I asked specifically if it were OK to discuss rules and game mechanics now that the demo kits were shipped. I was told it was OK, but was strongly urged to avoid spoilers from the demo scenario and event!

So, without any mention of the Demo scenario, I present to you my first impressions of Injury, Healing, and Death in the Old World! This was one of the first mechanics that really grabbed me.

There have been lots of people that were worried about the new system not being 'grim' enough (or was it gritty? I can never remember).

You are lightly injured until you accumulate wounds up to your wound threshold (10-15 is a typical wound threshold for beginning characters).
If you have a critical anywhere in your wounds, you are considered critically wounded. You can have a single wound and it could be a critical wound.
If you exceed your wound threshold you are KO'd and you gain an automatic crit.
If your number of crits exceed your Toughness - you are dead.

Grim indeed

Healing is pretty cool:

Rest and Recovery - Resting for a night you regain wounds equal to your Toughness. You may make a Resilience check to heal a single crit wound. You can be assisted by someone with the First Aid skill. This stacks with someone using the 'Medicine' skill on you. Two successes from these skill assists would allow you an additional fortune die (first aid) and an expertise die (medicine). It's harder to do first aid or apply medicine to yourself (extra difficulty die).

Long Term Care (which I'm guessing by the lethality that you guys should probably sign up for on your Warhammer Insurance Forms) - This is being tended by a doctor or priest in a hospital or church ward. Easier tests, more healing, more bonuses.

First Aid - Heals wounds. Maximum number is your Toughness rating. May also be used to allow you to temporarily ignore the effects of a critical wound (for one day). If you blow the roll (2 or more banes) you could injure the patient. It is possible to kill a severely injured player in this manner (snicker - by exceeding the wound threshold, triggering a crit, and exceeding the patients toughness in crits). First Aid can be used in combat (though only once per patient, per combat) and you can even specialize in 'Combat Surgery'.
Note: Specialization is a game reward mechanic and allows you to focus on a specific area of a more generic skill. Specialization allows you an additional fortune die when making related checks. For example, anyone could use first aid in combat (with the appropriate penalties), but someone with a specialization in 'Combat Surgery' (a First Aid listed specialization) would receive an extra Expertise die.

Medicine (think Surgeon) - Like First Aid, but can't be used in combat. It's also less likely to kill or injure the patient.

Healing Draughts, Poultices, Etc. - These provide a fixed dice pool and heal according to successes. You can't botch this roll unless you roll all blanks, in which case it heals nothing. Boons on this roll can heal crits. It's unreliable and relatively expensive (20s per - subject to availability). There are varying levels of quality. You can only drink one per day or you will get the Nurgle Squirts (ok, I made the squirts part up, but you can still only drink one per day).
Poor quality - 3 fortune dice
Normal quality - 4 fortune dice
Superior quality - 5 fortune dice

There is healing magic, particularly (and maybe exclusively) from priests of Shallya. I haven't read up on that yet.

I'm approaching this with a positive attitude and it's really paying off for me. I'm really liking this system.

Thank you!

That all sounds pretty good to me.

What about Fate Points? Are they used the same way as in earlier editions?

IE- can you burn one away permanently to discard a critical?

NezziR said:

jadrax said:

Yes. But you'd need everything to fall right, good hit with a decent move and a lightly armoured foe with low toughness, etc. There's no mad explosion where you can end up doing 56 point of damage through luck.

jadrax said:

Highly unlikely unless you got swatted by some brute, he had an amazing roll, and you had the defenses of a wet, naked halfling. I guess it could happen, but from what I've seen not very often.

Necrozius said:

I'm not done reading yet, but I'm not seeing any fate points - just fortune points. I'll write up on those later.

jadrax said:

I did not read the rules and cards as good as NezziR (I had only 2 hours for that), but I would say yes, You can.

Good roll on an attack combined with action cards and skills can grant You that much damage and critical output to actually kill healthy character.

It's rare, and unlikely, but it can happen.

Seems fair up to now. Also, something in the wounds/crits/death rules along with healing seems good.

monkeylite said:

[making notes in house rulebook] "add exploding dice so creatures can be killed in one hit...

;0

jh

lol@exploding dice.

Aight, I'm headed to bed. The day crew can answer questions for a while. I'll be back in the evening after I read a bit more.

Can a wound infect? Aside from a doctor fumble, can the wound worsening (like activity, unhealthy condition of uncareness)?
Criticals are simply a more sever "hit point" or means something like "broken hand", "severed leg", etc.?

NezziR said:

ive read threw the core rules aswell and i agree, this system is looking more and more like a top RPG to nock DnD off its high horse! ive loved the Warhammer setting for years and im exsited to see this amazing RPG and im looking forward to playing the game the healing and wounds are really cool and the crits can be REALLY BAD! and some are not that bad but that doesnt mean you want them. healing is hard to come by and you can die faster then you think....its grim....very grim....battle are tough and your generally going to be out numbered and out gunned....you jsut need to out smart...you have to roleplay it well and get the job done right the first time....im exsited!

I will point out that as long as a hit does Wounds > the target's Toughness, there is a chance for a kill. There are criticals, rolls, and cards (talents and actions) that can increase the number of criticals inflicted, as well as the severity of criticals. Hmm, I'll have to read it again... Is it number of criticals, or a critical severity total > Toughness to kill? Anyway, regardless. You *could* get lucky and convert 4 or 5 Wounds into criticals with a single blow, which would be an instant kill. (heck, 2 Toughness only need 3 Criticals). Not likely, though. More likely would be 2 or 3 hits, each with a critical or two.

Keep in mind, though, that only the yellow expertise dice have the Comet symbol. Otherwise, criticals come from the action cards. So, the more yellow dice you roll, the greater chance to score a critical (well, rolling a comet which allows you to choose a critical if you want)

From a brief glance at the spell cards, I think that all of the priests have at least a minor healing blessing (ie spell). Shallya gets more powerful and more overall. Also, some blessings convert criticals back to normal wounds.

No Fate points. (How's that for gritty and dangrous)

Yes, in fact a lot of the criitcal effects are "unlikable" if you get them!. Not so bad when applied to an enemy, though, hehe.

DeathFromAbove said:

I can answer that.

Looking at some of the critical cards that you can flip over, you could end up losing eyes, ears, hands, etc. just like in the old game.

As for infection, I'm not sure. But I think you could easily have wounds get worse if they aren't tended to.

Yeah, I'm not sure on infection. I'll have to look closer.

The criticals range in severity (and have severity ratings). Minor ones are things like Dizzy and Blurred vision which give misfortune dice to various tasks. Others result in more severe things broken bones, etc. I wish I could've brought the game into work with me.

There are a lot of different types of crits, from minor to life threatening. Crits like 'Festering Wound' fester up and get worse each day till healed. Other crits like 'Flesh Wound' get worse (and harder to heal) according to how many wounds you have. Some crits play off other crits. If you get a 'Concussion' for example, in addition to the penalty, if you get another 'Concussion', you are knocked out till one of them heals.

I like the new crits. It's like a really big random chart with lots of entries and subtables.

Hmm..

Can you suffer multiple crits from a single basic attack (not including extra ones from an action, just from a weapon hit)?
EG If a weapon has a crtical rating of 2 and you get 4 boons on a roll does that then give 2 criticals (1 per 2 boons) or just 1?

How hard is a resiliance test each day to heal a critical?

How many times can one use First aid on a subject?

Does having a healing skill benefit from the use or assit the use of a poltice?

Any reasons given as to why only one Healing Draught/ Poultice per day?
I suspect not given your Nurgle Squirts comment.

Loswaith said:

Yes, you can get multiple crit from a single hit. Some Action Cards add +1 crit. There are other examples of multiple crits.

The Resilience test becomes more difficult depending on circumstance. Lightly wounded characters add <P>, Critically wounded characters (those with 1 or more crits) add <PP> to the difficulty. Other modifiers might include for poor environmental conditions. These same modifiers apply to First Aid and Medicine tests.

For reference on notations:

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I did get you could get multiple crits from action cards which is why I asked if you could from a basic attack, without the action bonus, and clarified with the example.

I would gather not all attack actions have +1 crit as a possibility, its more a query of a basic attack action doing more than a single critical, since most creatures arent going to have the selection of action cards a player does (though im sure some more nasterier creatures will inflict greater criticals), if any at all.

It has also been mentioned a +1, +2 critical is a critical with the + being simply the additional damage done along with the critical, not infact extra critical wounds/cards.

Oh, I may have to read up on that and get back to you. Incoming edit.

Loswaith said:

No, a +2 Critical means 2 wounds turn into criticals. Not additional Wound cards, mind you, but conversion of existing Wounds into Criticals. So, you don't draw 2 new Wound cards to turn into criticals, you take two Wound cards already being drawn as damage and flip them over to reveal the critical side.

Example (pure fiction/made up numbers and actions):

A Beastman uses a Savage Strike action against Grungi the Trollslayer, that inflicts +1 critical if at least 2 success are rolled. The Beastman rolls 2 successes (after canceling) plus a comet. Now, say damage ends up being 4 after soak. 4 Wound cards are dealt to Grungi's player. Then, the GM decides to use the comet for a critical. Turn one of Grungi's 4 Wound cards over to show the critical side. Finally, the action gives +1 critical )because of rolling 2 successes), which means Grungi's player turns over a second one of those 4 Wound cards to reveal the critical side. Ouch. So, in essence, Grungi got 2 Wounds and 2 Critical Wounds.

Also, after further review it appears Character Death can only come after a PC gets knocked unconscious from exceeding this Wound Threshold (ie a number of wounds+critical wounds that exceeds his Wound Threshold). Only then do you compare # of critical cards to Toughness to determine death.

Now, from what I can tell it is possible for some of the big enemies to do upwards of 14-16+ wounds (pre-soak) in a single hit with a decent roll, so they can possibly cause a starting or unarmored PC to go unconscious with a single blow, although unlikely. (Avg T is 3, and starting wounds for an average human is 11, = 14 wound threshold)

I'm also checking on something with FFG about criticals, and if I'm right, combat gets really darn scary.

Loswaith said:

You always have an option of critical wound if You roll Sigmar's Comet. So yes, basic attack can inflict critical wound.

Ok, 1-2 criticals per hit seems to be able to occur fairly often for many opponents to inflict, given decent rolls. More than 2 criticals on a single hit are highly unlikely, though.

dvang said:

Yes, from what I've read, once you do 2 crits, the chances of another one on the same attack would require a spectacular roll on part of the GM. So the chances of getting 3 and more is highly unlikely.

Sunatet said:

Each weapon also has a critical rating. So X number of boons rolled triggers a critical. (typically from 2-4 depending on the weapon)