Just finished my first reading of rules and I'm a little confused...

It would seem that some monsters cannot actually kill an average PC's but only knock them out.

Here's my understanding of of the rules:

1. Character's die if they get knocked unconscious and have more critical wounds than their T.
2. A character gains a Critical Wound when he is knocked unconscious, so the remaining crits required to kill a character either have to be pre-existing or dealt during the current encounter.
3. Unlike weapons used by PC's monster attacks do not have CR ratings (which seems a bit strange to me), so they have to rely on abilities to deal critical damage or Expertise dice (hoping for a Comet that can be converted to a critical)
4. Some creatures don't have any abilities that can inflict critical wounds. Normal Skaven (not Rat Ogres) for example. Skeletons and Soldiers are others. They only have one or two Expertise dice so even if they get very lucky, they can generate a maximum of 2 crits.

Please tell me if I'm missing something...

Critical wounds are pretty serious and can end staying with a PC for a good period of time without decent medical treatment. So they can stack up quickly with multiple combats.

The way I play it is that an unconscious player is on the brink of death anyway, as they're helpless to enemy attacks. Enemies attempting to attack unconscious players inflict an auto crit.

I wouldn't worry about how difficult it is to kill the PC's. My last session the entire party was knocked unconscious by 3 ambushing Ungors and a Boar. Their characters survived only by my good graces and a couple of wandering crossbowmen.

As for 3 and 4: Most of the monsters, npc's, etc. in the books would carry weapons of some kind and thus be able to do criticals based on those weapons CRs - so even if Skaven, Soldiers and Skeletons have no crit attack in the book their weapons may still induce them.

And as they suggest you can always up the danger of a fight by allowing them access to one or more of the action cards normally reserved for the players - a few Thunderous Blows or Reckless cleaves later and you may have all the critical hits on you players you could wish for...

Just remember that crits can be hell to get rid off!

Players may be hard to kill in combat. But it is not too difficult to knock them unconscious. Which, barring GM fiat, will leave the characters just as dead.

Right, once the players are all unconscious what do you think the skaven/skeleton do to them then?

surprise buttsecks?

First Aid can't remove crits when applied as Immediate Care and only add Fortune dice to Resilience checks after a night's rest. Resilience checks for critically wounded characters are <PP>, so even with a extra [W] or two from a successful First Aid check, the odds of a starting character getting rid of a crit isn't too good since you have to roll successes equal to the severity level of the crit. Since you always convert a normal wound to a crit when a character gets knocked unconscious, even opponents that can't otherwise cause crits will be capable of killing a character once they have a few crits carrying over. Since there are no fate points anymore to avoid death, it behooves the characters to seek long-term care to lower the severity level of the Resilience check and gain the Expertise die from a Medicine trained caregiver to remove crits before they stack up to the point that a lowly Gobbo can take them out.

I don't think character's are hard to kill. Criticals tend to accumulate over time. Our last adventure our Troll Slayer met his "glorious end" to a wargog.

As mentioned, you can always provide your monsters with weapons instead of using their "natural" weapon value. Monsters can also roll Expertise dice sometimes, which can roll a comet (potentially causing a critical). There are also a *lot* of monsters that do cause criticals with their action cards.

Add this into what others said about criticals lasting, and unconscious being nearly as good as dead.

Without Fate points, the game doesn't want to make it *too* easy to kill players. Considering about 3 good hits can knock an average character unconscious, and that the chance is hitting is pretty high in the new WFRP, and fights are pretty short and brutal.

How do monsters roll Expertise dice?

ACE.

E can be "spent" to add expertise dice to any roll.

Huh, I thought Expertise points just let them add white dice, didnt realise it was yellow (although the name should have probably given it away!)