Descriptions of injuries should be appropriate to the type and degree of damage received. Thus the investigator is not merely shot, but shot in one arm or the other; likewise a fall might mean the investigator has sprained an ankle, or now has a lump the back of her skull, as well as the hit point loss. Keepers should describe the effects of damage and try to avoid simply saying, “You lost 3 hit points.”
The number of hit points of damage inflicted by an attack can be used to differentiate between regular damage and major wounds. Someone beaten unconscious by punches (each doing a small amount of damage) may awaken the next day battered and bruised but able to act. However, someone who takes the same total amount of harm in a single attack, such as a gunshot, might be out of action for a week or more before the slow healing process even begins. A punch is likely to result in regular damage, whereas a gunshot is more likely to inflict a major wound.
If the damage from a single attack is:
Regular damage is the result of any single attack that deals damage equal to less than half the character’s maximum hit points in a single blow. It has no significant effect on the character until current hit points are reduced to zero, when the character will become unconscious. A character cannot die as a result of regular damage.
A Major Wound results when an attack delivers an amount of damage equal to or greater than half of the character’s maximum hit points in a single attack. A character that has received a major wound may die if their current hit points are reduced to zero. When a character takes a major wound:
Cumulative damage ceases to be tracked once current hit points have fallen to zero; do not record negative hit points. On zero hit points the character is unconscious.
Further damage is generally ignored, but any sincere attempt to kill an unconscious character should succeed. Zero hit points can indicate one of three conditions (akin to the triage model):