Rumble Street

Applying Damage

 

Werewolf tracks three types of damage. Bashing damage includes temporary injury delivered by punches, clubs, improvised weapons, and general blunt trauma. Werewolves suffer bashing damage, but regenerate so fast in most forms that most treat it as more of an annoyance than a threat. Lethal damage represents permanent wounds that can easily kill. Humans die easily from lethal injury, and it can pose a problem to a careless werewolf. Finally, aggravated damage includes grievous tissue damage, and is often supernatural in origin. A werewolf's teeth and claws in most forms inflict aggravated damage, as do fire, acid, and other sources of extreme trauma.

 

All types of injuries are cumulative, and the combined injury determines your character's current health level. Specifics on each type of damage are provided below.

 

While bashing and lethal damage reflect different types of wounds, both injuries are often no match for a Garou's regeneration. Bashing damage is recorded as a slash ("/") in the appropriate box on the Health chart, while lethal damage is marked with an "X." Each level of aggravated damage is marked with an asterisk ("*"). As aggravated damage is the most severe, it should be marked above lethal, which in turn is marked above bashing. So if you mark a level of lethal damage in the Bruised box, and take one aggravated health level later on, "move down" the lethal level to the Hurt box by marking that box with a "X." The aggravated level is then noted by simply drawing another line through the Bruised box, turning it into "*." Bashing damage isn't as severe as lethal, which isn't as severe as aggravated -- lethal damage is recorded below aggravated damage and "pushes" any bashing damage down the chart, while new bashing damage is recorded last. A character must fully heal her lowest-marked Health box before healing any other, so her least-severe damage is always healed first.

 

Normal humans take damage from much the same things that werewolves do, but humans are much less resilient. Garou can attempt to soak any injury not caused by silver, but humans can only soak bashing damage. What Garou heal in seconds can take weeks for a human to heal.

 

Bashing Damage

 

Bashing damage represents forms of injury that are unlikely to kill instantly, and that fade quickly -- compared to gunshot wounds, at least. Most unarmed combat moves -- punches, kicks, tackles, and clinches -- deal bashing damage. Even humans heal bashing damage at a reasonable rate, recovering from such injuries in a matter of hours. Garou, by contrast, shrug off such injuries in seconds, though large amounts of bashing damage can be enough trauma to knock a werewolf out, or even kill her.

 

If your werewolf character falls to Incapacitated from bashing damage, she falls unconscious but remains in whatever form she was in.

Any additional bashing damage "upgrades" an existing bashing wound to lethal damage. If this additional damage upgrades her Incapacitated health level to lethal damage, she reverts to breed form and may use Rage to remain active. Once she's Incapacitated with lethal damage, another level of bashing damage kills her.

 

Humans can soak bashing damage with their Stamina, as can Garou. Humans heal bashing damage fairly quickly. They only require medical treatment when Mauled or worse. Those injuries heal naturally by themselves. Bashing damage beyond Wounded has consequences -- a human can suffer degraded vision or hearing as a result of concussion, or excruciating pain from broken ribs and internal bruising. Medical care can negate these effects, and is necessary for a human to make a full recovery.

 

If a mortal reaches Incapacitated from bashing damage, he falls unconscious but does not die. Instead, any further damage upgrades his least-severe bashing health level to lethal. Healing from that damage is handled as for lethal damage. In this way, a human can be beaten to death.

 

Mortal Healing Times Chart: Bashing Damage

Health Level                     Recovery Time

Bruised to Wounded           One Hour

Mauled                               Three Hours

Crippled                                Six Hours

Incapacitated                        12 Hours

 

Lethal Damage

 

Lethal damage includes any form of trauma that would lead to a hospital stay for a human being -- from gunshot damage to knife-wounds. While a werewolf can regenerate lethal wounds just as easily as bashing damage, other creatures are not so lucky. At the Storyteller's discretion, attacks that would otherwise cause bashing damage can cause lethal damage when aimed at a vital body part such as a kidney or an eye, though such areas are difficulty 8 or 9 to target.

 

Garou and other shapeshifters can soak lethal damage with Stamina in any form except their breed form. Some fomori may be able to soak lethal damage, as can vampires and other monsters that lurk in the night, though that varies depending on the twisted creature's specific abilities.

 

If your werewolf character falls to Incapacitated from lethal damage, she can channel her Rage to remain active. If she doesn't, she falls unconscious and reverts to her breed form. She remains unconscious and regenerates that health level after an eight-hour period. If she takes a level of lethal damage when at Incapacitated, she dies.

 

Mortal Healing Times Chart: Lethal Damage

Health Level             Recovery Time

Bruised                        One Day

Hurt                           Three Days

Injured                         One Week

Wounded                  One Month

Mauled                      Two Months

Crippled                    Three Months

Incapacitated            Five Months

 

Humans cannot soak lethal damage at all. Lethal damage is exactly that. Any lethal wound worse than Injured requires medical treatment before it will heal. If such a wound goes untreated, the human suffers another level of lethal damage each day as wounds re-open or become infected. A human who reaches Incapacitated through lethal damage is at death's door; if he takes one more health level of any sort, he dies.

 

A human at Mauled or higher from lethal damage may simply rest and recover his health after getting patched up. A human at Crippled or Incapacitated, however, needs constant medical attention for the time listed below in order for any healing to take place.

 

A normal human must heal one health level at a time. That is, she must rest for the full amount of time for her worst health level before she can begin healing the next one. For example, a human who has reached Injured from lethal damage must rest for one week to heal the Injured level, then three days to heal the Hurt level and an additional day to heal the Bruised level.

 

Aggravated Damage

 

Aggravated damage comes from attacks that go against a werewolf's nature. All silver weapons, not just bullets, deal aggravated damage to werewolves, but not to humans. Additionally, there are special rules for silver weapons (see below). Fire, some Wyrm-tainted poisons, and the teeth and claws of werewolves and other supernatural creatures all deal aggravated damage.

 

Werewolves can soak aggravated damage with Stamina in any form except their breed form, with the exception of damage from silver. Garou cannot regenerate aggravated damage.

 

If your character falls to Incapacitated from aggravated damage, she has one chance: She can channel her Rage to remain active. If she doesn't succeed, she dies.

 

Aggravated damage heals as if it were lethal for humans -- they cannot soak it and they use the same healing times as mentioned on the lethal damage healing chart. The only significant difference is that aggravated damage is harder to heal through supernatural means.

Silver Weapon Damage

 

Damage dealt from a silver weapon is handled slightly differently to other sources of damage. If a homid or lupus werewolf is in her breed form, an attack with a silver weapon does nothing special. It causes bashing or lethal damage as appropriate and can be soaked as normal -- that the weapon is silver does not factor in to the damage.

 

In any other form, a werewolf cannot soak damage from silver without a Gift or fetish, and the damage taken is aggravated. A successful attack always deals one point of damage, even if the attacker rolled no successes for damage. Metis do not have safety of a breed form to shield them from the ravages of silver. They take unsoakable aggravated damage from silver in any form.

 

Remaining Active While Injured

A critically injured werewolf can channel her Rage to save her life. It's a risky proposition -- if it succeeds, the werewolf is thrown into a wild frenzy. It's sometimes the only way for a character to save her life, though. To remain active, the player rolls his character's permanent Rage (difficulty 8). Each success heals one health level of any kind of damage. No matter how much damage is healed, the character enters a berserk frenzy.

 

Example: No-Shadow-Step is on the wrong end of some werewolf hunters with military equipment. He killed the hunter who got close with a silver knife, but couldn't get away from a grenade that fell right at his feet. The explosive was packed with silver shrapnel, and he's taken enough aggravated damage to fill his Incapacitated health level. There's nothing for it. He has to channel his Rage. His player rolls No-Shadow-Step's Rage rating - 5 dice -- at difficulty 8, and manages three successes (taking him to Wounded). He enters his next turn in a brutal frenzy. The hunters thought he was down, but they've bitten off more than they can chew.

 

A character can only channel her Rage in this way once per scene. If she's reduced to Incapacitated more than once in a single fight, she takes the worst effects of the damage.

 

Although her Rage can remove an awful lot of damage, supercharging a werewolf's incredible regeneration comes with some side effects. A werewolf gains a Battle Scar whenever she successfully remains active.

 

Garou Healing

 

Werewolves heal at an incredible pace. A Garou regenerates her worst bashing or lethal health level every turn. Homid- and lupus-breed Garou can regenerate a health level each day while in their natural forms if they are in critical condition, but doing so doesn't let them do much more than sleep. If they're conscious and moving around in their breed form, they heal as humans do. Metis are blessed with full regeneration in every form.

 

Garou cannot regenerate aggravated damage with anything like the same speed. A character heals one health level of aggravated damage each day, as long as she spends her time resting in a form that normally regenerates.

 

Regenerating damage when engaged in a stressful or physically intensive activity (like combat) is harder for a werewolf. The player must roll the Garou's Stamina (difficulty 8) each turn. This roll is reflexive, so does not involve splitting a dice pool or spending Rage for multiple actions. Success means that the werewolf heals as normal. Failure means that he heals no damage. A botch indicates that the werewolf cannot regenerate until she's had a chance to rest.

 

Sources Of Injury

 

For all that they heal quickly, werewolves encounter a lot of things that can hurt them. Some of the most common are listed here.

 

Combat

Born to be Gaia's warriors, the Garou engage in far more combat than most other creatures, and it's the source of more injuries than anything else in the game.

 

Disease

Werewolves aren't immune to most diseases, but they recover far faster than humans do. Diseases inflict a number of health levels of damage to the patient, either bashing or lethal depending on the severity of the disease. With proper rest and care, the disease runs its course, and the health levels heal slowly.

 

A werewolf's healing abilities protect her from relatively minor ailments including the common cold and the flu -- diseases that normally inflict bashing damage. Even truly debilitating or autoimmune diseases can't inflict lasting harm, though the werewolf can still serve as a carrier after the illness as run its course. In order for a werewolf to notice a disease, it would have to be supernatural in origin -- and thus deal aggravated damage.

 

Falling

Gravity doesn't play favorites. Falling causes damage, even to creatures as hardy as werewolves. The Storyteller rolls one die of bashing damage for every 10 feet or 3 meters that your character falls before hitting something solid. This damage can be soaked normally. Landing on sharp objects may change the damage to lethal at the Storyteller's discretion.

 

A character who falls more than 100 feet (30 meters) reaches terminal velocity. At that point, the character takes 10 dice of lethal damage upon impact. Armor only provides half its normal protection against a fall of that distance, as it's not designed to aid in soft landings.

 

Fire

Fire is primal and dangerous, but also a protector. It can burn away corruption or destroy everything around it -- in many ways, much like a Garou. Damage from fire is always aggravated, and ignores armor. A werewolf can soak damage from fire as normal, but the difficulty varies depending on the intensity of the fire. The amount of damage inflicted by the fire varies depending on the size of the blaze. A character suffers the full amount of damage for each turn that she's in contact with the fire; she only stops taking damage once she leaves the area and/or extinguishes the flames on her. Fire damage is automatically successful unless soaked -- a character trapped in a bonfire takes two health levels of aggravated damage per turn, not two dice of aggravated damage per turn.

 

Soak Difficulty                             Heat Of Fire

           3                            Heat of a candle (first-degree burns)

           5                            Heat of a torch (second-degree burns)

           7                            Heat of a Bunsen burner (third-degree burns)

           8                            Heat of an electrical fire

           9                            Heat of a chemical fire

          10                           Molten metal

 

 

Health Levels/Turn                             Size Of Fire

         One                                   Torch; part of the body is exposed to flame

         Two                                   Bonfire; half of the body is exposed to flame

         Three                                 Inferno;all of the body is exposed to flame

 

If your character falls to Maimed, she suffers temporary scarring from the flames. Reduce her Appearance by one until her wounds recover to Bruised. If she is reduced to Crippled or Incapacitated by the fire, the burns cover the majority of her body, reducing Appearance by two. Scarring may become permanent if the character is Incapacitated and gains a Battle Scar from remaining active.

 

Poison And Drugs

Like diseases, few poisons or drugs have a noticeable effect on the Garou. Werewolves who wish to become intoxicated or to use drugs for recreational purposes must do so in their breed form, where their regenerative systems are less effective, or awaken the spirit of the drug using the Rite Of Spirit Awakening, which increases the substance's potency.

 

The following examples cover the effects of various drugs on werewolves, either in their breed form, or once the drug has been awakened. It's very hard for a werewolf to become addicted to any substance; her healing gifts prevent it happening in any but the most extreme circumstances.

 

• Alcohol: Subtract one from Dexterity and Intelligence dice pools for every two drinks' worth of alcohol. Reduce the penalty by one for every hour that passes after she stops drinking.

• Cocaine/meth/speed: The werewolf immediately gains a point of temporary Rage. For the rest of the scene, the character only needs three successes on a Rage roll to frenzy.

• Hallucinogens: All dice pools are reduced by 1-3 dice, as the character is unable to concentrate. The character's perceptions of the world are altered, and his reactions will depend on what he believes to be happening. A character who takes hallucinogens before meditating to regain Gnosis can regain up to two points per hour of meditation, rather than one. The effects last for (8 minus Stamina) hours.

• Heroin/morphine/barbiturates: Subtract two from Dexterity and all Ability dice pools for (10 minus Stamina) minutes. The character experiences a dreamlike state for (12 minus Stamina) hours, during which the difficulties of Rage rolls are increased by one.

• Marijuana: Subtract one from Perception-based dice pools and increase the difficulties of all Rage rolls by one. The effects last for about half an hour.

• Weak Poison: The character takes between one and three levels of lethal damage per scene. Poisons have a maximum amount of damage that they can apply, usually between five and ten levels of damage. If the character doesn't regenerate this damage (due to being in breed form, or being human) subtract one from all dice pools until the damage is healed. A werewolf in a regenerating form burns through the poison's effects in seconds and suffers no ill effects.

• Strong Poison: The character takes between one and three levels of lethal damage per turn. Poisons have a maximum amount of damage they can apply, usually between five and ten levels of damage. A werewolf can regenerate this damage normally, but until the poison has run its course and all the damage has been healed, subtract one from all dice pools. The only toxins to have a significant effect on werewolves are supernaturally enhanced, and as such deal lethal damage.

 

Radiation And Toxic Waste

Many of the Wyrm's sacred locations on Earth are located on or near irradiated landscapes and toxic waste dumps. Also, some minions of the Wyrm use radiation-based attacks. Damage from these sources is resolved the same as damage from fire, but takes twice as long to heal.

 

Silver

Silver, the lunar metal, is a werewolf's great weakness. Most humans know from Hollywood movies or horror novels that a silver weapon can kill a werewolf. It's difficult to fashion a weapon out of silver, but a skilled blacksmith or gunsmith can make such a weapon. Those who know of the Garou's existence know to keep silver weaponry close.

 

In addition to turning normal attacks into unsoakable aggravated damage, silver causes other problems for the Garou. Just touching silver causes one level of aggravated damage per turn of contact, unless the werewolf is a homid or lupus who is in her breed form.

Some Garou carry silver, usually in the form of weaponry such as klaives. Doing so, however, comes with a price. The Garou's natural allergy to silver causes a reduction in his effective Gnosis. This loss remains in effect in all forms, including the character's breed form. If the Garou discards or stores the silver object(s), the effect fades after a day.

 

For every five silver objects a pack carries, all its members suffer this reduction. In addition, carrying too many silver objects, especially bullets, may cause a loss of Honor or Wisdom for the pack (not to mention being rather difficult to obtain).

 

Object                 Gnosis Loss

Silver bullets      1 point/5 bullets

Klaive                  1 point

Grand Klaive       2 points

 

Not everything called "silver" by humans contains enough actual silver to be spiritually pure enough to harm a werewolf. Sterling silver (over 90% silver) is certainly pure enough to be spiritually active. At the Storyteller's discretion, "Jewelry Silver" (80% pure) may be enough to affect werewolves. Argentite and Horn Silver are compounds of silver and certainly not spiritually pure, nor are compounds with "silver" in the name, including silver nitrate, silver chloride, or silver iodide. Some items can be plated with silver, rather than being made entirely of silver. These items deal damage as though they were silver weapons, but the plating is ruined after a couple of blows.

 

Suffocation And Drowning

Werewolves are living creatures, and need to breathe just like people and animals do. When immersed in water, or some other non-breathable medium, a character can hold her breath for a length of time determined by her Stamina. Changing forms once immersed doesn't alter this length of time -- the character's lung capacity changes, but the amount of air in her lungs does not.

Once her time runs out, the character can spend Willpower to keep holding her breath. Each point of Willpower spent in this fashion allows her to hold her breath for another 30 seconds.

 

Stamina       Time

      1           30 seconds

      2           One minute

      3           Two minutes

      4           Four minutes

      5           Eight minutes

      6           12 minutes

      7           20 minutes

      8           30 minutes

 

During strenuous physical activity like combat, the character can hold her breath for a number of turns equal to twice her Stamina rating. Each point of Willpower spent in this fashion gives her one more turn of action.

 

Once a character has run out of breath, she begins to drown. She takes one health level of lethal damage each turn. A werewolf cannot regenerate this damage until she can breathe again. When she reaches Incapacitated, she reverts to her breed form, and will die in a number of turns equal to her Stamina.

 

Temperature Extremes

Werewolves can withstand temperatures far in excess of human norms, but still have their limits. Extreme heat (above 200 °F or 100 °C) causes damage in much the same way as fire, at the Storyteller's discretion. At -40 and below, subtract one from all Dexterity dice pools due to frostbite. For every 10 °F (6 °C) lower, subtract another die.