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Hit Points, Healing, and Dying

RULE

Core Rulebook > Chapter 9: Playing the Game > General Rules

All creatures and objects have Hit Points (HP). Your maximum Hit Point value represents your health, wherewithal, and heroic drive when you are in good health and rested. Your maximum Hit Points include the Hit Points you gain at 1st level from your ancestry and class, those you gain at higher levels from your class, and any you gain from other sources (like the Toughness general feat). When you take damage, you reduce your current Hit Points by a number equal to the damage dealt.

Some spells, items, and other effects, as well as simply resting, can heal living or undead creatures. When you are healed, you regain Hit Points equal to the amount healed, up to your maximum Hit Points.

Knocked Out and Dying

Creatures cannot be reduced to fewer than 0 Hit Points. When most creatures reach 0 Hit Points, they die and are removed from play unless the attack was nonlethal, in which case they are instead knocked out for a significant amount of time (usually 1 minute or more). When undead and construct creatures reach 0 Hit Points, they are destroyed.

Player characters, their companions, and other significant characters and creatures don’t automatically die when they reach 0 Hit Points. Instead, they are knocked out and are at risk of death. At the GM’s discretion, villains, powerful monsters, special NPCs, and enemies with special abilities that are likely to bring them back to the fight (like ferocity, regeneration, or healing magic) can use these rules as well.

As a player character, when you are reduced to 0 Hit Points, you’re knocked out with the following effects:

  • You immediately move your initiative position to directly before the turn in which you were reduced to 0 HP.
  • You gain the dying 1 condition. If the effect that knocked you out was a critical success from the attacker or the result of your critical failure, you gain the dying 2 condition instead. If you have the wounded condition (page 460), increase your dying value by an amount equal to your wounded value.

If the damage was dealt by a nonlethal attack or nonlethal effect, you don’t gain the dying condition; you are instead unconscious with 0 Hit Points.

Taking Damage while Dying

If you take damage while you already have the dying condition, increase your dying condition value by 1, or by 2 if the damage came from an attacker’s critical hit or your own critical failure. If you have the wounded condition, remember to add the value of your wounded condition to your dying value.

Recovery Checks

When you’re dying, at the start of each of your turns, you must attempt a flat check with a DC equal to 10 + your current dying value to see if you get better or worse. This is called a recovery check. The effects of this check are as follows.

Critical Success Your dying value is reduced by 2.

Success Your dying value is reduced by 1.

Failure Your dying value increases by 1.

Critical Failure Your dying value increases by 2.

Conditions Related to Death and Dying

To understand the rules for getting knocked out and how dying works in the game, you’ll need some more information on the conditions used in those rules. Presented below are the rules for the dying, unconscious, wounded, and doomed conditions.