Every hero has a Health score equal to the sum of their Fighting, Agility, Strength, and Endurance rank numbers. Health is the pool that absorbs damage during combat. When Health hits 0 the hero is unconscious; below 0 they're dying.
Example: A hero with Excellent Fighting (20) + Good Agility (10) + Remarkable Strength (30) + Good Endurance (10) starts with 70 Health.
Every successful attack deals damage. The amount depends on the attack type:
Body armor reduces damage from physical attacks. The armor's rank number is subtracted from the damage of every hit before it touches Health. Armor protects against the attack types it covers (e.g., bullet-resistant vests vs. firearms) — the Judge decides whether the armor applies.
Resistance powers work like specialized armor against a specific attack type (Resistance to Fire vs. fire attacks, etc.). See Powers.
Health comes back over time:
When a hero's Health hits 0, they're unconscious. If the attack that brought them to 0 was a Kill result, they're dying — they lose 1 Endurance rank per round until either stabilized (by another hero spending an action on first aid) or all Endurance is gone, at which point they die.
A hero brought to 0 Health by ordinary damage (not a Kill) is just unconscious. They wake up after the fight is over and they've recovered some Health.
Karma can be spent to reduce damage from a single attack — each Karma point reduces incoming damage by 1, declared after the hit is rolled but before damage is applied. Karma can also reduce falling damage (see Movement). Karma can NOT be used to avoid death once a hero has started dying — at that point the hero needs first aid.