• Healthy — When a character is Healthy, he is virtually or completely uninjured. He suffers no penalty aside from possibly being cosmetically scuffed up a bit.

• Bruised — A Bruised character is more seriously roughed up, and his injuries have started to impair his viability a bit. He is considered one Trait down on all tied challenges.

• Wounded — When a character is Wounded, he is seriously injured in one or more locations. To reflect this injury, he must risk an additional Trait to attempt a challenge, and his opponent wins all ties, regardless of who has more Traits. If the injured character has a power which normally allows him to win all ties, ties are resolved through comparing Traits instead. Note: a character may always attempt to overbid.

• Incapacitated — When a character is Incapacitated, he is completely out of play for at least 10 minutes. Once awake, the character is still effectively immobile, although he may whisper pained sentences. He may not enter into challenges until he has healed at least one health level. He is at the mercy of other characters, and he may do nothing more than heal himself. Kindred suffer Final Death if they suffer aggravated wounds at this point.

• Torpor — Kindred who are injured beyond Incapacitated by lethal damage fall into a deathlike sleep known as torpor.

• Final Death — Kindred injured beyond Incapacitated by aggravated damage do not enter Torpor, but are permanently destroyed instead.

 

Example of Play: Dracos is caught in a Sabbat ambush. His first attacker kicks him for one level of bashing damage, putting him at his second Healthy level. Another assailant shoots him for two levels of lethal damage, dropping him to his second Bruised level. Lucky as ever, the next turn Dracos is shot again, suffering another two health levels and falling to his first Wounded level. A Sabbat with Potence and a knife slashes him viciously as he tries to escape, inflicting two health levels of lethal damage and reducing him to Incapacitated. Dracos falls to the ground, helpless, and he is now at the mercy of his attackers. If he takes any more lethal damage, he will enter torpor; if he suffers aggravated damage, however, he will suffer Final Death instead. (Further bashing damage will merely render him unconscious for a while.)

 

 

Torpor

Characters may enter torpor voluntarily or involuntarily (through wounds or other means). Once in torpor, the character remains dormant for an amount of time dependent on her Humanity rating, or until another Kindred gives her blood to revive her. Characters with no Blood Traits lose a health level each time the rules call for them to spend blood, such as rising each night; once the character falls below Incapacitated in this fashion, she enters torpor. Vampires who enter torpor due to blood loss or wounds must rest the entire time required by the following chart, barring some exceptional circumstance (Storyteller’s discretion). Following this period of rest, the character may make a Static Mental Challenge against three Traits and expend a Blood Trait to wake up. Failure means the Kindred may test again once per night until she succeeds or runs out of Blood Traits. If she has no blood, she may not rise until some is given to her. A character who enters torpor voluntarily falls into a slumber similar to her daily rest, but it is, in fact, far deeper, and it should not be entered lightly. Voluntary sleepers may awaken in half the time usually required by the chart, although they still need to make a Static Mental Challenge to do so. Torpid vampires ignore the nightly need for blood — they are effectively in hibernation for the time they remain in that state.

 

 

Humanity Traits      Length of Torpor

             5                                       Two days

             4                                       One week

             3                                       One year

             2                                       One decade

             1                                       One Century

             0                                        Millennium

 

 

Healing

Vampires are dead and unable heal wounds naturally. Only by utilizing their blood can they repair damage to themselves. One Blood Trait spent heals one health level of lethal damage, or two health levels of bashing damage. This process can be performed at the same time other actions are performed, even alongside Discipline use.

 

Bashing/Lethal damage

Some types of damage are more dangerous than others: a punch to the jaw is less likely to kill than a knife wound. Bashing damage is defined as any injury  which is painful but fades relatively quickly, such as kicks, punches or tackles. Lethal damage (from bullets, swords, knives, etc.) is intended to kill, and it takes mortals a long time to heal. The Narrator is the final arbiter of what counts as bashing or  lethal damage. Characters put below Incapacitated by bashing damage are rendered unconscious for one scene/ hour (although the Narrator may rule that they are put in torpor or killed if the beating is fierce enough); mortal creatures pushed past

Incapacitated by lethal damage simply die, while vampires enter torpor instead. Because their corpselike bodies simply don’t bruise and break like those of the kine, Cainites halve all bashing damage received, round down (minimum one level of damage inflicted).

 

Aggravated Wounds

Wounds that are beyond the normal bounds of even the Kindred’s unnatural healing powers are called aggravated wounds. Such wounds are usually caused by injury from fire, sunlight or the teeth and claws of a supernatural creature. A Narrator can also deem 

any other injury to be aggravated, depending on the circumstances. Three Blood Traits, a Willpower Trait and a night of rest are required to heal one level of aggravated damage.

 

Sunlight

Exposure to sunlight is extremely painful for vampires. Indirect sunlight such as through thick curtains or heavy cloud cover causes one automatic aggravated wound per turn of exposure, while direct sunlight causes three automatic levels of aggravated damage per turn.

(Heavy clothing may provide some protection, at the Storyteller’s discretion.) Vampires confronted by sunlight must also make a Static Courage Challenge or suffer Rötschreck.

 

Fire

Vampires fear and loathe fire, and its slightest touch causes them great agony. Most vampires are extremely uncomfortable around open flame, since it is one of the few things that can destroy them permanently. In game terms, all wounds inflicted by normal or magical fires do aggravated damage to Kindred, and sufficiently large sources of flame will inevitably provoke a Courage Test to avoid Rötschreck. A character on fire must win or tie a Simple Test and spend one action dousing the flames.