Stamina Drain

Exhausting actions and harsh environmental effects that chip away at your energy reserves cause Stamina Drain. Once your body surpasses its natural limits, you make a Stamina check (see Chapter 6: Skills). As long as the cause of the Stamina Drain persists, you must repeat the Stamina check at regular intervals, and the DL increases each time. A failed check moves you one stage down the Knockout Track.

Stamina Drain is either tiring or lethal. Tiring effects result from physical exertion, which saps your energy. Once you cease the taxing activity, the penalties remain until you get a good night's sleep or engage in responsible stimulant use. Lethal effects, on the other hand, result from your body being deprived of something it needs (e.g. air, food, water). The lethal variety of Stamina Drain blocks each stage of the Knockout Track you move down. Once you reach stage 5, if the effect persists and you fail another check, your body gives up and you die outright.

Any effect in this game that imposes Stamina Drain will list the initial DL, the frequency of Stamina checks, the amount the DL increases each time, and whether the effect is lethal or tiring. For example, the suffocating condition described later in this chapter causes Stamina Drain (DL 15; +1 every round; lethal).

Stamina Drain is cumulative. For example, if your character is both starving and under-dressed in the arctic, you have to make one daily Stamina check and one hourly Stamina check. If you fail either, you move one stage down the Knockout Track.