Defending against damage seems to contradict itself. Page 268 says in bold; "To defend, they must receive an amount of fatigue equal to the remaining damage;" then goes on the say "otherwise, they suffer a critical strike with severity based on the source.

But then on the sidebar next to it "a character can still defend if if defending would cause their fatigue to exceed their endurance."

So the example I'll use is; you're hit for 7. Your armor soaks 2 of it to 5. You need to suffer 5 fatigue, but are at 6/10 endurance.

The first case seems to suggest rather than suffer fatigue, you suffer a crit as you can't defend. You remain at 6/10 and roll fitness vs their crit.

The second case seems to say you go to 11/10 and are incapacitated.

Any help here?

You can soak any amount of damage into your fatigue as long as when you start soaking you do not exceed your limit. So, even if you are at 10/10, you can still absorb that 7 damage hit and be at 17/10, but then you would be incapacitated.

7 minutes ago, llamaman88 said:

Defending against damage seems to contradict itself. Page 268 says in bold; "To defend, they must receive an amount of fatigue equal to the remaining damage;" then goes on the say "otherwise, they suffer a critical strike with severity based on the source.

But then on the sidebar next to it "a character can still defend if if defending would cause their fatigue to exceed their endurance."

So the example I'll use is; you're hit for 7. Your armor soaks 2 of it to 5. You need to suffer 5 fatigue, but are at 6/10 endurance.

The first case seems to suggest rather than suffer fatigue, you suffer a crit as you can't defend. You remain at 6/10 and roll fitness vs their crit.

The second case seems to say you go to 11/10 and are incapacitated. 

Any help here?

I read it as the second ( unless you spend the void point to avoid defending)

It is confusing tbh.

In the beta when we had wounds, that paragraph read: "After a character suffers wounds, if their wounds exceed their resilience (endurance now), the character suffers a critical strike (see page 168) with severity equal to the deadliness of the source."

It was then changed to its actual wording with fatigue: "When an effect deals damage to a character, the character must defend against the damage; if they cannot, they suffer a critical strike with severity based on the source of the damage (the deadliness value, for most weapons)"

So Im also unsure of how to handle damage that exceeds endurance. As I understand, If you are 6/10 and you take 5 fatigue, you would go 11/10 and be incapacited. Should you receive a critical strike on top of that? I guess not because you took fatigue, but then what is the point of this sentence: "To defend, they must receive an amount of fatigue equal to the remaining damage; otherwise, they suffer a critical strike with severity based on the source." It seems you can just keep taking fatigue and going incapacited and then unconscious...

Would love some insight on this.

It sounds to me like the player has a choice. (book not arrived yet grr..):

Option 1) Defend against it. This would give 5 fatigue, taking the character to 11, and leading to them being incapacitated.

Option 2) Don't defend against it. The character would take a critical hit, which could be worse than being incapacitated, but lets you keep going right now.

That adds another layer of confusion as it costs a void to not defend, but you can spend that void regardless of how much fatigue you already have.

2 hours ago, Shosur0 said:

If you are 6/10 and you take 5 fatigue, you would go 11/10 and be incapacited. Should you receive a critical strike on top of that? I guess not because you took fatigue, but then what is the point of this sentence: "To defend, they must receive an amount of fatigue equal to the remaining damage; otherwise, they suffer a critical strike with severity based on the source." It seems you can just keep taking fatigue and going incapacited and then unconscious...

You don't automatically take a crit if you exceed your Fatigue. Basically, when you're near that threshold, you have to choose whether to take a nasty wound and keep fighting, or to be incapacitated. If it's just you and one enemy in a fight to the death, you may want to take the crit and keep fighting, because he'll probably just kill you in a moment anyway. However, while incapacitated, you can still take actions that don't require checks. So if you're in a Skirmish, and a buddy can come to your rescue, you might be able to just spend a few rounds taking a Calming Breath, reducing your Fatigue and Strife, and then leap back into the fray.

I need to go back and look at the web examples, but I believe this is exactly the situation where you would consider spending void to take a hit.

Consider this - the character is going to take 5 damage, but they are already 6/10. If they choose to defend, they are now 11 of 10 and incapacitated. The fight is over for them.

If they spend a void point, they take a critical strike and get the opportunity to resist with Fitness - possibly only taking a minor wound and continuing on to get help or take a calming breath the next round.

The Grand Falloon responded while I was typing so the above is basically what they said.

I think the confusion comes from the way they've put it together.

(pg 269 Consequences of Fatigue section) After a character suffers fatigue, if their fatigue exceeds their endurance, the character suffers the Incapacitated condition.

(pg 272 Incapacitated condition) Effects: ... cannot defend against damage.

It is not simply your fatigue eclipsing your endurance which prevents you from defending against damage, it is the incapacitated condition. You only receive that condition if after you have suffered fatigue your fatigue is then greater than your endurance.

The answer is situation 1 ) If you are at 6/10 fatigue and need to defend against 5 damage you can simply defend against the damage arriving at 11/10 fatigue. Now that you have suffered fatigue we compare your fatigue to your endurance. Since your fatigue is now greater than your endurance you receive the Incapacitated condition.

5 hours ago, llamaman88 said:

That adds another layer of confusion as it costs a void to not defend, but you can spend that void regardless of how much fatigue you already have.

I don't want to derail the thread - but the case for spending 1 Void to receive a crit instead of taking damage as fatigue is thus:

If you are at 6/10 fatigue and you are the only hope of winning the fight. Going incapacitated will certainly lead to your death as you can no longer take any actions which require a check, and you need 1 more check to waste this opponent. Rather than taking the 5 fatigue and arriving at the incapacitated condition you spend 1 Void to receive the damage and take the crit. When you take the crit you do not take any fatigue, so you are still at 6/10 and are not incapacitated and can still take an action which requires a check. Hopefully this is the last action you'll need to take...

4 hours ago, shosuko said:

I think the confusion comes from the way they've put it together.

(pg 269 Consequences of Fatigue section) After a character suffers fatigue, if their fatigue exceeds their endurance, the character suffers the Incapacitated condition.

(pg 272 Incapacitated condition) Effects: ... cannot defend against damage.

It is not simply your fatigue eclipsing your endurance which prevents you from defending against damage, it is the incapacitated condition. You only receive that condition if after you have suffered fatigue your fatigue is then greater than your endurance.

The answer is situation 1 ) If you are at 6/10 fatigue and need to defend against 5 damage you can simply defend against the damage arriving at 11/10 fatigue. Now that you have suffered fatigue we compare your fatigue to your endurance. Since your fatigue is now greater than your endurance you receive the Incapacitated condition.

This is correct.

Also, note the order of resolution - exploding success - strife - opportunity - success.

That means a critical inflicted by two opportunity results on the same strike occurs before the fatigue from defending, and hence before you're incapacitated and unable to use a fitness check (and parry if required).

4 hours ago, shosuko said:

If you are at 6/10 fatigue and you are the only hope of winning the fight. Going incapacitated will certainly lead to your death as you can no longer take any actions which require a check, and you need 1 more check to waste this opponent. Rather than taking the 5 fatigue and arriving at the incapacitated condition you spend 1 Void to receive the damage and take the crit. When you take the crit you do not take any fatigue, so you are still at 6/10 and are not incapacitated and can still take an action which requires a check. Hopefully this is the last action you'll need to take...

Pretty much this. It's a balancing act between whether you have a 'spare' void point and how bad the crit is going to be, and how badly incapacitated you'll be.

If it's going to put you 1 fatigue over your endurance, water stance and a free calming breath un-incapacitates you, allowing a 'normal' action. Best used against a katana where the damage is so-so but the deadliness is insane.

If it's going to put you 5-6 fatigue over your endurance (meaning they'd have time to hit you again whilst you're incapacitated, automatically causing unconcious), and you have a decent fitness score, you can make all that potential fatigue go away by just taking the hit. Best used against a non razor-edged, low deadliness weapon like an otsuchi.

Seems logical, and i like the fact a pc need to spend a void to choose assuming a Crit instead of defending. The void IS logical in order to refrain the instinct to défend.

You sill can Fitness check to reduce Crits when Incapacicated. Incapacicated prevents you from initiating actions requiring a check, but you still can react - in fact, one of the Void Ring tricks to continue fighting is to get hit when Incapacicated, and then spend two opportunities to ignore condition: Incapacicated and continue fighting.

Also, I think the Opportunities that require the action to be successful happen after the Successes are resolved - mostly because *other* opportunities can manipulate the TN of the action (for example,by removing/ignoring conditions that inflated your TN).

On 10/16/2018 at 12:46 PM, llamaman88 said:

Defending against damage seems to contradict itself. Page 268 says in bold; "To defend, they must receive an amount of fatigue equal to the remaining damage;" then goes on the say "otherwise, they suffer a critical strike with severity based on the source.

But then on the sidebar next to it "a character can still defend if if defending would cause their fatigue to exceed their endurance."

So the example I'll use is; you're hit for 7. Your armor soaks 2 of it to 5. You need to suffer 5 fatigue, but are at 6/10 endurance.

The first case seems to suggest rather than suffer fatigue, you suffer a crit as you can't defend. You remain at 6/10 and roll fitness vs their crit.

The second case seems to say you go to 11/10 and are incapacitated.

Any help here?

Yep, it's pretty clear to me:

1. if the damage is less than defense, stop here. No fatigue.
2. If the damage is greater than defense, defend, which means taking Damage–Defense in Fatigue
3. If you cannot defend, or void point to not defend, you take a critical but no fatigue.