When a character is wounded by an impaling weapon and suffers a Medium wound or worse, that weapon becomes stuck in the character's body, impaling him/her.
In the case of a melee weapon, the attacker holding the impaling weapon may lose his/her grip on the weapon. He/she must make a dice roll using his/her CO + Melee (including any specialism in that weapon) at a difficulty equal to the basic damage of the attack (i.e. before reduction for armour, soaking etc.) or drop the weapon.
Until the impaling weapon is removed, the impaled character will suffer a penalty to all dice rolls involving his/her CO as follows:
| Impaling weapon type | Penalty to CO |
| Cross-bow bolt, snapped off arrow or throwing star | -1 |
| Arrow or knife | -2 |
| Short sword | -3 |
| Spear or javelin | -4 |
| Lance | -5 |
Removing a stuck weapon in combat time requires a 2 Action Point action and automatically causes the wound to increase in severity by one level (e.g. a Medium wound becomes Serious, etc.) due to tearing damage done as the weapon is removed. To remove the weapon, a character must grab hold of it - in the case of a melee weapon, the attacker may still be holding the weapon, in which case it may be the attacker who removes it from the wounded character's body.
Out of combat, a stuck weapon may be withdrawn more slowly and carefully, thus avoiding any additional tearing damage. To avoid increasing the wound's severity when withdrawing a stuck weapon, the character withdrawing the weapon must make a dice roll using his/her CO + Medicine (including first aid specialism) at a difficulty of 4. If the weapon was barbed, there is a modifier of -2 to the dice roll. If the impaled character was wearing very fine cloth (such as silk) next to his/her skin on the affected area of the body, there is a modifier of +2 to the dice roll [This is because such cloth tends to get pushed into the wound with the weapon and so shields the flesh from tearing damage].
Rather than withdraw a stuck arrow, spear, javelin or lance fully during combat time, a character can instead take a 2 Action Point action to break the weapon's shaft, leaving only the head in the wound. This halves the penalty to the character's CO (e.g. for an arrow from -2 to -1), without causing the wound to increase in damage. To successfully break the shaft, the character must make a dice roll against his/her ST + Combat. The difficulty depends on the type of weapon - an arrow is difficulty 4, a javelin difficulty 6, a spear difficulty 7 and a lance is difficulty 8.
A character who is impaled may suffer both tearing damage and shock damage, resulting in the wound increasing in seriousness by two levels.
See also: example of a wound