Heya guys.

I have a quick question; the Greatsword of Hoeth has a special ability which says "When the Greatsword of Hoeth deals critical damage, draw 2 critical wounds and choose 1 to apply. Apply the other as normal damage." Now, I interpret this such as that the person who receives the wounds can choose which critical wound that they want to apply, but I am not convinced that this is what was intended. Any thoughts?

/Reno

The person with the sword chooses which critical to apply, IMO.

My interpretation matches that of pumpkin. The text on the action cards relates to the person using the card and not to outsiders. Besides, there would be no benefit in the injured person choosing the critical effect. One of the benefits is that you get to choose the most devastating critical.

I concur, cards are (as far as I know) always written from the perspective of the person using them, if it was inteded for the target of the attack to pick, then it would say, The target of the attack ...[card text here]. Since that phrase is not there, the effect should apply to the user of the item. Cards that affect targets other than the holder/user identify the target of their effect more clearly, a card that grants an ally a free manoeuvre will say, Grant an ally a free manoeuvre, that refers to an ally of the user of the action, if the user is the one intended to take the free manoeuvre then the card will just say, Take a free manoeuvre. Thats how I see it anyway.

My thought was that the opponent choosing the critical was to counter the fact that a critical from this weapon counts as two wounds instead of one. Can we have an official statement on this?

given the choice, I'd probably take an extra wound to be able to choose which critical I'm inflicted with. Letting the recipient of the critical choose weakens the sword too much in my opinion, and as others have pointed out, the card would be clear that the target could choose if that was the case.

There is a rules question link at the very bottom of the message board though (down in the "small print" seciton) you might get a quicker answer from FFG by using that than posting here...

Drawing two critical wounds and choosing the lesser of the two is likely less damaging than choosing one single critical wound. In other words having the target choose the card is worse for the attacker than a normal crit. Thus the sword-wielder should choose.

BCA said:

Reguardless of what I think about the item or card in question, the above is still my advice if your looking for what the RAW would have you do. Since this system is designed that if you think something is out of whack the GM can simply change it. Since this is the Rules Questions section and not the House Rules Section, I believe what I wrote earlier is what the Rules tell you to do.

If we're looking for suggestions on how to adjudicate the use of this item, then I will be more than happy to jump on that conversation over in House Rules.

I agree with BCA. The card is written for the user of the sword, and makes no mention of the target. Thus, RAW seems to be that the user of the sword chooses the critical.

i think the only time a GM gets to say what happens on an action card is when multiple bane effects can be triggered, all other choices on action cards seem to be the player's decision.

Fluff-wise, the Greatswords of Hoeth are bad mammajammas so they'd know how to hit and apply the most lethal damage with a swing. Their massive blades wouldn't be 'mitigated' by the target.

I think the acting player chooses.

its simple.

Example:

Active player wielding greatsword deals 7 wounds to enemy and one of them is a critical wound. MG place 7 wounds on npc - then choose 2 random wounds and turn face up for critical effect. Normally he should turn only 1 but the effect of sword told he needs to turn 2. The active player choose one of them as critical wound, and another one is turning back as normal wound.

Sivar, I've no idea where you get that interpretation- I'm fairly sure that a crit basically adds a wound as well as the crit, making it do the same damage as a regular Great Weapon on a Crit.

Evilgm said:

Sivar's interpretation is pretty accurate, and it's per the RAW. You can find a more detailed example in the FAQ/Errata on page 7:

When an effect lists a result such as critical damage or +1 critical
damage, that does not modify the attack’s damage potential –
rather, it influences how many of the final wounds inflicted become
critical wounds.

Critical wounds do not add to the damage potential, they merely change the type of damage being dealt. If you follow closely the description on calculating damage in the rulebook you'll see that normal wounds are converted to critical wounds. So an attack that does only 2 normal wounds can at most deliver to 2 critical wounds, even if you have + 5 critical wound effects (lord know how, but that's beside the point).

So a 7 normal wound attack using the Greatsword of Hoeth results in 6 normal wounds + 1 critical wound (which was picked from 2 normal wound cards that were turned face up).

Lexicanum said:

Sorry for the thread necromancy, but but I have a question related to this very topic and this was the most pertinent thread pulled up by the forum search function.

While I understand the procedure above is standard for converting wounds to criticals, my confusion arises due to the actual wording on the Greatsword of Hoeth card:

When the Greatsword of Hoeth deals critical damage, draw 2 critical wounds and choose 1 to apply. Apply the other as normal damage.

Since the normal procedure for a critical hit is to convert a preexisting wound into a crit, the last sentence seems very redundant *if* the Greatsword of Hoeth is intended to follow the normal procedure for critical conversion. In the usual procedure, the wound has already been applied before being converted into a crit, so why would instructions need to be given regarding both cards?

The instructions as written imply that one is supposed to draw two fresh wound cards, and then choose one to apply as a critical and the other as normal damage. This effectively gives the weapon a damage rating of 8 instead of its normal 6 on a crit, vs the damage rating of 7 for a standard great weapon - which seems too symmetrical to be a coincidence. Effectively, then, the weapon is more deadly than a standard great weapon in the hands of an expert, but less so in the hands of a novice, which is in keeping with the flavor of the Swordmaster career.

So which is it? Is the item intended to be an exception to the standard procedure? My inner GM says the weapon is plenty lethal enough with its critical rating of 2 and bonus fortune die on all attacks, but the instructions as written read as though the weapon is intended to inflict extra damage on a critical.

The Greatsword of Hoeth's special ability could be summed up as: "For each critical hit, draw 2 random critical hit cards and choose one to apply."

The phrasing could have been better, but the intent is clear (to me at least). Basically it allows the wielder to pick the best of 2 critical hit effects, making it particularly nasty. It doesn't increase the total damage, which is what the last sentence sought to clarify, albeit unsuccessfully. They probably figured people would get confused because you're drawing two critical hit cards, so they didn't want people applying 2x critical hits.

I think it could be the word draw that causes the confusion. As to me (at least) it implies from a deck rather from the cards already on the table.

Turn might be a better phrase, so as someone metioned ealier when dealing 7 wounds 1 of which is a crit, you turn over two choose the worst and the other is turned "back" into a normal wound.

I think this is the right interpretation BUT what happens if you do two criticals? you could turn all 4 over at the same time, and choose the worst two, turning the other two back, or do them in pairs; both methods have "loop-holes" that can be exploited, so to speak, a minor ponit though and down to individual group preference i would have thought.

more interestingly though, is what to do if the sword only deals ONE wound. in that case do you just have to turn that wound over and use that crit?

can you get another wound card and turn both over returning the un wanted one to the supply (kind of makes sense although in the RAW, this directly contradicts the (apply the other as normal damage line).

I think personally, even though it is against RAW, i will simply have the players deal out one extra wound per critical, have them turn over two, choose one and return the other one to the main supply (bottom of the pack). Although that is against the RAW, it works fine with the intention of the card and deals with both the "issues" I point out above.

Don't make the same mistake I did a while back and confuse wounds with damage, they're two different terms mechanically speaking. The card is talking about damage, which is calculated prior to wounds. Per the RAW you don't apply soak until after damage has been calculated.

The sword will always deal more than one damage since it has a DR greater than 1 and you need STR 1 or higher to actually wield it. The problem only arises if you do critical hits equal to the total amount of damage. Which is probably something like 6 critical wounds (which at minimum will be DR + 1). And even then it only becomes a problem for the last critical hit, since you can just apply the effects sequentially, instead of in parallel. And even then, I believe the intent is basically to just draw two critical effects and choose one, doesn't matter where you do it from.

And draw is used because you're supposed to draw the wound cards from the wound card deck.

At any rate, I've sent in a Rules Question to get a clarification, maybe the sword is meant to produce Critical + 1 damage.

In our game criticals can never be soaked and I am also thinking about using the "Extra damage" rule from the game masters kit, with a little modification, where criticals are always drawn as extra wounds.

In this instance it would mean drawing two critical wounds and returning one to the deck, for each critical dealt.

pumpkin said:

That, in conjunction with "Apply the other as normal damage," forms the core of the problem - on first inspection the card makes it sound as though you draw two fresh wounds and apply one as a crit and the other as a generic wound. This is how I initially read the card, but then the FAQ came out about crit generation and I started looking for threads on the topic.

At first I was still dubious about the intent of the mechanic specifically because of the word "draw," but after Lexicanum's last post I can see his point much more clearly. If I'm reading it right, the order of operations is supposed to be:

• Calculate Damage
• Apply Soak
• Calculate Wounds (actually drawing the cards from the main deck at this step)
• Convert Criticals
• Apply Wounds and Criticals to the target

In which case the word "draw" could refer either to the main deck or to the wound cards just drawn. If the latter is appropriate, "Apply the other as normal damage," just becomes one of the many redundancies on the cards, like the phrase "Place two recharge tokens," on the active defense cards.

I appreciate the responses in helping me reason this out. The lore and models for Swordmasters literally cut away the last of my resolve against putting down the money to start playing Warhammer (right when the 6th Edition Fantasy Battles material came out) and I'm playing one in a campaign starting in a few weeks and I was hoping to get this clarified before the game begins.

Many thanks to Jay Little for responding so quickly to my rules question regarding the Greatsword of Hoeth. His response, quoted in full is as follows:

Due to space limitations, we had to try and make as concise and simplified a rule as possible. If space were unlimited, the complete text to fulfill the intent of the Greatsword of Hoeth would read:

"When the Greatsword of Hoeth deals critical damage, reveal two normal wounds (among the total wounds inflicted) per critical inflicted. For each pair of revealed wounds, the player chooses one to keep face up as a critical wound, and turns the other face down to apply as a normal wound. If fewer wounds are inflicted than necessary to allow the player to reveal two normal wounds, the player draws one additional wound from the wound deck, chooses which of those two cards to apply as a critical wound, and shuffles the other card back into the wound deck."

The intent is to allow the user of a Greatsword of Hoeth a degree of choice when inflicting critical wounds, not to further increase his already considerable damage output.

Hope that clears everyone's questions regarding this.

Very cool, thank you for getting us that answer Lexicanum. After your earlier post about damage vs wounds that interpretation was making more and more sense, but it's always nice to hear from the guys writing the rules what their intent was. The clarification on what to do if only one wound is inflicted is icing on the cake.