Star Wars is a cinematic game where heroes can dodge blaster bolts and fight through hordes of minions. The rules for damage and healing reflects this – not only is it possible to avoid blaster fire; you could actually survive multiple hits from a weapon that can kill and armored trooper with a single blast. It’s not realistic, but it’s heroic.

VITALITY

Vitality is an abstract measure of how tough you are to kill. The common people you meet on the street won’t have very many vitality and are easily killed by blaster or lightsabers, whereas heroes have that little extra something that keep them from getting killed or incapacitated.
Damage: How much damage you’ve taken from various sources. You track this on your character sheet. Damage remains until healed. Base vitality minus damage equals current vitality.

Bloodied: When you’ve taken damage equal to or greater than half your vitality you are bloodied; you’re a bit bruised and battered, but basically still OK. Some feats, talents, and action are only applicable if you’re bloodied (such as using healing surges).

0 vitality: Characters reduced to 0 vitality (you can’t have negative vitality!) moves -5 steps on the condition track and fall unconscious. If the hit that reduced you to 0 vitality equals or exceeds your damage threshold you are instead dying (minions are killed instead). Spending a Force point will prevent you from dying in this manner; you’re just knocked out and down to 0 vitality.

Dying: Heroic characters that are ‘killed’ expire after 1d6 rounds. If the GM deems it appropriate a dying character could come around for long enough to utter some dying words. Successful first aid (Medicine DC 25, bonus if using advanced medical gear) can prevent a dying character from dying; he remains at 0 vitality and his condition is unchanged, but he doesn’t die.

Death: Dead characters normally remain dead; unless resuscitated or brought back using the Force for example.

SURGES

Every character (be it a PC or NPC, minion or heroic) has a number of surges per day (based on your classes and your CON bonus). Each surge normally heals damage equal ¼ of your total vitality. You can only use surges if you are A) resting or B) bloodied. After a good night’s sleep you regain spent surges (it’s also a good time to expend unspent surges if you have taken damage). Less than full night of comfortable uninterrupted rest will give you less surges back.

Second wind: If you’re in a fight and bloodied you can use a surge by taking the Second wind swift action. You can normally (unless you’ve a feat or talent that allows for more) use Second wind only once per fight! Spending a Force point will also allow you to use an additional Second wind. Non-heroic characters do not usually have a Second wind unless they have a feat/talent that allows it.

Resting: Whenever you’re out of combat you can spend healing surges more freely; as long as you have time to rest the GM will allow you to use 1 or more surges (10 minutes of relative peace and quiet should be a minimum for one surge). Even minions can heal in this way (the Minion class as 2+Con bonus surges/day).

CONDITION TRACK

Hits that cause a lot of damage, plus some other sources (such as Force lighting and blasters set on stun) can slow you down or even knock you out even if you have vitality left. You use (literally) the condition track to keep track of your condition; it goes from no penalty at all down to unconscious/incapacitated (0-1-2-5-10Incapacitated). Use tick marks to keep track; add once each time you move down and erase one each time you move up

Damage threshold (DT): If a single attack does a lot of damage you could be in trouble even if you have vitality left. Each hit that does damage equal to or greater than you DT drops you one level on the condition track. Your DT is based on Fortitude Defense + modifiers (such as the Improved Damage Threshold feat).

Recover: You can spend three Recover swift actions to move up one step on the condition track; these three swift actions can be spread out over several rounds or take all in the same round. Spending a Force point while recovering allows you to do Recover as a single swift action.

Being incapacitated: If you drop to the bottom of the condition track you’re incapacitated; you fall unconscious and drop prone. After 1 minute (10 rounds) made a DC 10 Constitution check. If you succeed you move +1 step on the track and regain vitality equal to your surge value (but expend no surges). If you fail you remain unconscious for 1 hour, after which you repeat the test (failure by 5 or more means you die instead). You must continue retrying each hour until you succeed, but each time you fail one condition level becomes persistent.  You can use a Force point to avoid becoming incapacitated, except if you were also reduced to 0 vitality by the same attack.

Persistent conditions: Some injuries are too severe to just go away like this; they are called persistent conditions. Mark persistent conditions on the track using a cross instead of a tick mark. It you already have non-persistent conditions; add the persistent condition on top of the track and make an equal number of non-persistent ticks further down.

STUN/ION DAMAGE

Setting a blaster on stun/using another stun weapon (ion weapons for vehicles/ships/droid) can incapacitate without killing. After rolling damage halve the result. There may be an additional effect: If the target is reduced to 0 vitality it moves -5 on the condition track it knocked unconscious, but without any chance of dying. Even if the target isn’t reduced to 0 vitality there is a -2 move on the track if rolled (before halving) damage equals or exceeds DT.

Damage and healing example: E’tan encounters some droids. There is a brief, but violent struggle before the droids are dispatched. During the process E’tan takes a few hits, including one that exceeds his damage threshold. As a result he drops -1 step on the condition track and has a -1 penalty to his actions and defenses. With 55 damage vs. 72 vitality he is also bloodied. He decides to play it safe; on his next turn he uses his sole Second Wind (swift action) for this scene. His surge value is 18 so he recovers 18 vitality, leaving him with 37 damage. Still bloodied (half of 72 is 36). He opts to use a Force point for another second wind. That’s another damage removed, leaving him with only 19 damage. That’s two swift actions this far this round. He uses another Force point to Recover as a Swift single action, concluding his actions for this turn. On the next turn one of the droids gets in a lucky shot with a blaster set on stun. It rolls 3d6 for 18 damage, halved to 9. Not nearly enough reduce E’tan to 0 vitality. But 18 (rolled damage) is greater than E’tans DT, so he moves 2 steps down the track. Good thing he recovered; he would have been a -5 rather than -2 had he not! E’tan dispatches the last few droids. He’s used 2 Force points and two surges, leaving him with 6 FP and 7 surges. After a brief rest he uses another surge, putting him at only 10 damage (19+9-18) and with 6 surges to go. He has no persistent conditions so he erases all marks on his track. E’tan is ready for his next fight.