Quick and simple, I think. If a character shoots a target with a disruptor pistol and he puts the target over his wound threshold, does that rolled crit add vicious to the crit roll? Same question if the shooter has the Lethal Blows talent. He's not triggering a crit, per se, but he is causing one to be rolled through his action.

I say yes, it applies.

Ok, if a player puts a target over their wound threshold they go down. Vicious is a bonus added to the crit roll if a crit is caused. Lethal Blows is also added in. So they would both be added to a crit roll if a crit is caused. If the player puts an adversary over their wound threshold they go down, dead, unconscious or whatever.

I'd say it applies to any Crits done on the shot, but not from just going over wound threshhold. It's just hapinstance which shot takes a character over the unconscious edge.

2P51: When a character exceeds their wound threshold, they do go down, but they also suffer a critical injury. This is the roll I'm talking about. I'm just asking if people see this crit as caused by the gun with vicious or by the character with Lethal Blows. So far, we're split.

I would say in both cases if they caused the WT to be exceeded, then yes, both their respective weapon effects/talents would apply on their hit.

I'd vote no. Rules As Written, I think I am wrong, but I see the automatic critical from exceeding WT as being caused by shock or blood loss rather than by a disrupter beam burning your knees off.

Lethal Blows also describes how accurately a character targets your vital bits - if they didn't trigger a critical themselves, they weren't accurate enough to land the blow where they wanted.

I'd rule it like this: If the target went down just from taking wounds above his wound threshold, I would NOT apply the critical bonus from either Vicious or Lethal Blows. However, if the shot that downed the target actually generated a critical, I'd add +10 to that Critical roll from going above the wound threshold, along with any modifiers from Vicious or Lethal Blows.

I'm with the camp that says Lethal Blows and Vicious would be applied to the critical injury that results from pushing a target past their Wound Threshold. Both traits say they apply when the target suffers a critical injury with citing a restriction on how that critical injury was generated in the first place.

Granted, it really only matters for PCs and possibly a recurring Nemesis, as most Rivals are there for just the one scene and whether they live or die after being dropped is up to the GM, and by the time a Rival would show up again, the only game effect of that prior critical hit (if it's not been healed) in most instances is that the next crit gets a bonus to the percentile roll.