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My PCs fought a troll last session, and one of them was Broken by Stinking Breath, which led to a few questions.

Are there negative damage points that need to be healed? If a character with 3 Empathy takes 6 points of Empathy damage; are they at -3 Empathy?

What does the character do when their Empathy is Broken? Is there a table to roll on to determine their actions?

What happens if they're attacked? They can't take any actions or mount defenses, but are they eligible for a coup de grace?

Once your broken, you're broken, you don't take any more damage of that type.

The rules say, regarding being broken in Empathy:

You break down in despair or self-pity. You must either explode in a violent outburst, kicking and breaking everything around you, or withdraw from everyone around you.

When an attribute score reaches zero, you are Broken. This means that you are put out of action in one way or another.

This means that the player has a choice, either to 'violent outburst' or to withdraw from everyone. One thing to remember is that the basic rule for being broken in general still applies:

When an attribute score reaches zero, you are Broken. This means that you are put out of action in one way or another.

Since you can't roll for any skills, the 'violent outburst' just means that the PC throwing a tantrum, but doesn't runaway. It is up to the GM to decide if the tantrum PC breaks anything nearby, like a tent pole or a small table, but he doesn't do anything useful. You are allowed to runaway and that is probably the better choice since you can't roll for any skills, so you can't defend yourself, but as soon as you have runaway, you can sit down and cry it all out until your friends come and get you.

Coup de grace can only be performed against characters that are defenseless, which is being broken in Strength or Agility (or technically being a asleep or bound to a chair, etc.). Being broken in Wits or Empathy, is not being defenseless. Sure, you aren't allowed to use any skills to defend yourself, but the character isn't exactly defenseless, he can still move around, etc. Perhaps not in a rational way, but still enough so you can't cut his throat.

Thanks.

The fact that no additional damage can be inflicted after 0 is a bit counterintuitive, but all systems have their quirks.

If the published description is the only information about being broken via Empathy, I may assemble a table similar to the Critical Injury tables to determine what the character does when it happens since it's supposed to be irrational and situationally dependent.

Thanks.

The fact that no additional damage can be inflicted after 0 is a bit counterintuitive, but all systems have their quirks.
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Just to clarify, no additional damage of that type.

• If you are broken in empathy and runaway and cry and an enemy comes, you will runaway again, since you are still broken in Empathy.

• Being broken in Wits means a roll on the horror table and if you are the victim of a fear attack while you are already broken in Wits then another roll on that table.

• Being broken in Strength and you take another Strength damage (can happen by accident or with area effects), you take another Critical Injury. You still don't go below zero though. Attacking someone that is broken in Strength goes under the rule of coup de grace.

• Being broken in Agility and you take another Agility damage doesn't mean a thing, you have already collapsed by exhausted. But you can be target of coup de grace.

Just want to throw in on this.

Empathy is the only attribute that does not say the player may not make rolls in it's specific broken description. This is for a couple reasons that I can see.

1) Empathy is damaged in social conflict including negotiating prices. You are not "broken" the way you would be with horror or damage or exhaustion. You are just "at your wits end. " You "have had enough". and you are no longer empathizing with anyone around you. It's not that the negotiation made it so you can no longer swing a sword. Possibly it's the opposite. The negotiation can go so poorly that you are now drawing that sword and swinging.

2) The point of broken empathy is you are no longer in control. The sink into a depression or fly into a rage is literally a character losing control of themselves. They fly into a blind rage and start breaking things. They give up and fall to their knees. In the example of this troll, despite wanting to fight it, despite not fighting potentially putting their friends at risk, they simply cannot stand the smell any more. They stumble away retching and coughing unable to be near the stench any more.

That doesn't mean the character couldn't stumble out of that trolls cave and then try to hide (with hiding being a roll). It means that the person making that choice for them is the GM.