In my campaign's previous game, a character died after a cave crab ripped out his intestines. I allowed him to burn a fate point to survive but also had him lose d10 from Agility or Toughness (his choice) to represent long-term effect of his wounds.

The reason I gave the attribute penalty was that the first character to burn a fate point took the 200 xp elite advance for mechanical reconstruction which gives a -d10 penalty to Fellowship, so I was trying to balance them toegther.

Was I being too harsh? Do other GMs impose additional effects for avoiding death?

As a side note, I'm planning to return one burned fate point at the end of each arc of the campaign so burning them isn't a long-term sacrifice.

vs

A little, yes.

I mean, Cybernetic Resurrection is an Elite Advance ie. you have to allow them to take it. So, presumably, you allowed that player to take it. You could not allow the other player to take it (if your fear was that everyone who died was going to suddenly get Cybernetically Resurrected).

I mean, Burning a Fate point is big enough in my mind. The player that Burns a Fate point to avoid dead has a few things happen to them:

• That Fate Point's gone. Forever. Unless you give them another, they are already sacrificing something by doing that. I get what you've said about giving them Fate Points back, and really it's up to you how vital the Fate Points in your group are or are seen to be (most of my players don't see them as crucial, except for the player who's playing as the Psyker - he has lived and died on them (literally) in the past), but they are still giving something up though, no matter how long- or short-term that sacrifice might be.
• The Fate Point is not a Get Out Of Death Free card. It's an Avoid What Killed You But You're Still Basically F**ked card. They're still sitting there on 0 wounds and with whatever critical damage they've already suffered other than the ' death ' part. Until they are healed they are essentially helpless, and it will be up to the rest of the party to ensure that they get out alive.
• They can be killed again , even when lying there on 0 wounds.
• Even after they get out of there, wherever other critical damage they had (broken or missing limbs or organs, blindness, bleeding, Fatigue, stunning etc.) will still be there. That doesn't magically go away when the Fate Point is burned.

So I wouldn't make them suffer any more than they already have. Cybernetic Resurrection is a choice - it has benefits as well as negatives. Not taking that road is a choice as well, and you get all the crap I mentioned above when you do it. No reason to further penalise them IMO.

BYE

The problem is, what are you going to do when a second player has to burn a FP to have his character survive ? If you don't allow him to get Cybernetic Resurrection, he will feel cheated. If you don't impose stats penalties, then the first one will feel cheated (he had to spend xp to recover stat damage). If it's Cybernetic Reconstruction for everybody, your party will look like a Star Trek Borg squad (count on players to utter the classic "Resistance is futile" line on every occasion).

Well, in my opinion it is quiet okay.

The core rules (p.185) are not very precise about that matter. So, after the pc avoided death (10 critical hits) you decided that he mended this into "just a criticial guts wound" and houseruled that this special critical damage ("gutted by cave crab; just an inch away from death") leaves somebody with the permanent loss of 1d10 agility or 1d10 toughness.

The "one step before deadly" critical 8 in the rending/torso department says:

- lose d10 toughness
- take d10 fatigue
- you have blood loss and might still die from it.

Thereby, I say you are quiet alright. He escaped death, but only just.

I usually impart some sort of penalty for the miraculous survival. Usually 1D5 Insanity Points. At other times it is based on what the injury is, a ball of fire may reduce fellowship, a shot to the head intelligence or willpower or perception and so forth.

But I also reward players for making "Sacrifices" which is when I allow a PC to burn a fate point to save another PC. It reduces their corruption by 1D5, ruduces their Insanity by 1 and nets them 100 XP.

Peacekeeper_b said:

When we were doing Tattered Fates I had to burn a Fate Point or my Adept was going to die from losing a leg. With the expenditure of the Fate Point I got to live and a Toughness Test to see if my leg was a complete loss or could be repaired. Short story long, I have a nice shiny and new Good quality Augmetic Leg now.

Gregorius21778 said:

Too funny...

-=Brother Praetus=-

I have to agree with H.B.M.C. You're essentially penalizing the character in a way that is a permanent hamstring to that character. They will never be able to get that characteristic to recover, unless you allow for some cybernetic replacement (i.e.- if loss of agility was due to damaged arm, then arm gets replaced with cybernetics).

The permanent loss of a fate point is supposed to be penalty enough. Granted, in some published adventures, character can at least earn fate points as a reward for doing a job well done, but these are few and far between.

As for Cybernetic resurection, that should be rare as hell. That should be nigh impossible for one character let alone two, and even then it comes with some serious drawbacks.

P.S.- I like the idea of gaining insanity from near death experiences, that sounds awesome!

I also think it's a little harsh. Characteristics loss is not fun in any way, and can easily destroy the player's plans to get certain talents etc.

However I seldom let the players... erh and PCs get away totally unscathed. KIlling damage to a limb will generally make that limb useless and can even sever it completely. Thus my PCs have their chare of bionics

Critical damage to the head may result in lost ear, nose or eyes. Torso hits are a bit harder, not always I apply any permanent damage.

I like the idea about averting certain death will cause Insanity points. I might consider using that as my Acolytes are near Ascension and have no insanities yet.

@ HMBC: I'm pretty sure the books advices GMs to not let a player burn multiple Fate Points for consquences related to a single deadly wound. For instance, having them burn a FP just to have an NPC chop them again as they're helpless.

Some situations where the whole party could die if they're unlucky (such as being on a space hulk about to be destroyed) it is tricky, but I still suggest either letting the guy who burned FP wake up so he has a chance, or maybe add an escape you had not originally thought of. And really If you place the Acolytes in sitations where an unlucky roll will doom them to certain death then you may as well stop GMing. I've walked out of such games before, and later learned the other players did the same when they understood the GM was out to get them.

As someone who has suffered death and full cybernetic resurrection I feel the fate point penalty is enough - especially as you read it under cost 'you must first have suffered Critical Wounds to incapacitate you permanently or have had death averted through burning a fate poin t ", and again under changes " Permanently reduce your Fate Points by 1 "

We (my GM and I) to this to mean a total of 2 fate points are burnt, which, yes, is a major cost as I now have 0. But am a tech priest, with Machinator Array giving me a total of 62 toughness, 57 strength (aprox, my GM has my sheets), carapice armour with an additional 2 on top of that from the resurrection so my GM thinks I'm slightly broken.

If we were in error could someone let me know, show me where in the rules it says it and I'll beg my GM to let me have one back

0.3

That makes sense to me. I think you were in the right with that.

One doesn't simply have their intestines spill out and not suffer any sort of permanant damage from it. Not unless your guts were made augmetic, maybe..

EDIT: Orrrr, you could have your character struggle to fight off rampant infection from having his guts being ripped into by a crab/probably getting dirt, etc into the wound. Anyone can tell you that any sort of injury where the intestines become exposed carries a high risk of infection.

If you feel characteristic damage is too harsh, simply have his character remain in intensive care for a week at most, a few days at least as he's struggling to survive the resulting gastro-intestinal infection.

I'd personally take time out of the game than permanant stat damage.

Kerrik said:

OR... maybe the intestines were never ripped out in the first place. That's the whole point about Fate Points, they undo or change what has happened. If the person could survive having his intestines liquified or his head blown to pieces then there would be no point in burning Fate in the first place.

A possible permanent damage could be scarring, occasional chest pains etc. preferably something that reminds the player of the narrowly escaped death, but not something that makes the character unplayable.

Friend of the Dork said:

The character's not unplayable; he just has permanent stat damage, of the type you can get from a multitude of Malignancies, Critical Wounds, drugs, and other sources.

1d10 might be a little harsh. I would've opted for 1d5, and that was after I talked with the player after the game session ended.

1d5 seems about right.

I think that you are way to harsch. Considering that gaining attribute points is pretty expensive. Losing d10 agility can cripple some characters while not having much effect on others. I disagree with most of the posters above.

Burning a FP is a major thing. I still use them as I sued them in WFRP 1st edition. They are very hard to get and once they are gone they are gone and your hero is closer to the point that he is called to the Emperor. I treat them as an escape from imminent death by pure luck or a survive from certain death/destruction.being eaten by the warp etc. I even let them use it to avoid getting mutated, loss of attributes that sort of thing.

For example, An acolyte hit by a Krak Missile will be blown away, hurled through the sky to end up lying unconscious on the floor. Even if he received a -10 critical, I will treat him as having 0 wounds and further immunity to damage for the duration of the combat. Once the fight is over, his comrades can pick him up and give him some first aid and he has another tale to tell about the miracle. He has NOT been critically wounded in the first place. So no need to put his intestines back into his body and no risk of losing life and limbs. It does not matter what happens next. He WILL survive the encounter, even if he is the only one.

I will never force the player any more penalty then losing the FP. The fact that you lose a FP is nasty enough.

PS. In the good ole days, whenever you got a critical injury you would receive an insanity point. In the current system 1d5 insanity per critical wound sounds fair enough. Even when burning a FP. Surviving by a mircale makes for great insanities: "Silver Feather cannot be killed by whiteman's bullets!"

Sister Callidia said:

And I think you are way to Deutsch here.

Sister Callidia said:

Yeah, otoh, a PC with 4 or 5 points isn't very much of a thrill to play if you can always burn fate. I wouldn't run it so the PC will always survive the encounter for that means that the worst that could ever happen was losing 1 point in an important stat. No, think if stuff goes really, really downhill they could burn 2 or even 3 fate points in the same encounter. And actually the impact of thwarting death get either determined by me (unconsciousness, stun for 1 round, etc) or I say: "Roll a d100 - the higher the roll, the worse the outcome for you." (100 meaning unconsciousness plus a permanent characteristic damage plus say 4 critical damage points left perhaps?)

Alex

ak-73 said:

I don't see why it is not exiting if all you can lose is a FP. In my playing group losing a FP is seen as very very bad. Not only do you lose a life, you also lose a permanent fortune point meaning that you are less proficient in your other tasks. I admit that we hardly ever have a permanent PC death. Which in my book is a good thing. Losing a loved character due to some silly meaningless mishap is not a good thing. Now losing a PC because of somehting heroic is a different matter.

Losing 3 FP's in the same encounter. I assume you go through characters in record time, I cannot imagine that your players enjoy that much. I know that I wouldn't, but that could be just me.

ak-73 said:

When you say this, I assume you mean you aren't coddling the players rather than having them play encounters that force them to spend fate points to survive. The only time your characters should be spending fate points is when they desperately need to (possibly through bad dice-rolling or poor decisions made that night) and they certainly shouldn't be forced into that situation by design. I also agree with Sister Cal there. The number of fate points characters have isn't indicative of how thrilling the game is. They are essentially an emergency "do-over", cuz god-emperor knows that sometimes they need em. I've seen my fair share of what would have been TPK's (without Fate Points) cuz no one could make a stat test to save their live's, literally.

Quartermus said:

Well, first of, most RPGs I have played had no concept of fate points and they were still fun to play. Secondly, I didn't assume what you are suggesting here. I am saying that I think it's okay when the consequences of bad choices or very bad die-rolling can be harsher than "You lose 1 Fate Point and move on". Too many safety nets can take a bit out the thrill for certain players who enjoy to ride the edge, me being one of them. As a player, I am not so much about building up stats but facing challenges with a chance for fatal outcome.

I'm using the fate system but I think 1-3 FPs should be enough. My Navigator has 5 of them from the start.

Alex

I do a similar, thing in that Fate point loss can result in characteristic damage. What I do though is give the players the option of high end medical treatments to remove it. In fact often simply time and physiotherapy can remove it if the player wants to do down that road.

Kaihlik

ak-73 said:

Agreed, games are still fun without fate points. You know whats not fun, getting a TPK cuz no one in the group could make their test against fear and spent their last moments of life vomitting themselves stupid, or suffering "permanent" stat damage that could cost them about 33% of their stat that many talents are built upon (and now unuseable). Im not saying your idea is wrong or some arbitrarily punishment, but if stat damage like that is going to exist so should the means to repair it (for the sake of balance, I think Kaih has the right idea). Unless of course its all part of the "thrill" of the game, to lose limbs, take stat damage, etc.

We all enjoy our own playstyles, and I have no complaints as long as your players enjoy that style as well.

P.S.- I've never seen it as "You lose one fate point and move on". Every time one of my team has burned a fate point, it hurt. It meant they are completely out of the fight and whatever follows (usually looting ) and it was one less chance to make a critical roll whether its disarming the bomb, getting in good with the nobles or dodging an attack from an eviscerator. I don't even want to go into detail how useful they have been with the party psyker.

I'd agree with Sister Callidia here. Additionally, it's not like death is the only negative consequence of a character going down - there's usually a mission at stake that can be imperiled if a baddy gets away or a critical character's skills aren't available at the right time.