Wondering from people that have played EOTE/Genesys how deadly is it. I get the feeling that it is pulpy by default.

If you wanted a game that was more deadly ie. call of Cthulhu or less. what would be the best levers to pull without changing the whole system?

I was thinking you could change default soak? or perhaps mess around with crit rate?

It's not that deadly unless the group wants it to be.

The only way to die is to suffer a critical injury result of 140+. And since the roll is made using 1d100, until you rack up enough preexisting crits (or get hit by a Vicious weapon) you'll have to take several before you get that high.

If you want to make it deadlier, I'd suggest reading this Reddit post . It's all about making Genesys deadlier. I haven't read through it myself since I like the default deadliness.

To avoid this being a "why don't you just go here instead?" post, I'll give you a few ways I can think of to change the deadliness of Genesys .

1. Crit and crit often! As the GM, you control the crit rate of the PCs. If you want a deadlier game then use every opportunity you have to inflict a critical injury. Sure, you won't be using those advantages for other things, but it'll drive home the deadly nature of the game without changing anything else.
2. NPC/monstrous should have crazy-high vicious ratings. Like 3 or 4 minimum. So when they do crit (assuming you're not just critting all the time) it'll hurt. And with a +40 to the crit roll, you have the chance of 1-hit killing a PC.
3. Beat on downed PCs. Every time they take damage in excess of their wound threshold the PC takes another critical injury. When they're down, don't count them out! Make sure your enemies can target two PCs at a time so you can hit one that is up and one that is down. Autofire and blast are two great ways of doing that.

thanks for the link (I looked here but did not look on Reddit ).

I think adding a few ports of vicious to all rolls should do it. (even the pcs rolls) then add more to monsters

Eh, that's not really the full picture.

While combat is not deadly , at least not until you get up into higher (300+?) xp ranges, combat is most definitely dangerous.

Its not uncommon for a new PC to go unconcious after say, two hits from an NPC if there carrying something like a rifle. The fixed damage/soak system is rather unforgiving.

You will likely have PCs go unconcious a lot, but they probably won't feel like they're in danger of dieing until much later in campaign play.

In my years of experience with this system, it's a good thing.

[Edit] For a more gritty/deadly style, just take a page from FFGs WH40K system. Make it so that PCs don't go unconcious once their Strain/Wound Threshold is exceeded. Instead, they're still up, able to act, and every Wound they take after that is a Crit.

Problem solved.

No need to tweak moving parts, like Soak, Damage, Vicious, etc.

I think that's the part I like the most of Genesys' combat. It's not outright deadly but it can definitely beat you upside the head very well.

You can be still standing but you've been Maimed, Knocked Senseless, Winded and Hamstrung. ..and you've got 3 minutes before the ship blows up!

I'll also add that any setting that uses the included Magic rules is less deadly than one that doesn't, as the default magic rules allow casters to have multiple attempts at healing Critical Injuries (while mundane healing only has one attempt per week) and Magical Healing can also bring people back from the dead.

47 minutes ago, Colyer said:

I'll also add that any setting that uses the included Magic rules is less deadly than one that doesn't, as the default magic rules allow casters to have multiple attempts at healing Critical Injuries (while mundane healing only has one attempt per week) and Magical Healing can also bring people back from the dead.

It would be a much less dangerous real world if we had magical healing, so having it in game seems like it produces a reasonable effect.

I think the key to offsetting magical healing will be ratcheting the pressure between scenes to keep moving instead of resting. Not to mention recovering strain is predicated on actually taking a breather. If the healer is healing, he's not resting, so every bad roll chips away the strain pool for the next encounter.

After playing Star wars FFG system over past few years has demonstrated to me the difficulty in killing players (not that i am looking to but players should feel a sense of fear that it can happen) i have converted the D&D 5e death rules to SW/Genesys.

You can do to negatives equal to your wounds before Dying. I call this the massive damage threshold. so a 12 wound char can go to -12 wounds before dying.

if you are at 0 or negative hitpoints but under your massive damage threshold you are considered unconscious and dying.

A dying character makes a resilience check each turn. 3 cumulative success auto stabilizes you. 3 cumulative failures and you die. Which ever comes first. currently i set this vs PP difficulty but may change it to be dependent on just how close you are to your massive damage threshold. (like the heal checks scales based on % of wounds lost) (you are not losing a wound per round. its just keep making checks till dead or stable.)

Any healing (magic/Stims/medicine check) will stabilize a character with the healing starting from 0 wounds not the negative value. (i.e. the only reason you need to know you are at -8 is that means you are dying and not dead.

Medicine checks are average difficult, with 2 set back dice if doing while under duress (ie. in combat, pull that wounded soldier back to the bunker to get cover before doing your medicine check!)

and of course, you still suffer the critical hit for being reduced to 0 wounds. That may just kill you, but yet to see that happen! in about 10+ adventures i have GMed.

I had the idea for introducing a Bleeding mechanic to make things more lethal. To steal a few ideas from @sharkfin6 , in short when you go unconscious you take your Crit, then every round you roll a Resilience check equal to the difficulty of that last Crit. If you fail you add a tally to your Bleeding rating, and roll against the Crit table, with +10 for every rank of Bleeding along with the normal +10 per existing Crit. Ignore anything lower than 141. You heal one rank of Bleeding per day, two with a Triumph on a Medicine check, or one per Painkillers (takes up a healing slot of your five per day).

Once you're back up, Bleeding doesn't count towards normal Crits. To balance with the punishment, I'd say that if you're knocked out, you are't unconscious but reduced to one maneuver a turn, which you can spend to try and stabilize yourself (but doing so upgrades the check once and a Despair means you're actually unconscious). A Despair on a hit that knocks you out can be used to make you unconscious instead of two Crits.

If a pc is unconscious and the rest of the party have to flee because the big monster is going to knock them all out then the group has two choices:

carry the unconscious character, slowing them all down.

leave the unconscious as food for the monster, hopefully it’s a slow eater...

Here's some alternate methods to create the "gritty" feeling without changing the dials on the system.

Another way to do this is to limit armor. It could be rare or pricey. Or perhaps magical healing comes with a price - you suffer damage in exchange for healing a PC. You could also limit the number of healing implements you put out there. Making a few healing potions may require a quest. The use of poisons is also an alternative to normal damage. Acid could also tear through weapons and armor making them useless.

Monsters don't have to be big. What about a horde of small monsters who have spears? You can't deal with all of them at once, but several can overwhelm one powerful warrior. Even goblins can have a military background and use shield walls and crossbows.

What if they're undead, or perhaps robots? Perhaps their attacks drain attributes instead?

Monsters who grapple, or mooks with nets, ropes, bolas, netguns, gelatinous resins, all can bind PCs and allow for their capture or submission.

Using terrain is also an option. Flying creatures can swoop down, limiting attacks. Slippery ground is no problem for webbed feet, or slime based creatures. Tree top battles can be tricky for PCs, but a natural terrain for primates or creatures with prehensile tails and flexible feet and toes. Characters falling from 30ft. could easily end up in a serious situation, so some branches that break their fall could mitigate damage. Not trying to kill them off, just make them careful.

Also consider: How important is this to the game? Will the players and the gamesmaster both enjoy this element in the game? Why is this decision being made in the first place? I would ask these questions first in order to make sure not to break the 1st rule - everyone have fun!

I've added a house rule to some games when players want a more lethal experience. We know from the core rulebook (p.112-13) that you immediately suffer a critical injury upon exceeding your wound threshold, and that you should track wounds above the threshold, up to twice your wound threshold. So:

1. If a character suffers more than twice his wound threshold in total wounds, he dies . (Incidentally, it is important to count your wounds up from zero because some rules in Genesys, and many in SWRPG, specify and describe things with counting-up in mind.)
2. Each time a character suffers wounds/damage above her threshold, she receives a critical injury, but only rolls a single d10. The tens place on the chart is equal to the total number of wounds above the threshold (the Vicious quality and previous Critical Injuries also add to that number).

Those rules together make death a much more likely possibility if a creature attacks you and your wounds exceed the threshold by any amount.