Disabilities - Legends Roleplaying System

In Legends, the term "Disability" is used to describe any type of injury or affliction, ranging from a sword cut to supernatural chilling fear. Whatever their cause, Disabilities slow down your character, hampering his actions, and have the potential to put his life at risk.

When you gain a Disability it will be worth a varying number of points depending on the severity of the injury--a shallow bruise might only cause 1 Disability, while a deep sword gash might be worth 5. You can keep track of your total Disabilities or individual injuries, whichever you prefer. You may find it convenient to keep track of your total Disabilities by using scratch paper or piles of dice, coins, or poker chips.

Disabilities Cancel Dice

Disabilities hamper your character's ability to take actions or reactions by reducing his dice. Subtract your total Disabilities whenever you declare a Trait Trio. Thus, if you had 8 dice from your Trio, but received 3 points of Disabilities you would only have 5 dice. In combat, this is a downward spiral that leads to more Disabilities. Eventually the character won't have enough dice to be effective at doing anything, or may Fumble a Defend Reaction and die.

Keep in mind that Disabilities are subtracted whenever you declare a Trait Trio. If you had previously declared a Trio for your active Action Pool, and were subsequently wounded before using all of your dice, you still have the unspent dice. Cutting a swordsman who is in mid-stroke may not be enough to stop his blade! (Although he would go down immediately if he rolled a Fumble on his Defend Reaction.)

This makes ambushes potentially devastating, if the victims become wounded before they get a chance to act.

Types of Disabilities

There are several types of Disabilities, such as Fatigue, Wounds and Taint, each detailed below. They all work the same as described above. The differences are how the Disabilities are gained, whether they are non-lethal or lethal, and how they are healed. Most of these differences only matter after the combat--during battle they mostly affect you in the same way--by canceling dice.

However, there may be situations where a particular type of Disability should not hamper the particular action or reaction you are taking. If you have multiple Disabilities of varying types, keep track of your total Disabilities for each type. This will be important information when it comes time to heal.

The standard types of Disabilities should be considered examples, as the GM can add more types of disabilities to suit his campaign. For example, a fantasy campaign might have special consideration for the unclean wounds caused by undead, and a sci-fi campaign might involve the perils of plasma or disruptor burns.

Drain (Magic Drain) (updated 07/03)

Drain represents a state of lessened energy within a person or place. This might be called chi, ki, mana, mental endurance, luck or many other intangible things depending on an individual's point of view. Whatever the form it takes, Drain amounts to nonphysical fatigue. [ more... ]

Fatigue (updated 07/03)

Fatigue is a non-lethal Disability that represents physical and/or mental exhaustion. You can gain Fatigue from some kinds of attacks, particularly Grappling maneuvers, from forced marches, or from carrying an encumbering Load.

Recovering 1 Fatigue takes about an hour. See the Recover / Heal action for more information.

Taint (updated 2003/07/03)

Disease, debilitating poison, enervation magic, curses, or undead creatures can sap your strength or spirit. Taint is similar to Wounds, but worsens over time, becoming progressively deadly and difficult to heal. Thankfully, taint is far less common than Wounds. [ more... ]

Wounds (updated 2004/09/25)

Wounds are the most common type of lethal Disability, representing physical injuries like sword cuts and broken bones.

Characters naturally heal one Wound per day of rest without any assistance. See the Recover / Heal action for more information.