I keep looking at the books, FAQ, and the forums here and i still can't seem to get my head around the damage system.

If for example, my scout hits a gor for... say *SSSSSS* + *BBBB* + *C* using the basic ranged shot action card... (i know, i know, just go with me here )

does that equate to:

1 normal damage OR one 1 damage at +2 and 1 free maneuver? or do I add up all the successes, boons, and Sigmar's comet and distribute them to get the best combination of Successes and Boons?

You would use the *SSS* success line, you could use 2 boons to get a free manoeuvre and 3 boons to trigger a critical then the Comet could trigger another critical.

So damage would be AGI + DR +2, with 2 of the wounds being converted to critical.

If you were able to roll 6 Successes, 4 Boons, and a Comet (after negative effects) here is how it would break down. We will assume you are armed with a Shortbow DR5 CR3 and have an Agility of 4, and that you are firing at an enemy with Toughness 3 and Soak 1:

Successes should be thought of as a potential, not something you "spend." What I mean is you can only opt to use the best case no matter how many successess you have. On the Ranged Shot card for example, you would use the 3 Success line: "You hit the target for +2 damage." Three Successes fall under your max potential of 6 Successes, so this is legal. You would NOT do both the 1 Success line and the 3 Success line.

The Comet is used to activate the comet line on cards, but as Ranged shot does not have one you can instead choose to convert it into a boon or another success symbol. We will count it as another Boon for this example as another Success will grant us nothing.

Boons on the other hand can be "spent" like points or currency. You may perform any number of boon effects which add up to the total number of boons rolled. So, in this example you have 4 Boons to spend. 2 Boons can be spent to activate the line "Perform a manoevure for free," and you will have 3 Boons left over. Now you can always choose to spend 2 Boons to remove 1 fatigue (if it was a physical check, such as this one) or 1 stress (if it was a mental check), see "Universal Effects" box on p.45 of the rulebook. As another option you could instead use your 3 remaining Boons to activate your shortbow's CR of 3 and convert a wound into a critical wound. We will choose to activate the critical rating as we will assume we don't need to remove any fatigue.

So, in conclusion you would pick the 3 Success line, the 2 Boon line, and activate our weapon's CR. Damage Potential for ranged weapons is based off of your (Agility Characteristic + the Damage Rating of your Weapon + Additional Effects) - (Enemy Toughness Characteristic + Soak Value). In this example we have [4 (Agility) + 5 (DR of shortbow) + 2 (3 success line says "+2 damage")] - [3 (Toughness) + 1 (Soak)] = 7 damage. Since we also activated our weapon's critical rating one of these 7 wounds would convert into a critical wound, so it would be 6 normal wounds and 1 critical wound. You would also then be allowed to perform an extra manoevure.

I know this seems like a lot, but look at the Action Card and Combat section again in the rulebook if you are having trouble. I hope that helps!

Edit: Kaptian 0 beat me too it, but I do have a question. Where does it say that the Comet can be turned into a critical? On the back of the book it says that a Comet can be turned into a Success or a Boon. Also, the Critical Rating line in the Equipment section says that it can only be activated by sufficient Boons.

Ah, ok that makes sense. thanks!

Page 46 "The Chaos Star & Sigmar's Comet"

In combat, a Sigmar's Comet result on an attack can be used to have the attack inflict critical damage.

Kaptain O said:

Ah, on the back of the rulebook it didn't mention that, and I couldn't find it with a quick glance through the book. Thank for pointing it out.

Just a little offtopic to straighten things out, because I have some minor argue about hammer interpretation with my friend.

Lets say, I have a card like that:

1 hammer = hit

2 hammers = +1 damage

3 hammers = +1 critical

Now I roll 5 hammers.

My interpretation is:

hit (because the action was succesfull, and you rolled more than 0 hammers) +1 damage (2 hammers on that) +1 critical (3 hammers on that)

Correct?

Incorrect! You can only pick one line when counting successes, on the other hand you can spend as many boons as possible. Of course you can only activate any boons once, for instance you can't activate a 2 boons= +1 damage more than once even if you rolled 4 boons. Also if you activate the CR damage with Sigmar's comet you can't activate again with the required boons.

So boons you can spend as often as possible on different effects and successes can only be spent once and the remainder is lost.

Sunatet said:

Forgot to mention that in your example, if you rolled 5 hammers, you could any line you want but not all 3, so you would probably pick the +1 critical. You would then disregard the last 2 hammers.

Sunatet said:

"If an action card has more than one success line, the player may choose to trigger any ONE success line requiring a number of success symbols equal to or less than the number generated by the dice pool." (p 45 and again on p 51).

Also the official Errata p 2 makes things even more clear:

Actions: Success Line Selection
A player may choose ONE success line from among all the lines his character is eligible for, based on the number of success symbols generated. For example, on an action with both a *S* and a *SSS* success line, the player may choose either success line to activate if his action pool generates at least three successes.

The *S* sumbolized the Hammer symbol (thuse *SSS* is 3 hammer symbols)

All the other symbols follow a different set of rules though (which probably is the reason for some confusion). Banes/Boons etc can trigger each effect once per task and thereby trigger several different effects in the same task. And don't forget that the universal effect on p 45 effectivly is on all cards as another option.

Ok, thanks, looks like I was wrong

Blustar said:

Incorrect!

Erratta/FAQ document, Page 6:

Triggering a weapon’s critical rating effect with a Sigmar’s Comet
result is not the same as triggering a weapon’s critical effect with
boons.

Since different sources of critical damage are cumulative, this
means a PC can use a Sigmar’s Comet result to trigger his
weapon’s critical rating, which “stacks” with using boons used to
trigger the same weapon’s critical rating, which would also stack
with any critical effects triggered from the action card used.

Sunatet said:

As others have said this is incorrect and if you read my post you would have had your answer without even having to ask it.

szlachcic said:

Well that was the problem, the argue started AFTER reading Your post.

I took it more like a personal opinion for explicit case, and was at work, so could not check the book .

I just should read the rules and errata one more time (and more carefully).

Kaptain O said:

Wow, I totally missed that one! Sorry about that...

Now, after re-reading that section I'm a little confused again because I remember reading on these boards (Yvnne I think) who said that "+1 critical damage" always added to the critical wounds but "inflicts critical damage" only works once. That was the difference between them is this still true?

Example: If an action generates 3 " inflicts critical damage" results and 2 "+1 critical damage" then the attack would only inflict 3 critical wounds total. Is this still true? I'm sure he gave us an example very similar to this.

The FAQ seems to imply that this now inflicts 5 critical wounds, which one is correct?

Blustar said:

The FAQ is the more recent answer, and should be considered the 'official' correct answer.

Yeah, but am I reading the FAQ correctly? Will 3 " inflicts critical damage" results and 2 " +1 critical damage" results mean the action inflicts 5 critical wounds?

I would just like confirmation so I don't hose my players by "accident"

thanks

Right, there were too many complications so now all of those are stackable and just considered to work as "+1 critical".

Check out this post by Jay, didn't he design the game?

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=167&efcid=3&efidt=232418&efpag=0#233304

Do you speak for FFG or are you in the know? Not trying to be snarky or anything, I just want to know whats what.

or

Did they just mess up the FAQ? We need some errata for the errata. It's happened before...

Also from the Errata (p 6):

Streamlining Critical Damage Effects
An effect that states “inflicts critical damage” is mechanically identical
to an effect that stats “+1 critical damage.” Different sources of
critical damage are cumulative, so effects/sources that say “inflicts
critical damage” will stack with effects/sources that state “+1 critical
damage.”

Just like to have information easily availible...

I know the errata states this but the designer of the game said something completely opposite, so I guess that's what the streamlining means.

but will this make Critical hits to overpowering as they just changed a mechanic after months of playtesting with a different system?

Why did they change it? It's relatively simple if you ask me. ( the old system) I'm just afraid the PC's will get to powerful and nothing will be able to stand in their way.

I think I'm going to stay with the old system, if it ain't broke don't fix it. They were obviously meant to do 2 different things why dumb it down?

Blustar said:

Let me answer your hypothetical situation. A character gets two attacks. The first does 3 damage and the card or effect "inflicts critical damage". That means the target has 3 wounds total, 1 of which is a critical. Now they suffer a second attack that deals 2 damage +1 critical. Since different sources of critical damage stack, they take two more wounds, 1 of which is a critical. The net is that they have 5 total wounds, two of which are critical. This would be the case regardless of whether you go by the FAQ or Jay's original clarification.

The only thing that is different between the FAQ and Jay's original explanation is that in the case of multiple effects that just "inflicts critical damage", Jay's explanation had them not stacking.

Scenario 1: You use an action that results in a +1 critical and also roll boons = your weapon's CR. You do 2 crits.

Scenrio 2: You use an action that "inflicts critical damage" and also roll boons = your weapon's CR. Is that one crit or two?

With the FAQ treating "inflicts critical damage" and "+1 critical" the same, these now clearly stack and result in two criticals. I can understand why it was streamlined. It's just easier if they always stack. The other way potentially gimps some action cards.

Blustar said:

Yah he posted that nov 11th, since then he issued an erratta/faq that states all crits now stack.

Blustar said:

Well that's kinda the purpose of Errata, it changes the way the game works.

Blustar said:

tbh I don't think it empowers the PC's but the monsters, crits on monsters are often not an issue - its the total wounds that matter most. With pc's crits can add up over encounters and become a problem.

mac40k said:

I understand how it works ( but thanks for the explanation anyways) what I'm saying is that they changed the way it works. I mean when they were play testing the game " inflicts critical damage" did not stack. I'm just wondering if too many critical wounds will be assessed with this method. It'll probably be fine, it's just that I don't really see any difficulty with multiple "inflict critical damage"'s not stacking. It was not confusing once it was explained properly.