Hey, I’m relatively new to GM’ing AO.  I have a question about damage dealt in combat.  Does damage come straight out of the health pool or does it come out of the endurance pool first?  I ask because I’ve combed the CRB several times and not found an answer.

Tylhandras - 05 September 2010 02:26 AM

Hey, I’m relatively new to GM’ing AO.  I have a question about damage dealt in combat.  Does damage come straight out of the health pool or does it come out of the endurance pool first?  I ask because I’ve combed the CRB several times and not found an answer.

Directly out of health pool, see Section 7.11.6/7.11.7.

AO Core Rulebook - 05 September 2010 02:26 AM

Marek has just been shot by Jonus. The Shroud’s Mantis Hand Cannon deals 12 points of High Velocity Kinetic Damage. [Snip stuff about armor] Therefore, the remaining 5 Damage [reduced to 5 by armor, see the book] penetrates the armor and strikes Marek, resulting in 5 points of Damage to his Health Pool - compelling him to promptly run away.

Where Bleeding Rate and Endurance start to affect the character’s health pool is when you’re playing with the more advanced rules of the game after your players have gotten the basics down. Sustaining damage then becomes more sophisticated as it becomes two-fold. Not only is it direct damage as a result of an attack but their endurance starts becoming affected as their bleeding rate increases if not treated while the combat cycles continue. If they run out of endurance and the bleeding rate hasn’t been decreased or stopped completely, the bleeding rate starts to deplete the character’s health pool as well as DoT (Damage over Time) indirectly.

So, if a character gets hit with a one-handed axe, for instance, and gets more than 15 points of damage and the armor vest absorbs the first four as melee kinetic, leaving 11 points of direct damage to the health pool. In addition to that, the character’s Bleeding Rate starts at 1 which means they’ll lose 1 endurance point per combat cycle if it’s not taken care of.

Myri