Stamina

This broad skill measures a character’s physical fortitude with regard to the effects of mortal damage and fatigue. Note: This skill is free to human, mechatus, sesheyan, t’sa, and weren characters.

Dying

A character who has suffered any amount of mortal damage is considered to be dying. At the end of a scene, a dying character (whether conscious or unconscious) makes a Stamina check.

• Critical Failure: The character suffers 2 additional points of mortal damage.
• Failure: The character suffers 1 additional point of mortal damage.
• Ordinary or better: The character’s condition is unchanged. The dying character makes additional Stamina checks once per hour, until he receives medical aid (see the Medical Science—surgery or Medical Science—treatment descriptions for details). The time between these Stamina checks can be lengthened to once per day if the character is helped by the application of Knowledge—first aid or Medical Science—treatment.

Fatigue

When a character engages in certain fatigue-causing activities, he must make a Stamina check. This check is made after the activity takes place, or at set intervals for certain types of activity (see “Fatigue Damage” in the rulebook).

• Critical Failure: The character suffers 2 points of fatigue damage.
• Failure: Indicates 1 point of damage.
• Success: Indicates that no fatigue damage occurs as a result of the activity just completed.

Endurance

As a character acquires ranks in the endurance skill, he becomes more able to withstand the effects of damage. For a character who has this specialty, endurance checks take the place of Stamina checks for damage and fatigue.

⊗ Rank 4, 8, and 12 [Improved Breathing] The bonus to a character’s Stamina-endurance check while holding his or her breath improves to -2 at rank 4, -3 at rank 8, and -4 at rank 12.

Resist pain

Resist pain allows a character to function normally and ignore some or all of the situation penalties for suffering large amounts of stun, wound, or mortal (but not fatigue) damage. A character with this specialty may get an opportunity once per combat scene to check the effectiveness of his ability to resist pain. The first time during a combat scene when the character has received stun points or wound points, or when he receives at least 1 point of mortal damage, he makes a resist pain skill check. Note: This check does not count as an action, and takes place before any characters attempt any actions. The result of the resist pain check lasts for the rest of the combat scene.

Results

• Critical Failure: The character succumbed to the pain and can’’t act for 2d4 phases.
• Failure: The character succumbs to the pain and suffers the normal damage penalties.
• Ordinary: The character ignores 1 step of penalty.
• Good: The character ignores 2 steps of penalty.
• Amazing: The character ignores 3 steps of penalty. Benefit Consolidation: Resist pain only helps to lessen or eliminate situation penalties caused by cumulative damage. The benefit a character receives from a successful skill check can’’t be used to turn a penalty into a bonus. (If a character only has a +1 penalty due to damage when the check is made but the result indicates a reduction of 2 points of penalty, the character gets no immediate benefit from the extra reduction—but it might come into play if he suffers damage later in the scene). Having this skill doesn’’t help a character stave off dying or death results.