Wound Level Question

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

I'm pretty new to the game, and reading the 5th Edition corebook, I have a question about some thing. On the character sheet, characters have 5 boxes each for Light, Medium, and Heavy wounds, and their use makes sense. Their virtues and flaws that, IIRC, change that number from 5 to to a larger or smaller number. That leaves me with a couple questions.

  1. If a character has 5 boxes at each level of wounds, what happens if he gets a sixth one? For example, a character has 5 Light Wounds and 1 Medium Wound, and another Light Wound is inflicted. How would that be marked and treated?

  2. For the example creatures in the Bestiary Chapter, I don't believe it says how many boxes they get for each type of wound, though it does say how to determine what sort of wound is inflicted. Should I just assume that a creature has 5 boxes for each type unless stated otherwise, or is there a way to determine it?

I don't remember seeing this discussed in the book, but if I missed something obvious, point me to the page.

Oh, an unrelated question while I am here. The section on Encumberance, when listing things that are penalized, mentions spellcasting, and then gives a reference to a page on spellcasting (IIRC 81, but that's off the top of my head). Going to the referenced page, neither the descriptions nor the formulas say a thing about Encumberence penalties for spellcasting. So does Encumberence penalize spellcasting?

Thanks!

2

I'm not sure, but I think that it refers to the number of wounds of each intensity that the combatant has suffered.
This is relevent because the Wound penalties stack...

3

Page 178, third column, second paragraph. "Characters may have any number of any type of wound, in any combination."

I'm not seeing the encumbrance thing in the errata but encumbrance has long been subtracted (or added?) to spell casting totals.

Rich

4

Thanks for the replies! I'm glad they were easy to answer. After going through an RPG book fo that size with that many rules, having only that many questions at the end is a relief. :astonished:

5

Virtues and Flaws that affect the number of wounds were in previous editions, where 2 light wounds gave a medium wound. Then, a larger character had more wounds, a smaller less.

Now, size instead affect your wound range. For exemple, 5 damage will be a light wound to someone, a medium wound to another. But you can have as many grevious injuries or small cuts than your ennemies can inflict on you.

6

usually on a piece of scrap paper.
However by then he already has -8 to all totals (-1 with the last light wound) and so is quite likely to be unable to defend himself...

7

Thanks! I looked at the Virtues and Flaws again and I understand them properly now. It all makes sense now, and seems pretty awesome. Thanks for the all the help.