In Aftermath, characters will find themselves in danger from both nature and each other. As such, your characters can acquire a variety of physical wounds, ranging from bruises to lost limbs. Similarly, your character can become ill or poisoned to varying degrees of severity.
Wounds come in three levels of severity: superficial, serious, and permanent.
| Type of Wound | Duration | Effects | Removed By | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Superficial | One turn | No mechanical effects | Doesn't need to be removed | Bruises, upset stomach, headache |
| Serious | Two turns | Will affect skills negatively | Basic medical skills | Deep wound, venomous bite, flu |
| Permanent | Indefinitely | Will affect skills negatively | Advanced medical skills | Lost limb, badly infected wound |
Getting rid of wounds takes a major action from your own character and the character healing your character. The character doing the healing can heal two people with one major action, whilst being healed takes a full major action. The medical skills to remove a wound depend on how bad the wound is, as in the table above. You don't need to do anything to get rid of superficial wounds.
A serious wound will last two full turnsheets unless healed. If you get healed in the first turn, it will affect the other actions in that turn. If you get healed in the second turn, then it will not affect the other actions that turn.
Some wounds, such as loss of a limb, are permanent and cannot be removed. However, with advanced medical skills, their effects on your character can be reduced. For example, creating a prosthetic leg for someone who has lost their own. Once a permanent wound has been treated, it will still affect the rest of the actions on that turnsheet whilst your character recovers, and the turn after that.