Broken Paw

Broken Paw is a Basic Injury that permanently reduces a cat's Strength (STR) by 1. It leaves a visible scar on the cat's arms and directly impacts physical attack damage, making it one of the most impactful injuries for melee-focused builds.

Like all Basic Injuries, Broken Paw is most commonly applied when a cat is downed during combat, with the game randomly selecting from the injury pool. It can also result from House events such as Cat Fights. The injury is permanent and does not heal over time, so repeated downs can stack multiple Broken Paws on the same cat, steadily eroding its damage output until it struggles to contribute meaningfully in fights.

Cats built around physical damage, particularly Fighters, Butchers, and weapon-heavy builds, should be protected from Broken Paw at all costs. Losing even 1 STR can push a cat below important damage thresholds. Ranged or spell-focused cats can afford to absorb a Broken Paw with less consequence, since their damage scales with other stats. The Thick Skull passive from the Fighter class can redirect all injuries into Concussions instead, offering a way to avoid Broken Paw entirely if the INT loss is acceptable.