Rules Update: Health Conditions & Effects

Most of this is stuff we already know, but it is all being bundled together clearly in one area to make it easier to work with, and codified into a system to make it easier to define rules-wise.  For example, there are at least 4 effects that pin your foot to the ground - they are all now defined by the term "pin" and follow the same rules.

There are some major changes in here.  Please read the whole post carefully, to make sure you understand everything.  At a later date, we'll be cleaning up spells, skills, and other effects that use these new definitions, to make them easier to read.

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Stages of Health & Dying
There are eight general conditions of health in Knight Realms – Healthy, Wounded, Injured, Unconscious, Poisoned, Diseased, Serious, and Critical. It is common for a character to be in more than one condition at a time. For example, a character who is at half of her Body Point total and who has a broken leg is both Wounded and Injured. Each condition is defined in detail below.

The following conditions are health-related, and can be detected on another character by using the skill First Aid:

Healthy
The character has a full Body Point score, is awake, and completely healthy in all other respects.

Wounded
The character has a positive Body Point score that is less than her maximum.

Injured
The character is suffering from a specific injury to a part of her body, such as having a broken limb or being blinded.

Serious
The character has less than a positive Body Point score. The character is beginning to die and will slip into Critical condition in five minutes if she is not brought to a positive Body Point score. Body Points are not tracked as negative numbers in Serious condition; any healing that the character receives is applied to zero.

Critical
The character has less than a positive Body Point score and has advanced past - or been struck by an effect that bypasses - Serious condition. A character can only be healed from this condition with a skill, spell, or ability that specifically heals someone in Critical condition. Unless otherwise specified, a skill, spell, or ability that heals a character out of Critical condition can only be performed on each character once an event; the receipt of healing of this kind must be noted on the character card. Like Serious condition, Body Points are not tracked as negative numbers in Critical condition; any valid healing that the character receives is applied to zero. If a character in Critical condition is not healed within five minutes of entering this condition, she dies.

Unconscious
The character has a positive Body Point score but is not awake. A character that is rendered Unconscious by a skill, spell, or ability cannot be awakened except by a skill, spell, or ability that specifically treats unconsciousness or that renders a character Healthy. A character that is asleep naturally can be awakened by any normal method.

Poisoned
The character is suffering from the effect of a poison. A poison must be neutralized before its effects can be healed.

Diseased
The character is suffering from a disease. A disease must be cured before its effects can be healed.

The following are conditions that are not directly health related (i.e - a character may be Healthy, but can still be affected by one of these conditions), but affect the character's ability to act.

Blinded
The character cannot see and cannot use any skills or abilities other than those that target herself, are delivered by touch, or are latent defenses.  A blinded character cannot move faster than a heel-to-toe rate and cannot use movement skills. While playing a character that is blinded, you should keep your eyes open to ensure safe game play.

Deaf
The character is deaf and cannot hear anything.

Mute
The character is mute and cannot speak or make any kind of sound using her vocal chords.  A mute character may not cast any effects that require verbals or singing.

Paralyzed
The character cannot move at all. A character that is paralyzed is vulnerable to a Killing Blow.

Stunned
The character cannot take any action whatsoever.

Dazed
The character cannot take any offensive combat action.

Knocked Prone
The character falls to the ground and cannot stand for five seconds.

Pinned
One or more of the character’s limbs are pinned to the ground or another surface and cannot be moved. The character can escape from the pin before the duration of the effect has expired if she possesses Strength +2 or greater, but suffers five points of Direct Body damage as a result.

Held
The character cannot move her limbs but is otherwise interactive with her surroundings. A character that is held is vulnerable to normal attack but not a Killing Blow.

Immobilized
The character cannot move, speak, or even think. The character is unaware of her surroundings and possesses no memory of the time spent in this condition.  She is impervious to harm, help or alteration that does not first remove this condition.  A character must possess Strength +6 or greater to be able to move a normal humanoid that is immobilized.

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Heal Mortal Wound will be replaced with the following skill:

Spirit Tether
3rd Rank Mortality, 4 Healing Points
This ability immediately halts the death count of the recipient for up to 30 minutes.  The healer using this ability must remain in direct contact with the recipient while using this ability. If at any time contact is broken, the ability ends and the recipient begins their death count from where they left off when the ability was initiated.  Any damage caused to the healer or the recipient will end this ability.  A healer may not concentrate on any other healer abilities while remaining in contact with a recipient of Spirit Tether.

Blind Fighting has been updated as follows:

Blind Fighting
This skill allows a character to use melee weapon skills while blinded.

Major changes to be aware of:

• "Negatives" has been renamed to "Serious."  This is mostly just a name change to make it sound more In-Game, so when someone asks how a friend is doing, you can say they are in serious condition (mechanically) while remaining In-Game.
• Heal Mortal Wound is gone.  If you get knocked straight to Crit by a skill / spell / killing blow, there is no longer a quick spell that will get you out without using one of the limited use methods of healing someone from Crit.
• The effect of poisons, including damage taken from them, cannot be healed until the poison is removed from the victim.
• Blind Fighting no longer allows you to target invisible creatures while you are blinded.

One thing to note - I am sure someone will ask "Isn't being blind or deaf a medical effect, and can it be healed by effects that restore you to a Healthy state?"  The answer to this one is "No" - it is possible to be blinded without being hurt, such as by the Dark Elf Racial skill Blinding Darkness, the Druid spell Blinding Fog, etc. - healing won't make the effect leave the front of your face.  For ease of use, however, spells & effects that specifically remove a sensory ailment - such as the Healer skill or Purification prayer - will work, regardless of the source of the attack.

Can a blinded person move faster than a heel to toe rate if guided/led by a sighted person?

Unless the rules state an effect is possible, it is not, so the answer would be "No."

As a quick note, I've moved the Resurrection rules out of the Healer section, and into the Health, Life, & Death page - Healers aren't the only ones that can resurrect, and the rules affect everyone at some point.

Confused over the wording on healing someone out of critical:

Healing applied to someone in critical that is not the skill/spell/ or ability to heal such is applied to zero. Does this still mean that any other healing has no effect?

Does the 4th Rank Spirit Prayer "Spirit Stasis" and the new "Spirit Tether" allow one person to maintain two spirits at the same time?

The "Applied to Zero" is meant for effects that bring you out of Critical and heal you so you're not at 0 any more - the intent is "It doesn't matter if you are at -1, -10, or -1,000,000 body, it counts as Zero for the purposes of healing" (Similar to Serious).  However, unless the skill specifically heals you from the Critical state, you will remain in critical (i.e. - Lay Hands Minor won't do it).

You could, in theory, heal someone's broken arm while they are in Critical, and it would work - it would just be silly, given they would still be in the Critical state.

Curious question about wording: you stated that a target cannot be healed until whatever poison that is currently affecting them is removed. Other than the skill neutralize poison or an antidote, how could you do that?

There's other skills - prayers, and a healing ability, that will do it.  Prayers can also be made into Psalms, that anyone can use.

Yes, it's deadly.  Very much so.  This is intentional - prior to this, Poison was a nuisance at best, because it was so easy to cure.  Now, it's got a lot more teeth.

A follow-up update to Poisons, the things that cure them, and some healing effects - all to use the new wordings - will be along shortly.  It won't change too much, only clean up the language to make it much easier to follow the rules.

One thing to note - I am sure someone will ask "Isn't being blind or deaf a medical effect, and can it be healed by effects that restore you to a Healthy state?"  The answer to this one is "No" - it is possible to be blinded without being hurt, such as by the Dark Elf Racial skill Blinding Darkness, the Druid spell Blinding Fog, etc. - healing won't make the effect leave the front of your face.  For ease of use, however, spells & effects that specifically remove a sensory ailment - such as the Healer skill or Purification prayer - will work, regardless of the source of the attack.

I mis-spoke here - my examples were bad.  Both of the skills mentioned don't actually blind you, so much as preventing you from being able to see.

We'll be rewording these, and other spells, to make it clearer what fixes what, shortly.

Just out of curiosity...when I created my Khitan character at the September event, I decided it'd be kinda a cool RP to make him blind (aka I wear a blindfold that I can still see through) and took Blind-fighting from character creation to represent that he's had years to learn to hone his other senses to navigate the world around him, as well as 'semi-mystical Monk-like spiffyness'. Now by the new Effects rules..am I going to have to re-work the character concept entirely or have to heel-to-toe everywhere I go? And the fighting invisible foes from Blind-fighting originally said that they could fight them only if they were actually "Blind" as sight wouldn't matter going against someone invisible anyways. And "no movement skills" would that also include climbing, tumbling, etc? Just curious to get a call on this before I go to much further with this new character. Thanks!

Ooof.  I would not make your character Blind by default - the rule is designed to make Blindness extremely nasty.  If you do, you will be bound by the rules.

I'll suggest this as an alternative, and since this is your character, you can tweak it to fit your costume and background:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komuso

(Bonus Cookie to anyone who knows where I got this idea from...)

well the NEW wording is making Blindness extremely nasty...guess I have to re-write the history a bit and figure something else out...

First off, I am certainly not trying to discourage creativity or squash your hopes.  But honestly, and this goes for anything from a permanant ailment like being mute or blind to giving yourself an insanity for no real reason, starting with a major detriments sounds really cool, and can be great RP if done really well, but eventually will always get to be a hassle if done on the long term.  Almost anyone I've ever seen do this has eventually wanted to find a way to reverse it, and the fact that players can't fix this problem can be frustrating when they have the IG ability to do so.  Trying to find a way to reverse it once its been going on for 6 months can also feel contrived.

For blindness in particular, I would think you would be restricted to the above requirements.  Even if not, you'd never be able to read anything, so that knocks out puzzles or fun RP things and even writing on the IG boards (when healers and priests can fix blindness, I doubt Breill has been invented in the KR world).  You'd never be able to use ranged abilities.  Any Lore skill that required you to know something's appearance is out (monster lores, animal lores, etc).  Metagaming would become an issue because when you CAN see things, its hard enough to pretend you don't see them normally, let alone if you can never see anything.  And finally, no matter how see through that blind fold is, you will see nothing through it at night on a dark lit path or in the dimly lit inn. 

Like I said, not trying to be discouraging, but those are just some of the real world issues I can see besides the listed limitations.

I don't like being the "rules don't say I can't" guy, so I'll ask.

The description of spirit tether says I have to remain in contact and not take damage. So if someone were carrying the victim (or if I met the carry rules, I were dragging them away, as long as I stay in contact, Spirit Tether stays active, correct?

Example: Johnny Pendarvin is down on the field. Turns out he's in crit... I wrap my arms under his, concentrate, Spirit Tether, then drag him away from harm heel-to-toe. As long as I take no damage, we're all good.

Unless another RM feels it somehow breaks the intent of the ability, I see no reason why a Healer couldn't do such a thing as long as he/she remained in constant contact with the individual -  moving or not.  It only says one cannot cast other healing abilities. 

You could always have a type of visual impairment that could effect your sight in a way that wouldn't leave you completely blind, yet might cause you to be embarrassed or shunned in your community, so you decided to hide your eyes behind a blindfold (which you can see through) so that you will not to be prosecuted. At least that way it will allow you to say that you are 'blind' which in your mind you are because of all of the experiences you had from the people around you or you just lie and say you are to escape questions.

ex: *Ocular albinism (lack of pigment in eyes)
   * Nystagmus, irregular rapid movement of the eyes back and forth, or in circular motion.
   * Strabismus, eye misalignment ("crossed eyes" or "lazy eye").
   * Photophobia, hypersensitivity to bright light and glare.
   * Amblyopia, decrease in acuity of one or both eyes due to poor transmission to the brain, often due to other conditions such as strabismus.

I work with the visually impaired so if you have any questions please let me know.

This is just from an rp perspective not a rules perspective.

actually Jackie..I am already working on re-vamping his story to have something very similar to that (not sure if I should re-submit the edited story to James or what)... And as to being able to see at night on a dark path...honestly even with the "blind-fold" off I was still just as blind on some of those paths as everyone around me...damn cloudy nights and no moon or stars..lol

Might I suggest colorblindness?

Ok, I don't know if i'm just not getting part of this so i'm just gonna ask. The instant poisons that just do damage, I now have to get the poison cured/neutralized before i can get the body healed back?

Correct.  Same for a blade that is swinging Poison damage.

If you have 80 body, and take 30 from poison and 200 from something else (like a spell or an Incap), you can be healed... but only up to 50.  That last 30 remains unhealable until the poison is neutralized.

If you have 80 body, and take 80+ in Poison damage (by a blade or ingesting it), you need to have it neutralized before you can be brought out of Serious.

Ok just to verify can you still wake someone from one of the sleep poisons by poking them or do you need to treat the poison first or wait 10 minutes?

The poison needs to be removed from the system, before you can attempt to wake them (and succeed).

Just to clarify, if I'm affected by death poison, someone needs to neutralize the poison before reviving me, correct?

Also, if I were to fall victim to such a poison and, say, Rosa was to cast Gaia's Embrace on me (for no effect), would that use up my 1 Gaia's Embrace for the month?

Just to clarify, if I'm affected by death poison, someone needs to neutralize the poison before reviving me, correct?

Also, if I were to fall victim to such a poison and, say, Rosa was to cast Gaia's Embrace on me (for no effect), would that use up my 1 Gaia's Embrace for the month?

I honestly don't believe that this was discussed but I'll go out on a limb and say no. While the intent is to make poisons that much more deadly and hard to counter I don't think we want to make the life spell system any more complicated.

To clarify - the poison still needs to be neutralized first (As per the statement on Poisons), but the ability doesn't count against you if it's not successful.

Ok just to verify can you still wake someone from one of the sleep poisons by poking them or do you need to treat the poison first or wait 10 minutes?

Just a clarification: You could never wake someone from sleep poison (or waylay, or any other K.O. skill) by poking, doing damage, or anything other than using a skill that specifically wakes them.

Thanks to both Geoff and Sam for the quick answers.  On the other hand, they contradict one another.  Can I have a clarification on the clarification?

Sorry my no was to your 2nd question about it using up your 1 Gaia's Embrace for the month, not the first. Which is why Geof clarified.

Ok.  Thanks, Sam.

To clarify what Sam said... he's right.