The rules as written do not say that contests, where relative negative states of health are carried into them, should have their results informed by the healing charts.
I have interpreted them this way, but it feels safer for now to declare this as a variant.
This leads back to your other question:
>So if we're not talking about the specific mechanical effects
>of these rules, then what are these "discrete states" to which you refer?
I am only saying that in the "states of health" section, there is no implication at all that you would ever add up or otherwise manipulate percentages. You would never have a situation where you have -100% or -20% as they are not listed as states.
To take it to the lowest level, each skill at any one time will either be:
These are clear and discrete (apart or detached from each other). And that rather than stacking, one either moves up or down this list depending on the results of subsequent contests. (Just as one does in healing.)
After any contest you either get worse (move one or more places down the list) or get better (move one or more places up the list) for each skill relevant to that contest's consequences.
So instead of having a situation where an impaired character comes out of a contest with an impaired result and ends up with -20% I think that the rules imply you either remain at 10% or jump to 50%. But, unless you use the healing table there is no mechanical suggestion as to which, so people have interpreted it as -20%.
This is because hurts stack so maybe the others do! I think this is a red herring.
Multiple hurts, are only ever a consideration if you are using the advanced rule (p189) that states -7 AP can be traded for 1 hurt. I firmly believe that the rules for stacking hurts in the "states of health" section, are only in reference to this advanced rule, and the fact that they are placed here, where they only confuse us, is an artefact of HW, where it wasn't an advanced rule.
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