When the damage from an attack exceeds the target's Wound Threshold , the attack inflicts a Wound. The Wound has a rank to describe its severity, this rank is the success level of the damage result vs the Wound Threshold , counting an average success as a rank 0 Wound. If an attack automatically inflicts extra Wounds, the rank of all the Wounds is determined by the damage test of the attack, with a minimim rank of 0 if the test does not exceed the target's wound threshold .
The base step penalty for accumulated wounds is 1 step per Wound after the first. Each rank of Wounds also adds a 1 step penalty.
This penalty also applies to the damage recovered from recovery tests, but when making a recovery test, compare the test result to the number of Wounds plus the rank of the most severe Wound, the success level is the minimum amount of damage healed regardless of the Wound penalty, with Average being 1 Damage Point. If the success level equals or exceeds the Rank of the most severe Wound, reduce that wound's rank by the number of additional successes. Thus, a Good result would reduce a rank 1 Wound to a Rank 0 Wound, and an Extraordinary result would reduce the rank of one Wound with rank 3 to 2, a Rank 2 or 1 to 0, but would have no effect if the character had a Rank 4 Wound. Wounds are only fully healed (ie removed) by applying an Extraordinary or greater success to a rank 0 Wound, or by spending the first Recovery test of the day with no current damage.