Harm & Healing

Vampires are remarkably durable. Bullets punch through you and the holes close within minutes. Broken bones knit themselves back together before the fight's over. You can fall off a building, get hit by a car, and walk away annoyed rather than dead. But durability isn't invincibility, and some things hurt even the undead in ways that don't just go away.

Fire. Sunlight. Decapitation. The teeth of something older and meaner than you. Learning the difference between what you can shrug off and what can end you permanently is one of the first lessons of unlife, and failing it is usually the last.

The Harm Track¶

Your Harm Track is a row of checkboxes on your character sheet representing how much punishment you can absorb before you stop functioning. The number of boxes (your Harm Points, or HP) is determined by your Blood Potency:

• BP 0–1: 6 HP
• BP 2: 9 HP
• BP 3: 12 HP
• BP 4: 15 HP
• BP 5: 18 HP

Some Discipline Powers (particularly Fortitude) can increase your maximum HP beyond these values. You can expect most enemies you encounter in combat to have HP that falls within a similar spread, but the Storyteller may set NPC HP values as they see fit.

When you take Harm, mark it on your track immediately. There are two types: Superficial and Aggravated. Superficial Harm is marked with a single slash through the checkbox. Aggravated Harm is marked by filling the checkbox in completely. This distinction matters because how you took the damage determines how quickly (or whether) you recover from it, and because taking too much Aggravated Harm is how you die for real.

Superficial Harm¶

Superficial Harm is the everyday violence of vampiric existence. It hurts, it slows you down, and enough of it will drop you into Torpor, but your Blood can mend it with relatively little effort.

Sources¶

Most forms of physical damage inflict Superficial Harm on vampires: firearms, blunt weapons, bladed weapons, falls, vehicular impacts, crushing, electricity, rolled-up newspapers, forklift accidents, stubbing your toe, explosions (the concussive force, not the fire), and nearly any other mundane source of bodily trauma you can imagine. If a mortal would be seriously hurt by it, a vampire takes Superficial Harm from it and is mildly put out. If a mortal would only be slightly injured by it, don't bother tracking it unless you're a Ghoul or a Thin-Blood, in which case it definitely counts.

Aggravated Harm¶

Aggravated Harm is the nasty stuff that makes vampires afraid. It bypasses supernatural resilience, tears through armor and protections, and refuses to heal cleanly. When you take Aggravated Harm, the wound doesn't close on its own. It festers, burns, or simply stays open, weeping Vitae until the Blood has had enough rest to properly repair the damage. Taking Aggravated Harm should always feel significant — it's the fiction telling you that something has gone seriously wrong.

Sources¶

Certain forces are anathema to the undead: sunlight, fire, and the claws or fangs of supernatural creatures are the most common. Tainted or poisoned blood, some Discipline Powers, comedies that didn't age well, and weapons specifically designed to hurt vampires can also deal Aggravated Harm. The Storyteller may rule that particularly extreme mundane violence — being crushed by a collapsing building, getting caught in a wood chipper, having your spine ripped out, etc. — also inflicts Aggravated Harm on the grounds that even vampiric resilience has limits.

Thin-Bloods are a special case. Their mostly-mortal bodies lack the supernatural toughness of full Kindred; they take Aggravated Harm from bladed weapons, bullets, and other sources that would only inflict Superficial Harm on a proper vampire. This is a significant piece of what sets them apart from full-blooded Kindred, and it stacks with the usual Aggravated sources. A Thin-Blood caught in a knife fight is in real trouble.

Damage & Weapons¶

All sources of Harm have a numeric value representing how many boxes you mark on your Harm Track when they hit you. This is expressed as N-Harm, where N is the number. A kitchen knife is 2-Harm; getting shanked with one means you mark 2 Superficial Harm (or 2 Aggravated, if the source deals that type or you're more of the mortal persuasion).

Unarmed Attacks¶

All vampires are dangerous in close quarters. Whether you're throwing punches and flinging kicks, raking with claws, sinking your fangs into someone's throat, slamming them into a wall or nearby piece of furniture, or delivering a devastating headbutt, unarmed melee attacks always deal Harm equal to your Blood stat (minimum 1). How you describe the violence is up to you; mechanically, it all hits the same.

Some Playbooks modify this. The Brujah's Brutality Perk adds their Blood Potency to unarmed Harm dealt. Discipline Powers from Potence and Protean can increase damage further. Devorari can choose to use Wits in place of Blood for all rolls, including unarmed Harm.

Weapon Examples¶

Any combatant worth their salt knows that a suitable weapon elevates a fighter's ability to wreck shit, but the trick is choosing the right tool for the job. Your Coterie might keep a small (or massive — no judgment) armory in the Haven, and in most cases, you may pick up the weapons from your fallen foes to turn them against your other enemies. This is not an exhaustive list, but these guidelines should give you some idea:

Armor Examples¶

Some characters wear or carry protection that reduces incoming Harm. Armor is expressed as N-Armor, where N is the number of Harm points it absorbs per hit. A character wearing 2-Armor who takes 3 Harm only marks 1 on their track. Armor and other protections keep working until narratively lost, destroyed, or otherwise removed. Kicking a shield away from someone you're fighting is usually a good idea.

Armor only reduces Superficial Harm. Aggravated Harm bypasses it entirely unless a specific Discipline Power, Perk, effect, or tag says otherwise. A full weapon, armor, and equipment tagging system is detailed in Appendix B, but this table should get you started:

Raising the Stakes¶

A stake through the heart is every vampire's worst nightmare that doesn't involve sunlight. If you are staked — meaning someone successfully drives a wooden stake or similar implement through your chest and into your heart during combat or while you're restrained — you are immediately incapacitated. You cannot move, speak, use Disciplines, or take any action whatsoever. You are conscious and aware of your surroundings but completely paralyzed, trapped inside your own body until the stake is removed. If you can communicate telepathically, that ability is unimpeded.

Staking in combat requires a successful Dirty Your Claws roll with a weapon that could plausibly reach the heart (a stake, a sharpened chair leg, a broken broom handle, a piece of rebar, or even just a big sword). The attacker must declare their intent to stake before rolling, but more importantly, the target must be well and truly powerless to stop it (restrained or bound, grappled by someone much stronger, already at 0 HP, or similarly stuck between a spike and a hard place).

On a 10+, the stake lands and the target is incapacitated. On a 7–9, the Storyteller chooses whether the stake finds its mark or merely deals normal Harm. On a 6-, the attempt fails entirely and possibly backfires.

A staked vampire can be revived by removing the stake, which can be done by anyone with physical access to the body. Removing a stake from another character within Intimate Range is a Free Action; removing one from yourself is impossible while it's in your heart. A staked vampire does not heal, does not gain or lose Hunger, and does not age. Time simply stops until the stake comes out.

Healing¶

Healing Superficial Harm¶

At the beginning or end of any scene when you have Superficial Harm, you may choose to make a Hunger Check. Regardless of whether your Hunger increases, you heal Superficial Harm equal to your Blood Potency (minimum 1). Kindred Blood knits flesh, resets bones, and pushes out bullets; the only question is how thirsty it makes you. If you slumber after Feeding at least once the previous night, heal all Superficial Harm upon waking.

Ghouls cannot mend Harm this way. They're mortal; their bodies don't regenerate on their own quite as quickly. Ghoul healing is handled almost entirely through the Borrowed Time Perk — consuming Vitae from their patron to heal Harm equal to the patron's Blood Potency. No Vitae means no healing. Bandages and a trip to the emergency room are always an option, but that takes time and raises mortal questions.

Thin-Bloods can mend Superficial Harm as above (minimum 1 at BP 0), but their mostly-mortal bodies are slower about it. They look roughed up for longer and bruise like peaches. You are encouraged to tease them about this.

Healing Aggravated Harm¶

Aggravated Harm does not heal between scenes. It heals only during slumber, and only if you go to bed at 2 Hunger or below. Kindred need both rest and fuel to repair this kind of damage; if you're too hungry, it prioritizes keeping you functional over fixing what's broken.

When you wake from slumber at 2 Hunger or below, heal Aggravated Harm equal to 1 + your Blood Potency. At BP 1, that's 2 Aggravated healed per day; at BP 4, that's 5. Significant wounds can still take multiple days of rest and feeding to fully recover from, which is intentional. Aggravated Harm should linger long enough to create consequences.

The Feed Basic Move also offers limited Aggravated healing. On a 10+, you can choose to heal 2 Superficial Harm, or spend both choices to heal 1 Aggravated Harm. This is the only way to heal Aggravated Harm outside of slumber (barring specific Discipline Powers or Perks such as the Salubri's Mending Touch).

Ghouls heal Aggravated Harm through the Borrowed Time Perk as above, mortal medical treatment, or simply time. They cannot mend it through slumber the way vampires can. Please, won't somebody just Embrace them already?