Hit Points, Damage, and Armor

Hit points aren't meat. They're a combination of fighting spirit, determination, pluck, luck, and skill — the ability to turn what should be a lethal blow into a graze. HP serve as plot armor and as a pacing mechanism. A PC with 20 HP can be confident they'll survive the first exchange. A PC down to 5 HP makes every blow tense.

PCs have more HP than NPCs or monsters because they're protagonists. We're telling their story.

Damage happens when a player-facing move says so, when you (the GM) hurt someone as part of another move, when you use up resources and HP are the resource, or when any move involves someone getting hit, knocked around, or roughed up. Dealing damage is rarely your whole move — it's part of one.

If the damage isn't tied to a prepared danger, ask what it could do to a normal person:

• bruises, scrapes, light burns → d4
• nasty flesh wounds, bad burns → d6
• broken bones, debilitating pain → d8
• death or dismemberment → d10

For prepared dangers, use the danger's listed damage.

Subtract armor from incoming damage. It can reduce damage to 0 — they got hit, but it didn't use up vitality.

Mechanical tags modify this:

• [n] piercing: ignore n points of armor for this attack
• x piercing: x equals Stonetop's current Prosperity
• ignores armor: armor doesn't apply at all (apply on the fly — chainmail won't help against engulfing flames or psychic assault)
• A few player-facing moves say "lose [n] HP" instead of "take [n] damage." Armor never applies to HP loss.

When several combatants deal damage at once, roll the single highest damage die and add +1 for each additional combatant. All tags apply. Six coedwig (d6, 1 piercing) and a birdwraig (d8+3, forceful) ganging up on the Heavy means d8+9 damage, 1 piercing, forceful — and a very bad day.

When a PC drops to 0 HP and the damage was potentially lethal, they're at Death's Door. Otherwise they're just out of the action — unconscious, gasping, trapped, panicking. Ask the player how or why they're taken out.

When an NPC or monster hits 0 HP, their fate is in your hands. If the source was lethal, they're probably dead. Either way, it's not your job to protect them. Let things burn.

Remember: regaining HP doesn't mean wounds heal. It means the character has caught their breath, gotten the bleeding to stop, and has more fight in them — but the injuries are still there until they're treated.