Taking Damage and Wounds - LunarNeil/Call-of-Cthulhu-Campaign GitHub Wiki

There are two ways that physical injury is tracked in Realms of Mythos and Madness, the first by total Damage done to your character and the second are specific Wounds you suffer.

Potentially lethal injuries, like a shovel to the head, will usually inflict both damage and a wound. Less damaging injuries, like a twisted ankle, are usually just a wound without any damage. If it won't kill you, it won't do damage.

Damage is tracked on the Damage Gauge, which counts up from 0 (unhurt) to 20 (dying) and damage taken will usually not heal naturally over time. If an Investigator has taken substantial damage it is more likely that their condition will worsen! The Damage Gauge is a rough estimate of their capacity for blood loss or massive trauma, not a hitpoint bar representing their fighting spirit.

Wounds are a negative modifiers used to represent an injury that can be repaired. Because being struck in combat usually leaves a wound, and most wounds will apply a negative modifier to subsequent combat attempts, it is easy for a character to go from hurt to dead with alarming speed. Other kinds of debilitating effects, such as poison or disease, are often treated as wounds despite the obvious differences.

Wounds that do no damage themselves will not kill the player, though they may incapacitate them and lead to death. Investigators can have two broken ankles, several cracked ribs, several small cuts, a dislocated shoulder and a headache all at once without there being more than a point or two of damage. This should help stress the very real fact that humans are both remarkably durable and frustratingly delicate depending.