Health and Vitality

The health and vitality points damage system was originally developed for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game as a more cinematic method of handling damage than the traditional hit point system. The system allows for characters to improve the amount of punishment they can withstand as they go up in level, while still allowing for a single lucky attack to take down a character.

Characters using this system should be more wary in combat, which can turn deadly in the space of a few lucky rolls. But they can also bounce back from a fight much more quickly. For that reason, this is an ideal system for low-magic campaigns or games where healing is otherwise rare.

Health: Health points are a measure of a character's ability to turn a direct hit into a graze or a glancing blow with no serious consequences. Like hit points in the standard rules, health points go up with level, giving high-level characters more ability to shrug off attacks. Most types of damage reduce health points.

Characters gain health points as they gain levels. Just as with hit points in the standard rules, at each level a character rolls a health die and adds his Constitution modifier, adding the total to his health point total. (And, just as with hit points, a character always gains a maximum of at least one health point per level, regardless of his roll or Constitution modifier.)

Vitality: Vitality points measure how much true physical damage a character can withstand. Damage reduces vitality points only after all health points are gone, or when a character is struck by a critical hit.

A character has a number of vitality points equal to her current Constitution score.

Critical Hits and Precision Damage
Critical Hits: A Critical hit deals the same amount of damage as a normal hit, but that damage is deducted from vitality points rather than from health points. Critical hits do not deal extra damage; for that reason, no weapon in this system has a damage multiplier for its critical hits.

Any critical hit automatically overcomes a creature's damage reduction, regardless of whether the attack could normally do so.

Most weapons retain their normal critical threat range. If a weapon normally has a critical multiplier greater than x2, the weapon's threat range expands by 1 point per additional multiplier, as indicated on the table below.

Injury and Death
Health and vitality points together measure how hard a character is to hurt and kill. The damage from each successful attack and each fight accumulates, dropping a character's health point or vitality point totals until he runs out of points.

Nonlethal Damage

This system doesn't differentiate between lethal and nonlethal damage. Attacks and effects that normally deal lethal damage reduce health points, except on a critical hit, in which case they reduce vitality points.

0 Health Points

At 0 health points, a character can no longer avoid taking real physical damage. Any additional damage he receives reduces his vitality points.

Taking Vitality Damage

The first time a character takes vitality damage - even a single point - he becomes fatigued. A fatigued character can't run or charge and takes a -2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity until he has rested for 8 hours (or until the vitality damage is healed, if that occurs first). Additional vitality damage doesn't make the character exhausted.

In addition, any time an attack deals vitality damage to a character, he must succeed on a Fortitude saving throw (DC 5 + number of vitality points lost from the attack) or be stunned for 1d4 rounds. (During that time, any other character can take a standard action to help the stunned character recover; doing so ends the stunned condition).

0 Vitality Points

Vitality points cannot drop below 0; any damage that would cause a character's vitality point total to drop below 0 simply causes the character to have 0 vitality points.

At 0 vitality points, a character is disabled must attempt a DC 15 Fortitude save. If he succeeds on the save, he is merely disabled. If he fails, he falls unconscious and begins dying.

Disabled: A disabled character isn't unconscious, but can only take a single move or standard action each turn (but not both, nor can she take full-round actions). She moves at half speed. Taking move actions doesn't risk further injury, but performing any standard action (or any action the DM deems strenuous, including some free actions such as casting a quickened spell) worsens the character's condition to dying (unless it involved healing; see below).

Dying: A dying character is unconscious and near death. Each round on his turn, a dying character must make a Fortitude save (DC 10, +1 per turn after the first) to become stable.

If the character fails the save, he dies.

If the character succeeds on the save by less than 5, he does not die but does not improve. He is still dying and must continue to make Fortitude saves every round.

If the character succeeds on the save by 5 or more but by less than 10, he becomes stable but remains unconscious.

If the character succeeds on the save by 10 or more, he becomes conscious and disabled.

Another character can make a dying character stable by succeeding on a DC 15 Heal check as a standard action (which provokes attacks of opportunity).

Stable Characters and Recovery
A stable character is unconscious. Every hour, a stable character must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 10, +1 per hour after the first) to remain stable.

If the character fails the save, he becomes dying.

If the character succeeds on the save by less than 5, he does not get any worse, but does not improve. He is still stable and unconscious, and must continue to make Fortitude saves every hour.

If the character succeeds on the save by 5 or more, he becomes conscious and disabled.

An unaided stable, conscious character at 0 vitality points has a 10% chance to start recovering vitality points naturally that day.

Once an unaided character starts recovering vitality points naturally, he is no longer in danger of dying.

Recovering with Help: A dying character can be made stable with a DC 15 Heal check ( a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity). One hour after a tended, dying character becomes stable, roll d%. He has a 10% chance of regaining consciousness, at which point he becomes disabled. If he remains unconscious, he has the same chance to regain consciousness every hour. Even while unconscious, he recovers vitality points naturally, becoming conscious and able to resume normal activity when his vitality points rise to 1 or higher.

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Special Damage Situations
The vitality point system changes the way some special damage effects work.

Coup de Grace

A coup de grace functions normally in that it automatically hits and scores a critical hit (and thus the damage dealt is applied to the target's vitality points). If the defender survives the damage, he must make a Constitution check (DC 10 + the amount of damage dealt) or die.

Massive Damage

The massive damage rule does not apply under this system.

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Healing
After taking damage, a character can recover health and vitality  points through natural healing (over the course of hours or days), or by magic. In any case, a character can't regain health points or vitality  points above his full normal totals.

Natural Healing

Characters recover health points at a rate of 1 health point per hour per character level.

With a full night's rest, a character recovers 1 vitality point per character level (minimum 1 per night), or twice that amount with complete bed rest for 24 hours. Any significant interruptions during the rest period prevent the character from healing that night.

Assisted Healing

A character who provides long-term care (see the Heal skill) doubles the rate at which a wounded character recovers lost health and vitality points.

Magical Healing

Spells that heal hit point damage work somewhat differently in this system. For spells that heal a variable amount of hit point damage based on a die roll (such as cure light wounds), apply the actual die roll as restored health points, and any modifier to the roll (such as caster level, for cure spells) as restored vitality points,

For example, cure moderate wounds heals 2d8 points of damage, +1 point per caster level (maximum +10). Under this system, a 10th-level inquisitor could cast it to heal 2d8 health points and 10 vitality  points.

Spells or effects that return a number of hit points not based on a die roll, such as heal, apply the healing to lost vitality  points first, then to lost health. For example, an 11th-level inquisitor casting heal has 110 points of healing to apply. If the target has taken 12 points of vitality  damage and 104 points of health damage, the spell heals all the vitality damage and 98 points of health damage, leaving the target with only 6 points of health damage remaining.