Maybe i missed something when reading the rules but I was wondering what is the basic damage for the Vomit action card of the troll (Tome of adventure p.59). Do we have to use St for that attack or is it something else? I really dont have any clue.

Innommable said:

Unless otherwise specified, all the monsters and npcs in that section do base damage of Strength + the number in parenthesis behind strength. Since neither the "action card" nor the special rules for that monster type mention anything about it, it does the default. So, with a single success, they vomit on you for 12 wounds (minus soak), one of which is a critical as the "action card" states.

It sounds pretty weird.

Strength and equipment can influence the amount of damage a target take by being puked on? I mean, where is the logic behind that rule (and please, dont tell me that there is no logic in a fantasy game).

Innommable said:

I agree it sounds weird, and I personally would have included a special rule (or given it a special damage rating) if I were the one who created the Troll Vomit action. But I didn't make the card, I'm just a hopefully helpful guy on the forum.

I think the intent of the designers is clear, even if the in-character logic behind it escapes us. They meant for Troll Vomit to do 12 damage, about the same as it's other attacks. If they didn't intend that, they would have specifically spelled it out. The folks who did make it chose not to include any special rules, so the default is that it's normal damage, based on Strength and the DR in parenthesis after Strength. The default rules assume that trolls will almost always have those stats, and that the GM is rarely going to bother kitting them out with special equipment. Chances are they didn't think too hard about the unfortunate implication that giving a troll a higher-quality weapon essentially makes their stomach acid stronger.

Choosing to disconnect that damage from Strength certainly won't break anything, so go ahead and house rule it if it bothers you. You certainly could look at it as the troll vomit does a set, non-strength-based, damage value of 12. From this point of view, it has nothing to do with the Strength or weaponry of the Troll, but since it just happened to be the same numerical value as the damage the troll normally does, they chose to save themselves some page space / word count by phrasing everything in the simplest way possible. It's possible that's what actually happened, even.

Alternately, you could assume they meant for some other damage value, and forgot to include it. Or you could even assume they're just crazy. Frankly, it doesn't matter to me which explanation you believe, and what damage you choose to have it do in your game. You asked how you're supposed to know what damage it does, and I told you the base rule. Now that you know what the rule is, as GM you can choose to ignore, bend, or break it as you see fit. Have fun!

The Strength addition doesn't really bother me; you could consider it an indication of size, which could very well be a factor in the volume of the attack. More volume, more damage.

I'm not really sure why soak would be considered, though. Troll Vomit cares not for your armor; in fact, it'll burn right through it. My group hasn't yet faced a Troll, but when they do, I may have it damage or destroy the armor they are wearing if hit.

If your looking for logic here is an attempt to some:

A characteristic in WHFRP 3rd defines everything about that attribute for a specific character, if your Strength charateristic is high, then you have good strength, muscle tone, good legs, abs, arms, neck, diaphram...all strength related attributes. The game mechanics don't account for having well developed arms and chest, but flabby weak abs/glutes/legs. So, if a Troll has a higher strength, the the muscles suround its upper GI tract are also well developed and strong, therfore when he/it barfs on you, a stronger Troll does so with a greater velocity and vigor, therefore inflicting more damage overcoming more soak, and potentially inflicting more wounds.

Maybe that extra speed causes the "vomit" to seep through the nooks and crannies of your armor, exposing more flesh to the strong corrosive acid of the Troll, perhaps the blast causes some of the vomit to blast into your boots, and the pooled acid spends time disolving the flesh of your foot in that confined space before the base elements of your corroding cells neuralizes the acid (this is help true because the RAW does not provide for the acid to destroy equipment).

Do you buy this answer? Beats me, but there is some logic behind the mechanics, whether its good logic or not, is up to you.

BCA, your logic is great about the use of St to calculate the damage of the vomit... what is strange is the number of basic damage between the (). It is suppose to be equipment and things like that... this is where i got a problem with that logic.

But, I dont really mind about those sort of problems. I've been gamemastering 1st and 2nd edition of WarHammer and always had to modify or house rules some little "logical problem" like that... It's just that when i'm gamamastering, i like to fully understand the rules... even the logic behind it.

BTW please excuse my english and orthograph, being a second language for me (i'm french) it's not always easy to correctly express my point of view.

Most of the actions by the npc creatures really don't make a ton of sense, and really, lot of the player action cards don't make that much sense in context of the name/pictures.

The whole npc/creature part is highly streamlined to be faster to play, so instead of having tons of rules and stats for all creatures, it's been highly streamlined in comparison to something like a D20 game stat block which has players looking up all kinds of feat rulings, calculating rolls, etc, etc.

Innommable said:

Don't worry about it, I totally agree about the logic, or lack there of with this, and many, many other games. I actually spend a lot of time trying to rationalize some of the mechanics in these games so that they make some kind of sense, logicially. The problem is, some (a lot) of the mechanics, aren't logicial, and usually are infact merely convienent.

I think convience is actually the main cultprit in this case, the (#) that is supposed to represent equipment for damage and the fact that if a troll carries a great axe he barfs even harder makes no sense at all, and there is no logic behind it, other than, it was logical for the game designers to use the core mechanic of the game, even though it doesn't make sense, rather then write a quick summary in the ability that says, Troll Barf, always does 12 dmg. When your writing up a game thogh, these are the sort of hard to miss things that slip though the cracks.

In warhammer Battle, Troll Vomit ignore soak.

I don't believe the numbers in parenthesis only represent equipment. They are merely the Damage, Soak, and Defence values, which are most commonly a function of equipment, but not always . Look at the "Beasts" spread. A giant wolf has stats of 4(4), 4(2), 5(2), but that certainly doesn't mean it wears armor and carries a weapon.

man/elf/dwarf unarmed damage = (3). the giant wolf's (4) surely represents its claws. Look at the orcs... there're at (5). probably a hand weapon...

does anybody make players take damage for melee critting a troll? i have been thinking about making players roll the trolls stance in fortune dice every time they roll a melee crit and the whole engagement would take splash equal to rolled boons ignore soak. maybe house troll vomit itself to ignore one or two soak.

I ran an encounter against a troll 2 days ago. Not enough Wounds Points. 2nd edition is close enough to be compared on this matter with a bit less damages and wounds points : their troll are higher than 30 Wounds points, giant has got more than 40 wounds points...

So my immediate houserule is to DOUBLE wounds points on the giant and troll pages.

r_b_bergstrom said:

Though you are entirely correct that the (#) may not be TOTALLY dependant/determined by equipement, the guide line is clear that if you add or change equipment for a creature, you are supposed to replace those numbers with the new ones determined by the equipment, so if the giant wolf with Str 4 (4) were to grab a great weapon and use it (hold it in its mouth??) he would then be Str 4 (7) though comon sense says that if the wolf were holding the weapon in its mouth, and it attack with claws, that its damage should be the default of 4(4), the rules currently totally support it being 4(7).

I peronally advocate using common sense, and my guess is so do the game designers, but RAW right now says use the new number.