She’s Wounded! Taking Damage in the Star Wars RPG

In this latest article from Seth, he looks at how Player Characters live and die in the worlds of the Star Wars RPG from Fantasy Flight. Part 1 of 2.

“Quick! Get Down Here, She’s Wounded!”
Taking Damage in the Star Wars RPG
By Seth Glenn

The Star Wars Universe is a dangerous place. As wandering adventurers, Player Characters are bound to get some bumps, bruises, cuts and sometimes even life threatening injuries fighting against all manner of thug, soldier and dangerous creature. But part of the fun is surviving these dangerous encounters while exploring the galaxy. In the Star Wars RPG system, a players health is broken down into two separate systems: Wounds and Strain.

Wounds

Player Characters have something called a Wound Threshold, which represents the PCs physical body and the damage it can sustain. Wounds are the physical injuries the Character receives during an encounter, whether from combat or some failed attempt at a physical feat; for example falling while climbing. In other RPG systems these might also be called Health Points(HP). The Wound Threshold is the total number of wounds that a PC can sustain before being incapacitated. This number is determined during character creation when a player chooses a species for his or her character. Each species determines the base stats for a character including Wound and Strain thresholds, Brawn, Agility, Intellect, Cunning, Willpower and Presence. The wound Threshold will be something like 10 plus Brawn rating. This number differs per species, look in the appropriate core rules or sourcebook for the specific species base stats.

Sarenda is a human so her Wound Threshold is 13 (10 + Brawn (3)

Strain

While Wounds represent the physical health of a PC, Strain represents the mental health of a character. More than just physical injuries await players in galaxy. This could include a blaster set on Stun, or the effects of a harsh environment like extreme hot or cold taking a toll on the characters. Emotional stress like fear, anxiety or having to make a particularly difficult decision can also generate strain. Lastly, some abilities and talents also have rules that allow the player to make additional actions or gain a bonus by taking some amount of Strain. Like the Wound Threshold, when the Strain Threshold is reached or exceeded, the PC is incapacitated. A PCs Strain Threshold is also determined by the species of a character.

Taking Damage

When facing the perils of the galaxy, PCs will most often take damage in combat situations. Occasionally a character will receive Wounds or Strain from an environmental or similar effect, but those are determined by the Game Master after a failed check or as part of the narrative. Combat damage, however, is determined by the attack received and then applied after any modifiers. These modifiers could be bonus damage for extra uncancelled Success symbols on the attack roll, or offsetting damage with clothing or armor which is represented by a characters Soak value. The amount of damage is determined by the attack or weapon used.

In the example above, a Heavy Blaster Pistol deals 7 damage on a hit + 1 damage per uncancelled Success symbol. If an attack was successful with 2 uncancelled Success, the attack does 9 points of damage. If this were applied to Sarenda, the example character above, the 9 damage would first be applied to her Soak value: 4, with the remaining 5 points of damage applied as Wounds. Sarenda then has 8 points left before her Wound Threshold is reached and she becomes incapacitated.

As another example, the Shock Gloves do damage with a potential to inflict Strain. If the attack roll has at least 2 uncancelled Advantage symbols, then the attack also inflicts Strain to the target. If Sarenda were the target and the attack does 3 damage and 3 strain, with a Soak value of 4 it is implied that her armor absorbs the damage from the hit, but she still suffers 3 Strain from the electric shock. Sarenda would then have 9 points of Strain remaining before reaching the Strain Threshold and becoming incapacitated.

NOTE: If an NPC suffers Strain but does not have a Strain Threshold, the damage is applied at Wounds instead.

Critical Injuries

Sometimes a character will receive a Critical Injury. These are most often received during combat, but they can also occur through other circumstances. Attacks capable of inflicting these kinds of serious injuries will have the requirements for causing them listed in their description, as shown in the above examples. If a player receives a Critical Injury, they must roll d100 and consult the Critical Injury Table. This table can be found in each of the three core rulebooks as well as on each of the Game Master screens. A Critical Injury is a more severe injury than typical wounds, and as such has a temporary or long-term effect such as being staggered, immobilized or disoriented. These effects are determined by the result of the d100 roll. For example, as shown below, if a PC rolls 37 on a d100 roll, that player’s next check has its difficulty increased by one.

This specific temporary effect only applied to the player’s next immediate check. After that check, the player is no longer penalized on checks, however, that Critical Injury remains on the PC until it is properly healed. This is important as Critical Injuries will stack and have severe consequences if not healed. Each Critical Injury remaining on the character adds +10 to any subsequent Critical Injury checks made. Therefore, if a player through untreated Critical Injuries, rolls a 151 or higher, that character is considered dead.

The difficulty listed for each Critical Injury is used when rolling a Healing check to heal and remove each injury. This difficulty represents the ability to recover from the specific injury and still perform during combat or other actions. Some of these Critical injuries have ongoing status effects, that will impair a character beyond the temporary effects. These effects include a player being Staggered, Immobilized or Disoriented. These effects can last different amounts of time and be applied in different ways depending on the Critical Injury or how the GM chooses to steer the narrative with these effects. The specific rules for these effects is located in the core rule books.

Death

In such a dangerous galaxy, death is no stranger, however for the purposes of the game, Player Character deaths are rare. A dead character cannot be brought back to life. If a PC rolls 151+ on the Critical Injury table, that character cannot be revived, whether they are a living or mechanical character. When dealing with the death of a character, the GM may choose to help the player avoid death, but should provide a logical reason in the narrative why that PC was able to survive. In the event of a character’s death, the rules suggest having that player move on and create a new character. However, how a Player and the GM choose to handle the situation should be determined together in a manner that makes the most sense with the narrative and also keeps the players and the GM working together to tell the most compelling story possible.

Recovery

Once again, the galaxy is a dangerous place, and players should expect to gain Wounds, Strain and even some Critical Injuries during their play sessions. The Star Wars RPG system by Fantasy Flight makes for fast paced combat with damage happening quickly and recovery taking place over time. There are many ways a PC can recover from Wounds, Strain and Critical Injury, such as stim packs, rest and medical treatment. Those will be looked at in the follow-up article all about healing and recovery. I hope this overview gives you a better understanding of how to apply damage as you wander through the Galaxy far, far away.

May the Force be with you.