Health
Health is how much punishment your character can take before they fall. It is shown as a number over your maximum in the interface, alongside a word for how badly hurt you are, and it is the one stat that ends your run when it empties.
Maximum health
Your maximum health comes from your class and your Constitution together. Each class carries its own base, and every level adds growth scaled by your Constitution modifier, so two characters of the same level differ by both the class they chose and the Constitution they built.
| Class | Base health |
|---|---|
| Warrior | 10 |
| Rogue | 8 |
Raising Constitution raises both your starting health and the amount every future level grants, which is why an attribute point spent there compounds while a point spent elsewhere does not, as described on Attributes. Growth never stops entirely, because a level always grants at least a quarter of your class base even at very low Constitution.
Gear adds to the total on top of that. Max health rolls as an affix on the body, legs, neck, and shield slots, so a full set can carry a great deal of it, as described under Affixes.
Wound states
The word beside your health is your wound state, and it follows the share of your maximum you have left rather than a raw number.
| State | Health remaining |
|---|---|
| Healthy | Above 75% |
| Bloodied | 50% to 75% |
| Severely wounded | 25% to 50% |
| Critically wounded | 25% or less |
| Dying | 0 or below |
The state is not only a label, because dropping low costs you real ability. Below a tenth of your maximum health you are too battered to dodge at all, so your evasion stops answering for you and attacks land freely, as described on Combat. Critical health also builds fatigue, which carries its own penalties until you rest, as described under Fatigue.
Losing health
An incoming attack passes through evasion, then armor, then resistance, and a shield can block part of what survives all three. Elemental damage skips armor entirely, so a heavily armored character still bleeds to fire. A defender above the attacker's level shrugs off part of the damage as well. Combat covers the full order a hit resolves in.
Poison, bleeding, and burning keep taking health after the blow that applied them, and each of those weakens as it runs, so the first tick is the hardest. Being overburdened, going without sleep, and other lasting effects can lower your maximum health rather than your current health, which lowers the ceiling you can heal back to until the effect clears.
Regaining health
- Potions and food. A healing draught restores health the moment you drink it, and a meal taken during a rest heals more, scaling with the food's rarity.
- A healer's kit or bandages. These heal whoever you use them on, so you can treat a wounded ally rather than yourself.
- Resting. A short rest restores part of your health and a long rest restores all of it, as described on Rest.
- Time. Companions and enemies both mend on their own once a fight is over.
- A healer. Visiting one closes lingering wounds that a rest alone will not.
Healing in the field patches you up, while resting is what actually closes wounds. A lingering wound is marked as temporary on your character sheet and names how it clears.
Dying
Reaching zero does not kill you. You fall into a dying state, unconscious and bleeding but savable, and your health continues below zero until it reaches half your Constitution in the negative, at which point the death is final. The blow that puts you down never carries its overkill into that window, so you always begin bleeding out from the top of it.
Bleeding out is counted in turns rather than game time, taking roughly four exchanges, so allies have a few turns to reach you however much story time a single message covers. An ally can stabilize you, healing brings you back up, and sleeping through the night with a dying character untreated still ends them. You may also give up while dying and end it at once, at no credit cost.
Death is not the end for a player character alone, because the Absence of Soul you carry allows a return, as described on Revival. Every other character in Valdaria dies for good.