So some questions have come up in my group and I wanted to find out how some of you all are handling, or would handle these rules questions.

Let's say I have a dwarf Trollslayer that has moved over the course of the battle into the 4th reckless stance. He is stressed and has take a lot of fatigue but is not strained yet. Over in a nearby farm house I have an NPC waive from the second floor for help. I ask the players to all make an observation check. Now the Dwarf is running aserious risk in straining himself due to my requirement to make an observation test. Is this fair? I can argue it either way (I did specifically with the player and told him he needs to consider his stance and that going all in in the recklless could put him in this situation....How do you have the PC's make a basic observe roll, and the like without penalizing them for this?

In the same situation, "Assess the situation" can be more detrimental than helpful. If you assess in the reckless stance you run the risk of going stress on the die result itself and that can strain you. Isn't the point of "Assess..." to help the player?

Thoughts appreciated!

Yeah, we've been in similar situations. For me, if you're assessing the situation you're looking to see what your options are, you can still flip out, or lose the plot, or however you want to describe it and suffer the penalty. That works for me from the perspective of the game's narrative. Although I definitely see the case against this, too.

If you're in a situation and you want to see if there's things happening, see if you have more options thatn you thought, worrying about enemy turning up, etc, you can still work yourself up into a state. If the PC calls for an Observation check, then I'd still penalise him.

But, if something's happening and you want to see if the PC notices, then that's a bit different. It's a very passive sort of test and doesn't result directly from their actions. I quite like calling for Observation checks at the beginning of an encounter, when the PCs suspect something might be lurking, and watching the tension rise, and if things get stressful, then that works with the plot, too. But, as in your description, when you're already in the thick of things, and more rolls just offer more chance of stuff going wrong for the PC, and it's a passive test, then I'd be inclined to give the PC the benefit of the doubt. If he's oblivious, then he's oblivious. And, getting penalised for a simple check you didn't even call is not how most players want to see their PC suffer. And if he's that badly off, the chances are that some action he actively pursues will tip the balance, in any case.

A really simple way to get round it might be to simply say 'if you want' after calling for that sort of passive check.

Or instead of the PC's rolling observation versus. the NPC have the NPC roll stealth versus the highest out of the PC's Observation.

Failure indicates they have noticed him without risking perilously stressed or fatigued characters and is one dice roll instead of multiple rolls.

You have to remember, that regardless of how many Exertion symbols are rolled, the character suffers only one stress or fatigue.

And reckless means, you are accepting the risks as well as the benefits of the stance.

Assess the situation in reckless stance might give you one stress, but if successful you are also getting rid of one stress and one fatigue. And you are still getting a misfortune die for attacks against you.

Sounds still okay for me.

I totally never saw that you don't add up the "exertion" symbols on the reckless dice. Is this true? I have been counting all of them....I guess thats why the Troll Slayer is so fatigued!

Can I get a confirmation on this? This may solve my problem

Rulebook p. 44, under Rare Outcome Symbols:

Exertion: The task was more taxing than expected. If at least one exertion symbol appears in the results
pool, the character performing the check suffers 1 stress (if it was a mental task) or 1 fatigue (if it was a
physical task).

So 1, 2, 3 or more exertion symbols translate to 1 stress or 1 fatigue.

Thanks for pointing this out, I had completely missed it. This is going to make the very reckless Initiate of Sigmar in my group a bit happier.

**** it ! I missed that one... My troll slayer player is going to get REAAALLY unleashed...

Are they actively engaged, or passively engaged?

I would only stress/fatugue folk when it is then doing something.

If they were actively scanning for enemies who were hiding for example I would add the stress for a failure.

But in this case someone is trying to attract their attention - they are passive here - the NPC is doing the active part not them. So I would roll for success to see if they notice the NPC, but would ignore any stress as they are not actively.

I would be tempted to play any Chaos stars as a mistaken test though - troll slayer just sees the NPC's green tunic and screams 'ORC!!! before charging off bellowing with rage etc.