Health and Injuries
The combat system in LVG is based around a target's Durability (armor), Health (resistance to damage) and Vitality (ability to continue despite injury). Vitality starts at 100 for normal humans, although it is an attribute that can be trained over time. The type of damage inflicted is dependent on the type of attack.
| Damage Types | Stun | Wound |
|---|---|---|
| Harmless | 100% Stun | 0% Wound |
| Mostly Harmless | 90% Stun | 10% Wound |
| Pulled Punch | 75% Stun | 25% Wound |
| Blunt Attacks | 50% Stun | 50% Wound |
| Cutting Attacks | 25% Stun | 75% Wound |
| Impaling Attacks | 10% Stun | 90% Wound |
| Bullets, Burns, Explosions | 0% Stun | 100% Wound |
Stun damage is not permanently harmful (at least until the target runs out of Stun Points), while Wounds take longer to recover from. Any Stun damage inflicted when out of Stun Points is inflicted to Wounds. If Wounds equal Vitality, the subject loses consciousness; if Wounds equal double Vitality, the subject dies.
Severely damaging attacks can have special effects, as shown below:
| Damage Inflicted | Name | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| 21 or more Wounds | Major Wound | -20% / -4 to all actions, inflicts 1 Wound per turn in bleeding. Inflict an extra Major Wound per full 20 Wounds inflicted. |
| 6 to 20 Wounds | Minor Wound | -10% / -2 to all actions, inflicts 1 Wound per ten turns in bleeding. |
| 5 or less Wounds | Flesh Wound | No penalty. |
| 21 or more Stun | Major Stun | -10% / -2 to all actions. Inflict an extra Major Stun per full 20 Stun inflicted. |
| 6 to 20 Stun | Minor Stun | -5% / -1 to all actions. |
| 5 or less Stun | Bruise | No penalty. |
If penalties reach -100% or worse, the option involved is disabled entirely. Disabling the torso results in inability to recover naturally; disabling the head results in unconsciousness; disabling a limb results in a broken limb. If penalties reach -200% or worse, the affected area is destroyed outright!
There is a chance over time that Major or Minor Wounds and Major or Minor Stun will be reduced in severity. Wound and Stun damage, however, will not heal until the person has time to be treated.
A person has Wound and Stun points equal to their Vitality statistic; if reduced to zero Wound, they become unconscious, and if reduced to negative Vitality in wounds, they die. If reduced to zero Stun, they are considered stunned until they regain at least one point of Stun, and any further Stun damage (excepting that caused by Harmless attacks) instead goes to Wounds.
Damage Calculations
Once the base damage of an attack has been assessed, the target's total durability is taken into account (from armor, natural toughness, etc). Damage is then divided by this durability factor. A bullet that inflicts 250 damage against the chest of an armored vest with a rating of 5 worn by someone with no natural toughness inflicts 50 points of base damage; 5 points of this counts as Stun, and 45 points of this counts as Wounds. Health is then subtracted from Wounds suffered (to a minimum of 1); if our target has average Health (5) and Vitality (100), this means he takes a total of 40 points of Wound damage; he now has 95 points of Stun and 60 points of Wound remaining. Because he took more than 20 points of Wound damage in a single attack, he is also suffering from a Major Wound to the chest; this means that he suffers a -20% chance of recovering from the injury, and is suffering an additional Wound every round until treated.
Armor Piercing ignores the first X points of armor for purposes of damage divisors.