Health and Injury

Below are the rules for dealing with a Characters Health in and out of Combat. The rules explain what Hit Dice or HD are and how they represent hit points within combat.

Health

Normally the "Health" of a Character is not in question. Meaning that the Character is not normally sick with the Flu or have some disease. However there can be campaigns where it would suite the story to have Character's deal with the chance of sickness or disease. Please review both the Conditions page as well as the Chemicals page for more information on the state of health of a Character.

Hit Dice

A characters Hit Dice or HD is the dice type associated with a Character's Base Class. The normal hit dice examples are d6, d8 and d10 dice. The dice represents the potential hit points of a Character. Each time a Character levels up they get another Hit Dice worth of Hit Points. So at level two a Strong Base Hero would have 2 Hit Dice or "2d8 of HD". The Hit points are tallied this way because if provides flexibility with the rules in both giving a Character more total Hit Points as well as healing. For example alternate rules for character advancement states that when levelling a Player must role his Characters Base Hero Hit Dice to determine how many new Hit Points there is. The default rule is to provide the maximum health.

Hit Points

Hit Points is what most people commonly think of when they think of a Character's health. Hit Points are removed when a Character takes damage in combat and are used to measure how hard a character is to kill. Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.

Editing Character Sheet: The Player can record the Character Hit Points on the Future Path Character Sheet. It is located just under the "Future Path" to the right or right under the 'Species' section. Also inbetween the "STR" and "SPEED" section. You will notice that there is a "Total" box and "DR" box. DR will be explained further later. Below the Total and DR section there is a "Wound/Current HP" and below that is "NonLethal Dmage" boxes. These boxes are there to make it easier to record combat damage.

Temporary Hit Points

Certain effects can give a character temporary hit points. When a character gains temporary hit points, make a note of his or her current hit points before adding the temporary hit points. When the temporary hit points go away, the character’s hit points drop to that score. If the character’s hit points are already below that score at that time, all the temporary hit points have already been lost, and the character’s hit point total does not drop. When temporary hit points are lost, they can’t be restored as real hit points can be, even with medical treatment or magic.

Constitution Bonus Hit Points

An increase in a character’s Constitution score—even a temporary one—can give the character more hit points (an effective hit point increase), but these are not temporary hit points. They can be restored through normal healing. When a character’s Constitution drops back down to its previous score after a temporary increase, the character’s full normal hit points go down accordingly.

Injury

Receiving Damage

When an opponent attempts to attack a Character that opponent must first do an accuracy check again the Character's AC. If successful the opponent then rolls dice according to what weapon he used. The total from that dice roll is the damage that is inflicted on the target. The Character subtracts that number (after considering things such as DR) from what Hit Points the Character currently has.

Editing Character Sheet: As mentioned above there is a box just below the "Total" box there is a "Wound/Current HP" box that can be used to record damage occurred during combat. 

Massive Damage

Any time a character takes damage from a single hit that exceeds the character’s massive damage threshold, that damage is considered massive damage. A character’s massive damage threshold is equal to the character’s current Constitution score; it can be increased by taking the Improved Damage Threshold feat. When a character takes massive damage that doesn’t reduce his or her hit points to 0 or lower, the character must make a Constitution save DC 10 + damage exceeded CON score (Max DC25). If the character fails the save, the character becomes unconscious for 1d10 rounds.

Nonlethal Damage

Nonlethal damage is dealt by unarmed attackers and some weapons. Melee weapons that deal lethal damage can be wielded so as to deal nonlethal damage, but the attacker takes a –4 penalty on attack rolls for trying to deal nonlethal damage instead of lethal damage. A ranged weapon that deals lethal damage can’t be made to deal nonlethal damage (unless it is used as an improvised melee weapon). Nonlethal damage does not affect the target’s hit points. Instead, compare the amount of nonlethal damage from an attack to the target’s massive damage threshold. If the amount is less than the target’s massive damage threshold, the target is unaffected by the attack. If the damage equals or exceeds the target’s massive damage threshold, the target must make a Constitution save (DC 15). If the target succeeds on the save, the target is dazed for 1 round. If the target fails, he or she is knocked unconscious for 1d4 rounds.

Damage Types

There are 4 different types of damage in Future Path. Chemical, Electrical, Kinetic, Thermal. The default damage type is Kinetic. All damage is Kinetic unless specified. An exception too this rule is lasers. By default all damage from laser weapons are Thermal.

1. Chemical: This includes things like acid, chemical burns, some types of damage from nature/planet/bio based weapons.
2. Electrical: Any damage associated with direct contact of electricity or magnetism.
3. Kinetic: Any damage done by force of energy. shock waves, a simple bunch too the face, any sonic damage is considered kinetic.
4. Thermal: Any type of damage from heat or radiation or the lack there of. (cold damage is considered Thermal)

Damages can be mixed. A Chemical round for a gun can provide both Kinetic and Chemical damage. In this case the damage is the same except if the target is immune to one of those damage types. Then they take 1/2 damage. If they are vulnerable then they still take double damage. If they are immune to both types then they take no damage.

A Character can posses damage reduction for a certain damage type.

Death

Zero Hit Points

Once a Character reaches 0 hit points they are considered unconscious, unstable, helpless and dying. (Helpless status is inferred because the Character is unconscious. I will not mention again here. Assume that if the player is not longer unconscious they are no longer helpless) Another Character will need to assist the dying Character by attempting to stabilize them. This requires a Treat Injury Skill check of DC15 and a full round action.

If successful the dying Character now has 1 HP (Hit Point) and is no longer unstable or dying. However they are still unconscious. After 1 hour and ever hour after the Character can attempt to make a CON check of DC10 to regain conscious. After 8 hours they can wake up without a check with one day worth of natural healing.

If the Character who is trying to stabilize the unconscious Character failures however different things may happen. If the failure is a Natural 1 the unconscious Character receives 1d4 of CON damage. If the failure is above 10 then the Character isn’t stabilized but doesn't suffer dying penalties for one round.

Unstable and Dying

A Character cannot have negative hit points. Instead the Character semi-permanently losses his or hers Constitution score. Once a Character has Zero Constitution they die. Constitution points are not restored by health kits or healing armour. Treat Injury cannot be used to heal Ability damage while in combat or while a Character is unstable. A Character losses 1 Con ever turn they are unconscious. Any further physical damage given by weapons go directly too Constitution as if Constitution where Hit Points. Keep in mind that any DR still counts. And now the Characters Con Modifier acts as a Total DR again any type of damage. However the Characters Constitution Modifier goes down with the Characters Con Score. If a Character is made stable again the Character's new Con score stays with them including the modifier that goes with it. This then applies with any ability or skill check or any Technique or chemical/poison. This counts as semi-permanent ability damage.

If the blow that brings a Character down to zero hits with more then enough damage the the left over damage goes directly to Constitution. However when doing so it first must go through the Character's Con Modifier as DR.

To read up more on what Agility Damage can mean for a Character please go here

Death

Once a Player hits Zero Constitution they are considered dead. This doesn't mean they are permanently dead. Advanced civilizations have different ways of cheating death. A Character can be brought back to life through the means of powerful futuristic science! There are 2 main different forums of bring a person 'back from the dead'.

1. Rejuvenate the body. (Usually this requires that the majority of the body is still intact)
   1. This can be done using advance biology and chemistry taking what is left of the original body and reviving it to a new condition.
   2. Replace the badly damage parts with new ones. Usually this means being part machine, a cyborg. However this could also mean taking other biological samples from different 'donors'.
2. Transfer the mind into a new body. (Usually this requires that just the mind is intact and not too damaged)
   1. Physical transplant the brain into a new body.
   2. Using advance technology download the mind and its thought patterns/memories into a computer that can then be uploaded to another body.
   3. Using Psionics to transfer ones consciousness to another body
3. Lastly any other Sci-Fy sounding way that the GM (and group) are ok with excepting.

Each of these have there advantages and disadvantages.

For any of the rejuvenation techniques The disadvantages are Time,(time and rest where the body is in a medically indued comma) A mostly intact body, (The Character's body most not have died in such a way where the majority of it would be missing), and lastly the body most not have started decomposition. It would of needed to been placed in some form of status within 4 hours of death. Rejuvenation is a Tech Level 2 skill. Higher tech levels can do it with better results.

• Minimal Cost: $1,000,000 x Character Level.
• Procure Diff 4

For any of the Transfer of Mind into new body the disadvantages are Stats, (Any stats related uniquely to the previous body no longer count unless it was cloned, which would be more expensive). Distance, (If the Character's brain has to be activity connected in order for full memory download then it may not work if the Character is out of range. The range would max out beyond a planet's med to high orbit.) Mind Transfer is a Tech Level 3 skill. Higher tech level can do it with better results.

• Minimal Cost: $10,000,000 x Character Level.
• Procure Diff 4

Healing

Please review the Treat Injury skill for more information.

Natural Healing

If a Character is stable and not dying (Has at least 1 hit point) then they can slowly heal themselves over time. For every day of 8 hours of rest the Player can roll the Hit Die of the Character's Hero Base Class and add the Hero's Constitution Mod to regain that amount of health. If the Character has multi base classes then choose the one with the largest Hit Die. If the Character does a full day of bed rest (The Character doesn't leave the bed all day except to do the necessary) then the Player can roll 2HD and add the total to the Hit Points.

A Hero can get assistance from another character via the Treat Injury skill under the Long-Term Care (DC 15) if the character chooses to take a Full Day of Rest (24 hours) instead of just a Full Rest which is 8 hours. If the character who assisted is successful at the Treat Injury skill check then the Hero can roll 4 times and take the 2 highest rolls for health.

A Player cannot use Treat Injury on oneself. In any situation an Natural 20 allows max possible hit points recovered.

Ability Healing

24 hours after the Ability damage was dealt a Character can start healing naturally. (This doesn't include the Treat Injury Skill). Every day where the Character gains at least 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep the Character gains 1 point back in all damaged Abilities.

Another Character can help by using the Treat Injury skill to assist in improving the healing of an Ability score. This action cannot be done in combat and has a DC20. The action can only be done once per 24 hours which includes rest. If successful the Character regains a +1 in as much as 3 different Ability scores. If a critical success (Natural 20) is rolled the Character gains a +3 in as much as 3 different Ability scores.

Med-packs and other Items

Please review Medical Equipment or Medical Kits for more information on items that can help in both the Treat Injury skill but also while in combat.