Injuries and Statuses
You are going to get hurt, whether that be in the form of shallow cuts, lasting bruises, or debilitating mental stress. Injuries and statuses are how you keep track of the damage you receive.
More importantly, Injuries and statuses carry narrative weight as they can up the stakes in dangerous situations. The game master (GM) will use both Injuries and statuses to drive home the difficulty of a challenge, and that mistakes have consequences.
All attacks performed by player characters inflict a single Minor Injury, though they may sometimes deal additional damage through abilities or Boons. Non-player entities (NPCs) may hit harder or more often depending on the level of the encounter.
Injuries
Every time you take damage from an enemy’s attack or an environmental hazard, you are inflicted with either a Minor Injury or a Major Injury.
Minor Injuries are scrapes, bruises, shallow cuts, twisted ankles, heightened anxiety, and heart palpitations. Major Injuries can be anything from haemorrhaging wounds on vital organs to decapitated limbs.
- You can withstand 5 Minor Injuries before those 5 Minor Injuries become 1 Major Injury.
- Minor Injuries you are inflicted with after the 5th become Major Injuries.
- Removing even 1 Minor Injury when you have 5 Minor Injuries removes 1 Major Injury.
Gaining a Major Injury inflicts you with the Unstable status, which gives you disadvantage on all your rolls. Removing all Major Injuries also removes the Unstable status. Some abilities may be able to remove the Unstable status without removing any Major Injuries. In these cases, the Unstable status is reapplied if you get another Major Injury.
If you receive 3 Major Injuries, then you are dead. Death is permanent—for the most part. Magic and advanced technology make death kind of a grey area. However, there are no game mechanics to resurrect the dead. As far as the game is concerned, your player character is dead if they have 3 Major Injuries.
Anyone can remove Injuries by performing the Heal action. Certain abilities also allow you to remove Injuries.
Statuses
Machines
Machines, robots, and other constructs obey the same rules for Injuries as their fleshy counterparts—just with different terms.
The only other difference is that a deactivated machine can be reactivated, removing the 3rd Major Defect and leaving the machine with 2 Major Defects. The only way to truly “kill” a machine is to destroy it.
Variable Injury Capacity
Player characters will always be able to withstand 5 Minor Injuries and 3 Major Injuries before dying. However, it is possible to protect against damage using abilities and items, such as the Guard reaction. NPCs may be able to withstand more or less Injuries, usually related to their size. The GM is not likely to reveal how many Injuries an NPC can withstand, but you can typically guess that larger NPCs can withstand more Injuries than smaller ones.
Selective Immunity
Just as there are abilities which may give you selective immunity to statuses and types of damage, NPCs you meet in the world may be immune to specific statuses or damage types. The GM is not likely to reveal whether an attack or ability you perform will be effective against a target, and you may find out too late that your efforts were in vain. Sometimes, it will be obvious by the ability text that it won’t work against certain types of targets. For example, you wouldn’t be able to Mind Control a squirrel—no matter how successful you are.
Non-lethal Damage
All damage in Immortal Freedom: The Roleplaying Game is considered to be lethal by default. Being able to knock someone out using physical force or magic is actually quite difficult, and so the ability to knock a target out is reserved for characters with an ability which puts a target to Sleep. Some legendary items, legendary cyberware, and consumables may also allow you to put a target to Sleep.