Revision as of 12:38, 26 July 2018

HP

HP stands for Hit Points or Health Points. This represents how much damage the character can take and thus how close they are to suffering lasting damage. When the Wounds the character has taken is equal to HP, the character is vulnerable and may not even be able to remain standing.

Maximum HP, Wounds, Temporary HP and HP Level are listed.

Maximum HP

Maximum HP refers to the total permanent HP received from all sources. It does not include temporary HP.

Wounds

Wounds are written down next to HP and reflects how much damage the character has taken. When the value listed for Wounds is equal to HP, the character is in Critical Condition.

Wounds are lost by healing, rest and recovery or from gaining Temporary HP.

Temporary HP

A character may gain Temporary HP from various sources - usually magic.

When a character receives damage, Temporary HP is reduced by the damage before applying any damage as Wounds. If a character gains Temporary HP whilst already having Wounds, reduce any Wounds by the value of the Temporary HP first.

Temporary HP remains until it is lost by damage or until it's duration has expired. If no duration is listed, Temporary HP lasts for 24 hours. Once the duration has expired, reduce Wounds and Temporary HP by 1 point per round until all Temporary HP is removed. If a character cannot increase their Current HP with Temporary HP as it has reached Maximum HP and Temporary HP's duration has expired, then 1 point of Temporary HP is lost per round.

HP Level

The character's HP level is equal to their Maximum HP divided by the total number of HD and Levels they possess. Ignore Levels above 10 for the purpose of determining HP Level. This is important for certain conditions - particularly Energy Drain.

Determining HP

A character begins with a number of HP dependent on their Hit-Dice, Levels, Toughness and the Adventure Style. Consult the Hit-Dice page to determine how Hit-Dice and Levels interact.

A character rolls HP for each HD they possess, though Levels above 10 do not grant additional HD. Whenever a character is called upon to roll Hitpoints, they roll a dice of the appropriate Hit-Dice Size.

If the dice roll is less than the character's Minimum HP from Constitution, consider it to be equal to the Minimum HP value. Following this, modify the HP received by Toughness, to a minimum of 1 HP, for all Base HD and for up to 10 levels of classes. A character can never lose HP for levelling up - they always gain a minimum of 1 HP.

Once HP gain has been determined, add this to the character's Maximum HP.

Traditional Adventures - The highest bonus a character who does not have Warrior Levels can receive to their Hit-Dice is +2 from Toughness unless they have 1 +3 or more HD.

Heroic Adventures - Every character's first Level's HD is maximized. Minimum HP is doubled. No effect on Base HD - these must still be rolled for determining Base HP.

Epic Adventures - Every character's Hit-Dice is always maximized.

Base HP

A character with 1+2 or less HD may either use their Base HD or Class Level to determine HP, rolling both and taking the best result (in a Traditional game) or taking the maximised die roll. A Human Wizard, thus, would choose between 4 HP or 8 HP. Characters with HD of 1+3 or greater, meanwhile, use both. In either case, it is modified by Toughness.

Hit Point Increases

A character gains their Hit-Dice Size per Level or additional HD gained. Characters gain fewer HP after Level 10; +3 if their HD Size is 10 or more, +2 if it is d6 to d8 and +1 if it is d4 or less.

Note, a character CANNOT decrease in HP from Leveling or taking a Class. If a 0th Level character takes a class with lower Hit Dice Size and this replaces their HD, their HP will not go down. Instead, they use their initial HP gained from Hit Dice. As such, a Level 1 Wizard with -1 Toughness does not have a maximum of 3 HP but a maximum of 7 (1d8-1). At Level 2, they would normally have 6, but in this case their HP remains the same. Only at Level 3, where their HP would equal 3d4-3, do they increase in HP to 9 (12 -3).

Wounds Over Maximum HP

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HP

HP stands for Hit Points or Health Points. These represent how close the character is to suffering lasting damage - when out of HP, the character is vulnerable and may not even be able to remain standing.

Current, Maximum and Temporary values are listed - when HP is referred to, assume Current HP is referred to. When a character takes damage, their Current HP is lowered. If more damage is dealt than the character has HP, apply the damage, reduce the character to 0 and then do any remaining to VP if available. Some forms of attacks do direct VP Damage or deal Insidious Damage, which damages HP and VP at the same time.

A character's HP cannot be raised above their Maximum HP. If something specifically describes itself as giving a character Temporary HP, it restores Current HP first and then increases Temporary HP.

Current HP is regained by Healing.

Determining Hit-Points

A character begins with a number of HP dependent on their Hit-Dice, Levels, Toughness and the Adventure Style. As discussed above, a character uses whichever gives effectively the highest HP from Base HD or Level - generally speaking, this is 1d8 for most races. A character may roll both their Base HD AND their Level to determine HP and then take the best result, though they must use the whole pool for one or the other.

Character rolls their Hit-Dice to determine HP for each HD they have. If the roll is lower than Minimum HP, use Minimum HP in its place. This is then modified this by Toughness, but it cannot be made less than 1 HP per HD.

Traditional Adventures - The highest bonus a character who does not have Warrior Levels can receive to their Hit-Dice is +2 from Toughness unless they have HD and/or Pseudoclass Levels. This does not alter Fatigue.

Heroic Adventures - Every character's first Level's HD is maximized. Minimum HP is doubled. No effect on Base HD - these must still be rolled for determining Base HP.

Epic Adventures - Every character's Hit-Dice is always maximized.

A character uses the largest effective HP pool they have, so if a Level 0 character in a Heroic Adventure rolls 1d8 and gains 5 HP and becomes a Priest, their HP increases to 8 from the 1st Level's HD being maximized. If they became a Mage, the 4hp they would have is lower and so they stick with 5hp.

Hit Point Increases

A character gains their Hit-Dice Size per Level or additional HD gained. Characters gain fewer HP after Level 10; +3 if their HD Size is 10 or more, +2 if it is d6 to d8 and +1 if it is d4 or less.

Note, a character CANNOT decrease in HP from Leveling or taking a Class. If a 0th Level character takes a class with lower Hit Dice Size and this replaces their HD, their HP will not go down. Instead, they use their initial HP gained from Hit Dice. As such, a Level 1 Wizard with -1 Toughness does not have a maximum of 3 HP but a maximum of 7 (1d8-1). At Level 2, they would normally have 6, but in this case their HP remains the same. Only at Level 3, where their HP would equal 3d4-3, do they increase in HP to 9 (12 -3).

Temporary HP

A character may gain Temporary HP from various sources - usually magic. When a character receives damage, Temporary HP is lost before reducing Current HP.

Temporary HP remains until it is lost by damage or until it's duration has expired. If no duration is listed, Temporary HP lasts for 24 hours. Once the duration has expired, 1 point of Temporary HP is converted into Current HP per round. Temporary HP is also converted into Current HP at a rate of 1 point per 10 minutes of rest, regardless of duration.

If a character cannot increase their Current HP with Temporary HP as it has reached Maximum HP and Temporary HP's duration has expired, then 1 point of Temporary HP is lost per round.

HP 0

When a character reaches 0 HP, they gain the Critical condition - in this state, all HP damage is also dealt to VP. As Insidious Damage does HP and VP damage, this means that it effectively does double damage. This condition is removed when the character's HP is above 0.

Traditional Adventures - Character is Dead at 0 HP, unless something prevents death or some effect has Destroyed them or caused them to be simply Gone.

Heroic Adventures - No change.

Epic Adventures - No change.

Negative HP

HP can be reduced below 0 but the only effect this has is to make it harder to remove the Critical condition from the character. For example, a character who is dropped to HP -10 has presumably lost 10 VP and must heal 11 HP (enough to take them up to 1 HP) before they can act normally again.