Staying Alive

STAYING ALIVE

The wasteland is a dangerous place, but before even considering the dangers outside the vault or whatever secure location you call home, you need to consider the importance of keeping yourself alive. That might sound obvious, but in the din of a firefight or the desperation to escape some deadly wasteland predator, it can be easy to overlook the simple things.

To stay alive, you need to get enough food, get enough to drink, and get enough sleep. Avoiding sickness and exposure to extreme heat or cold helps too.

Depending on the nature of a campaign, your gamemaster may want to track these considerations, or they may not; they are presented here to use or not as the GM sees fit. If you are not using these rules, a character is limited to one food item and one drink item per scene, but otherwise no other consideration is needed, and sleeping only matters.

Robot characters do not suffer from any of these effects.

Fatigue

Fatigue represents the cumulative hindrances that come from deprivation. Insufficient food, insufficient water, insufficient sleep, the strain of disease, and exposure to the elements can all inflict Fatigue.

When you have Fatigue, it is harder to generate Action Points, and you lose Health Points.

• Whenever you gain Action Points, you reduce the amount you would gain by 1 for each point of Fatigue you have, to a minimum of 0.
• Whenever you begin a scene with Fatigue, you lose 1 HP for every 2 Fatigue you have. This is not reduced by any form of damage resistance.

You remove 1 point of Fatigue at the end of any non-combat scene if you are free from all sources of Fatigue, regardless of which ones caused the Fatigue to begin with: if you’re thirsty and sleep deprived, you’ll need something to drink and some sleep to start removing Fatigue.

If you sleep for six or more hours, you remove all Fatigue as long as you had no sources of Fatigue other than sleep deprivation (which is solved by sleeping) before you started sleeping.

Hunger

Getting enough to eat can be challenging in the wasteland. Being well-fed often means being willing to eat some downright unpalatable things, including mutated and irradiated plants and animals. Proper preparation of food items (see p.216 for crafting food items) can help with this, making unappetizing foods more appealing, more nutritious, and less likely to leave you with radiation poisoning. Your character has a Hunger state which represents how hungry they are.

Cold conditions (see Exposure) can speed up this process: cold weather halves the amount of time listed at each step.

When you eat a food item, you move back up this track. Eating uncooked food and preserved pre-War food moves you back up one step (i.e., from hungry to peckish), while prepared food moves you back up two steps instead (i.e., from peckish to full).

If you are starving, Hunger is a source of Fatigue.

Thirst

Getting enough to drink can be just as much a challenge as getting food. Most accessible sources of water—including rainfall, where that does happen— draws from contaminated, irradiated sources, so water needs to be purified before it’s safe to drink.

Your character has a Thirst state which represents how thirsty they are.

Strenuous activity or hot conditions can speed up this process: a combat or similar intense activity immediately moves you down one step at the end of the scene. Hot weather (see Exposure) halves the amount of time listed at each step.

Drinking something moves you back up one step (i.e., thirsty to hydrated), or two steps if you drink purified water. If you are dehydrated, Thirst is a source of Fatigue.

Sleep

Lack of sleep can often creep up on the unwary, occurring because there’s too much to do, or too many threats about. But more than that, even when people can catch occasional sleep, they often wear themselves down by not giving themselves the opportunity to sleep fully. Your character has a Sleep state which represents how sleep-deprived they are.

Strenuous activity can speed up this process: a combat or similar intense activity immediately moves you down one step at the end of the scene.

If you sleep for at least an hour, you move back up one step (i.e., weary to tired), up to a maximum of tired. If you sleep for six or more hours, you are immediately restored to rested. If you sleep for eight or more hours in a safe and secure location, you become wellrested instead of rested, and add +2 to your maximum HP until you next sleep.

If you are weary or exhausted, sleep deprivation is a source of Fatigue. If you sleep for six or more hours, you also remove all Fatigue as long as you had no sources of Fatigue other than sleep deprivation before you started sleeping.

Exposure

Extremes of heat or cold can make survival even more challenging than it normally is, often by accelerating other concerns.

If you’re in cold weather (temperatures below 40° F/5° C) without protection (warm clothing, shelter, a source of nearby warmth such as a fire), then you gain 1 Fatigue after a number of consecutive hours equal to your Survival rating. Further, as noted in Hunger, the time taken to go from one Hunger state to the next is halved, as your body requires more energy to keep your body temperature going.

Exposure to severe cold weather (temperatures below 0° F/18° C) without protection inflicts 1 Fatigue after a number of minutes equal to your Survival rating multiplied by 10 instead.

If you’re in hot weather (temperatures above 90° F/32° C) outside of the shade or a similar sheltered environment, you gain 1 Fatigue after a number of consecutive hours equal to your Survival rating. Further, as noted in Thirst, the time taken to go from one Thirst state to the next is halved, as you lose water through sweating.

Being exposed to severe heat (temperatures above 110° F/43° C) outside of the shade inflicts 1 Fatigue after a number of minutes equal to your Survival rating multiplied by 10 instead.

Exposure to any of these conditions is a source of Fatigue; removing yourself from those conditions involves finding shelter from the elements for at least an hour.

Disease

The wasteland is a dirty place, full of bacteria, viruses, and parasites, many of which are just as mutated and vicious as the wildlife. At the end of a scene, check whether any of the following happened:

• You suffered damage from the claws or bite of a mammal, lizard, or insect creature.
• You drank dirty water.
• You ate raw meat.
• You breathed in noxious or toxic fumes without protection from a gas mask or similar.
• You were within Reach of an ally or bystander who has a contagious disease.
• You slept rough on the ground rather than in a bed.

If any of these events occurred, you must attempt an END + Survival test with a difficulty equal to the number of the listed events which occurred, to a maximum of 5 (any event which happened multiple times that scene is only counted once).

If this test is failed, you have contracted a disease. Roll on the table below to determine the disease Effect.

When you contract a disease, it doesn’t take effect immediately. Instead, it takes effect at the start of the next day. When you start suffering the symptoms of a disease, you suffer 1 Fatigue. Suffering from a disease is considered a source of Fatigue, which is removed once you are cured.

DISEASE DURATION AND RECOVERY

Once you start suffering the effects of a disease, you may attempt an END + Survival test with a difficulty equal to the disease’s Duration rating (see the table above). If you succeed, the Duration rating is reduced by 1. If this would reduce it to 0, then you recover from the disease fully.

There are some additional factors which can affect this:

• Another character may assist your END + Survival test using their INT + Medicine, providing medical attention to help your recovery
• Taking antibiotics reduces the Duration rating of a disease by 1 automatically, no test required, at the end of the current day. You may not take more than one dose of antibiotics each day.
• If you spend the entire day resting—sitting or laying somewhere comfortable, performing a minimum of physical activity—you reduce the difficulty of your test by 1, to a minimum of 0.

Healing

When you’ve taken damage, there are a number of ways you can recover. In the midst of combat, stimpaks and first aid are the only ways to heal, but outside of combat you have several options.

The Medicine and Survival skills are the most useful skills for healing.

HEALING ACTIONS IN COMBAT

During a combat encounter, you can use the following methods to restore health and treat injuries.

Take Chem: A number of chems, most commonly stimpaks, can be used in a hurry in combat to restore health points. Taking the minor action allows you to administer the chem to yourself, or to a willing creature within your reach.

First Aid: You try to quickly patch the wounds of yourself or an ally. Attempt an INT + Medicine test, with a difficulty equal to the number of injuries the patient has, increasing the difficulty by +1 if you are trying to perform first aid on yourself. If you succeed, you can do one of the following:

• Stabilize a dying patient
• Heal Health Points equal to your Medicine rating
• Treat one injury the patient is suffering from

Stabilize the Dying

Using the First Aid action, you can attempt to stabilize a dying character. This requires an INT + Medicine test with a difficulty equal to the number of injuries the patient has. Passing the test restores the character to 1 HP and they are no longer dying, and their player no longer has to attempt END + Survival tests to avoid death. The character remains unconscious and unable to take actions.

If radiation damage has reduced their maximum health points to 0, they cannot be stabilized until their maximum health points are above 0, by healing the radiation damage.

If you stabilize the patient, you can spend AP to heal additional health points. You can heal 1 HP for every AP spent. You may also spend 1 AP after stabilizing a character to wake them from unconsciousness, allowing them to continue to act.

Regaining Health

You can use the First Aid action to heal a character’s health. Passing an INT + Medicine test will heal a number of HP equal to your rank in the Medicine skill, and an additional 1 HP for every AP you spend. You can only heal the HP of a stable character.

Treating an Injury

You can attempt an INT + Medicine test to treat an injury sustained from a critical hit. Passing the test allows a patient to ignore the penalties of their injury. An injury treated using First Aid is not fully healed: it’s merely been patched up so that it no longer imposes a penalty.

Whenever a character suffers any damage to a location which has a treated injury, roll 1 CD . If you roll an Effect, the damage has re-opened that wound and the character is injured again. Completely recovering from an injury takes time.

LONG-TERM RECOVERY

Outside of combat, there are three ways a character can heal: rest, food & drink, and medical attention.

REST

Rest is the easiest way to recover from damage, though it is slow. If you can find somewhere to sleep, for at least six hours, you regain all lost HP.If you’re able to get eight hours of sleep somewhere safe and comfortable—your own bed in a settlement you belong to, for example—then you are considered Well Rested as well, and your maximum HP is increased by +2 until you next sleep.

When you sleep, if you have any injuries (treated or otherwise), make an END + Survival test with a difficulty of 1. The complication range on this test increases by +1 for each injury that has not been treated. If you succeed, you may recover from one of those injuries, plus an additional injury for every 2 AP spent.

The difficulty of this test varies based on how active you were during the preceding day:

FOOD & DRINK

While proper nutrition isn’t common in the wasteland, a decent snack, a hearty meal, or a refreshing beverage is still a vital part of life, and a valuable way to recover health.

Food and drink restores the HP listed in their description. Food and drink cannot be consumed during combat. Some forms of food and drink are irradiated, especially if consumed raw: roll 1CD when consuming irradiated food or drink, and if you roll an Effect, you suffer 1 Radiation damage, ignoring any DR from equipment or armour.

MEDICAL ATTENTION

Characters may require long-term medical care if they’ve been injured, poisoned, or are suffering from a disease. A single character can provide medical attention for a number of patients equal to their Medicine rating.

For injuries, each day of rest and medical attention a patient receives allows you to assist their END + Survival test at the end of the day to heal their injuries, using your own INT + Medicine target number.

For poisons and diseases, you may assist the patient’s END + Survival tests to help them recover. If the patient spent the entire day resting, they reduce the difficulty of this test by 1 allowing them to recover more quickly