How does harm get unstabilized?

So in working on my own adaptation of AW, I wanted to double-check how harm gets unstabilized, and dangit, I can't find anything in the MC book about it.

Is it like, whenever a PC takes harm, their harm countdown always gets marked as unstabilized initially? Or can the MC tell a player to change their harm countdown from stabilized to unstabilized whenever the MC feels it's appropriate?

Well, as I understand it, at 6:00 or earlier on the damage clock, you're stable by default and will get better with time alone. At 9:00 or later, that isn't the case and you're unstable, meaning you'll get worse if left alone and medical intervention is necessary to get better at all.

So, barring medical stuff, it's a function of how much Harm you've taken. I believe all of this is in the section on Harm and Healing.

I thought it was in the book too! But here's the straight text (p. 163):

Before 6:00, harm will go away by itself with time. 6:00–9:00, the harm won’t get worse or better by itself. After 9:00, unstabilized harm will get worse by itself, stabilized harm will not, and it’ll get better only with medical treatment.

So harm after 9:00 can be either stabilized or unstabilized, but the book doesn't say how the unstabilized harm got unstabilized. I don't think the text actually says that harm at 9:00 or after always starts out unstabilized. (Which might be totally how it's supposed to work, but I'm trying to find where that's explicitly stated.)

I remember Vincent answered a similar question in this topic:

http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=7316.0

Thanks for the link! That thread is more about healing harm, though, not about how harm gets unstabilized before it gets healed.

You are right.

By the way, I think the rules about stable/unstable damage are as follows:

• At 6:00 or before, the damage is stable and it will heal on its own;
• At 9:00, the damage is stable but it will not heal on its own;
• Past 9:00, the damage is unstable and it will worsen, unless it is treated somehow.

An angel can make unstable damage stable, of course, but you, as the MC, could also decide whether any given NPC could stabilize damage as well, as it makes sense with the fiction.

I hope I am right. ;-)

Huh, yeah, that's harder to find than I thought (and I was remembering how it worked slightly wrong). Lemme look through my pdf for that...

Okay, in 'The Basics' on p. 15, it says the following:

"Harm before 6:00 heals automatically with time. Harm after 9:00 gets worse with time, unless stabilized."

There. That makes it pretty clear that it's Harm at 10:00 or worse that it needs stabilizing. The other references are more ambiguous, but that one seems pretty clear.

Yeah, harm is at 9:00 or under stabilizes itself. Above 9:00, it needs to be stabilized by someone or something.

Really it is easier gamewise to consider this in terms of actual trauma to the body. If you're at 3:00 you've only been bruised/scratched a bit, if you've been healed to this point, your wounds are mostly closed up and beyond being sore you're fine.. Not dangerous. 6:00 its looks a bit more serious, you've got a black eye and had you limp yourself away from that bar fight, but you're alive, and if push came to shove you could still operate your motor functions like running, putting aside the pain.

9:00 and beyond are gradually more serious injuries, but the thing is you're dying. Satibilized means, is this wound KILLING you right now. That's as simple as it gets. Have you been stabbed in the stomache with a knife? Shot somewhere that wasnt through and through? Fallen and cracked bones, ribs, or other shit that cause internal bleeding, got a Major concussion? Was one of those cuts seriously filthy and the infection is going to come back to bite them?

The oClocks are a way to Hit Point combat, meh. Give the wound a name, let them know what hurts and why. When they're no longer in danger from dying they're stable. Mechanically this means they've been treated by someone that can help them, cause knowledge of how to help isnt just day to day or googleable. If they got shot, they're stable when they have had the bullet out, the wounds stiched and are lying on some makeshift bed for few weeks while they recover at superhuman speed. A broken limb? Stable when its all tied up clean and casted, so their bones are locked together right and the wounds clean so they dont got to cut nothing off later.

Stablized. It is no longer killing you. Give your wounds a name, and they, the wounds basically tell you this for you.

Bingo! Thanks, DeadmanwalkingXI. I was searching the PDF for "unstabilized" and reading and rereading the H&H chapter, so I didn't see it. Didn't think to check the intro.

Ebok, thanks for the explanation!