Wounds and injuries

What it is and whether it's on

• Wounds is on from the very start of a game: a hidden controller starts by itself and watches every hit you take.
• Only you get wounds from it. Followers have their own, separate system for when they fall in a fight.
• There are four kinds of injury: broken bones, bruises, cuts and concussions. Bones and bruises can land on the head, torso or either arm or leg; cuts never land on the head; concussions only come from head hits.
• Blade and Blunt's own injury system is switched off in GTS: GTS ships its own copy of that mod's settings file with injuries turned off, and Jay's collection makes that copy the one the game reads. Setting

What gives you a wound

• Only melee and unarmed blows from someone count. Arrows and other projectiles, spells, enchantments and explosions never wound you.
• As GTS ships it, a hit that qualifies has a 5% chance to wound you at all. Wounds on its own would make that 25%. Setting
• Then each kind rolls on its own: a cut 20%, a bruise 25% (only if no cut), a broken bone 5%, and a concussion 20% (head hits only). Setting
• Cuts need a blade (a sword, dagger, war axe, battleaxe or greatsword) or a creature's attack. Bashes never cut, and a bow never does either, since arrows don't count and a bow bash is a bash.
• Broken bones need a heavy weapon: a battleaxe, greatsword, mace or warhammer, or any creature. A fist or a sword alone can bruise or cut you but won't break bones.
• In GTS every body part is equally likely to be the one hit. A blocked blow always lands on an arm, and on your shield arm if you carry a shield. Setting
• While an armour spell such as Oakflesh is on you, three hits in four can't wound you at all. Ward spells don't give this.
• You can't be wounded in Sovngarde (its great hall included), in the Mind of a Madman (Pelagius's mind) or inside Azura's Star. The protection switches on and off as you change location.

How bad a wound gets

• How bad a wound is depends on how much of the weapon's base damage gets past your armour on that spot: each fifth that gets through is a step, less your protection steps. With no armour piece there, your armour has to beat the weapon's damage by a fifth to stop the wound; light armour stops it once it matches the damage, heavy armour once it reaches four fifths of it.
• Only the piece over the hit spot counts in full: your helmet for the head, body armour for the torso, gauntlets for arms and boots for legs, plus a share of your total armour rating (a fifth for the head, under a third for the torso, an eighth for a limb).
• Your armour counts for less when your stamina or magicka are down: at half of both it counts half, and with either one empty only a quarter.
• Heavy armour on the hit spot takes two steps off the wound and light armour one. Blocking takes off two more with a shield, one without. With two steps of protection or more a hit can't cut you.
• Power attacks make a wound one step worse. As a werewolf your wounds are three steps milder; a vampire lord doesn't get this.
• One hit can't start a wound past the fourth step (a broken bone past the third). But each new hit on an already-hurt part stacks on top, so repeated blows climb to the worst step. Setting
• A fresh wound of the same kind on a part you've already treated wipes out that treatment: the bandage, packing, stitches, cauterising or brace are gone and you don't get the item back. A cut's infection stage stays as it was.

Broken bones

• Broken bones go through five steps. A limb goes Cracked, Fractured, Broken, Crippled, Crushed (for example Cracked Right Leg up to Crushed Right Leg).
• A broken skull goes Dented, Cracked, Fractured, Fragmented, Crushed Skull and cuts health, magicka and stamina by 30 at the first step, up to 150 at the worst.
• Broken ribs go Cracked, Fractured, Broken, Fragmented, Crushed Ribs: health and magicka drop by 20 up to 100, stamina by 30 up to 150.
• In GTS a crushed arm that isn't splinted makes you drop what that hand holds and keeps knocking it out of your hand; the left arm also drops your shield. Either crushed arm also won't hold a bow or a two-handed weapon. Plain Wounds does this from the Broken step; GTS's patch keeps it only for Crushed.
• A broken leg drops magicka by 10 up to 50 and stamina by 20 up to 100, and slows your walking by 15% up to 75% without a splint (10% up to 50% with one).
• Wounds stops injuries from slowing you below a floor: a hidden Braced Pain effect tops your speed back up when it falls under 20%. Setting

Bruises and concussions

• Bruises have ten steps, from Lightly Bruised up through Swollen and Blistered to Contused, for each body part (for example Lightly Bruised Face up to Contused Face).
• A bruise lowers magicka by 5 and stamina by 10 per step, so 50 and 100 at its worst. The worst step also lowers disease and poison resistance by 10.
• Concussions have five steps, Minor, Mild, plain, Serious and Severe. Each lowers magicka, magicka regeneration and stamina regeneration by 20 per step, up to 100.

Cuts and infection

• Cuts have seven steps on the torso, arms and legs. Every step lowers magicka and stamina by 10 and disease and poison resistance by 10.
• A cut can get infected each time it tries to heal. The worse the cut, the likelier: with GTS's settings it's 5% per step, so about 15% at the fourth step and 30% at the worst, and only about 1 in 100 at the first step. Good disease and poison resistance lowers it. Setting
• Every failed heal makes the infection one stage worse and the cut doesn't heal that time. The stages run Dirty, Possibly Infected, Slightly Infected, Partially Infected, Fully Infected, costing 5, 15, 30, 50 and then 75 health.

The Treat Wounds power

• You treat cuts and broken bones yourself with a lesser power, Treat Wounds. You learn it by reading the book Common Injuries of the Everyday Adventurer.
• Copies of the book sit in the temples: Kynareth in Whiterun, Mara in Riften, Dibella in Markarth, the Divines in Solitude, Talos in Windhelm, the Raven Rock temple and the Cathedral of St. Martin in Bruma. GTS adds one in the Morthal jail.
• GTS hides two of the three Whiterun copies, so the Temple of Kynareth has one.
• You can also buy the book from the pilgrim traders, and it can turn up in general stores' stock and in loot. Common Injuries' own plan to stock it at many merchants is switched off in GTS: GTS ships an empty copy of that list, and it's the one the game reads.
• The first time you're hurt and out of combat without the power, a courier brings a note pointing you to the book, and a small quest, Treat Your Own Wounds, Dammit!, tracks it.
• In GTS you have to sheathe your weapons before using Treat Wounds. Your character then plays a short animation before the menu opens.
• The menu only offers Broken Bones and Cuts. Bruises and concussions can't be treated with it.
• With Time Flies, treating a wound takes 15 minutes of game time, crafting a bandage 10 minutes, Medicinal Alcohol 2 hours and Needle and Thread 1 hour, adjusted by Time Flies' own skill and randomness. Setting

Treating broken bones

• To splint a broken limb, pick Brace Arm (or the leg) in the Treat Wounds menu. It uses one piece of Firewood; Remove Brace gives a Firewood back.
• A limb at the Broken step or worse won't heal at all until it's splinted. The first two steps, and any skull or rib break, heal without one.
• When a splinted bone heals completely you get the Firewood back.

Treating cuts

• Cuts have seven options in the Treat Wounds menu: Clean Wounds, Bandage Wounds, Remove Bandage, Pack Wounds, Stitch Close Wounds, Remove Stitching and Cauterize.
• Clean Wounds uses one drink: Medicinal Alcohol, or ale, mead or wine. It always resets the infection to clean. If the cut was Slightly Infected or worse, cutting the infection out makes the cut one step worse.
• Bandage Wounds uses a Clean Bandage if you have one, otherwise a Dirty Bandage. A clean one guards against infection twice as well as a dirty one.
• A clean bandage turns dirty at the first healing check, and Wounds tells you when a dirty one on an open cut needs changing. When the cut closes you get a Dirty Bandage back.
• Pack Wounds takes three Hanging Moss or three Blue Mountain Flowers.
• Stitch Close Wounds needs Needle and Thread, which has a one-in-four chance of being used up. Stitching takes out any packing.
• Cauterize works if you carry a torch or know a fire spell (Flames, Firebolt, Fireball, Incinerate, Fire Storm, Wall of Flames, Flame Cloak or a flame atronach or thrall). Otherwise it uses up one Fire Salts. It also takes out any packing.
• Each treatment cuts the chance of infection by a set amount: dirty bandage 15, clean bandage 30, packing 25, stitches 30, cauterising 50 (in percentage points). A clean bandage alone all but stops infection with GTS's settings.
• Treatments also give back some of the disease and poison resistance a cut takes: dirty bandage 5, clean bandage 10, packing 15, stitches 20, cauterising 30.
• Stitches and cauterising hurt: on a fourth-step cut, stitches cost a further 20 magicka and stamina on a limb (40 on the torso), and cauterising 40 (60 on the torso). On a leg both slow you more too.
• Cauterising wears off once the cut is down to its first three steps.

Getting supplies

• Clean Bandage, Dirty Bandage and Medicinal Alcohol sell for 15, 15 and 5 gold, and Needle and Thread for 20. They're tagged as apothecary goods in GTS.
• General store stock and many loot chests (common, bandit, Forsworn, warlock, orc, hagraven, noble) draw from a list of treating gear: mostly Clean Bandages, plus Needle and Thread, Medicinal Alcohol and the Common Injuries book.
• The pilgrim traders carry 3 to 5 Clean Bandages.
• At a tanning rack: five Tundra Cotton make a Clean Bandage, a Linen Wrap makes a Dirty Bandage, and a lockpick with five Tundra Cotton makes Needle and Thread.
• You can wash a Dirty Bandage clean with one Medicinal Alcohol, at a tanning rack or a cooking pot.
• At a cooking pot one bottle of ale, mead or wine turns into 1 to 3 Medicinal Alcohol: wines give 2 or 3, ales and meads 1, Black-Briar Reserve 2.
• Wounds has Laudanum (a painkiller that speeds you up and gives stamina, then slows magicka and stamina regeneration), but GTS's patch blocks its three cooking-pot recipes, so you can't make it.
• Wounds also has four cure potions: Potion of Close Cuts, Potion of Mend Broken Bones, Potion of Heal Bruises and Potion of Cure Concussions. One wipes that kind of injury from a body part you pick, or tells you it found nothing.

Healing over time

• Every wound heals on its own, one step at a time. Wounds checks every 3 game hours, and each step needs a set number of days since the last change.
• As GTS ships it: bruises, concussions and cuts heal a step a day, broken bones a step every 5 days. So a splinted Broken limb takes about 15 days to mend. Setting
• Disease resistance, poison resistance and better health regeneration all shorten that time. The Wounds menu shows your adjusted times.
• An infected cut can't heal on a check that it fails, so dirty, untreated cuts can drag on and keep getting worse.
• When you're hurt, your character walks and stands differently: limping on a bad leg, holding a broken or bandaged arm.

Followers who fall

• When a follower or hired companion drops to their knees in a fight, the game rolls once for what happens. Pets on GTS's list (dogs, Creation Club pets and some named companions like Inigo) count too.
• GTS leaves Nessa and Bacchus out, and nothing happens at the Bannermist Tower grounds.
• GTS's Easy Mode switches the whole follower death and injury system off.
• A follower can die for good. As the mod ships it's a 5% chance; GTS's setup lowers it to 3%. Essential protection is stripped, so even a normally unkillable follower can die. Setting
• If that kill doesn't take and the follower is left with no health, they're permanently injured instead. They're stunned for 8 seconds, then turn cowardly, stop regenerating health, lose 25 maximum health and wear head bandages that cost a further 75 health, magicka and stamina. Only the menu's Cheat Heal undoes it.
• Otherwise a follower can be gravely injured. As shipped that's 15%; GTS's setup makes it 10% (which works out at 9 rolls in 100). Creatures can't get this; they get the short knock below instead. Setting
• A gravely injured follower puts on Head bandages that cost 75 health, magicka and stamina until they recover. By default recovery takes a random 2 to 20 days, then the bandages come off by themselves. No item or healer speeds it up. Setting
• Up to six followers can be gravely injured at once. Beyond that, or if they're already bandaged, they just get the short knock.
• Most falls just give a short knock: the follower loses 25 health, magicka and stamina for 7 minutes and stops regenerating health for 8 seconds.
• Talking to a gravely injured follower can tell you roughly how many days they still need. Once they're healed, that same talk clears the injury.
• GTS's setup also turns on big message boxes for a follower's death or serious injury instead of corner notices. Setting

Bleeding from weapons

• Some weapons and perks make you bleed (for example axe wounds and bleed enchantments). Your armour cuts bleed damage, by 0.15% per point of armour rating and to a quarter at 500 or more, and blocking halves it.

Settings

• Wounds has its own menu, Wounds, with sliders for every chance, heal time, severity, armour offset and minimum speed, plus an uninstall button. GTS's setup records nothing for it, so GTS's values come from its plugin.
• The Wounds menu's help text and Default button still use Wounds' own original numbers (25% injury chance, 50% broken bones and so on), not GTS's. Pressing Default on a slider undoes GTS's value. Setting
• As GTS ships Wounds: injury chance 5%, severity 3, armour offset 0, minimum speed 20%, infection 15%, every body part equal, broken bones 5% healing a step every 5 days, bruises 25%, concussions 20% and cuts 20%, each healing a step a day. Setting
• The follower system's menu is Follower Death/Injury, with death and injury chance sliders (0 to 50%), random or fixed recovery days (2 to 100), big messages, and cheats to add a follower, heal, or bring one back to life. Setting
• GTS's setup for followers (its MCM Recorder recording) sets death chance 3%, injury chance 10% and big messages on. Setting
• If you switch off random recovery, a gravely injured follower takes 10 days unless you move the slider. The slider itself starts out showing 15. Setting

GTS's setup

• GTS comes with a ready-made set of menu settings for 18 mods, recorded with MCM Recorder, and marks the whole set to run by itself.
• It runs once, the first time you close the character creation menu in a new game. It doesn't ask first: it simply works through each mod's menu.
• Loading a save doesn't run it again, and it won't run a second time in the same game.
• You only see corner notices while it works and a box saying it's finished. It stops to ask you only if a mod's menu hasn't appeared after 30 seconds (wait longer or skip that mod) or an option can't be found (go on, try again or skip the mod).
• So when a page says GTS's setup sets something, that value is put in for you at the start of a new game. It's an ordinary menu setting afterwards, and you can change it in that mod's menu.

From base GTS 118's own files: the records as the game uses them, the mods' own settings files as Jay's collection ships them, and GTS's own menu setup. Each line was read by one reader and checked by a second. A line marked Setting is a menu or settings-file option: what it says is the default. Your own add-ons can change any of this.