Vitality

Typically used with: Endurance.

In short: stay healthy. The Vitality skill is used when a character is fighting off illness, poisons, and concoctions. This skill essentially represents your ability to flex your immune system and physical composure. If you want to get on all of the carnival rides, even the spinning ones, Vitality is for you.

Healing

A character heals an amount of HP equal to the sum of their Endurance and Vitality for each full night of rest. No roll is required.

Resisting Illness

You can make a Vitality check to ward off illness. Each illness presents its own DL to resist — the higher the DL, the more unavoidable the illness.

You might need to overcome motion sickness. Someone may have replaced your milkshake with chocolate laxatives. Maybe you're sailing a quarantine ship. Whatever the case, if you meet or exceed the DL, you remain healthy. If you fail the check, you contract the illness in question and move one stage down the Knockout Track for each level of severity (see the "Illness" entry in the Losing Consciousness section of Chapter 4: Life and Death).

A fightable illness allows an unhealthy character to combat the illness at repeated intervals. Each illness will list this frequency (e.g. fightable every 12 hours). A successful check removes one stage of the Knockout Track penalties imposed by the illness. A Critical Failure worsens the Knockout Track penalties by one stage. Once all Knockout Track penalties are removed, the creature makes a full recovery.

A limited illness, on the other hand, will go away on its own (assuming you live through it).

Resisting Poison

You can also make a Vitality check to tough out poison. Each poisonous substance has its own DL — the higher the DL, the more toxic the poison. Some poisons enter the bloodstream through injury, some must be imbibed, and some can simply be absorbed through contact with the skin.

If you meet or exceed the DL, you resist the poison. Otherwise, you gain the poisoned condition and begin taking a set amount of damage every round (see the "Poisons" entry in the Damage and Death section of Chapter 4: Life and Death). Each round you remain poisoned, you make an additional Vitality check. If you succeed, you can ignore the effects of the poison for that round. Each poison has a set duration.

Characters can use the Craft skill to create an antidote, antitoxin, or antivenom capable of counteracting the poison coursing through your veins.

Resisting Spells

Certain spells call for a Vitality check to resist, for instance Disease, Blood Corruption, and Sicken. In this case, you may add any points in Magic Defense to this roll. The mage makes a Casting Roll. You make a Vitality check. If your result meets or exceeds the Casting Roll, you elude the effects of the spell.