Listed under 'Damage' in each of the weapons charts are the amount and the type of damage each weapon does. The amount of damage a weapon does is determined by rolling the indicated dice when a hit is scored. The attacked character will take that much damage. This means that the character should subtract that number from his current hit points.

Hit points, if you recall, are determined by adding the strength bonus to the character's constitution. If a character goes to 0 hit points he will generally be unconscious. If the number of hit points goes below negative one- half of the character's total hit points the character is dead. For example a character with 18 hit points could would be dead when he is below negative 9 (-9) hit points. A character with 10 hit points would be dead at negative 6 hit points.

There is a chance that a character may actually stay conscious while his hit points are 0 or below (as long as he's not dead). If the character is able to make a will roll at a penalty of the number of points below 0 he is at, he may stay conscious and active for 10 segments. After 10 segments he must make the same will roll again to stay up. If, at any time during this period, he is hit again he must immediately make a will roll (with the penalty refigured for the new damage) to stay up. For instance, a character with a constitution of 14 and a strength of 10 can take 14 hit points of damage before going unconscious and 21 hit points before being dead. However, in spite of this, the character may attempt to stay conscious even if he has taken more than 14 hit points. Let's say he took 17 hit points. He is at -3 hit points so to stay up he must make a will roll at a penalty of 3 to avoid going unconscious. Ten segments later he will have to roll again. If he makes it he can stay up for ten more segments and then try again. If not, he goes unconscious. If he takes 22 hit points he's dead. Bury him.

A character regains hit points at the rate of one-tenth of his constitution every 24 hours. This may be affected by medical attention or perhaps, magic.

There are many different types of poisons with different levels of effectiveness. In all cases a constitution roll should be allowed to negate or reduce the amount of effect taken.

Most poisons act over a period of time. The character should roll against his or her constitution repeatedly over a period of time. Every time the character rolls greater than his or her constitution one hit point should be taken.

If the constitution roll is successful then the poison has been resisted and no damage is taken. If a given number of rolls are successful then the character has thrown off the poison and may recover the lost hits normally.

Poisons may vary in the amount of time in which they act (how much time must pass between constitution rolls), what they effect (suffocation or normal damage, or possibly a statistic, such as agility with a paralyzing poison), and in how easy they are to throw off (how many rolls must be made successfully before they character may be considered safe from the poison).

As a basic guideline here are some general poison types, and their effects.

Poison Type is a general label that may be applied to the poison. This is by no means a comprehensive list, and the GM may design poisons that fit his or her campaign better if desired.

Save Rate shows what period of time passes between the constitution rolls by the character.

Effect shows what is effected by the poison. Where suffocation is used the suffocation points should be lost 10 at a time instead of one at a time. In agility, where the character reaches 0 agility he is completely immobilized. At GM's discretion some poisons may affect other statistics.

Characters will often be found wearing armor. For good reason too, since it can stop some damage. There are many types of armor and each stops different amounts of damage depending on the type of damage being inflicted. Listed with each weapon is the type of damage it does. This corresponds to a column on the armor chart. Cross-reference the type of armor with the damage type to determine the number of hit points (given by a die roll) that the armor will stop in a given hit.

Note that there is an agility minus column on the armor chart also. The wearing of armor is not without penalty. While wearing armor, a character's agility will be lessened by the agility minus of the armor. Any skill percentages involving agility should be refigured with the character's adjusted agility.

Certain character's however, may overcome the agility minus of armor by virtue of great strength. Each strength bonus point will negate one agility minus for armor. So a character with an 18 strength can wear armor with an agility minus of 4 without penalty.

Similarly, a weak character will be easily encumbered by armor. If the character's strength bonus is negative it is added to the agility minus but this extra penalty is never more than the agility minus itself. For instance, a character with a 3 strength has a strength bonus (penalty) of -4. If the character puts on armor with an agility minus of 4 then the actual agility minus for that character would be (4+4) 8. If the agility minus was only two then the character's effective agility only be at (-(2+2)) -4.

The following are descriptions of the various sorts of damage types encountered in Eternal Soldier.

Pummel: Damage caused by being hit with a blunt object.

Edged: Any bladed or cutting weapon. Also includes glass or anything else that does damage by virtue of slicing and/or dicing.

Pierce: Damage taken from pointed objects moving a a relatively low velocity. This include foils, arrows, spears or any other object where a lot of force is focused on a very small area.

Bullet: Any projectile fired at a high velocity which does damage by impact rather than exploding.

Energy: Any damage based on energy. This includes beam weapons and fire damage.

The armors shown below range from the beginning of time on into the future. Compare the type of armor against the damage type of the weapon. The result is the amount of damage that should be subtracted from the damage the character receives. Negative results mean no damage was taken. The agility minus is the amount the character's agility should be reduced while wearing the given armor.

Treat resultant agilities of less than one as one. Note that this will affect the character's performance on any skill that requires agility. The character's strength bonus should be subtracted from the agility minus. A character with a strength bonus of 2 in armor with an agility minus of 3 would only have a penalty of 1 on his or her agility. Characters with a strength bonus of 3 or 4 would suffer no penalty in the same armor, and a character with strength bonus of -2 would have a penalty of 5 in that armor.

As with weapons, numbers in parentheses after the name of the armor indicate the tech level of the armor.

Plate Mail: Refers to partial plate (breast plate and greaves)

Full Plate: Full body plate mail.

Flak Vest: Old fashioned bullet proof vest, i.e. a vest lined with lead shot.

Kevlar Suit: Modern suit of woven Kevlar (a super strong plastic) fibers.

Plastex: Futuristic plastic based (hard shell) body armor.

Ablative: Chemical based stiff foam which absorbs heat. It burns away as it takes heat damage. Has the consistency of soft wood and hence, not much good against physical attacks.

Alloyed: Hard-shell armor made of advanced metals.

Absorbant: Matrix of energy absorbing cells which absorbs beam and energy weapons (the energy of which it uses to supplement it's power supply). The cells are sewn onto something similar to leather armor for extra protection.

Absorbant Field: Like above but a field is generated from a central source. It creates egg-shaped field 6 ft. high and 3 ft at its widest point. May be combined with other armor.

Force field: Your basic sci-fi force field. Enough thought will present some interesting problems (Can someone touch himself while the force field is up...?). May be combined with other armor.

Combat Armor: Super strong hard-shell armor. May contain communications equipment and/or also be a Vacuum Suit. Jet pack optional.

Powered(3): Armor so massive it requires its own power assist. The limbs can't move as fast as most people's limbs (hence the -6 on agility (minimum agility of 3)). The strength bonus/penalty won't affect agility here. It does however, provide the wearer with an effective strength of 60. A punch while wearing this armor will be slower than a normal punch so just use half the strength bonus for damage. May also contain weapons, communications gear, and/or jetpack.

Max damage indicates the number of points that shield can take from a blow. Any amount in excess of this amount means the shield breaks and the character takes all left over damage.

For damage to structures we are more concerned with the damage to the armor or wall than we are in with what is wearing it. The values below represent the degree to which a barrier will prevent an amount of force from passing through to the other side. They also effect the amount of damage that a structure made of the particular material can absorb before collapsing.

Whenever damage is inflicted upon a structure subtract the number of points the structural armor will stop from the amount of damage dealt. Example: a bullet doing 27 points of damage a 4mm panel of Steel Plate. Steel Plate stops 3 pts./1mm against bullets, so (3x4mm)=12 points is subtracted from the bullet's damage. If the bullet strikes a target on the other side it will do (27-12)=15 points of damage to the target. The Armor is pierced where the bullet hits.

When a section of armor/structure takes more hit points than it can stop, the entire area hit by the weapon is pierced. Thus when dealing with explosive weapons the entire area within the kill zone would be destroyed. If the damage in the casualty zone is still greater than the structure can take then the all parts of the structure in the casualty zone are destroyed also. At this point the GM must make a decision about whether the structure may still stand without the blown up parts.