Hit Points (PSR Supplement)
|
Common Hazards
|
| In this game, the damage characters and creatures take in an encounter is very easily recovered. You restore half or more of your hit points just by taking a break. Your max hp, rather than hp itself, is the greater measure of how much combat the party can push through. Hit points are meant to represent stamina more than actual bodily injury, but your narrator might spin creatures in this world as having rapid regenerative abilities. |
Hit points (hp) portray how much damage you can sustain before succumbing to injuries or defeat. Creatures with more hit points can sustain more damage and are more difficult to defeat. Those with fewer hit points are more fragile.
Your maximum hit points are detailed during character creation, and increase with your protag's level. The maximum hit points for any NPC is included in its stat block.
A creature's current hit points (usually just called hit points) can by any number from the creature's hit point maximum down to 0. This number can change frequently as a creature takes damage or receives healing.
| Instead of subtracting damage from your hit points, whenever you take damage you can add it to a sum of all the damage you've taken. When your damage sum equals your hit point maximum, you suffer the effects of "at 0 hit points."
When you finish downtime or camping, your damage sum goes back to 0. Any effect that restores your hit points instead reduces your damage sum by an equal amount. |
Damage
When an attack, harmful spell, or other effect damages a creature, the damage is represented with a numerical value and a damage type.
Damage Rolls. Often there is a damage roll, such as 1d6 poison damage. In such a case you roll the listed damage dice, and the result is the amount lost by the hit points.
Losing Hit Points. When a creature takes damage, like from an attack or a harmful spell, that damage number is subtracted from its hit points. In this example, taking 3 poison damage would usually mean losing 3 hit points. Damage resistance and other effects will sometimes increase or decrease the amount of hit points lost. The loss of hit points has no direct effect on a creature's abilities until the creature's hit points drop to 0, as detailed below.
Restoring Hit Points. Breaks, camping, spells, healing potions, and many other effects can restore hit points. When any creature regains hit points, the hp regained are added to its current hp, up to but not exceeding its maximum hit points.
Reduced Hit Point Maximum. If you suffer Exhaustion or other vitality-draining effects, your hit point maximum itself can be reduced. Your Hit points themselves are reduced to this maximum of they would otherwise be higher, and they can't be restored above this maximum. If your hit point maximum ever falls to 0, you are defeated. If after facing defeat you are resurrected, your hit point maximum is restored to 1 if it would otherwise be lower.
| If you're Unconscious but still have nearby conscious allies, enemies will typically focus on fighting them instead of finishing you off. Even simple-minded beasts consider it more important to focus on active threats than on one who has already been put down.
Similarly, it's not always wise to focus on reviving an Unconscious ally immediately, as this could risk the ally to taking more grievous injuries. |
0 Hit Points
When you're reduced to 0 hit points, any leftover damage dealt past 0 is deducted from your hit point maximum. You also fall Unconscious until you regain at least 1 hit point. Your hit points themselves can't be reduced below 0.
While you remain at 0 hit points, each time you again take damage it's deducted from your hit point maximum.
While you are at 0 hp, an ally can also restore 1 hit point to you with a successful Help action.
Death Saves. While you remain Unconscious in this way, at the start of each of your turns you must make a mark 15 Grit save. This is called a death save.
- Failure. On a failed death save you gain a degree of Exhaustion. For each degree of Exhaustion you have, you suffer a cumulative -2 penalty on all d20 rolls, and your hit point maximum is decreased by an amount equal to your level. If your hit point maximum ever falls to 0, you are Defeated.
- Success. On a successful death save you regain 1 hit point, restoring you to consciousness. Even if you regain consciousness, you can choose to play dead by remaining prone and unarmed to potentially dissuade any nearby enemies from attacking you immediately.
NPC at 0 HP. When an NPC drops to 0 hit points, they lose the will to fight. What this means is up to the creature, the circumstances, and the narrator—whether knocked Unconscious, killed, or convinced to surrender. An NPC typically doesn't have its maximum hp reduced and doesn't make death saves.
Knocking Out
If you are the one to reduce a creature to 0 hit points, you can choose to knock it out. A knocked-out creature falls Unconscious until it regains at least 1 hit point. If a phase passes without it taking damage, it regains 1 hit point. A knocked-out creature doesn't have its hp maximum reduced, and it makes no death saves.