Vitality Points - Confused

[Nick Warcholak]

I just picked up FC and am very impressed. I love the flavor, the level of customization, and the presentation. I am confused by the concept of Vitality points though, so I was wondering if anyone could provide some insight.

The text on page 206 reads:

These are a mixture of endurance, luck, and
the will to fight, measuring a character’s ability to avoid injury.
Losing vitality does not represent actual physical damage but
rather combat fatigue, as it gradually becomes more difficult
for the character to avoid being hurt. As a character’s vitality
drops, he edges closer to exhaustion and the possibility of a
nasty wound.

So, when a character just loses Vitality points, there's no physical damage taken in the game world. How does this work with the Special Damage Types? I mean, for Acid to do continuing damage, it seems like it would have to make contact first. Same thing with Electrical causing the target to be sickened on a failed save.

I'm just trying to figure out how the loss of Vitality Points would be describe in these circumstances. Against a normal attack, I assume that the character would be described as expending great effort in a dodge or block to avoid the real damage.

[Krensky]

It's just superficial or cosmetic.

For acid, they got a few drops on them, painful but not life threatening.

Electricity is a big enough jolt to make them wooosy, but not really injure them.

[Crafty_Pat]

Welcome to the boards Nick!

Vitality points are intentionally vague so you can define them per the circumstances on a case-by-case basis. For example, vitality might indicate the time it takes for acid to burn through clothes, or superficial burning, or even slight wooziness from the fumes coming off a near-miss.

In our opinion, the more you try to hammer down exactly what vitality represents in every case, the less useful the mechanic becomes for overall play. It's best to get creative and use the points as another way to make combats diverse and interesting.

Hope that helps!

[Jake]

I've found the best way to explain the vitality/wound system to players is through the movie Die Hard. John McClane has been crawling through air ducts and he's cut, burned, knocked around, scratched, and bleeding. He's hurt but he's really not feeling that bad, that means he's just taken vitality damage. Han's orders what's-his-name, the ballet dancer, to shoot the glass. McClane steps on the glass and becomes severely hurt, limping about until he bandages his foot. That would be the wound damage.

[Coyote0273]

I've found the best way to explain the vitality/wound system to players is through the movie Die Hard. John McClane has been crawling through air ducts and he's cut, burned, knocked around, scratched, and bleeding. He's hurt but he's really not feeling that bad, that means he's just taken vitality damage. Han's orders what's-his-name, the ballet dancer, to shoot the glass. McClane steps on the glass and becomes severely hurt, limping about until he bandages his foot. That would be the wound damage.

Amusingly, this is the exact same example I quoted to my players to get them to understand the diff between Vitality and Wounds. Heh.

Another example, I actually found in one of the game magazines (either Dungeon or Dragon). It described the Obi-Wan/Darth Maul fight round by round. Every "near miss" of the lightsaber where the combatant dodged at the last instant, or put his blade up to parry but was driven back a step would be considered taking vitality damage because it was sapping the warrior of his strength, even if he wasn't being hurt.

[VisualStatic]

Another good one, is the Matrix when Neo and Trinity are off to rescue Morpheus.   Neo burns through his vitality in the fight in the lobby, then on the roof, dodging the bullets from the Agent, he finally gets hit.

[mach1.9pants]

Or my favourite example, Troy: Achilles (Pitt) vs Hector (Bana)

[Nick Warcholak]

Thanks to all. That does shed some light on it.

[Mister Andersen]

Or how people can survive being hurled into walls, support structures and vehicles in many a movie and TV show

[Valentina]

Or how people can survive being hurled into walls, support structures and vehicles in many a movie and TV show

Explosions. Not getting internal injuries from the shock wave. Or burned. Or flash-dazzled.

Also, one could attribute not going deaf in a firefight to a little vitality leak. Seriously, guns are loud individually, a whole alleyful of them is like hiding from an epic thunderstorm in an active paint shaker.

[4saken]

Vitality points don't really sound that much different than standard HP in D&D and other games to me. The D&D theory is that it's all superficial up to that killing blow. You can start with 100HP and be down to 5 but you don't even have so much as a hit penalty. Heck, even a bad headache in D&D might cause you to be at -2 to hit!

[Krensky]

Vitality points don't really sound that much different than standard HP in D&D and other games to me. The D&D theory is that it's all superficial up to that killing blow. You can start with 100HP and be down to 5 but you don't even have so much as a hit penalty. Heck, even a bad headache in D&D might cause you to be at -2 to hit!

Well, when you run out of Vitality you become Fatigued.

[Coyote0273]

And, while Fatigue might not sound bad from how its written, it's a horrible horrible thing. My players would rather face a 7 Headed 300 hit point Hydra, than take a level of fatigue.