Health, Injury, Death, and Conditions · Core Rules

Philosophy

HP in Cerberus grows exponentially: a level 9 hero can withstand what would vaporize an army of level 1 soldiers. Every health threshold is a percentage of maximum HP, never a fixed value. A fixed threshold would be lethal at level 1 and irrelevant at level 9; a percentage retains the same weight at every level.

Health States

Unharmed / wounded (above 0 HP): no mechanical penalty. HP represents endurance, luck, and the will to continue. While any remains, the character fights at full capacity. The GM describes wear—short breath, cuts, dented armor—without penalizing it.
Down and dying (0 HP or less): the character collapses, falls unconscious, cannot act, and deteriorates as described below.
Dead (negative HP equal to 25% of maximum HP): a 60 HP character dies at −15. A 3200 HP character dies at −800. The dying margin is always one quarter of total vitality. Death remains proportionally as close for an epic hero as for a beginner.

Dying

At the beginning of each turn, a dying character makes a DC 15 Fortitude Save:

Success: the character remains stable for this turn. Three consecutive successes stabilize them: they remain unconscious but are no longer in danger.
Failure: the character loses 10% of maximum HP and moves closer to death.

An ally can stabilize a dying character with a general action and a chance roll prescribed by the GM—typically 3 out of 5 with equipment, 2 out of 5 with bare hands, or automatically with healing magic.

Coup de grâce: finishing a dying opponent requires only a deliberate attack. No one “misses” an inert body.

Conditions

Every condition uses ticks because they are combat's unit of time. The GM applies conditions sparingly: a condition is a significant event, not routine bookkeeping.

Prone. Standing costs one tick's movement. While prone, a character takes −5 to Reflex duels and cannot dodge melee attacks through movement, though parrying remains possible.
Grappled. The character's hands are neutralized. They cannot attack with a weapon or cast spells with gestures. Escape is resolved as a grapple movement; see the Martial Combat and Defenses chapter. One attempt is allowed per tick.
Blinded. A character cannot dodge or parry what they cannot perceive. Resolve their attacks with a prescribed chance roll, typically 1 out of 4 to hit the intended target.
Stunned. The character loses their next tick: no action and no secondary action.
Paralyzed. The character can take no action or movement while the effect lasts. Will and Fortitude Saves remain possible when the effect allows them.
Poisoned / diseased. The poison or disease defines its own DC, effect, and frequency. The standard pattern is a Fortitude Save on exposure, followed by one effect per tick or round until cured. Garen's snake, for example, imposes −40% DEX per tick until paralysis.
Bleeding. Lose X% of maximum HP per round, typically 5%, until a general action or healing closes the wound.
Frightened. Fear always has a named source, and the condition is carried toward that one creature. The frightened character cannot willingly approach it and cannot attack it. If the source comes within 30 ft, unless the effect names another distance, they must run: every tick they take an action that allows full Speed and spend all of that movement heading away from the source. Casting a spell, taking a general action, and holding a ritual allow less than full Speed, so none of them is possible while fleeing, unless a feat such as Mobile Caster or Steady Hands raises that action to full Speed for them. A frightened character who cannot flee—cornered, held, or out of room—automatically loses every Reflex duel against the source: they do not dodge it, do not parry it, and never act before it. Nothing stops them from fighting anyone else. Once they have put the required distance between themselves and the source, they may attempt a new Will Save each round. The effect that caused the fear sets its duration.
Gagged / silenced. The character cannot cast spells with verbal components.
Nauseated. The character can take only one action of their choice per tick and no secondary action.

Physical Poisons

A physical poison is an item, not a spell. It has its own Fortitude DC, exposure method, frequency, and antidote. It depends on no caster level, and Dispel Magic cannot remove it. Poison can amplify it, but still requires a real substance as a component.

A dose can be administered in five ways:

Exposure	Resolution
Ingestion	Full DC if swallowed.
Injection	Full DC if introduced directly into the blood.
Injury	Full DC, but only if at least 1 damage passes through DR.
Contact	−5 DC or −20%, whichever is the greater reduction.
Inhalation	−7 DC or −25%, whichever is the greater reduction.

Coating a slashing or piercing weapon requires a 2-tick general action and one dose. Application begins in the first tick and finishes at the end of the second. If interrupted, the dose is lost. Quick Application reduces this time for trained characters.

The dose remains on the weapon until it wounds a creature, is cleaned off, or dries after one hour. A parry, dodge, or DR that absorbs all damage prevents injection and does not consume the dose. One dose coats one weapon or three projectiles.

New exposure to the same poison prompts a new Save, but its effects do not stack. Keep the strongest consequence and renew its duration. Creatures without living biology are immune unless otherwise stated.

Harvest and preparation. A toxic gland, plant, or mineral gathered in the field is a raw ingredient. During a rest, a character who knows the recipe and has alchemical equipment can turn it into doses. If the outcome is uncertain, the GM prescribes a chance roll based on experience, the recipe, ingredient condition, time spent, and available equipment. An Alchemist's Kit is therefore a favorable factor in that judgment, never an automatic probability. Failure may destroy the ingredient; particularly dangerous handling may also expose the alchemist.

The four reference preparations are Cerberus Nerve Venom, Drow Sleep, Black Flower Sap, and Suffocating Spores.

Treating poison. An Alchemical Antidote prepared from the correct ingredient immediately grants a new Fortitude Save with +5; success ends the poison. Remove Poison can neutralize the substance directly. Healing HP does not remove poison, but can keep the victim alive while a remedy is found.

Healing

Rest. See the Rest chapter. Natural recovery is a percentage per night for the same reasons of invariance as death thresholds.
Magic. Healing spells restore HP according to their formula, which scales with the caster's CL. Magic follows the same exponential curve as life.
Alchemy. A healing potion is the Heal spell bottled. It restores what the spell would restore at the spell level and caster level used in preparation; see the Magic chapter. Drinking a potion is a general action.

Positive and Negative Energy

Positive energy repairs the living and burns the dead. Negative energy consumes living matter and sustains the dead. Neither allows a Save.

DR applies to damage, never to healing. An undead can therefore throw a healing potion as a grenade, while armor protects it from the same potion.

The Undead Body

An undead is a dead body animated by magic. It produces no red mana, so Harvest and the Partage cannot reach it. A mage who becomes undead loses the mana he held while living and never recovers any.

Scipion's unusually stable formulas allow many undead to last forever.

Necromancy creates undead and partial undead.

The Undead

When the brain is gone, magic drives the entire corpse. This is the undead of armies.

No Fortitude. An undead has no Constitution or Fortitude Save. It is immune to poison, disease, exhaustion, suffocation, extreme temperatures, and bleeding. It does not eat.
No mind to reach. It is immune to magic that acts on a mind—fear, charm, domination, sleep. Magic that reshapes the body still finds a body: the undead opposes it with the spell DC of the necromancer who raised it in place of a Will Save.

Undead Resurrection and Create Undead King instead preserve the mind. Their subjects resist mental magic with their own Will Save.
Borrowed senses. Magical sensors replace its eyes and ears.
A stronger body. It feels no pain and is generally stronger and better armored than it was in life.

The Partial Undead

Faint Current runs just enough negative energy through a fresh, whole corpse to preserve what its body and brain could already do.

The corpse can be dead for no more days than the necromancer's caster level.

It keeps its memories, its skills, and its way of fighting.
It eats and drinks.
It keeps its Constitution, its Fortitude Save, and its own Will Save.
It produces no mana.
It stands permanently at +2 to all six attributes. The current running through it is the same filament as Graveworld Boost, never switched off.
Both energies burn it, and neither one heals it.

A partial undead recovers HP only through rest and regeneration magic. Potions do not work, and Heal damages it.

What Destroys an Undead

An undead is destroyed at 0 HP, with no dying state or negative margin.

A partial undead goes down and dying at 0 HP, uses the usual negative margin and DC 15 Fortitude Save, and can be stabilized by hand. No spell can heal it while it is down.

Either kind also falls when the spell animating it is dispelled.

Spells with Two Gates

When a spell calls for both Will and Fortitude, an undead missing one of those Saves has no defense against that part of the spell. An undead can resist the Will effect of Telekinesis, but not its Fortitude effect.

Dispelling an Undead

Gold seals an undead like any enchantment (see 15). A gem, usually an emerald at 200 gp, attracts negative energy and makes it 25% harder to dispel. Before the gem is set during creation, Dispel Magic faces no such penalty.

Setting an emerald into a partial undead increases its Dispel DC by 25%.

The Lich

A lich keeps its vital organs alive and hidden elsewhere. They produce red mana, which it draws into its undead body; if they are destroyed, it can no longer cast.

A lich recovers slots through meditation (see 4). It uses the bestiary entry for its body and keeps its mind, caster level, and learned formulas.