Drained Condition "effective" damage

[blastarrow20]

Hi, we have a doubt about the "effective" damage that the drained condition can apply.

Assuming a lv2 character with 20 maximum hp and 10 current hp (10 damage): if i get the Drained 1 condition would be 18hp max and 8hp current (so... again 10 damage, although the maxhp are temporary)? Or 18hp max and 6hp current (12 damage, or 14 after a full night rest)?

We got this doubt because on of us, at lv2, get drained with 4 hp left: i thought he got 2 damage and the maximum hp reduced only, so 2 hp left of a pool of 24 instead of 26; but the others reduced the current hp too because of the reduced maxhp, so 0hp.

The rulebook says pag.619: "Losing these Hit Points (the maximum hp) doesn’t count as taking damage" and that's why i think it's just 2 damage plus a reduced hp pool and not 4 "effective" damage.

PS: sorry for the messy question, i'm new in the gdr world and english isn't my first language.
Thanks for answering

[Cordell Kintner]

Damage causes you to reduce your hit points. You do not accrue damage, only lose hit points. You reduce your current and max hit points so that you don't "heal" any damage that has been dealt to you by ending up with 100% HP.

[breithauptclan]

The way I am reading the Drained condition and applying it to your example:

Starting conditions of the level 2 character: Max HP 26, current HP 4.

After applying Drained 1: Max HP 24, current HP 2.

You wouldn't drop the current HP twice. The Drained condition by itself doesn't cause damage.

Now, if the attack that caused the Drained condition also deals damage too, that is a different story.

[thenobledrake]

Damage is not tracked in such a way as the game having you say "I'm down 15" if you're 15 HP from your maximum, even though a lot of players will phrase it that way because it is a more clear indicator of how potent of a healing effect would be appropriate to use on them.

The game just has you track how many HP you have left, and what your maximum HP is.

It might seem strange since that can technically result in a character being at "full HP" after suffering a drained condition that didn't accompany any damage, but the issue there is actually with viewing a character at 100% of their reduced maximum HP as being at 100% HP rather than at whatever percentage of their actual maximum HP they are at (i.e. if you have 15/15 HP because you're drained, but normally your maximum is 20 HP, you're at 75% HP, not 100%. And your character doesn't look like they are at 100% either, they look like they are at 75% and like they aren't getting any better.