Health and Injury

Below are the rules for dealing with a Characters Health in and out of Combat. As well as how to deal with injury, death, and restoring hit points.

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 Pharmaceutical page for more information sicknesses and illnesses.

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 to roll there Hit Dice for more Hit Points. At level 1 the Character can take max Hit Pits without rolling. So at level two a Strong Base Hero would have 2 Hit Dice or "2d8 of HD". A Character also adds there Constitution modifier to there Hit Points every level unless it is a negative.

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 (See the Injury section below) and are used to measure how hard a character is to kill.

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 in between 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.

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. 

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 disadvantage on attack rolls. Nonlethal damage does not directly affect the target’s hit points. Instead the attack rolls for damage and then the defender must roll a Constitution save of DC5 + damage or else suffer 1 + (1 for ever 5 points the saving throw failed by) worth of Conn damage. Once the defender's Conn is down to 7 the become Shaken. Once the defender's Conn is down to 5 they are Dazed. Once the defender's Conn is down to 3 or below they are knocked Unconscious.

Notes

• A blow that does 3 or more Conn damage in one round causes the defender to be automatically Shaken unless they are already Shaken which in that case they are Dazed.
• A blow that does 4 or more Conn damage in one round causes the defender to be automatically Dazed unless they are already Dazed in which they are knocked Unconscious.
• A blow that does 5 Conn damage at once instantly knocks the defender Unconscious.

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. Weapon arch types can change the damage type.

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, 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)

Weapons can have multiple damage types. Targets can have defense against damage types. If so they take half damage. If the target is vulnerable or has weekness then they take double 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 and dying.

Stabilizing

With a medical kit, another Character will need to assist the dying Character by attempting to stabilize them. This requires a Treat Injury Skill check of DC 15 and a full round action. For the full rules on this review the Stabilize Dying Character action in the Treat Injury skill.

Unstable

This special status implies that the Character is about to die. Every round the Character takes 1d4 of Constitution damage. Any successful attacks on the Character forces an additional 1d4 of Constitution damage. Once a Character's Constitution reaches 0 they die.

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 1d4 Con ever turn they are drying. 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. 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.

To read up more on what Agility Damage can mean for a Character please go here. To learn about healing ability go to the section below: Ability Healing

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.

In Combat

Healing in Combat requires the Treat Injury skill unless an item specifies otherwise. The Treat Injury skill requires a full round action. However some Talents provides by Advance Classes can reduce the time needed. For more information about the Treat Injury skill review: Restore Hit Points section of the Treat Injury skill.

There are also items that player can use. These items are located in the Medical Items section of the General Equipment page. Using "Concoction" such as Healing Concoction administrated through a Syringe doesn't require a Treat Injury skill check. However without the Treat Injury check the "Concoction" provides no bonus. With a successful Treat Injury check DC15 the heath restored provides a bonus of the Treat Injury Skill Total.

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.