When your character takes a hit that gets past his or her defenses, depending on the intent of the attack, there will be some kind of consequence.
Remember! This game allows you to bolster bad rolls by adding dice with Hero Points or by invoking Drama Traits, etc.
The most common consequences to taking a hit are:
1) Your character is moved somewhere. You might be shoved a little, or you might be picked up and thrown. This, in and of itself, is not that horrible, however, you might be moved into a place that is highly undesirable: a trap from which you need to escape, under a jet-engine which causes a completely different type of damage, or whatever.
2) Your character gains a Stun Token. Stun Tokens are a representation of just how beat down your Hero is getting. You might also get Stun Tokens for exhausting yourself. There is no limit to the number of Stun Tokens a Hero can have, HOWEVER, each Stun Token your Hero has causes every action the Hero takes to take one more Time Unit than it normally does. For example, a villain with 3 Stun who attempts a Targeted Action uses 10 Time Units (7+3), so there is plenty of time for a Hero with less Stun to react to that shot.
What this means is a) Your Hero can not be defeated simply via Stun – he or she cannot be ‘Knocked Out’ this way, b) your Hero can be slowed down by having lots of Stun!
Stun Tokens are public knowledge: you can always see just how much Stun any character has taken, and how slowed down they are.
(Note: some Powers, like Armor, allow you to damage your Armor components instead of taking Stun from incoming damage.)
3) Something you are wearing or carrying can be Damaged or Destroyed. In this case, the intent of the action that caused the damage must be to destroy the object. In this game, all objects have some amount of Toughness and a certain amount of Structure. Structure is equivalent to Stun: if damage would overcome your Toughness and cause Stun, it could instead overcome an object’s Toughness and cause the object to lose Structure. If an object loses one Structure, it is Damaged and must be Repaired (by someone who knows how to do that). If an object loses ALL of it’s Structure, it is Destroyed and cannot be repaired.
4) Your character might be given a persistent or Wounding effect; some kind of damage that cannot be undone with a Recovery Action. The power itself would specify the wound and how it would affect the wounded character. It might reduce a specific stat or give the player some negative dice under certain circumstances. These would be like persistent DIS-Advantages that you Hero must deal with. Luckily there are Healing powers that can deal with Wounds.
5) Finally, the damage might be something that continues over time. DOT or Damage-Over-Time effects are common in computer RPG’s, so you might be familiar with the concept. A villain might have an ‘Acid Blast’ or ‘Poison Blast’ power, the initial blast part would be a physical attack (as a blast of liquid), and then the poison or acid would have an on-going effect (timed at regular intervals) that either damaged objects (acid) or caused weakness, coughing, or vomiting, (poison). The secondary part could be a a kind of Wound, requiring a special Healing to overcome, or it could be easily washed off in water.
(Note: like fire, acids burns in real-life are WAY WORSE than they are in super-hero comics. Please don’t play with real acids!)