Editing XCOM: At Any Cost (section)

====Shaken & Stricken, p. 42====
Shaken & Stricken is a form of Stress, that applies Stress dice directly to Attributes. 

Any time a failure at a test or contest might take you out or cause harm, you take Stress instead, either equal to the Effect Die in the attack or stepping up pre-existing Stress. Stress applied to an Attribute is added to the opposition’s dice pool whenever the player uses that Attribute in a test or contest. If the Stress applied to an Attribute is equal to or greater than the Atttribute it’s assigned to, the PC is considered Shaken. They can only keep one die from their dice pool for their total (barring PP expenditures or SFX). If they’re already Shaken and take Stress to another Attribute that would make them Shaken, they’re considered Stricken and are taken out of the scene until they can recover. A character becomes Stricken as well if any of their Attributes have Stress stepped up beyond d12.

=====Recovering Stress=====
All Stress die ratings are always stepped down by one during any scene specifically framed to act as a rest period, downtime, or transition between action-heavy scenes. If a character takes Stress in one scene from a battle, and the next scene is another battle soon after the first without any time spent resting up, then no Stress is recovered. 

Stress may also be recovered through active efforts by characters within the game, as a rolled Test.

=====Pushing Stress=====
Character may shoulder through their pain and suffering and use it as a motivator rather than a setback.

Spend a PP, and instead of adding the Stress to the opposing dice pool, you add it to your own dice pool for that test or contest. Using Stress in this fashion has an additional cost. After the test or contest is resolved, the Stress die included in your dice pool is stepped up by one. This may result in the PC being Stressed Out if the die is stepped up past d12.

=====Trauma=====
Trauma is long-term Stress. Any time a PC’s Stress is stepped up past d12, they’re Stressed Out of the scene, and they gain d6 Trauma of the same type of Stress that just increased. Trauma functions just like Stress but is much harder to recover.

During any scene in which a character is Stressed Out and has taken Trauma, additional Stress to the character goes directly to Trauma. Once Trauma is stepped up beyond d12, the character is permanently out of options — they’re dead, hopelessly incoherent, lost to their own psyche, or whatever seems most appropriate.

If the next scene is a recovery, transition, or otherwise restful scene in which the PC can be taken care of or allowed to recuperate, the PC’s Stress is stepped down by one, but the Trauma remains at the level it was at the end of the previous scene. Recovering Trauma will require narrative conditions and a rolled Test.