Damage and Critical hit clarifications

By Glorian Underhill, in Only War Rules Questions

Hi, I have some questions regarding the damage and critcal Hits and need to check if I got them right.

Question 1:

My Guardsmen Player Character has 10 Wounds.

No Problem.

He is hit by a bullet, suffers 6 Damage.

He is hit another time by a bullet bringing him another 4 Damage.

After the second hit he has reached his wound theshold.

So he doesn't die imediately right?

He is hit a third time. As he has reached his wound limit he takes 5 Wounds and this is the kind of critical Hit he got. I roll for location and got Body, so his Body has now a Crit 5 hit. But he still lives.

He is hit another time. A 3 Wound hit to his right leg.

No Problem for the PC. Leg is wounded, he can carry on.

He is hit another time in the Body. Suffering 5 Wounds. This gets him another Critcal wound on the Body. He has now a Crit 5 Body hit and a Crit 11 Body hit. If they are seperate hits both stay. If they are just one kind of a Hit the stronger one stays.

But this question is rethorical as the Crit 11 Hit is one of the Death Crits for the Body Zone.

Is this correct?

Question 2.

NPC Guardsmen has 10 Wounds, got shot with a 10 Damage shot (after reducing Thoughness and Armour) and dies imediately.

Right?

Wrong. Case 1 is correct. Case 2 follows case 1.

Edit - Apologies if that sounded abrupt or hostile. Intent was entirely helpful and non-judgemental, I just have very abrasive mannerisms at times.

Edited by SgtLazarus

Tracking damage per-location is optional. Normally, you stack the crit damage, so that the first hit to the chest leaves him with 5 Crit damage and the appropriate effect, the 3 damage hit to the leg will most likely kill him at 8 crit damage and the second 5dmg hit to the chest would leave him at a theoretical 13 crit damage.

Edit: Oh and for mooks you can do what you said and just let them die at 0 wounds. This will heavily nerf Orks, though. Their toughness is mostly represented through True Grit , which doubles their TB once below 0 Wounds. If they die before then...

Edited by Myrion

So If he has a critical to the chest. The next wound is automatically also to the chest?

The next wound is determined by body location as per normal. Either by following the bullet progression in the GM tools or the attack toll.

Largely people just apply the last effect during a single spray though in so far as I know.

And yeah on the basis of how Orks work, I cannot stress how much a cakewalk the game will be - in general, not just with Orks - to remove crit wounds on NPCs

The location is determined as normal, but you only have one damage/wound pool:
You start at 10 wounds, and go down to 0 Wounds, at which point you start to take crit damage. Every hit from then on deals crit damage to whichever location the hit is on. However, this damage is only tracked globally, so as weird as it seems, if you take a heavy hit to the chest, a light hit to the leg can kill you.
Optionally, you track crit damage per-location, which makes a lot more sense, but is massively more bookkeeping and quite a bit less lethal.
Less lethal, because now, instead of 6-7 crit damage overall, you can take 6-7 crit damage to 6 different locations, that is 36-42 points of crit damage without dying. Of course, you'll usually die before that, because the same location gets hit again but still, even doubling or tripling it because the hits are spread over 2 or 3 locations makes you quite a bit tougher.
And Orks nigh-unkillable.

Ok. Thanks for the clarification.

Another question 3; so If my pc Makes a headshot attack on an npc. He can't kill hin with First bullet? Because always a second critical hit is needed?

If you hit someone in the head, resolve damage as normal and consult the relevant critical table.

Headshots tend to be lethal earlier into crits, and people usually have equal or less head armour, making it a good choice to shoot for.

Why consult the crit table?

Npc has 12 wounds.

Shot Deals 14 damage.

So his wound threashold is over the top. So the next hit is critical?

Or does the npc take a critical 2 hit?

He takes a crit 2, since he's at -2 HP Wounds. One shot is still rarely going to kill anything, unless you are using an Accurate weapon or something like a Lascannon.

After all, you have to take a character down to -7 for the head and -8 for anything else, iirc, and most weapons can't deal 17 or 18 damage in one go...

To kill an average NPC guardsman using a lasgun, rolling average damage results...

He reduces by 7 every time due to armour and TB.

Average damage on a lasguns is 8.

You'd plink him to death after 18 hits.

Rolling high, say 11s, you'll kill him in 6 hits.

Even maxing it, you'll still take 4 hits unless you're boosting your damage above baseline.

Ok. I will gm a Ratling squad so high damage Hits are likely to occur. But the 2 damage crit overhang made it clear for me. Thanks a lot.

Ok. I will gm a Ratling squad so high damage Hits are likely to occur. But the 2 damage crit overhang made it clear for me. Thanks a lot.

Easy pasting though ;D