Hiya all,

A friend made me this question, and I have to say I don't think I know the answer, regarding the Bleeding condition.

The condition states "When a Bleeding character makes a check, they suffer physical damage equal to the strife symbols on their kept dice, ignoring their resistances. Each time damage inflicted this way causes the character to suffer a critical strike, the severity of the critical strike is treated as being equal to the character’s current fatigue"

Thing is, for that to happen the affected character should have to roll, get strife in the roll and be unable to defend against the damage dealt... but if the character can roll, that means its Fatigue has still not exceeded its endurance... and if that's the case, the character will be able to defend against the damage even if that would make it exceed its endurance, because by p. 268's sidebar, "a character can still defend even if defending would cause its fatigue to exceed their endurance".

So... riddle me this, when would the Bleeding condition cause a critical strike, going by the rules?

Thanks in advance ^^

So, the thing is, strife is applied before the result of the roll is executed, so, let’s say you are Bleeding and you have 7 points of fatigue and endurance 8. You roll your dice and keep two dice with . Well, when applying the results you will be able to still apply the dice result but you will now have 9 points of fatigue and be Incapacitated which means you can’t defend and get a severity 9 critical strike applied. After all that, you finally apply the result of your action.

I hope that helped.

6 hours ago, Albertorius said:

So... riddle me this, when would the Bleeding condition cause a critical strike, going by the rules?

Incapacitated characters can't perform checks as part of actions, but still make checks to resist effects (such as certain kata and invocations) or mitigate critical strikes.

The latter is especially nasty, since if taking (say) a critical strike of severity 7 (a sword blow) when bleeding, you really, really want to reduce it but accepting any strife result means you also take a critical strike of severity at least equal to your endurance...

6 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Well, when applying the results you will be able to still apply the dice result but you will now have 9 points of fatigue and be Incapacitated which means you can’t defend and get a severity 9 critical strike applied

You won't get a critical strike in this case. Accepting those two points of fatigue means you defended against the damage and hence no critical strike (although you are now incapacitated).

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Incapacitated characters can't perform checks as part of actions, but still make checks to resist effects (such as certain kata and invocations) or mitigate critical strikes.

The latter is especially nasty, since if taking (say) a critical strike of severity 7 (a sword blow) when bleeding, you really, really want to reduce it but accepting any strife result means you also take a critical strike of severity at least equal to your endurance...

...that is indeed really, really nasty O_O

2 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

You won't get a critical strike in this case. Accepting those two points of fatigue means you defended against the damage and hence no critical strike (although you are now incapacitated).

That's what I understood, too, yes.

Also, Incapacitated characters can still make checks. The wording is unfortunately misleading - they automatically fail rather than being unable to actually roll.

This is important because you can use Void opportunities to ignore a condition, like Incapacitated. So you can make a check in Void stance and if you get two opportunities, you can still act normally.

However, you've still got the condition, so anything that works against Incapacitated targets still applies and another crit still knocks you Unconscious. All it allows you to do is act normally in spite of it.

On 9/24/2020 at 6:07 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

You won't get a critical strike in this case. Accepting those two points of fatigue means you defended against the damage and hence no critical strike (although you are now incapacitated).

I think the only answer can be that of you have 7 out of 8 fatigue and keep 3 strife dice you would then suffer the critical. You can theoretically defend against the first 2 points of bleeding but not the 3rd, but you'd still be in a position to keep the dice. It's situational but it seems like it's the only method. Besides defending against another crit and suffering more strife, but then you'd be stuck in almost an inevitable crit bleeding loop.

6 hours ago, Seithe said:

I think the only answer can be that of you have 7 out of 8 fatigue and keep 3 strife dice you would then suffer the critical. You can theoretically defend against the first 2 points of bleeding but not the 3rd, but you'd still be in a position to keep the dice. It's situational but it seems like it's the only method. Besides defending against another crit and suffering more strife, but then you'd be stuck in almost an inevitable crit bleeding loop.

As far as I know, when you defend against the damage of an attack you defend against all of it, not just a part. Bleeding would work exactly the same.

46 minutes ago, Albertorius said:

As far as I know, when you defend against the damage of an attack you defend against all of it, not just a part. Bleeding would work exactly the same.

That's true of attacks, but as its linked to keeping strife symbols on kept dice ,I would rule that you suffer each individual fatigue separately, as it doesnt state you defend against the damage only "suffer" it. It's literally the only way you could ever suffer a critical from bleeding. It's a bit of a leap but it's all I can think of.

No one in their right mind would voluntarily suffer strife while defending against a crit while incapacitated, as you would suffer another critical from the bleeding and regardless, ANY critical strike suffered while incapacitated will make someone unconscious anyway.

1 hour ago, Seithe said:

That's true of attacks, but as its linked to keeping strife symbols on kept dice ,I would rule that you suffer each individual fatigue separately, as it doesnt state you defend against the damage only "suffer" it. It's literally the only way you could ever suffer a critical from bleeding. It's a bit of a leap but it's all I can think of.

No one in their right mind would voluntarily suffer strife while defending against a crit while incapacitated, as you would suffer another critical from the bleeding and regardless, ANY critical strike suffered while incapacitated will make someone unconscious anyway.

Not attacks: damage

Quote

DEFENDING AGAINST DAMAGE
When an effect deals damage to a character even after reductions, the character must defend against that damage; if they cannot, they suffer a critical strike with severity based on the damage source (the deadliness, for most weapons). 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.

Yes, thank you, I understand that. But with that interpretation you can never suffer a critical from bleeding, hence my somewhat situational interpretation. In game terms you cannot bleed to death, ever. If you'd be willing to propose a scenario where you could suffer a critical from bleeding I'd be quite interested.

4 minutes ago, Seithe said:

Yes, thank you, I understand that. But with that interpretation you can never suffer a critical from bleeding, hence my somewhat situational interpretation. In game terms you cannot bleed to death, ever. If you'd be willing to propose a scenario where you could suffer a critical from bleeding I'd be quite interested.

Tha's what we're trying to ascertain, yes. But your situational interpretation ignores the fact that the rules are written for sources of damage. In this case, bleeding is a source of damage, and by the rules it should be defended against as a single source.

The scenarios above (resisting effects and mitigating criticals) are the only ones I can think, as stated.

14 minutes ago, Albertorius said:

Tha's what we're trying to ascertain, yes. But your situational interpretation ignores the fact that the rules are written for sources of damage. In this case, bleeding is a source of damage, and by the rules it should be defended against as a single source.

The scenarios above (resisting effects and mitigating criticals) are the only ones I can think, as stated.

Oh I completely agree with you, but I'm not entirely convinced its working as intended. The wording is a little vague when it comes to resisting crits when incapacitated as any critical knocks you unconscious. I think your version is certainly more accurate to the rules as written but they would never happen in play. Though the void conjecture of spending an opportunity to ignore the incapacitated condition certainly gives an option to carry on fighting, albeit while gushing blood and then instantly being knocked unconscious.

Here is my main issue:
Say our theoretical bleeding samurai has suffered 9 fatigue out of 8 and they are attacked again, they are currently suffering from 2 conditions; incapacitated and bleeding. Assuming the opponent hits; our samurai cannot defend and they automatically suffer a critical strike with severity equal to the deadliness. Now in RAW this means that you are knocked unconscious by that critical strike. Say you roll to resist the crit and ONLY get success with strife; any strife dice kept will indeed make you suffer a bleeding critical with severity equal to the current fatigue (9+ any extra suffered from the roll), but if you have just suffered a deadliness 5 (7 if 2 handed) from a katana, the only logical choice is to take the katana crit over the bleeding crit. Our samurai is going to be knocked unconscious either way.

I feel were missing a piece of the puzzle. Like suffering a point of bleeding damage every round or something but then were moving into the realms of house rules. Plus that would be deadly for the samurai with 16 fatigue, as they suddenly just explode in a gout of blood.

Nope, you're not missing anything other than this:

This game emphasizes player choices a lot. It is not easy to die or to suffer a crit from bleeding unless you make choices leading to that. If you are bleeding, then any strife symbol you keep also means using your fatigue resources. Once incapacitated, bleeding makes it so that you really don't want to keep any strife at all anymore. Note, you can also ignore Bleeding with Void, which can be helpful.

So if you're bleeding and you go "whatever, I must carry on fighting and I'll ignore Incapacitated too", it becomes seriously dangerous. That also fits with high Endurance characters being able to keep going longer while bleeding but when the blood loss catches up with them, it's nasty.

But if you stop, and go "****, I'm bleeding and incapacitated, better stop being a threat and get out of the way" - then it becomes fairly harmless.

On 9/26/2020 at 10:55 AM, Seithe said:

If you'd be willing to propose a scenario where you could suffer a critical from bleeding I'd be quite interested.

Remember you MUST keep at least one die in every check. If forced to make a check whilst incapacitatedand every dice has a strife result (quite feasible for, say, a roll of 2-3 dice) you don't have a choice.

Equally, some effects add a kept opportunity/strife whether you like it or not (Afflicted, Divination omens, etc).

The idea of taking fatigue from bleeding one by one would work, but since you "suffer physical damage equal to the strife symbols on their kept dice" rather than "suffer 1 fatigue each time you keep a strife symbol" I'm not sure the rules support it.

You might well chose to suffer the critical strike in extreme cases - basically, are the consequences of failing worse than a severity [whatever] critical strike? If you're trying to reduce the severity of a critical strike and you have an opportunity/strife in the bag, that opportunity might (in fire stance) let you compromise your attacker, helping an ally, or (in water stance) might let you remove a point of fatigue and un-incapacitate yourself, letting you act normally (albeit hampered by a critical wound).

Gotta be honest, all this rigamarole is why I just say, "Bleeding causes Fatigue, not Damage. There's no Defending against it, and it won't cause a Crit." It also means the Incapacitated bushi with high endurance won't just suddenly die when he botches that Artisan roll because a shugenja showed him a Token of Memory. It's simpler, and being tough doesn't turn into a weird liability.

I mean, I can see the dramatic sense of someone bleeding to death. And a high stamina character can be seem as someone who, by all rights, should have stopped fighting but goes on despite his wounds until the body literally drops dead

22 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

I mean, I can see the dramatic sense of someone bleeding to death. And a high stamina character can be seem as someone who, by all rights, should have stopped fighting but goes on despite his wounds until the body literally drops dead

For that matter, the Hida master ability The Mountain Does Not Fall literally does this, giving you two turns of ignoring Dangerous terrain, Compromised , Incapacitated , Scar disadvantages, Bleeding , and even Dying .

A high-ranking Hida's " famous last stand " can take quite a while....

On 10/3/2020 at 6:31 AM, Diogo Salazar said:

I mean, I can see the dramatic sense of someone bleeding to death. And a high stamina character can be seem as someone who, by all rights, should have stopped fighting but goes on despite his wounds until the body literally drops dead

Oh, I get the reasoning, and it's not wrong, I just think it overcomplicates things, and has a "gotcha" potential that's just going to tick a player off.

I know it's kind of a weird edge case, because you don't usually make a lot of rolls while Incapacitated, but I just don't see the point of even having it. As far as I'm concerned, "bleeding to death" is already covered by the Dying condition.

And as some have pointed out, if you are Bleeding, but have very little Fatigue, and choose not to Defend against that damage, your armor can become Damaged and then Destroyed by the low Crit.

These are all things where, if I were a player, I could accept the GM's reasoning, perhaps with a little eye roll, "Okay, whatever."

But I'm usually the GM, and my players will know darn well I'm not buying my own argument, so why even have it?

On 9/25/2020 at 6:09 AM, Myrion said:

Also, Incapacitated characters can still make checks. The wording is unfortunately misleading - they automatically fail rather than being unable to actually roll.

Just reading the core rules again - "An Incapacitated character cannot perform actions that require checks"- given that 'perform' is 'pick the action to attempt', and one can perform an action without succeeding at it, can I ask the reason why you interpret it that they can try-but-fail-automatically rather than cannot perform the action at all?

I don't see anything in the FAQ - wondering if I missed something.

For that matter, what about the Burning Condition? The way it is written, it means that once someone becomes Unconscious, they stop taking damage from the Burning condition.

Burning

Description: The character is ablaze.

Effects: After a Burning character performing an action, the character suffers 3 strife and 3 physical dam-age that ignores their resistance. The severity of critical strikes caused by this damage is 5. Each critical strike a character suffers this way beyond the first before the condition is removed has its severity increased by 5.Removed When: A character may attempt to smother flames consuming them or another character at range 0–1 by making a TN 2 Fitness (Water) check as a Movement and Support action; if they succeed, they remove the Burning condition.

Because I've asked support/the devs, since otherwise Void's "Ignore a Condition" seemed useless and Bleeding completely non-threatening.

I agree that it isn't at all obvious from how it is formulated in the book and I suspect that's why it didn't end up in the FAQ: Not many people even thought to ask, since it's so clear!

Edit: oh, and I think what ultimately made me ask was a Movement type action with an Opportunity spend to remove Immobilised.

23 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

The way it is written, it means that once someone becomes Unconscious, they stop taking damage from the Burning condition.

It also means, somewhat ironically, that you burn faster in water stance.

11 hours ago, Myrion said:

Because I've asked support/the devs

Fair enough. It feels like an important enough ruling you think they'd put it in an Errata/FAQ, because that is a big difference, and makes incapacitated characters a lot more capable - since they can perform checks they can't pass in the hopes of getting opportunities for techniques or to remove extra fatigue.

It's not too inconceivable - clearly you can attempt actions that would initially impossible: the kata Hawk's Precision increases the range of a ranged weapon, so when you originally picked your target logically they were outside the range of the bow, and yet you were still allowed to roll.

Could I trouble you for a copy/paste quote?

Of course! And I agree. The more people send them support requests to that effect, the more likely they will. Lightly edited for formatting.

<snip> that is, whether one can attempt an action while Incapacitated, hoping to get to ignore Incapacitated.

RAW yes. I don't think it's unbalanced, but I wouldn't fault a GM for just saying no to keep things simple, though.

Well, I’ll accept that answer from them but disagree on them saying RAW

Effects : An Incapacitated character cannot perform actions that require checks and cannot defend against damage.

The way it is written it seems clear to me that you cannot even try to perform an action that requires a check and fail automatically. You just can’t even try it...

Yeah, I thought so too, but after getting this answer, and also thinking about Hawk's Precision and similar effects, I've realized that it is RAW.

The thing is that that whether or not something is possible isn't checked at the beginning of a check, during Declare Intention, but at the end, when you count successes.

If you, at that point, fail a prerequisite for the declared intent, whether that's being out of range, a condition or simply the GM saying "this is not possible", then you fail at the declared action.

Of course, a nice GM says "you are missing these prereqs, and this roll will fail at the end, no matter your successes" at the beginning, when setting the TN.