When a character drops to 0 HP or below during combat, they are considered downed. When a character is downed, all of the effects applied to them are removed, including buffs, debuffs, Shells, and statuses, with the exception of Poisoned, Frostbitten, and Burned. They cannot act, and cannot be the target of any abilities, items, or passive effects except those that state that they revive downed characters. When they are revived during the battle, they take the place they previously occupied in the Initiative Order, and will act on the first turn they have after the turn of the character that revived them. However, when they are downed they also lose the opportunity to act on their held turn regardless of whether or not they are revived before it.
If a downed character is not revived before the end of a battle, they will come back to life at 1 HP after the battle is over but at the cost of sustaining an injury. An injury is a penalty to one of a character’s statistics that until they are healed. When this happens, roll a 1d12 and consult the table below to determine the effect.
| Result | Injury |
|---|---|
| 1 | The character’s max HP is reduced by 5. |
| 2 | The character’s max MP is reduced by 5. |
| 3 | The character’s Initiative is reduced by 1. |
| 4 | The character’s Physical Attack is reduced by 1. |
| 5 | The character’s Magical Attack is reduced by 1. |
| 6 | The character’s Physical Defense is reduced by 1. |
| 7 | The character’s Magical Defense is reduced by 1. |
| 8 | The character’s Evasion is reduced by 1. |
| 9 | The character’s Resistance is reduced by 1. |
| 10 | The character’s Physical Accuracy is reduced by 1. |
| 11 | The character’s Magical Accuracy is reduced by 1. |
| 12 | The character’s Status Accuracy is reduced by 1. |
A character can theoretically sustain an infinite number of injuries in battle. Still, no injury can ever reduce their HP or MP below 1, and can never reduce any of their statistics below 0. While a character is traveling, other characters can heal their injuries by treating them during the Camping Phase of each round of travel. Otherwise, in order to have their injuries treated, characters must either pay a doctor for services or rest in a proper shelter. When characters recover injuries, they recover them in the order they were received.
A character cannot be reduced below 1 HP outside of combat. However, they can still sustain injuries if they take additional damage while they are at 1 HP. In general, they will take one additional injury every time they take damage that would make them drop to 0. The exception to this is when they are killed by either a Villain or Monster. If so, then they will instead undergo True Death, from which there is no coming back.