Regardless of skill and/or size, is it always possible, no matter how remote, to kill your opponent in one hit?

Rat Catcher said:

No. You would still have to cause enough damage and if the enemy has enough wounds, that can be impossible. We have a house rule though where a perfect roll (6+ successes, 2 boons, 1 sigmars comet), allows you to instantly kill someone (not major NPCs or Big monsters) or create some other effect, give them a status card etc.

If the subject in question is helpless or incapacitated, then yes.

Otherwise, not normally. If the subject is extremely frail (2 To) with no armor, it could be possible for someone to do a big enough hit to do 2 criticals + enough wounds to the subject under their wound threshold in a single hit, which would be enough to kill them (they get the 3rd critical when they go unconscious).

A 5 strength character using a two handed weapon and used the action Reckless Cleave and gains one net hit and boon can cause 18 points of damage. ( 5 STR + 7 Damage Value + 5 STR Boon Effect + 1 Damage Single Hammer Effect) That much damage can easly kill off a great number of the minor enemies that only have 4 or 5 damage reduction value in a single hit. If you get three hammers on that skill the damage goes up 2 more points.

I'm not sure where I stand on all this. On the one hand, I can see the thinking behind a peasent with a club being unable to damage a full plated knight, but then fantasy novels are all about the 'one shot kills'. You know, you have the drawn out exciting battles of back and forth, and you also have the insta' kills as well.

I'd have to house rule this across the board.

I think.

I'd argue that a lot of what look like instant kills are actually incapacitations, followed by bleeding out over the next few minutes, organ failure in the next few hours, or terminal infection in the next few days.

"Instant Kills" as Ryath points out, are easier against nameless NPCs, since the blow does not need to worry about critical hits.

As far as "fantasy movie" insta-kills, then you are looking at using the WFRP Henchmen rules. With those, a PC can tend to kill those foes just by breathing heavy , there just happen to be a dozen more still with him. (slight exaggeration, but that's the premise). Henchmen are designed to die in droves, playing out the cinematic of the hero wading through a sea of faceless enemies and mowing them down with each swing of the axe/sword/etc. Regular NPCs are slightly more robust, usually requiring one to three hits each to take them down (depending on enemy) . Nemesis NPCs are the true boss bad guys, where a nice long duel/fight takes place between the hero and the bad guy, and there's usually some parity between the two.