing less severe damage to the right. Therefore, damage will always be in the order of Special → Lethal → Bashing.
Characters heal from right to left. The least severe damage always heals before more severe damage, unless otherwise noted.
When a character suffers…
Bashing: Mark a slash ( / ) in the leftmost empty box
Lethal: Mark an X in the leftmost box that doesn't contain Lethal or Special. If you mark over a point of Bashing, move the Bashing damage one box to the right.
Special: Mark an asterisk ( ✳ ) in the leftmost box that doesn't already contain Special. If you mark over a point of Lethal or Bashing, move all lesser damage to the right.
FULL TRACKS AND UPGRADING DAMAGE
FULL TRACKS AND UPGRADING DAMAGE
What happens if a character's Health track is filled? How do you mark additional damage?
Remember, with the system of left to right sorting by damage, having a certain severity of damage in the character's rightmost box means that all damage to the left is either of the same or greater severity. For simplicity, we refer to a full Health track by the damage type in the rightmost box (i.e. full Bashing, full Lethal, or full Special).
When a character's rightmost Health box is marked with…
Bashing: They must make a reflexive Stamina roll every turn for them to remain conscious. If the character is already unconscious, they stay unconscious until the rightmost Health box is healed.
Each further point of Bashing or Lethal damage upgrades the leftmost point of Bashing to Lethal.
Each further point of Special damage upgrades the leftmost point of Bashing to Special.
Lethal: They immediately fall unconscious and gain the Bleeding Out Tilt. While bleeding out, the character takes another point of damage each minute until they receive medical attention. See the section on medical care for more information.
Each further point of damage of any type upgrades the leftmost point of Lethal to Special.
The character earns 1 Beat. They can earn this once per game.
Special: They are dead.
The character earns 1 Beat, assuming they are resurrected to enjoy the benefit.
HOMEBREW: LINGERING DAMAGE
HOMEBREW: LINGERING DAMAGE
In some special cases, a character may suffer from Lingering damage, usually caused by a supernatural ability. Healing this damage cannot be accelerated through supernatural or mundane means, with the exception of inherent traits such as the Merit: Quick Healer.
To track Lingering damage:
Note the damage type.
Mark the new damage to the Health track as normal.
Mark the leftmost box with the damage type as Lingering. You can do this by changing the text color, adding a dot in an adjacent box, or whatever else suits your needs.
If the Lingering damage is upgraded, move the Lingering tracker to the leftmost damage mark as needed.
MARKING EXAMPLE
MARKING EXAMPLE
Jane has 7 Health. She has two points of Bashing:
/ / _ _ _ _ _
Later, she gets stabbed for 1 Lethal. Lethal is more severe, so it is marked on the left, pushing her existing Bashing to the right:
X / / _ _ _ _
An encounter with a supernatural object deals 1 Special to her. Being more severe, it goes on the left:
✳ X / / _ _ _
Then, if she takes another point of Lethal, we push the Bashing further to the right, but keep the Special where it is on the left:
✳ X X / / _ _
Let's say she then casts Blood Boost and succeeds, taking 1 Lethal. This Lethal is Lingering, so we mark:
✳ X X X / / _
UPGRADING EXAMPLE
UPGRADING EXAMPLE
Jane's situation has worsened. Taking another point of Bashing, she is now at full Bashing:
✳ X X X / / /
Luckily, she succeeds in her Stamina roll, so she stays conscious for this turn. She has a -3 penalty to all of her actions, however, so this luck can only carry her so long. Lets say she takes 1 Special and 2 Bashing. The Special upgrades the leftmost Bashing, which is then sorted to its proper position. The rest of her Bashing becomes Lethal:
✳ ✳ X X X X X
She falls unconscious and is now bleeding out. A minute passes, and she takes another point of damage. It doesn't matter what type - any damage will upgrade her Lethal to Special. This damage will upgrade her Lingering Lethal:
✳ ✳ ✳ X X X X
Because Lingering damage must be the leftmost of its type, we move the Lingering mark after the upgrade. After four more minutes of bleeding out:
✳ ✳ ✳ ✳ ✳ ✳ ✳
Jane is now dead.
CHANGING HEALTH TRACKS
CHANGING HEALTH TRACKS
Some supernatural powers can temporarily change a character's number of Health boxes. The most common cases are as follows:
Health Track Increase: This effect adds additional boxes to the character's Health track, and damage is marked in these boxes as normal. If a character takes damage in a temporary Health Box and the effect that bestowed the box ends, the damage rolls over into their permanent Health boxes as if they had just taken it anew.
Example sources: Abilities that change Stamina or Size, including the demon ability Huge Size
Health Track Decrease: This effect removes boxes from the character's Health track. Remove boxes from the right side of the track. Any damage already marked in these boxes should be saved, but they do not roll over to any remaining Health boxes. After removing the boxes, note whether the character would be incapacitated or killed. In most cases, if the effect was self-inflicted, the effect immediately ends rather than outright killing the character.
Example sources: Abilities such as Shapeshift, which may cause the character to shrink or lose Stamina
Secondary Track: This effect adds an additional track to mark damage in. In most cases, damage will be marked in the secondary track before the character's permanent Health track. Usually, secondary tracks will lose boxes as damage is marked in them, meaning they do not upgrade damage.
Example sources: Abilities that create 'shields' or temporary Health that absorb damage, such as Maggie's LM2.
HEALTH INCREASE EXAMPLE
HEALTH INCREASE EXAMPLE
Jane has 7 Health. Activating Huge Size, her Size increases by 4, which also increases her Health to 11:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
After a series of mishaps, she takes enough damage that her temporary Health is marked with damage:
X X X / / / / / _ _ _
When Huge Size wears off, she reverts to having 7 Health. She first takes her normal Health track...
X X X / / / /
...then applies the 1 Bashing from her temporary Health as damage.
X X X X / / /
Because she has full Bashing in this state, she must now roll Stamina to stay conscious.
HEALTH INCREASE EXAMPLE 2
HEALTH INCREASE EXAMPLE 2
Taking damage in this way can be extremely dangerous. Let's say Jane's Huge Size Health track looked like this:
✳ ✳ ✳ ✳ ✳ X X X X / _
Now when Huge Size wears off...
✳ ✳ ✳ ✳ ✳ X X
...she dies after applying the 2 Lethal and 1 Bashing:
✳ ✳ ✳ ✳ ✳ ✳ ✳
This damage cannot be mitigated by spells/abilities, as it's more of a recalculation.
HEALTH DECREASE EXAMPLE 1
HEALTH DECREASE EXAMPLE 1
Jane has 7 Health. Casting Shapeshift, she transforms into a 2 Health mouse. If she had no damage prior to transforming, her Health track would look like this:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Instead, let's say her Health originally looked like this:
/ / / / _ _ _
Then when she transforms, her Health would be:
/ / / / _ _ _
Unlike with losing temporary increased Health, her existing damage does not roll over. Even so, she is considered to be at full Bashing as a mouse, so she must roll Stamina to stay conscious. If she fails, she briefly blacks out as a mouse, and wakes up in her human form with her original Health again:
/ / / / _ _ _
HEALTH DECREASE EXAMPLE 2
HEALTH DECREASE EXAMPLE 2
Consider Jane shapeshifting into a 2 Health mouse again, but this time with more severe starting damage:
✳ ✳ ✳ _ _ _ _
Then when she transforms, her Health would be:
✳ ✳ ✳ _ _ _ _
As a mouse, she has full Special, and is considered dead. Luckily, under the Shapeshift rules, she immediately reverts and "only" rolls a Breaking Point as though she had been killed in her mouse form.
SECONDARY TRACK EXAMPLE
SECONDARY TRACK EXAMPLE
Jane has 7 Health and is sporting some injuries:
X / _ _ _ _ _
One of her allies sees that she's being attacked, so they cast a spell that grants her 3 Temporary Health in a secondary track:
X / _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _
When she next takes damage, it goes to the secondary track first as per the spell's description:
X / _ _ _ _ _
/ _ _
In this case, each box in the secondary track is immediately removed upon taking any damage, so we could have instead marked the changes like this:
X / _ _ _ _ _
_ _
For this example, we'll mark three points of damage in the secondary track and leave them visible for the demonstration. Because this track doesn't upgrade damage or heal, we don't need to sort by severity:
X / _ _ _ _ _
/ / X
When she next takes a point of Bashing, the secondary track does not upgrade due to the definition of the effect in play. Instead, it goes to Jane's permanent Health track:
X / / _ _ _ _
/ / X
HEALING
HEALING
Characters need time to heal once they've been beaten to a pulp. Having access to supernatural powers can expedite this, but otherwise characters rely on time and medical care to set broken bones and heal bullet wounds.
A character heals their rightmost Health box at the rate indicated below. The healing time is enough for the wound to fully recover; Lethal damage doesn't downgrade into Bashing.
Normally, a character can heal without medical attention, though use of the Medicine Skill helps them recover. The only exception is if a character has all their Health boxes full of Lethal damage - they're bleeding out. They can’t recover from that without urgent medical attention.
Wounds recover at the following rates:
Bashing: One point per 15 minutes
Lethal: One point per two days
Special: One point per week
EXAMPLE
EXAMPLE
Jane's been in a fight. She has 7 Health, and her Health track looks like:
✳ X / / / _ _
As she gets some rest, she heals right to left. Bashing takes 15 minutes to heal each, so after 45 minutes, she is left with 1 Special and 1 Lethal:
✳ X _ _ _ _ _
Lethal takes longer to heal. Two days later, her Health track looks like:
✳ _ _ _ _ _ _
She waits another week, and finally her Special damage heals. In total, it has taken her one week, two days, and 45 minutes to fully recover:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
STANDARD MEDICAL CARE
STANDARD MEDICAL CARE
The Medicine Skill can be used to speed up healing via a medical care extended action. The caregiver must have access to relevant equipment to even attempt the action.
The dice pool and interval used for a medical care extended action depends on the type of care administered. However, the required number of Successes is always equal to the total number of points of damage suffered by the patient. Because the patient might heal in other ways while care is administered, it is possible for the required number of Successes to decrease while the action is still being rolled. Additionally, Conditions from failure usually afflict the patient rather than the caregiver, but this is at Storyteller discretion.
Successful completion of the extended action downgrades the patient's rightmost point of Lethal to Bashing, and has no effect on Special or Bashing damage.
Field and emergency treatment use Dexterity + Medicine with an interval of 1 minute. To avoid equipment penalties, the caregiver must have access to a standard first-aid kit or equivalent at bare minimum. The Storyteller may allow the use of improvised or lesser quality equipment with penalties to the roll. A complete lack of usable supplies makes the action impossible.
Hospital treatment uses Intelligence + Medicine with an interval of 1 hour. The caregiver must have access to hospital-level supplies or similar to avoid equipment penalties, with the bare minimum of a standard OTC first-aid kit setting the standard of a -3 penalty. Any equipment less than a first-aid kit cannot be used for this roll.
LIMITATIONS
LIMITATIONS
A patient can only benefit from each type of standard medical care once per "set" of injuries. Once treated in this manner, they must either fully heal or take additional damage before they can be treated in this manner again.
A patient can be treated by emergency care, then additionally be treated by hospital care, for a total of two Lethal downgraded to two Bashing. However, once a patient is treated by hospital care, they can no longer be treated via emergency care.
This type of treatment can benefit from effects that shorten extended action intervals, such as the Merit: Good Time Management and the Etude: Efficiency.
MEDICAL CARE EXAMPLE
MEDICAL CARE EXAMPLE
Jane is seeking out medical attention after a fight. With 7 Health, her Health track looks like:
✳ X X X / _ _
An ally has a first-aid kit and performs field care on her. They must accumulate five Successes in their Dexterity + Medicine roll. After three minutes, they reach the goal, and Jane's rightmost Lethal is downgraded to Bashing:
✳ X X / / _ _
Jane now must seek out more significant medical attention if she wants to continue treating her injuries. She goes to a back-alley hospital. At first, the doctor must accumulate five Successes. However, after the first roll, an hour has passed, meaning that Jane's two Bashing have healed naturally:
✳ X X _ _ _ _
The doctor now only needs to accumulate three Successes, which they have done. Again, Jane's rightmost Lethal is downgraded:
✳ X / _ _ _ _
Jane can no longer be healed via standard medical care until her Health track is fully healed, or she gains more points of damage.
INTENSIVE MEDICAL CARE
INTENSIVE MEDICAL CARE
Round-the-clock, intensive care diminishes a patient's injuries, downgrading the nature of wounds by one degree. Thus, a Lethal wound can be downgraded to Bashing, and a Special wound can be downgraded to Lethal. Such treatment can occur only in a hospital or other intensive-care facility that has access to both equipment and staff necessary to tend to the patient.
Intensive treatment is an extended action using Intelligence + Medicine with an interval of 1 hour. The required number of Successes depends on the severity of the damage being downgraded - five for Lethal, ten for Special. A patient can only have one point of damage downgraded per day of treatment.
Unlike the standard hospital care, this kind of treatment always focuses on the worst of the patient's injuries first. Thus, Special damage must be downgraded to Lethal before Lethal damage can be downgraded to Bashing.
This treatment only minimizes injuries. A patient must heal downgraded injuries completely by themself or receive other treatment to eliminate them. Each point of damage can only be downgraded once in this fashion, so it is important to mark which injuries were treated. Like with Lingering damage, downgraded damage should be marked as the leftmost of its type, meaning that it is the last to heal via natural means. The patient continues to heal naturally while their caretaker rolls for intensive care.
This type of treatment cannot benefit from effects that shorten extended action intervals, such as the Merit: Good Time Management and the Etude: Efficiency.
INTENSIVE CARE EXAMPLE
INTENSIVE CARE EXAMPLE
Jane is in a rough spot. Her 7 Health looks like:
✳ ✳ X X _ _ _
Luckily, she is receiving intensive treatment. After her caregiver achieves 10 Successes in an Intelligence + Medicine roll, she downgrades one Special to Lethal:
✳ X X X _ _ _
Note how we mark the newly downgraded Lethal to differentiate it. She continues getting treatment for the next day:
X X X X _ _ _
Because two full days have passed, Jane also heals 1 Lethal of her own accord:
X X X _ _ _ _
The next day, the doctor accumulates five Successes to downgrade one of Jane's Lethal. She cannot downgrade damage that has already been downgraded, so her Health is now:
X X / _ _ _ _
Now all of Jane's damage has been downgraded, and she can no longer benefit from intensive medical care.
BLEEDING OUT AND STABILIZATION
BLEEDING OUT AND STABILIZATION
When a character's Health track is at full Lethal, they gain the Bleeding Out Tilt. While bleeding out, they take a point of damage every minute - without intervention, they will die in a number of minutes equal to their current Lethal.
Treating someone who is bleeding out is always Dexterity + Medicine, using the standard emergency medical care rules in regards to equipment, interval, and required successes.
There are two options when treating someone who is bleeding out:
Standard Emergency Care: When the extended action succeeds, the patient's rightmost Health box is downgraded to Bashing as normal. This removes the Bleeding Out Tilt. However, the patient continues to take damage until the extended action is completed. This is a risky option that can get the patient conscious and walking sooner, at the cost of having more Special damage in the long run.
The damage from bleeding out occurs at the end of a full minute. If the caregiver has accumulated the required Successes at the same time that the patient would take damage, do not apply damage and instead downgrade the patient's rightmost Lethal to Bashing.
Stabilize: When the extended action succeeds, the patient does not downgrade their rightmost Lethal, but instead converts their Bleeding Out Tilt to the Stabilized Tilt. The benefit, however, is that the patient can avoid taking bleed out damage while they are being treated. For every accumulated Success during the extended action, the caregiver negates one minute worth of damage that the patient would have normally taken. This option takes longer to treat a patient, but keeps them from accumulating more damage - which in turn prevents them from dying while being cared for.
The Stabilized Tilt doesn't last indefinitely. The patient is stable for a number of hours equal to their Stamina, after which the tilt will revert to Bleeding Out. The patient also remains unconscious, even when stabilized.
Once the patient is stabilized, they can benefit from the usual standard emergency care action.
TILT: BLEEDING OUT
TILT: BLEEDING OUT
The character is currently suffering from Lethal damage in their rightmost Health box. At the end of every minute, they take an additional point of damage. When all of their damage upgrades to Special, the character dies.
Ending the Tilt: Remove the Lethal damage in their rightmost Health box, or stabilize the character.
TILT: STABILIZED
TILT: STABILIZED
Though the character has Lethal damage in their rightmost Health box, they are no longer actively bleeding out. The character remains unconscious as long as they are at full Lethal, but they do not take damage every minute. They remain stable for a number of hours equal to their Stamina. If they are not healed within that time frame, the character regains the Bleeding Out Tilt.
Ending the Tilt: Remove the Lethal damage in their rightmost Health box, or allow the duration to lapse.
BLEEDING OUT: STANDARD CARE EXAMPLE
BLEEDING OUT: STANDARD CARE EXAMPLE
Jane is having a bad day with full Lethal:
X X X X X X X
Without medical attention, she will die in seven minutes. An ally starts performing a standard emergency care action, requiring seven Successes.
Their first roll takes one minute and gains two Successes. Jane takes one point of damage at the end of this minute:
✳ X X X X X X
The caregiver rolls a second time, earning three Successes. Again, a minute passes, so Jane takes another point of damage:
✳ ✳ X X X X X
The caregiver rolls a third time, earning two Successes. A minute has passed, but the caregiver has now accumulated the required Successes, so Jane does not take an additional point of damage. Instead, her rightmost Lethal is downgraded:
✳ ✳ X X X X /
BLEEDING OUT: STABILIZING EXAMPLE
BLEEDING OUT: STABILIZING EXAMPLE
Jane in an alternate timeline also has full Lethal:
X X X X X X X
One of her allies decides to try to stabilize her, requiring seven Successes.
Their first roll takes one minute and gains one Successes. Jane would normally take damage at the end of the first minute, but this is negated by the caregiver:
X X X X X X X
The caregiver rolls a second time and fails. A minute passes, so Jane is due to take another point of damage. Since the caregiver has only accumulated 1 Success and 1 point of damage has already been negated, Jane takes this damage as normal:
✳ X X X X X X
The caregiver rolls a third time, earning two Successes. The next two points of damage Jane would take from bleeding out are now negated, giving the caregiver some breathing room if they fail again. A few more rolls, and the caregiver reaches seven Successes. Jane is Stabilized:
✳ X X X X X X
BLEEDING OUT: NEAR MISS EXAMPLE
BLEEDING OUT: NEAR MISS EXAMPLE
Jane the 3rd finds herself at full Lethal:
X X X X X X X
One of her allies decides to try to stabilize her, requiring seven Successes. However, they only have a dice pool of 4d10. In four rolls, say they gain zero Successes, one Success, one Success, then four Successes after using Willpower. Jane takes damage from the first minute where there were no accumulated Successes:
✳ X X X X X X
The caregiver's second roll produces enough Successes to negate Jane's next point of damage, and the same for their third roll and fourth rolls.
However, the caregiver has accumulated only six of seven required Successes, and can no longer roll. Still, there are still accumulated Successes that have yet to negate damage. This means that Jane has three more minutes after the extended action has stopped where she will not take bleeding damage.
The same caregiver cannot try again. Someone else will need to attempt to heal her, or else she will die.
OBJECTS
OBJECTS
Objects can sustain damage, but they use a separate 'health' trait called Structure. For most objects, Structure is calculated using Durability + Size.
Durability measures how hard it is to damage an object. Damage dealt first subtracts the object's Durability, meaning that attacks that deal less than an object's Durability have no effect. However, Special damage bypasses Durability, dealing the full amount.
After accounting for Durability, every point of damage removes a point of Structure. Objects do not differentiate between Bashing and Lethal, and Special only matters for ignoring Durability. When an object has taken more damage than its Durability, anyone using the object suffers a -1 penalty. If the Structure reaches 0, the object is destroyed.
OPTIONAL RULES: INJURY AND TRAUMA
OPTIONAL RULES: INJURY AND TRAUMA
This section is derived from CofD: Hurt Locker, p56.
Chronicles of Darkness games take a charitable approach to injury. Given time and proper treatment, characters recover from pretty much any wound. But real injuries leave lasting effects, and even minor bruises and scrapes carry the risk of complications. Injury management is a constant concern for athletes and people in active professions. Few leave a violent trade without twinges and aches.
Nevertheless, the game isn't about realism but hitting strong emotional notes in a world that feels compelling enough to invest in. That means any injury system must follow this ethos; and while some players prefer the battered but unbowed default, others might want to invest in scars and troubles, writing a history in lasting trauma.
These options focus on the darker, grittier side of the game, which may not be everyone's cup of tea. If a Storyteller chooses to implement these rules, this should be communicated to players ahead of time.
OPTIONAL RULE: THE STRESS OF INJURY
OPTIONAL RULE: THE STRESS OF INJURY
Characters can already roll Breaking Points when witnessing or enduring violence, but there are no real guidelines for what counts. This optional rule describes more specific - and more dire - cases for Breaking Points when injured, and offers alternate consequences.
A character can roll a Breaking Point when:
They take any amount of Lethal or Special damage
They currently have more Lethal or Special than their Stamina
They have wound penalties
Per Storyteller discretion, these Breaking Points should generally only be triggered once per game, e.g. a character does not need to roll for a Breaking Point upon taking a second instance of Special damage. The Storyteller can assign penalties but not bonuses, such as a -3 penalty when taking Special damage.
If a character would already suffer a Breaking Point or Integrity loss, do not roll this optional Breaking Point. An example would be if a character is killed - they lose Integrity upon resurrection, and thus should not trigger the Breaking Point for having more Special damage than their Stamina.
On a Success, the Storyteller can apply a relevant Condition, such as Shaken, Insensate, or Beaten Down. Alternatively, the character loses a point of Willpower.
OPTIONAL RULE: PHANTOM INJURY
OPTIONAL RULE: PHANTOM INJURY
In the Symphony, characters have access to supernatural healing options that allow them to manage health and damage far more easily than the average mortal. Spells can just as easily accelerate a patient's natural healing as they can rewrite causality so that the patient was never injured to begin with.
Just because the body can be remade, however, does not mean the mind escapes unscathed. As it turns out, people aren't meant to be able to sustain fatal injuries in one moment and have them whisked away in the next. It is common for people - even the Unchained - to experience phantom pain after using supernatural means to heal their injuries, as their mind struggles to reconcile the injury and the sudden lack thereof.
As an optional rule, a character can roll a Breaking Point after they heal a total of Lethal or Special damage equal to their Stamina over the course of a game. The healing must be via supernatural means. In place of the usual Conditions available for non-Exceptional Success results, they instead take the Phantom Injury Condition or an equivalent by the Storyteller's design.
CONDITION: PHANTOM INJURY
CONDITION: PHANTOM INJURY
The character still experiences the pain or discomfort of their now-healed injuries. For the remainder of the game, the character applies a penalty to all rolls. This penalty is a -1 if the damage was only Lethal, or -2 if any of the damage healed was Special.
This Condition does not stack per instance of damage healed, instead using the penalty of the more severe damage type.
Resolution: This Condition automatically resolves at the end of the game.
OPTIONAL RULE: LASTING INJURIES
OPTIONAL RULE: LASTING INJURIES
Every time a character takes serious damage, there's a chance that this is the one that sticks. The Symphony is a dangerous world to participate in, and for many it's a matter of 'when and how', not 'if'. Compared to mere mortals, those with access to supernatural powers have a number of ways to heal injuries before they become lasting. If an injury ends up persisting, they have more than just mundane options for treatment, from seeking out restorative effects to using Implant gadgets in place of prostheses.
Lasting injuries are represented by Persistent Conditions. These Persistent Conditions follow the usual rules, granting the character Beats when invoked - usually when they cause the character hardship. A key difference is that some of these Persistent Conditions have a 'Chronic' option, where the Condition is not always active, but might be triggered under certain circumstances.
Some examples of lasting injury Conditions are described in the appendix linked below. These are intended to act as starting points. Lasting injuries should be tailored to the character and can be more than what is listed. For example, many personal Tilts can be converted into a Persistent Condition.
ACQUIRING LASTING INJURIES
ACQUIRING LASTING INJURIES
A character might gain a lasting injury under certain circumstances:
Special Damage: In Chronicles of Darkness games, Special damage is a catch-all representing extremely serious injuries: the crushed bones, deep cuts, and other nasty things that toss characters at death's door. When a character suffers Special damage either directly or as a rollover from lesser serious injuries, their player can choose to acquire a Lasting Injury.
Repeated Trauma: When characters survive repeated minor injury, small traumas may build into lasting injuries. Suffering Lethal damage repeatedly over the course of a game or timeframe may allow players to acquire lasting injuries, if the Storyteller agrees this makes sense.
Special Situations: Anything that imposes an appropriate Personal Tilt or other special effect (such as those inflicted by certain Fighting Styles) might be converted into a lasting injury - the character simply never recovers from its effects. Players and Storytellers may develop Tilts into Persistent Conditions with the same effects.
In Place of Death: When a character reaches full Special, a player can choose to take on a lasting injury in place of the usual consequences of death. If the character's body can be recovered from the scene, the Storyteller should organize circumstances (deus ex machina or not) that lead to the character receiving emergency aid, narrowly avoiding death. Note that this option is only available if the character dies (or would die) in a manner that could even feasibly allow them to be saved. A character being turned to ash or being stolen away by angels cannot benefit from this option.
PLAYER CHOICE
PLAYER CHOICE
The most important rule is that the player chooses whether or not they want a lasting injury, not the Storyteller. The player should have some idea of what type of lasting injury they are willing to play, and the Storyteller ultimately determines which ones fit the bill. Due to the complicated and personal nature of these Conditions, the player and Storyteller should work together to decide on an appropriate injury and related Condition. Players should always be informed which Conditions will result from their choices, even when their characters may not understand what's going on.
No matter what event gives players an opportunity to choose a lasting injury, their choices need to make sense in the story. That means the initial or chronic traumas need to logically lead to the Conditions victims will later suffer. Think broadly. The injury Condition doesn’t need to follow straight from an existing wound. There’s a causal relationship, but it doesn’t have to be as simple as "He hurt his leg and it evolves into the Leg Disability Condition." For example, your character might develop an Addiction from using pain medication.
THE SPIRIT OF THE MECHANIC
THE SPIRIT OF THE MECHANIC
The player chooses when their character gains a lasting injury. As such, the player is expected to act within the spirit of the mechanic. A character should not gain a lasting injury during a game if the player intends on having the injury immediately removed. This doesn't mean you can never flavor serious damage as a critical injury. Healing magic can be powerful - reattach a still-bleeding limb with Scrap Mettle, cure injury-based blindness with Aura of Vitality, etc. However, you should only apply the lasting injury mechanic if you intend on keeping it beyond the current game. This is to ensure the respect of both the Storyteller's time and the gravity of the mechanic itself.
Gaining a lasting injury should always involve an out-of-game talk with the Storyteller in order to iron out what the injury is and what the effects could be. This can take a lot of time and energy on the Storyteller's part, and we highly encourage the use of placeholder Conditions during games so that the Storyteller can keep things moving. A Storyteller can work on settling the Persistent Condition post-game.
Lasting injuries are intended to be serious consequences of the type of conflicts characters involve themselves in. Getting treatment for lasting injuries can be a challenge, and permanently healing a lasting injury commonly falls under long-term aspirations. Other times, characters learn to live with their new circumstances, and it becomes a part of who they are.
It is possible that a player chooses to gain a lasting injury, but circumstances end up undermining this - for example, the character might receive unexpected healing that would prevent them from developing a lasting injury. These are not the cases we caution against, as roleplay can be unpredictable. As with all things, just act with respectful intentions.
TREATING LASTING INJURIES
TREATING LASTING INJURIES
Characters with disabilities and access to medical treatment may benefit from prosthetics and other technologies that assist common physical functions. Some of these technologies are very common. For example, a character with a disability that affects her ability to communicate can use common messaging and text to speech apps on smartphones. Glasses and contact lenses represent interventions so common they don’t even have a presence in the game system.
Specialized technologies require a combination of money and medical coverage. Exact requirements vary by nationality and profession. For example, medical insurance in the US may only cover basic prosthetics, but veteran status might provide more sophisticated options. Thus, the following descriptions don’t list costs.
People with disabilities have complex relationships with these technologies. A deaf character may prefer to experience the world without hearing, using hearing aids only when required for the job. A character who uses prosthetics selects them based on lifestyle and personal preferences.
The linked appendix lists options for addressing some long-term injuries listed here, but barely cover the enormous range of options available to characters with disabilities. These can be used as guidelines as to what a player could expect, and help shape a character's goals for seeking treatment.
LASTING INJURIES VS RESURRECTION
LASTING INJURIES VS RESURRECTION
The baseline Cadenza: Resurrect is capable of restoring a corpse to a whole state, as long as there is at least 50% of the body available. How does this interact with lasting injuries?
As a general rule of thumb, recent injuries tend to be fully healed by Resurrect. Missing body parts are regenerated, traumatic damage beyond modern medical technology is erased, and so on. In-universe, this is understood to be a factor of how Resurrect restores the concept of the deceased individual, just like how various spells and abilities interact with the concept of an identity or common understanding of facts. At the same time, Resurrect isn't always perfect. Some resurrected individuals retain anything from scars to lasting injuries related to damage they had taken just before their death - most commonly the killing blow itself.
In addition, when an injury has 'set' in an individual, it is no longer healable via Resurrect. Old scarring remains, a missing eye stays missing, and so on. Treating older injuries requires more mundane methods, or significantly more supernatural methods, if the character is willing to seek them out.
ABLEISM AND STORYTELLING GAMES
ABLEISM AND STORYTELLING GAMES
This section is derived from CofD: Hurt Locker, p59.
Even though this section is all about acquired violent injuries, many people live with disabilities from birth or due to nonviolent circumstances. Early games represented these characters by assigning point values to their situations, implying that disabilities represent some sort of "negative value," or by providing bonus points to create a character, unwittingly perpetuating the stereotype that disabilities always inspire exceptional prowess in another area.
The Beat system provides an alternative by acknowledging that disabilities present challenges, but these are neither a constant statement on a disabled character's value as a person, nor anything that implies that disabled characters acquire special powers as "compensation." Beat-generating challenges come up for characters of all types who encounter challenges. It's a common system for everyone. Storytellers and players should approach disabilities respectfully. Persistent Conditions are a way of meaningfully representing disabilities in play, and they should not be approached as a way of farming Beats.
It's hard to dodge ableism in games that focus on violent conflict and physical threats. When people with physical disabilities are protagonists, it's time to reassess the role of violence and physical action in your game. There's nothing wrong with action, but ask yourself if you’re using it to fill out a thinly plotted chronicle where, when all is said and done, nobody has much to do besides wander from one violent appointment to the next. Chronicles of Darkness games are supposed to move through Mental, Physical, and Social challenges — and through all of them, threats to moral Integrity.
Lasting injuries aren't meant to romanticize trauma nor act as an avenue for power-gaming. As mentioned in the opening of the Optional Rules section, this game is about exploring the depths of characters and hit strong emotional notes in a world that feels compelling enough to invest in. We expect all players to act in good faith and with respect.
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