Critical Strikes

By tenchi2a, in Rules Questions

So I guess my question is does a PC/NPC get a Critical Strikes everytime they get hit after their resistance is passed and do Critical Strikes values stack.

It's a bit hard to follow, but here is an example.

Jim is attacked with a Katana and suffers 4 damage. He already had 8 wounds, and a resilience of 10, so he is currently at 12 of 10 resilience. A Critical Hit is now triggered!

First, Jim must roll a TN 1 Fitness check. When he rolls it, he gets 2 successes, reducing the Critical Strikes Deadliness by 2. A Katana has a Deadliness of 5, so the total Severity is 3.

Jim then checks the chart on page 169 and looks for the row that details what happens at severity 3.

"The character suffers one of the following conditions based on the ring they used for this check: Immobilized (Earth), Dazed (Water), Prone (Air), Disoriented (Fire),Bleeding (Void)"

He used the Earth Ring for his Fitness check, so he has the Immobilized condition.

Additionally, since his Wounds are now GREATER than his resilience, he suffers the Incapacitated Condition.

The next round, Jim is hit again so his wound total is 16 of 10.

Again he suffers a Critical Strike, so he must first roll the TN 1 Fitness check.

He does not get any successes, so the Severity of the strike is the weapons Deadliness rating (again on a Katana this is 5.)

HOWEVER, since he is Incapacitated, he adds another +5 to the Severity. When he checks the table on page 169 he looks at the Severity 10 result, which is:

"The character is assigned one of the following scar disadvantages of their choice for the ring they used for this check: Blindness (Water), Cognitive Lapses (Void), Damaged Heart (Earth), Damaged Organ (Earth), Deafness (Air), Lost Hand (Fire), Lost Arm (Fire), Lost Leg (Water), Muteness (Air). Additionally, the character suffers the Bleeding and Unconscious conditions."

So at the end of the second round of Combat, Jim has the following:

16 wounds out of 10 Resilience
-Immobilized Condition

-Incapacitated Condition

-Damaged Heart Disadvantage

-Bleeding Condition

-Unconscious Condition

It is important to note that if a character ever has more wounds than double their resilience, they automatically suffer the Unconscious condition and no further wounds are recorded. An Unconscious character adds +8 to the severity of a Critical Hit.

(Rules Lawyer note: Nothing says that the +5 from Incapacitated and the +8 from Unconscious do not stack, so in current form rules as written an Incapacitated and Unconscious character technically takes +13 to the severity of a critical, but that seems to be an error and they should not stack. Designers should make a note saying Incapacitated is REMOVED when a character is Unconscious.)

So wait, let me get this straight.

pg. 168
"After a character suffers wounds, if their wounds exceed their resilience, the character suffers a critical strike (see page 168) with severity equal to the deadliness of the source.
After any critical strikes have been resolved, a character whose wounds exceed their resilience also suffers the Incapacitated condition (see page 171)"

So if ever your wounds ever exceed your Resilience, you are automatically critical'd AND incapacitated?

yup. You are basically removed from the fight.

With incapacitated you already cant act.

So yeah. Its close to getting 0 HP on a videogame (And then attacking someone with 0 hp is easy, thus critical strike.)

When Incapacitated The character is still able to move, and perform actions that don't require checks. They could change stance, or most importantly heal themselves if there's such a way, or at least get closer to another character who can defend or heal them.

Edited by Richardbuxton