Bleeder

The Bleeder mutation gives the ability to trade health for combat buffs. It is mutually exclusive with Zombie and Superclot.

Location

The Bleeder mutation is hidden somewhere within St. God's Memorial Hospital in Slagtown. It's unguarded, just be careful where you go once you find it...

Effects

This mutation grants:

    The ability to Rend
    The Frenzy buff when bleeding
    Stress loss/gain depending on whether you are covered in blood or not
    Immunity to passing out from blood loss

Advantages

• Can rend on demand, which self-inflicts a bleeding wound.
• Receive buffs from actively bleeding wounds: up to +4 Brawn and Senses as well as some resistance to feints.
• -10 stress per heartbeat when covered in blood.
• 100% resistance to KO from blood loss.

Disadvantages

• Trading health for buffs is a serious trade-off that may sometimes cause death.
• Passive stress gain whenever not covered in blood. On the other hand, being bloody debuffs climb, which may cause hiccups with mobility.
• Cannot take Zombie or Superclot.
• Being frenzied heavily debuffs medic, making it more difficult to patch up bleeding wounds and heal. This can be countered with makeshift bandages, which cleanse bleeding and require no medic skill.
• Unintentional bleeding wounds can debuff various skills, such as focus, at inconvenient times.

Mechanics

Bleeder's workings are not immediately obvious. Here are some explanations.

Frenzy from Bleeding

All bleeding wounds will cause frenzy with Bleeder. This mechanic works as follows:

• The strength of the frenzy scales with the bleed's magnitude. A -1 health bleed will give +1 frenzy every heartbeat, and thus +1/+1 Brawn/Senses. A -4 bleed will jump straight to +4/+4, which is the cap.
  • If you want to check your frenzy buffs, try @buffs to see what level you're on.
• Frenzy is added using the above scaling every heartbeat. Frenzy also has a good chance to reduce by -1 every heartbeat as it wears off naturally.
  • The frenzy's reduction is processed before the renewal, so if you're at +4 frenzy, lose a dose to RNG, and gain a dose from a -1 bleed, you'll stay at +4 frenzy.
• No more than four doses of Frenzy can be sustained at once. Using Bleeder with Hideous Freak's scare, berserker hypos or human hearts will not increase frenzy beyond this four-dose cap.
• Sustained bleeding wounds will dose with frenzy as soon as health is subtracted on the next heartbeat, not immediately after the bleeding wound is sustained. rend is the exception to this; rend applies the frenzy immediately after use.

Rend

Using rend will make your character attempt to deal a bleeding wound on him/herself and additionally apply immediate frenzy doses. Rend's mechanics are as follows:

• Rend costs stress and a small amount of health to use.
• Completing a rend applies frenzy doses immediately, combined with the bleeding wound which sustains and adds doses in future heartbeats, until the wound is patched or clots naturally.
• Bleeding wounds from rend can be inconsistent; sometimes the bleed will be -4, sometimes just -1.
• Using a cutting implement (swords, knives, claws, etc) raises your chance of a successful rend-frenzy.

Interactions with Other Mutations

• Vampires will additionally suffer -10 hunger for every heartbeat that their bleed ticks (regardless of the bleed's magnitude). This still applies to bleeds inflicted with rend.
• Hideous Freaks will suffer acid damage from their acidic blood covering their own skin (unless the damage is soaked) in addition to the bleeding damage from the blood actually leaving their body. There is no additional benefit to this damage, and it does not contribute to frenzy. Freak stress reversal also applies; freaks with bleeder will stress out when covered with blood, but destress every heartbeat when they are not.

Appearance

Bleeder doesn't change bodily appearance, although you will probably walk around covered in blood most of the time.