Should all sucées lines be available?

By Ceodryn, in WFRP Rules Questions

When considering an action, which would have a line for 1 success and line for 2 successes, I always played it as only one can be activated when rolling 3 successes - but did anyone consider the option to have both activate on 3 successes.

I am assuming it would make combat more lethal, on both sides (since some cards read that as two separate damage output).

Or was I wrong and should it be indeed be available to activate both?

No Ceodryn. It should not be cumulative and you should not activate both lines in the event of 3 successes. Sure it will be more lethal (which you may think is kinda nice) but don't forget that that Wargor can also activate both their successes as can the Ogre and the demon that the GM pits you against next session. You won't be so keen on making combats more lethal anymore :)

Indeed, but I am curious whether anyone actually tried it long term? I am listening to a podcast where the GM is going that way (wether they will autocorrect themselves soon, we will see). It definitely could have the option to drop any character in one roll of the NPC.

I don't think that would be fun, but there are systems out there where combat is so deadly one doesn't want even to engage. I am curious how this would shift wfrp.

Thanks however for confirming i was not wrong :)

P.S. I like your title Ceodryn. Is that your French way of saying Success? :P

Ah I didn't see that. It's the iPhone autocorrecting to French and failing apparently.

You are right, the rules are quite clear that you get to choose one success line, not multiple. But you can activate several boon, bane, comet or chaos star lines though. :)

Beeing able to pick multiple success lines would probably make combat super lethal, most NPCs and even PCs would die from one hit. The basic melee strike with three hammers would deliver Normal damage * 2 + 2. So a Str 4 with a hand weapon would do 20 damage.

For a long time I was GM for a Swedish RPG that has exploding damage dice and different hit locations could multiply the damage, or cause massive bleeding. In that game you could litteraly get hit in the eye, or an aorta, and if the damage roll had some dice exploding you could go from full health to dead beyond saving in one hit. But even that game would probably be less lethal than getting to pick multiple success lines in WFRP. ;)

It's already too lethal, If players focus fire one target, they take him down in two hits a bit too often.

They're already taking done most of my super-fun bad guys in one hit! A Shaggoth! A f*cking shaggoth! Ok, not one hit. And I did manage to bisect the witch hunter in the mean time.

If you want to make combat more lethal, then simply translate bonus, unused successes into additional damage, based on the ranks in weapon skill your char has, or use it to translate successes into boons on a two for one basis. This will make already dangerous combat pretty bloody hostile.