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Table of Contents
Health and Damage
The characters of Legacy exist in a world filled with hazards and foes. So naturally, a means to track these hazards and foes is required.
Damage in Legacy is tracked using two values: Stamina and Injury.
Stamina
A successful attack does not always inflict injury. It is expected that a character will twist to mitigate the impact, block with a shield, absorb some of the damage on their armour, or sidestep to avoid an attack at the last moment. All these efforts burn through a character's energy, which is represented in this game with their Stamina.
A character's Stamina is based on their Ancestry, their Background and their Class. A character's Ancestry and Background include an attribute as part of their Stamina; whenever an attribute is improved, and its modifier goes up, this will also increase your Stamina. If the same attribute is added twice (which it often is, especially Strength), then when you improve it, increase your Stamina twice.
Your Stamina cannot be negative. If you are struck for damage, and the amount of damage that you take is higher than your current Stamina, then your Stamina becomes zero.
Injury
All characters start at zero Injury, and every point of Injury represents a physical wound that your character has taken. Injury does not accumulate as fast as Stamina depletes, but it is much more impactful.
If you are struck for damage, and have no Stamina remaining, you take one point of Injury per die of damage that would have been rolled. The attacker need not actually roll the damage dice.
Armour and other sources of DR can mitigate this. If your DR is higher than the maximum value of the lowest of the damage dice that would have been rolled, then reduce the amount of Injury you take by one point.
As an example, Lukas is out of Stamina, and is struck for 2d6 damage. His armour grants him a DR of 7, which is higher than the d6 of damage, so he takes one point of Injury, not two.
If Lukas is hit for 2d8 damage, his armour does not help, and he takes two points of Injury.
Effects of Injury
Injury has a direct and very meaningful impact on your character's capabilities.
You suffer a penalty on all skill checks and defence rolls equal to your total Injury. This represents a loss of co-ordination due to physical damage, or an inability to concentrate due to pain or blood loss.
You lose one second per combat turn for every point of Injury you suffer. If this reduces your available seconds in combat to or below zero, you become Disabled, and your turn gets skipped.
Survival Checks
At the end of any encounter, if you are Disabled, make a Fortitude defence check against a TN of 16. (Remember to subtract your Injury from this check!) If an ally is on hand to perform First Aid, you may use their Medicine skill instead of your Fortitude defence, and need not apply your Injury penalty to that roll.
- Success: You pull through. You remain Disabled, but you're not in mortal danger any more.
- Failure: You die. Make a new character.
Light Fantasy: Failure on the survival check does not result in your character dying. Instead, your character becomes Bedridden. This condition remains until your character's Injury is fully recovered.