Hi there. I play a techpriest with the alternative career path and have both Machinator array and the mining healot augmentics, which dropped my agi to a nice 26 score.

My low agi gives quite a few disadvantages which I try to make up for with, say, increased toughness and armors and gadgets, like stummers to go silently. But one thing I didn't account for was instant death.

I've already burned pretty much all my fate points on various "test for agi or die" tests. "Hole in the spaceship, grab onto something or be sucked out" "Crumbling building, test agi not to fall to your death" "Test agi to jump from the tower to the transport". After burning 3 fate points, 2 in the same session, I realized my death was a only question of time.

There must have been 4-5 such tests yet, all on agility .Seems to me that [circumstancial instant death] should not be a drawback to any caracteristic. It just doesn't work. "Raising my agility score" is not a solution. It is normal and perfectly acceptable to have weaknesses. So whats wrong with this picture ans what can I do about it? Thank you.

Talk to your gm as all these save or die tests are causing you a lot of grief. Partly because save or die tests are a cheap way to kill off characters*, partly because they are all based on a stat that you will be low in. Ask him if he wants a party full of assassins and scum, because he save or die test are encouraging people to make cheap agility characters.

*What do they add ?

The only save or die tests in the RAW are either tests that happen for deep critical damage (there are more unconditional death entries in the crit tables) or perils of the warp (just the daemonhost).

Later on tech priests do get access to maglev talents (limited flight) and the manipulator medadendrite (anchor yourself as a free action, no mention of a test means that it doesn't need one) which should let you avoid the test. If you survive that long.

Perhaps your GM just feels that this is the only method to present chars like your's with some danger?

If so I don't thay he's doing it the best way, but some GMs react like that if the goup (or some characters) are just too strong.

Obviously a case of very bad GM'ing. Not much else to be said really.

In my experience, Toughness is usually the "save or die" and this mostly from crits.

Agi tests are mostly to avoid some falling, the ubiquitous Dodge, avoid catching on fire, and of course it bases your movement.

The problem as I hear it is that the GM constantly puts you in situations where you must succeed Agi or die - not a problem with Agility in itself. And really even the Scums and Assassins wil struggle to routinely manage these tests, and must probably use fate rerolls anyway.

Pre-empt the GM, to an extent. As a player and a GM, I think it hopefully speeds things along (I enjoy my players doing it, the GMs seem pretty lenient with me asking ahead), e.g. "Can I test acrobatics to get in there?" or "Can I combo Security/Tech-Use/Binary Chatter/Logic to get access to that computer in the background?" etc. In these situations, as soon as the GM mentions it, say "Can I test awareness instead and use my unholy strength to hold on whilst losing dignity?"

At the end of the day, death is almost always down to one or two failed tests. Fate mitigates this, but it's difficult to avoid it without feeling somewhat desperate. Especially if you feel your character would've had the foresight to not walk into such situations or be caught out.

(Often it's an unusual situation wherein the GM hasn't noticed a player's character is more capable than a meagre test, mentioning this to the GM without making it seem a devastating comment on the GM's prowess. I know as a GM I've felt bad on this myself, the best trick is to approach it openly, pleasantly and inventively.)

The Techpriest does have a handy get-out in some such situations, notably the free-action utility mechadendrite. If the GM still argues its use, make offers on using things like Awareness in a manner to allow its use. Similarly things like SL (Tactica Imperialis) and CL (War) (or even just decent Demolitions) would allow you to 'retrofit' the idea that your character would probably have mounted themselves to something before blowing up the thing they're standing on.

If we all had to be as suave, intelligent, strong-minded and focussed as our character's characteristic scores suggest then we'd be in some trouble indeed!

How ever I tried to explain circumstantial save or die tests without appeal just didn't work and would end up killing everyone with time, I just came out as whiny and frustrated to have lost fate points(all my 3 fate points in 2 sessions) or to have an "unbalanced character", as if 26 Agi for a techpriest was very low and an obviously lethal flaw that i shouldn't have put upon myself. No one else seems to see that, the highest of them having about 40 agi, they will also invariably fall. I don't mind failing tests, it's just that I think a failed tests should put the player into immediate danger, where he should think quick to find a way to survive, not just automatically die.

Well I'll find ways to deal with it and negociate other throws when possible. Being more proactive about should help. I was just very taken aback. Thanks all for your helpful replies. At least I might not just be childish.

Myrdraalx said:

Ah I feel for you there. In fact I played in a group just like that. In my case it was a Feral Guardsman with 25 WP, never mind that it is AVERAGE for such a character. He did hold for some time,.until a failed fear test and the GM's creative interpreation meant the party could flee from Slaught while my character was trapped in a circular room and could not leave it as the Slaught was in the way. (it was an 81-100 effect), while limited to only half actions and -20% at that... yup he died there.

Another time I lost the character while I wasn't even there - the GM had decided to have another player play me. After this (at 0 FP) I decided to make a new character and tried to prevent such a thing happening again, but the GM insisted we leave the character sheet so it could happen again.

Before I could quit we decided to stop the campaign and start WH game instead. First was a short campaign of pvp play where we only travelled together to find out who our nemesis was and then tried to kill eachother.

After that he wanted to start a new WHFRP game, but I said I wanted a guarantee my character would not be killed if I couldn't make it. He refused to give it, or even an assurance that he would try to prevent it as much as he could, so I decided to leave the group.

That was a good decision as today I have my own DH group which I enjoy immensely. I'm not saying you should do the same, but you might consider it if this problem continues. It's probably better anyway where the game devolved into a player vs GM situation where players make characters just to thwart or annoy the GM, and the GM keeps killing them off to try to force a certain character on a player.