Health Level

Health Levels or Health Points are used to determine the physical state of a player character in a roleplaying game. Each of the three major White Wolf systems had similar systems in place, with a few differences in between them.

Storyteller System
On character sheets, each level of health is represented by a standard chart found towards the bottom. There were seven standard health levels that were used by all of the lines except for Wraith: The Oblivion. The levels represented the state of health for the character, along with the appropriate penalties to movement incurred by injuries the character recieved in gameplay. They also represented how long it would take to heal the injuries incurred. Different types of damage (bashing damage, lethal damage, and aggravated damage) also affect how a character's health levels are marked.

The standard levels are:
 * Bruised. No penalties are issued.
 * Hurt. A -1 penalty to dice pools and no movement penalties.
 * Injured. A -1 penalty to dice pools and movement is slightly impared.
 * Wounded. A -2 penalty to dice pools and movement is limited to walking and jogging.
 * Mauled. A -2 penalty to dice pools and movement is signficantly impared.
 * Crippled. A -5 penalty to dicepools and movment is nearly impossible.
 * Incapacitated. A character may take no actions or move due to unconsciousness.

If an incapacitated character takes further damage, they are dead by the definition of their character type (regular death for humans, mages, and hunters; Final Death for vampires, etc.)

Certain types of supernaturals can add additional health levels because of special abilities.

The exception to the health level rule are wraiths, spirits, and hues. Wraiths use Corpus, a basic set of ten points, to mark their damage. Being dead, a wraith has no health levels and therefore suffers no movement or dice pool penalities based on how much damage they take. Aggravated damage still affects their soak abilities and how a wraith heals themselves. Likewise, spirits and hues from Orpheus use Vitality to represent health levels instead of the conventional health level chart. A wraith, spirit, or hue who takes enough damage to "kill" simply discorperates or is pulled into Oblivion.