Nocturne
MORTIS
Health &
Your character has a Health Trait comprising seven health levels. Although vampires are immortal and do not die naturally, sufficient injury can incapacitate them, drive them into lengthy periods of dormancy, or even kill them once more (this time for good).
Health Chart
The Health chart on the character sheet helps you track your character's current physical condition. It also lists the penalty imposed on your dice pool for each level of injury that your character sustains. As your character suffers more injuries, her health declines until she becomes incapacitated - or dead.
Every character has seven health levels, ranging from Bruised to Incapacitated. Characters can also be in full health (with no health levels checked off), in torpor, or dead. When an attacker scores a success on a damage roll, your character takes one health level of damage. This is marked on your character sheet in the appropriate box, although the mark you make depends on the type of damage inflicted (see "Applying Damage," below).
The number to the left of the lowest marked box indicates your current dice penalty. As your character gets more and more battered, it's increasingly difficult for him to perform even the simplest of tasks. The dice penalty is subtracted from your dice pool for every action (not reflexives such as soak) until the wound heals. The penalty also indicates impaired movement.
Damage
Health Level Dice Pool Penalty Movement Penalty
Bruised Character is only bruised a bit and suffers no dice pool penalties
due to damage.
Hurt -1 Character is superficially hurt and suffers no movement
hindrance.
Injured -1 Character suffers minor injuries and movement is mildly
inhibited, (halve maximum running speedy).
Wounded -2 Character suffers significant damage and may not run (though he
may still walk). At this level, a character may not move, then
attack; he always loses dice when moving and attacking in the
same turn.
Mauled -2 Character is badly injured and may only hobble about (three
yards/turn).
Crippled -5 Character is catastrophically injured and may only crawl (one
yard/turn). Incapacitated Character is incapable of movement and
is likely unconscious. Incapacitated vampires with no blood in
their bodies enter torpor.
Torpor Character enters a deathlike trance. He may do nothing, not even
spend blood, until a certain period of time has passed.
Final Death Character dies again, this time forever.
Incapacitated:
The stage immediately before torpor, incapacitation differs from unconsciousness in that your character collapses from the combined effects of physical trauma and pain. She falls to the ground and may do nothing except spend blood points to heal damage. Further damage suffered by an incapacitated vampire sends her into torpor or, if the damage is aggravated, inflicts Final Death on her.
Torpor:
Torpor is the deathlike sleep common to the undead, particularly among ancient vampires. Torpor may be entered voluntarily (certain undead, weary of the current age, enter torpor in hopes if reawakening in a more hospitable time) or involuntarily (through wounds or loss of blood). Once in torpor, a character remains dormant for a period of time depending on her Humanity rating. As mentioned, characters with zero blood points in their blood pools begin to lose health levels each time the rules call for them to spend blood. When a vampire falls below Incapacitated in this fashion, she enters torpor. There she will remain until someone feeds her at least a blood point. If this happens, she may rise, regardless of Humanity rating. This sort of revivification works only for vampires who enter torpor from blood loss.
Vampires who enter torpor due to wounds must rest for a period depending on their Humanity rating:
Humanity Length of Torpor
10 One day
9 Three days
8 One week
7 Two weeks
6 One month
5 One year
4 One decade
3 Five decades
2 One century
1 Five centuries
0 Millennium+
Following this period of rest, the player may spend a blood point and make an Awakening roll for her character to rise. If the vampire has no blood in her body, she may not rise until she is fed; if the player fails the Awakening roll, she may spend another blood point and make an Awakening roll the following night. If the vampire rises successfully, she is considered Crippled and should either spend blood or hunt immediately.
A character may enter torpor voluntarily. This state resembles the character's normal daily rest, but is a deeper form of slumber and should not be entered into lightly. A vampire in voluntary torpor may rise after half the mandatory time period for involuntary torpor, but must make an Awakening roll to do so. A torpid vampire may ignore the nightly need for blood; she is effectively in hibernation.
Mortals have no torpor rating; if reduced below Incapacitated, they simply die.
Final Death:
If a vampire is at the Incapacitated health level or in torpor and takes one more level of aggravated damage, he dies permanently and finally. A player's character who meets Final Death is out of the game; the player must create a new character if she wishes to continue play.
An incapacitated or torpid vampire may also be sent to Final Death through massive amounts of bashing or lethal trauma (decapitated, trapped under a 10-ton rock, fed into a wood chipper, caught at ground zero of an explosion, crushed by deepsea pressure, etc.). Typically, this damage must be enough to destroy or dismember the corpse beyond repair.
Applying Damage
There are three damage types in Vampire. Bashing damage includes all forms of temporary injury - from punches, clubs, and other blunt trauma. Vampires, and only vampires, consider firearms attacks to be bashing damage as well - unless the bullets are aimed at the head (difficulty 8), in which case they are considered lethal. Vampires can suffer bashing damage, but consider it more of an annoyance than anything else. Lethal damage covers permanent, killing wounds. Humans die easily from lethal injury, and even the undead can be traumatized by massive amounts of lethal damage. Finally, aggravated damage includes those forces even other vampires fear - fire, sunlight, and the teeth and claws of their own kind.
Bashing Damage
Bashing damage covers all forms of injury that aren't likely to kill instantly and that fade relatively quickly. Most forms of hand-to-hand combat - punches, clinches, kicks, tackles and the like - inflict bashing damage. Bashing damage generally impairs less than lethal damage does, and heals faster.
Vampires are relatively unaffected by bashing damage - a punch to the gut has little effect on the undead. However, massive concussive trauma can send a vampire into torpor.
Mortals may soak bashing damage with their Stamina, while vampires may also soak bashing damage with their Stamina (+ Fortitude, if they have that Discipline). However, any bashing damage applied to a vampire after the soak roll is halved (round fractions down) - the Kindred's corpselike bodies simply don't bruise and break like the kine's.
Example: Veronica has been cornered by her enemy, the Sabbat vampire Kincaid( it's just not Veronica's lucky night!). Kincaid takes a swing at Veronica. He strikes her, and his player calculates damage. Kincaid has a Strength 4 and two levels, of Potence. His damage roll is a very good 8, 6,7,9, plus two automatic successes for Potence - a full six health levels of damage. Veronica tries to soak (versus the standard difficulty of 6), using her Stamina of 2. Her player rolls a 3 and 8 - one success. Kincaid inflicts five health levels of bashing damage - but, because Veronica is undead, she halves the final result and rounds down. She suffers only two health levels of damage.
Veronica, in desperation, swings back, and manages to hit the Sabbat. She has a Strength of I, so only one die is rolled. Luckily, it comes up 9, inflicting one health level of damage, and Kincaid fails his soak roll (Stamina 4 and Fortitude I allow him to roll five dice, which come up 4,5, 1,9, and 3). However, because the damage is bashing, the one health level of damage is halved and rounded down to zero! Veronica flails frantically at Kincaid, who laughs at her pathetic efforts to hurt him.
If your character falls to Incapacitated due to bashing (or lethal) damage, then takes another level of bashing (or lethal) damage, she enters torpor. If your character falls to Incapacitated due to bashing damage but then takes a level of aggravated damage, she meets Final Death.
Lethal Damage
Lethal damage is just that - lethal, at least to mortals. Even vampires take a sword-wielder seriously - a vampire who is hacked to bits or decapitated will die the Final Death, though not as readily as a mortal. Knives, bullets, swords and the like all cause lethal wounds. At the Storyteller's option, blunt attacks aimed at a vital body part (difficulty 8 or 9 to target) can cause lethal damage, particularly versus mortals.
Lethal damage is intended to cause immediate and grievous injury. For the kine, lethal injuries take a long time to heal and usually require medical attention for any hope of recovery. For well-fed vampires, knife wounds, shotgun blasts and the like are simply.. .annoying.
Mortal characters may not soak lethal damage at all - all such damage is applied directly to their health levels. Kindred characters may soak lethal damage normally with Stamina (+ Fortitude, if they have it). Lethal damage that penetrates the soak roll is applied normally to their health levels. However, lethal damage is considered normal for the purpose of healing, so vampires may easily nullify lethal damage by spending blood points.
When your character's Health boxes fill to Incapacitated, and she takes a further level of lethal damage, she enters torpor. If your character is reduced to Incapacitated via lethal damage, and she takes a further level of aggravated damage, she meets Final Death.
Aggravated Damage
Certain attacks are anathema to the undead. Fire and the rays of the sun inflict terrible wounds on the undead, as can the teeth and claws of other vampires (as well as the attacks of werewolves or other supernatural creatures).
Aggravated damage may not be soaked except with the Discipline of Fortitude. Moreover, aggravated damage is far more difficult to heal. A level of aggravated damage may be healed only with a full day of rest and the expenditure of five blood points (though a vampire may, at the end of the full day's rest, cure additional aggravated health levels by spending an additional five blood points and one Willpower point per extra aggravated health level to be healed). Worst of all, a vampire who loses his last health level due to aggravated damage meets Final Death - his eternal life ends at last, and he goes to whatever reward awaits him beyond the grave.
Mortals may ignore sunlight, but obviously take damage from fire, fangs, and claws. If a mortal is susceptible to a type of aggravated damage (fire, for example), that damage is treated as lethal.