Two resources sit on every character sheet and shape what the character can endure and what they can push past. Willpower is the pool a character spends to bend the odds — focus, luck, raw refusal to lose. Wounds are the serious physical harm a character takes when violence connects. Both are tied to Will: one through how strong the character's resolve is, the other through how much they can suffer before they stop. Together they define the character as a body and a force of self.
Willpower
Every character has a reserve of Willpower — a consumable pool representing their capacity to push beyond ordinary limits. For characters trained in Focus, this is a deliberate channeling of the fundamental force that underlies all existence. For everyone else, it is what they call Luck: the inexplicable moments where things just go right, where the universe bends in your favor for reasons you cannot explain.
Mechanically, they are the same thing. The universe does not care what you call it.
The Willpower Pool
A character's maximum Willpower equals their Will + Focus. A character untrained in Focus uses 0 for the skill component. Their pool is just their Will rating. A character with Will 3 and Focus 2 has a maximum of 5 Willpower. A character with Will 2 and no Focus training has a maximum of 2.
Willpower regenerates between acts.
Spending Willpower
Willpower is spent during Step 4: Modify the Pool. When spending Willpower, the rolling player upgrades Ability dice in the pool to Skill dice — one upgrade per point of Willpower spent.
- Each point spent converts one Ability die into one Skill die.
- You may spend multiple points on a single roll.
- You cannot upgrade more dice than you have Ability dice in the pool.
- Spending Willpower counts as the roll's Step 4 modification. You cannot also Press, Brace, or apply any other pre-roll modification on the same roll.
Upgraded Skill dice function exactly like normal Skill dice. They are less likely to come up Blank than Ability dice and can produce Critical Successes.
Willpower upgrades can produce a pool with both Skill dice and Risk dice — the only situation in the game where this happens. If both a Critical Success and a Critical Failure appear on the same roll, they cancel one-for-one. Any Criticals remaining after cancellation take effect as normal. If all Criticals cancel out, resolve the roll as if no Criticals were present.
Focus users naturally have larger Willpower pools because they add their Focus skill rating. A trained Focus user with Will 3 and Focus 3 has 6 Willpower — triple the pool of a non-Focus character with Will 2. Focus users bend outcomes more often than anyone else, with or without disciplines in play.
This is intentional. In the fiction, Focus users are channeling the most fundamental force in the universe. At the table, they get to do it more often.
Wounds
Wounds represent serious physical harm — the kind that changes how a character operates and does not go away on its own. A Wound is not a scrape or a bruise. It is a gunshot, a broken bone, a blade between the ribs. Every Wound is a reminder that the universe does not care how skilled you are.
Wound Capacity
A character's Wound capacity equals their Strength + Will. An average, untrained civilian with Strength 1 and Will 1 has a Wound capacity of 2 — a single bullet puts them one hit from death. Player characters are harder to kill because they are exceptional people, not because of a separate hero mechanic.
| Character | Strength | Will | Wounds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average civilian | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Starting PC | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Tough marine | 3 | 2 | 5 |
| Focus adept | 1 | 4 | 5 |
| Hardened veteran | 3 | 3 | 6 |
A character with high Strength survives because their body can take punishment. A character with high Will survives because they refuse to stop. Both are equally valid, and the reason a character stays standing tells you something about who they are.
Taking a Wound
A character takes a Wound when the fiction demands it. The most common triggers are:
- Losing an active opposed roll involving violence.
- Critical Failure in a dangerous situation where physical harm is plausible.
- Costly Success where the GM determines that injury is the price.
The combat module defines additional triggers. The GM always has final say on when a Wound is inflicted.
Consequences of a Wound
Each Wound may carry a specific consequence determined by the GM — a broken arm, a limp, impaired vision, internal bleeding. These consequences are narrative and functional: a broken arm means you cannot use that arm. The GM does not need to assign a mechanical penalty beyond the Wound itself. The fiction handles the rest.
In the core rules, Wounds do not impose a systemic penalty on rolls. A character with four Wounds rolls the same pool as a character with none. Their injuries constrain what they can attempt, not how well they perform what they can still do. The combat module introduces additional mechanical consequences for accumulated harm.
This is deliberate. A wound spiral — every hit making the next hit easier — is brittle. The side that takes the first hit loses faster, and the scene's outcome is decided by the opening exchanges rather than the choices that follow. R10 keeps the pressure on the situation, not on the sheet.
Wounds in Structured Play
When a character takes a Wound during a Structured Scene, the player must spend 1 Momentum or the character is out of the scene. They are not dead. They are incapacitated, pinned down, or otherwise unable to continue. But the team pays for keeping them in the fight.
If no Momentum is spent — either because the team cannot afford it or chooses not to — the character is out. They can be brought back in later by spending 1 Momentum at any point during the scene. An ally drags them to cover, a medic gets them back on their feet, or they grit their teeth and crawl back into the fight. The character returns with the Wound they took. They are not healed, just functional again. This keeps players at the table and in the action rather than watching from the sideline.
A character who takes Wounds beyond their capacity is dying. They will die at the end of the scene unless another character stabilizes them. Stabilization requires an Intellect + Medicine roll. The GM sets the Risk and consequences based on the severity of the situation.
Recovery
Wounds do not heal on their own. They require medical attention and time. The optional Downtime rules give a structured procedure for healing — a roll built from the facility, the treating physician, and the character's wound count, with result bands that determine how many Wounds clear.
Tables not using Downtime should agree on a healing pace that fits the campaign. The recommendation is TV-and-movies logic, not video-game logic. A character who took a bullet in the gut does not walk it off by next scene. They limp, they wince, they need help, and eventually they heal. How fast "eventually" is depends on the story being told.