Health and Combat

A mutant, like a normal character in the World of Darkness, has seven health levels.  When he takes too many injuries, they begin to interfere with the character's effectiveness (and he takes penalties to most dice pools).  The health levels are as measured as damage is taken, as follows:

Bruised: no penalty  
Hurt: Subtract one point from dice pools.  
Injured: Subtract one point from dice pools (not cumulative).  
Wounded: Subtract two points from dice pools.  
Mauled: Subtract two points from dice pools.
Hobbled: Subtract five points from dice pools.  
Incapacitated: Unconcsiousness Incapable of taking action.

Not counted on the character sheet are levels indicating full health (imagine it as being above "bruised") and death (below "incapacitated").

There are different kinds of damage as well, depending on how it is administered. A typical punch, for example, inflicts bashing damage. Bashing damage heals quickly, and it can't easily kill you.  A knife or bullet, by contrast, inflicts lethal damage.  That heals more slowly, and it can kill you.  A flamethrower, acid, or something equally awful inflicts the dreaded aggravated damage.  Aggravated damage can kill you, and it heals very slowly.  Rarely, permanent damage can be taken. Just cross off that health level; it's gone.

Damage taken starts at the top of the health level chart on the character sheet and moves down, toward incapacitation and death.

Bashing damage heals at the rate of one Health Level per day. Note that bashing damage can't kill a mutant; once you exceed Incapacitated, start at the top again and mark all further bashing damage as lethal. As always, lethal damage overlays bashing damage and aggravated damage overlays either.

A normal human recovers lethal damage at the following rate:

Bruised: One day
Hurt (first -1): Three days
Injured (second -1 and all -1s that follow it): One week
Wounded (first -2): Two weeks
All Health Levels beyond Wounded: One month

Note that the figures given above are not the time required to heal fully, but to heal a single health level.  Someone who has been Mauled, for instance, would take one month to heal to Wounded, two weeks to heal to Injured, one week to heal to Hurt, three days to heal to Bruised, and then one day to be tip-top, for a total of one month, three weeks, and four days.  Ouch.

Aggravated damage heals at a slower rate than lethal damage, as follows:

Bruised: Three days
Hurt (first -1): One week
Injured (second -1 and all -1s that follow it): Two weeks
All Health Levels beyond Injured: One month

Hospital stays (surgery and expert medical attention, etc.) will help speed this process along.  Each Health Level of damage (unless it's bashing) will heal as if it were one category less in severity if the mutant stays in the hospital for a few days, and sees a doctor or physiotherapist regularly until healed.

Extra health levels can be gained in a few ways by a mutant.  The best way is through the Power of that name.  The player, when purchasing an extra health level, decides where it goes and thereby chooses a dice penalty for it that corresponds to the existing health levels (either no penalty, -1, -2, -5, or unconsciousness).  Most players choose the "no penalty" option, meaning that the new health levels are placed adjacent to existing "no penalty" health levels (above or below the Bruised level, or other new levels without penalty).  However, some players have even been known to take extra incapacitated levels from a sense of paranoia.

Health levels that are associated with body armor are always recorded at the top of the sheet, as they are separate from the mutant's own health levels.  They each may have any dice penalty number desired (if the player is fond of realism), but these penalties only apply to physical dice pools, and are negated when the armor loses its last health level.

Power Charge recovers at the rate of one point per day of complete rest.  In conjunction with Accelerated Recovery, Charge Building, or similar abilities, it recovers much more quickly (as per the Power description).

Rage is recovered in a number of ways.  Whenever the character is exposed to a situation that is exceptionally frustrating, then the player can ask for one or more points.  It is also recovered at the rate of one point per week, otherwise. If the character has the Stunt: Rage Regeneration, of course, he can use those rules.

Gnosis is recovered chiefly through meditation (Wits + Enigmas, diff 8, or Wits + Meditation, diff 7) with each success restoring a point of Gnosis.  Any failed roll increases the difficulty to meditate by one for that day.  A successful meditation lasts one hour; a failed one lasts the same.  A botched meditation may last a lot longer.

Willpower is regained in a number of ways.  At the end of a story (not a game session), the characters regain all the Willpower they spent, unless the ending was unsatisfactory.  A special success (such as getting a spectacular maneuver roll in a critical situation) may also merit the recharge of a point or two.  Also, when she fulfills some criterion of her chosen Nature, she may restore a point or two of Willpower.  The Destiny background and being a Social character also supply ways of restoring Willpower.  Optionally, characters may meditate to recover Willpower using the same mechanics as Gnosis, except successive rolls always increase in difficulty (whether the last roll was successful or not).  Multiple rolls at difficulty 10 are not allowed.