[Circles] "pumping" Brawn is like an injury, right?

[James_Nostack]

I'm just asking because I can't find an explicit mention of this in the text. 

If I normally have Brawn 6, and pump 2 points of Brawn for some reason (skipping ahead twice in the action sequence, let's say), then I effectively am operating at Brawn 4 until that gets healed up, correct?  And healing occurs at the usual rate for serious injuries (i.e., in this example, because I'm down 2 Brawn from my normal maximum, it would take me 2 days to heal to Brawn 5; because that's 1 point off from my normal maximum, it would take another day to heal back to Brawn 6).

[Moreno R.]

If I recall correctly, the Brawn "pumped" to jump ahead at 3:00 or to cast spells returns at the end of the scene. I see it as fatigue, exhaustion: in the moment it has the same effect of a light wound (weakness, pain, distraction) but the causes can be eliminated simply by resting.

[James_Nostack]

Moreno, you are correct and I am blind.  The relevant text is on page 109:

Brawn reduced by spellcasting or by jumping posi-
tion in the fight order all comes back with any scene
transition, or if you want to look at it in fictional
terms, when the character gets a breather

[Ron Edwards]

I tried hard to control the categories for losing Brawn without turning it into a plethora of secondary attributes, without much success.

It came down to:

1. Hit by an axe: lethal, takes forever to recover

2. Hit by Keith's elbow: has a non-lethal buffer stage, but recovers as #1

3. Spellcasting and pumping: lethal, but comes back for the next scene

It doesn't quite match the injury/stun profile for any other game so it's hard to explain and initially hard to do, especially to keep track of. I simply couldn't find a way clear of it and preserve the spirit of the game; same goes for the slightly clunky "add Brawn to damage" step. The only solution was to try to make the sheet as useful and explicit as possible.

edited for minor clarity - RE

[James_Nostack]

Just to be clear: Let's say my Circle Knight has 6 Brawn.  By using magic and pumping and what-not, I'm down to 3 Brawn (winded, exhausted, seeing stars, etc.), and Quickness 5.  Some yahoo then clobbers me for 10 damage, and we'll say I'm not wearing armor.  So that damage gets split between Brawn and Quickness, taking me down to 0 in each category with a single blow--at that point, my guy's dead, right?  Even though, arguably, I wasn't "really" at 3 Brawn? 

(I think the answer is "yes, you're dead" both on a reading of the rules and a notion of the aesthetics in play, but I just want to confirm that this momentary Brawn loss really is potentially fatal if you get hammered at the exact wrong time.)

[Ron Edwards]

Yes, to what you're asking - in other words, Brawn loss counts toward "going to zero" no matter how you lost it.

But ... as for actually and truly, my-guy-is-dead, that's the choice of the player or GM whose character dealt the blow.

1. No matter what, the character goes down in a heap.

2. If I say, "annnd, you're dead," then that's it.

3. If I say, "you're down but not dead," then the character is helpless and laid up until they start to heal. We go to the injury and recovery section to learn about how you're maimed when you recover. (and if that character was an NPC, the GM reserves the right to kill them by shock or infection anyway)

You will find that when #3 is the case, and the character receives no help but is left lying there, that the "getting lost" and associated survival rolls will take care of the problem in short order.