So, I'm fine tuning the last of my initial adventure (yes, once it's done or close to done and open to constructive criticism, I'll post), and I'm wondering how 'challenging' or 'I MAY just kill a character with this' do you guys like to get with the first run of a party?

I've got a design on a the final bad guy. There's a monologue, the 'villain' escapes and leaves a Jello-esque Ooze, complete with shiny reflective shimmery skin!, to do battle.

I've got 3 versions of this dude. A is a cake walk. He just sits there, does physical attacks and makes you move. (Don't stand in the fire.) B is a bit more interesting. If he hits the hero, he creates a 1HP / 1SOAK copy that joins the fight. C. is way more troubling. Every time it's hit, it creates a minion with HP = to the damage it was hit for.

I really like C, but I'm thinking it might be 'too much' for an Intro.

C is awesome!! Just make sure there's some type of weapon or effect that can kill the ooze, and which doesn't create minions (such as fire, cold, acid, negative energy, something like that). Maybe only physical damage is what does the splitting, and magical damage can stop the splitting.

There is actually no hard-fast rule as to when a character dies. I have been using 2x wound threshold as the gauge, but ultimately leave it up to the situation (Being thrown from a cliff = dead, taking wounds in battle and laying there while the rest of the party fights on = only mostly dead.

9 minutes ago, Doomgrin75 said:

There is actually no hard-fast rule as to when a character dies.

Critical injuries?

3 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

Critical injuries?

Sorry, clarify my statement, no amount of wounds only... yes criting someone to death is in there

pg 112 "When non-player characters and creatures suffer
wounds greater than their wound threshold, they are
defeated (unless they are a high-level opponent such as
a nemesis). Being defeated by exceeding their wound
threshold usually entails death, but the overall interpretation
is up to the GM. The GM can decide that they
pass out due to shock, are so injured that they can no
longer fight, are knocked unconscious, or suffer any
other option that fits the GM’s plans for the ongoing"
narrative....

pg113" When wounds exceed a character’s wound threshold,
the player should track the number of wounds by
which their character has exceeded the threshold, to
a maximum of twice the wound threshold. The character
must heal wounds until the number of wounds
they are suffering is below their wound threshold
before the character is no longer incapacitated."

35 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

C is awesome!! Just make sure there's some type of weapon or effect that can kill the ooze, and which doesn't create minions (such as fire, cold, acid, negative energy, something like that). Maybe only physical damage is what does the splitting, and magical damage can stop the splitting.

The idea behind C, and this is where I got nervous is you chopped down the Ooze to bite sized minions, the minions lose the 'split' ability, but you then have to tackle them. So, let's say Ooze has 50HP. You'd chop him down into 10 5 HP minions. Then clear them out. (You'd probably be clearning the ooze and the add-ons at the same time in practice.) but my thinking would be it'd test the players to think tactically. If they simply go hog wild and chop down the Ooze instantly, they'll get over run quickly. If they hit the ooze, then the minions then back to the ooze, it'd be a challenge. But, if they screw that up, I could seriously drop the entire team on the intro.

15 minutes ago, ElderKoala said:

The idea behind C, and this is where I got nervous is you chopped down the Ooze to bite sized minions, the minions lose the 'split' ability, but you then have to tackle them. So, let's say Ooze has 50HP. You'd chop him down into 10 5 HP minions. Then clear them out. (You'd probably be clearning the ooze and the add-ons at the same time in practice.) but my thinking would be it'd test the players to think tactically. If they simply go hog wild and chop down the Ooze instantly, they'll get over run quickly. If they hit the ooze, then the minions then back to the ooze, it'd be a challenge. But, if they screw that up, I could seriously drop the entire team on the intro.

Liking an idea of a rival threat level ooze splitting down into minions...

13 minutes ago, ElderKoala said:

If they hit the ooze, then the minions then back to the ooze, it'd be a challenge. But, if they screw that up, I could seriously drop the entire team on the intro.

If they do this and it just keeps splitting, you could take it two ways depending on your gaming philosophy and/or what you have prepared for your game story.

1. They got themselves into this mess, ignoring multiple warnings ("Hey, the monster keeps multiplying every time we hit it!"), and now they have to deal with the consequences. Death is a real danger in RPGs, and now they have learned that lesson.
2. They are just starting out and should be cut a little slack. You have an unlikely ally waiting in the wings to step in and blast the little buggers once they've taken down a few of your heroes. It's a great way to introduce an NPC and ingratiate him to the party all at once.

32 minutes ago, Doomgrin75 said:

Sorry, clarify my statement, no amount of wounds only... yes criting someone to death is in there

pg 112 ...

pg113" ....

Right. See page 112, there's a table at the top right that talks about falling damage and critical injuries received from a fall.

See, the design of the game is that wounds do not kill a player. The wound threshold is an abstract mechanic that has a particular function, and that function is not to determine whether a character lives or dies. If you want to houserule it otherwise, that's totally your call. But the way a character dies is either rolling high enough on the critical injury chart, or by GM fiat as you mention in your earlier post.

Taking the rules on page 112-116 in context, I'd advise against using wounds as a gauge for whether a PC lives or dies, unless you want a much deadlier game than was intended by the developers.

2 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

Right. See page 112, there's a table at the top right that talks about falling damage and critical injuries received from a fall.

See, the design of the game is that wounds do not kill a player. The wound threshold is an abstract mechanic that has a particular function, and that function is not to determine whether a character lives or dies. If you want to houserule it otherwise, that's totally your call. But the way a character dies is either rolling high enough on the critical injury chart, or by GM fiat as you mention in your earlier post.

Taking the rules on page 112-116 in context, I'd advise against using wounds as a gauge for whether a PC lives or dies, unless you want a much deadlier game than was intended by the developers.

You seem to be arguing in agreement with me. I said before it really is the GM's call and not a matter of mechanics (mostly)

1 hour ago, Doomgrin75 said:

I have been using 2x wound threshold as the gauge, but ultimately leave it up to the situation...

6 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

Taking the rules on page 112-116 in context, I'd advise against using wounds as a gauge for whether a PC lives or dies, unless you want a much deadlier game than was intended by the developers.

The 2x wound threshold is, specifically, what I was taking issue with.

And yes, I was agreeing with your statement about situational calls.

Just a suggesition here: Could this « Special Power » be treated as a Abilities ( Core Book p.203) that could be activated with a certain number of Advantage, like 2 or 3?

10 minutes ago, Larry Ho-Teep said:

Just a suggesition here: Could this « Special Power » be treated as a Abilities ( Core Book p.203) that could be activated with a certain number of Advantage, like 2 or 3?

What I have so far (and yes, it would be an Ability):

Deformative Mitosis: Whenever <Rival> is dealt damage, spawn a <minion> with HP = to the dealt damage in the Engaged band with <Rival>. They do not act the round they are formed and act last in Initiative.

I was thinking about the death issue in the context of heroes who keep going to the last and you can always push that ever-closer-to-death carrying on in impossible odds factor- they're not dead yet but things are getting increasingly difficult (and they're more resembling of a zombie with every new affliction). A bit like movies, they're cut, bleeding, maybe not quite as in tact as they'd like to be but pushing it as far as their resilience allows.

Of course in a Terrinoth game they might find dodgy ways to cheat death but with some horrific consequences where they become a little less pleasant than they once were and significantly less human (or elf, or whatever they started out as). But you can give other 'get out of jails' when it comes to death- you can still have a deadly encounter but maybe there's something that saves them after, oh, how convenient a healing sparkling spring water spring, or counter-intuitively eating the dead ooze after saves them, reviving them (perhaps completely perhaps partially) with a nice fruity jelly-ish taste.

Maybe you can also let the players in on their fate- if they're so compromised most of what they do fails maybe they want to snuff it and bring in a new character or retire and just advise their surviving heroes from beyond the grave (depending how you run your game, is death it or can you gen a new character).

But timing-wise you want the likelyhood of death to be pretty much nil at the start of a campaign and gradually up the ante, perhaps near the end of a longer campaign it becomes more of a possibility but one that's designed into the game so even death has a resolution, for which you have many options, might be worth seeing how your players feel too and how they'd like to deal with increasing 'this could actually finish you' growing dangers.

On a different but tactically related note I was thinking the other day has the idea of a Trojan Pinata already entered our heads? That could be a fun encounter, maybe with some strategy like your splitting ooze- attacking the pinata before it reveals its contents may give you the edge or may be stupid like provoking a nest of hornets....

I've played lots of RPGs and demoed many to newcomers at game stores, and I can say that in general I'd rather not have an intro adventure be really deadly because if a character dies in the adventure I think it's less likely that the player will want to come back for a second go. I'm not sure the "cake walk" is the best solution, either. Probably something in the middle. Enough to give a challenge but not so much as to kill everyone off.

The Intro adventure is almost typed out. I'm on Act 4 scene C. There's 5 acts. Once that's done, I'll share what I have along with the big baddy boss, 1 optional boss, 1 hazard trap, 1 social encounter (which I'm still working on making smooth), and a small ton of "Candy Covered Kobolds" for people to rifle through.

You could use the Not Another ability from the Kobolds in RoT. It divides on 2 threat from an attack roll. That’ll tone it down.

Or leave it at option C and maybe on 2 threat or a despair the undefeated minions get reabsorbed and heal the main baddie.