Wound

Max Wounded 4 times.

During any Combat Mini-Game, Max can suffer Wounds inflicted by his enemies. Taking even one wound can mean losing precious time while healing, and taking enough Wounds during the same Combat will lead to Max being Captured by his enemies.

Suffering Wounds

Wounds are inflicted whenever Max suffers damage from an enemy attack. There are three ways that enemies can inflict Wounds on Max:

1. Gunfire
2. Grenades
3. Melee Combat

Wounding by Gunfire

Whenever an enemy manages to shoot Max with his pistol, Max will suffer one Wound.

Enemies take a second or two to fire once they have Max in their sights. If Max can break line-of-sight with his enemy, the enemy will not fire.

Note that not every shot an enemy makes will actually hit Max - they are known to miss occasionally, even at higher Difficulty settings.

Wounding by Grenades

A Fragmentation Grenade that explodes near enough to Max will inflict one Wound.

Max's Stance at the time determines how far away from the grenade he should be to avoid damage - when Crouched, the grenade will only inflict a wound if Max is within one tile (I.E. one piece-of-Furniture length) away from the explosion. If standing, the explosion will reach max even two tiles away. However, if max is within the radius of the explosion, it will always inflict only one wound regardless of stance.

Note that Max can be hurt by his own grenades just as well as the enemy's. This includes Remote Bombs set off at the wrong time, Booby Traps triggered when Max is not far enough away, or even grenades he himself has thrown badly.

Wounding by Melee Combat

Whenever Max is standing on the spot as an enemy, the enemy will be instantly killed and Max will receive one Wound.

This only happens if the enemy is not already dead or knocked out. Otherwise, his body will be collected without inflicting a wound.

Note that if the alarm is not raised at the time, Max will receive a Disguise despite being wounded by the enemy.

Capture

Main article: Capture

If at any time during any Combat Mini-Game Max suffers a certain number of Wounds, she will be knocked out and captured by the enemy.

The number of Wounds required for this to occur depends on whether or not Max is wearing Kevlar Armor.

Without Kevlar Armor, it takes exactly 2 Wounds to knock Max out. With Kevlar Armor it takes exactly 4 Wounds.

Capture is an extremely unfavourable situation. It presents you with two options - either Exchange an Arrested agent belonging to the Organization that captured you, or spend approximately 24 hours (or more) as a captive, and then try to escape from a Hideout with minimal Gear while avoiding being Captured again.

Non-Critical Wounds

"Recover from Wounds" cutscene.

If the Combat Mini-Game ends while Max is Wounded, but has not been knocked out and Captured, you'll be treated to the "Recover from Wounds" cut-scene. This is a simple cut-scene showing Max being treated by a doctor.

This cutscene "lasts" a good number of game-hours, though certainly not as many as being Captured.

There is one way to avoid having to waste so many hours: arrest an Agent. Naturally, this is only possible if the Combat Mini-Game was a Break-In, and the Hideout you broke into has an Agent inside. It's not even necessary to collect Hard Evidence against that agent - he could even be a Red Herring.

This is because when leaving a Hideout with an agent in custody, you'll be taken straight to the Interrogation cutscene instead of the Recover from Wounds cutscene. Naturally, if you've arrested a Red Herring or a Participant whose Role is unknown, they'll be immediately released - but you'll spend less time on this than you would on recovering wounds. Remember however that a wrongful arrest will remove the agent's Hideout from the list of known locations in the current city, which means you'll have to rediscover its location if you wish to break in again. This can, potentially, waste you about as much time as Wound Recovery, so keep that in mind.

During Item Confiscation

If Max is Wounded during a Break-In, Confiscation of Items during this Break-In is all but impossible. If you try to leave the Hideout with the Item, you'll be sent to the "Recovery from Wounds" cutscene instead of the one where the CIA Chief congratulates you for the Confiscation. The result is that the Item is considered not to have been Confiscated at all - it'll automatically be put back where you found it.

The only way to avoid this is to Arrest the agent himself during the same Break-In. If you do this, you'll be sent to the Interrogation cutscene. Given that only Participants get hold of Items, and that Confiscation+Arrest automatically gives you the agent's Role in the plot, this means that the Arrest will "stick" and the agent will be put in jail. This can have some strong implications for the plot - it'll usually break it apart.

To avoid that, your best solution would be to find Incriminating Evidence about the agent you're arresting during the same Break-In. This will allow you to Turn that agent during the interrogation cutscene, which is always a better outcome than a simple arrest. Remember of course that locating Incriminating Evidence is somewhat of a gamble - there's no guarantee you'll find this document even if the Hideout contains a large amount of Floor Safes (or any at all!).