Quick question regarding the rules for player death.

So far my players have fought a bunch of other humans (bandits used the soilder profile), and orcs.

In harder fights a few of the players reach their wound threshold and of course fall unconcious. From what I've seen the chance of having more critials than your toughness before this happens is very very unlikley!

Even if the playesr had been in a previous combat, a few nights rest allows for pcs to roll to recover from a critical and so making it even less likley they would actually die.

Players quickly worked out that toughness is an important stat so most (if not all) my players have 3 toughness, which is quite reasonable. The chances of having 3 crits when you go down are very small indeed... did I miss something?

I notice that a few monsters can infliclt critical damage but they are not that common.

To me it depends quite a bit on:

- the rest time between fights (if there is always 3 days between fights, no don't expect people to accrue many crits).

- particular opponents and abilities of same (some creatures have more attacks that deal criticals, likewise some cards), also is GM remembering that monsters should also get a "boon driven" critical with enough boons (call it 3 for most using sword-similar weapons/attacks).

- luck in fights, I have seen fights where 2/3 of party got critcals and one PC got two critical wounds in two rounds (quite apart from falling unconscious)

- luck in draw of wound severity (higher severity wounds being tougher to recover)

Though do remember that by RAW, you convert at most one critical to normal a night's rest (e.g., roll three successes and have two severity 2 critical wounds, only convert one).

However, at end of day "grim" doesn't have to mean "deadly" it can mean "suffering critical wounds the next day, madnesses, corruption points etc.".

Low level and non monstrous opposition will dish less Critical. You will rely mostly on the Boon triggered Weapon Criticals

It can change very fast :

1. Action Cards with effect lines adding Crits
2. Sigmar's Comet on Expertise die can be used to dish a Critical instead (if damage is dealt from the successfull check)
3. Use of 2 handed weapons : CR is 2 on those, 2 boons is frequent enough
4. Monsters : Beastmen criticaly hit on only 2 successes with the 0 recharge attack Savage Strike, Cultists (Mutant & Leader) also can easily crit
5. Spells : Chaos shaman Foaldeath in TGS with a Rank 2 spell can dish up to 3 crit in one spell
6. You can't always fully rest after a fight : in TGS, i had 3 in a row (no real rest inbetween), the second beeing versus lots of Beastmen and very difficult, the 3rd is the fleeing and facing a Chaos Shaman, total 5+3+2+2 Critials on 4 players (2 dwarves with 5 Tou, Human & Elf Tou 3). I feared for the group as much as they did.

Also keep in mind the act of going unconscious inflicts another critical. As people said, allowing them to have 3 nights of rest gives them more chances to heal criticals.

Feel free to apply misfortune dice to their Resilience rolls to heal for sub-optimal rest locations. For example, resting on a bedroll in the woods isn't particularly clean nor restful. Resting in a low-class inn, with dirty hay/sheets and bedbugs/lice isn't much better. I'd give a few misfortune dice on healing for such places. The PCs will have to use contacts, or spend some healthy cash, to get a clean enough place to rest to not suffer penalties.

I'd also suggest getting Signs of Faith and hitting them with a few diseases. <evil grin>

Personally, I think it makes for a more gritty game if your character continues to live, with a bunch of debilitating injuries, insanities, and diseases, rather than just dying a whole man. "The Pain" is much worse than death.

I can't wait until permanent injuries.

I agree with the Doc.

Unless your playing style is that characters die often of players roll up new ones, it can actually kill the main plot/story that you (the GM) have prepared and worked long and hard on to make it special for precisely those characters with those particular backgrounds. It is ok to kill characters from time to time but I think it should always be done in cooperation with the player. Let the character have a memorable death. After all the player (and the GM) spent a long time building him up.

Now, maiming and driving players.. I mean characters insane is a whole different story. As Doc says, it can make for quite unique and memorable characters (remember that time in the swamps where you got the Blacksoot Rot? Yeah, I miss my foot) and give players challenges they may never have experienced before. How will he go through the world with just one arm? A pegleg? If the character dies, a new one is gonna be just that. New. His background will not be as interesting as the other. He will not have any scars to brag about. The GM must spend a lot of time to incorporate this new character and background into his story.

-L

Doc, the Weasel said:

That's the warhammer I know! And I agree with you. Permanent injuries (<-me simulating my permanent head injury).

As I said ... give 'em diseases. While they *can* eventually kill you, they mostly just block Talent slots and get harder and harder to get rid of, and giving more and more debilitating effects. While also possibly spreading to other members of the party (or people you come into contact with). How's that for gritty?

yes, I'm really looking forward to that part of the priest box.

People shall fear sleeping in their unwashed armours and clothes and they shall do upon themselves as their mothers did to them, when they were but small men come in from the fields of mud and were laid upon by scrubs and water blessed with salts of cleansing and purification.

>Insert maniacal cackle here<

Oh, if you want more deadly adventures, just let the NPCs move in to finish off the unconcious player!

- no, on the other hand, i dont think the players would enjoy that. lol

Great responses guy, many thanks!

Esepcially like the comments about adding basic swords to monsters to provide a CR.

I very rarley expect players to die, but I dont want players to do the math and realise they have very little chance of dying. Risk, and the possiblity of death make the world seem more real all round, and actually build character attachment.

I havent actually had a char die in several years (real time) but I do want to ensure its a real possibity.

Keep in mind that WFRP is designed to not "shock" PCs into death with a one-shot hit that kills them. It is meant to wear them down over time. Throw multiple waves of enemies at the PCs, rather than just hoping one boss will get in a single lucky blow and do a lot of damage. Don't let the PCs rest comfortably nor easily, so that wounds (especially criticals) are difficult to remove and linger through multiple encounters.

Of course, also ask yourself why you are trying to kill your PCs. Remember that the game is not a competition between you and them, but a collaborative story wherein you are each trying to make it fun for everyone involved.

Of course, sometimes PCs just need to be reminded that death is on the table, as an old school GM I understand this, but purposefully killing a pc should be a last resort.

My first character lasted only three sessions. He was a thief who tried to sneak into the back of a house occupied by a crazed sniper with a hochland rifle. He got his brains blown out over the docs and sank to a watery grave.

He had a couple of lingering criticals from previous encounters. Once those bastards build up, the characters can go down fast.

I can not relate at all to players surviving for long. In my group we have one guy who has been able to keep his character alive through all adventures, but the rest just die over and over again. One guy is on his 9th character (yes, he has played 9 characters because he keeps dying), and we've been playing since this summer. This has become a real problem because they don't seem to care about their characters anymore. Most have not even got past rank 1, except for this one guy on rank 3.

Although, the reason they keep dying is that they always do something really stupid just before something dangerous is about to happen, or they kill each others characters. When they kill each other it usually starts when someone tries to make the game more "fun" by eating a gang leaders body to get some insanities(?), but which only makes the others kill him for heresy which I see as good roleplaying on their part. The sole survivor is a Witch Hunter Captain who will kill you if he suspects heresy, and he has done so several times when someone has done anything that he (rightly) has seen as heretical.

I guess I have some responsibility because I'm the GM, but I don't want to protect them when they do something that is clearly foolish. Maybe I'll give them a few sessions with (very) easy tasks so they can level up and gain more survivability, but I fear they will just find a way to kill each other again....

From what you describe, you need to have a talk with them. Do they want to play characters or just frag up ? I fail to see how a sane character (in this setup) would start to eat a dead corpse, especially with a WitchHunter there !!! He has to be already mad / fallen to Corruption to do that willingly i'd say. It sounds more like self sabotage, just because. Is that fun to them ?

I won't agre with You that 3 toughness is good and gives a nice defence agains a sudden death.

You should remeber like some one here said that every enemy can make a critical with boons or action cards. And a importent thing is to remeber that when a player goes unconscious he suffers from one more cruitical. Besides You should think why a Beastmen or Orc or Gobbo should not finish off a character - does the enemy know that his that his opponent is dead already? For example I remeber that Minotaurs had something in previous editions that they were stupid - and if a they knocked somebody unconscious or killed they must roll a die and in couse of a failure they started to eat him regardless of how many opponents they had in the encounter.

So I think that the players are not undead and they can die by many ways. But the point is that a good GM, in my opinion, should show them that. A good session it that one that they will remeber and talk about. You should use one rule that I think is great - a good session should always show players how little devides them from death. The Old World is a brutal place to live.

Oh and one more rule that I use - there is not such a thing like a every night rest recovers wounds. I use that once per week in the game (twice when they have a good place to stay) my players can make a Resilience test to recover from wounds. Becouse I my opinion thast gives a little more realism to the game. I never hear os someone with a broken limb after one day of rest would feel healthy and could fight or travel by foot.

My players finish of opponents who fall down, but don't clearly die. So of course the monsters/npc's does the same to the players, UNLESS other players engage them.

Likewise I tell my players who are engaged with 2+ opponents, that they can't finish of unconcious opponents, till they're free of being engaged, unless they're trained in combat. This is because to the untrained it can be hard to see wether people die, or just fall unconcious, but a trained combetant will notice.

I've yet to kill a player like that, but have no problems defending it to them when I get the chance.

Spivo said:

Does are good house rules Spivo. For me this is the way thing happen in the Old World.