Hi,

Critical wounds are great for PCs but for a River Troll "+1 misfortune to all Fellowship checks" is not that critical in the heat of the battle. Sure, as GM I could search for more effective card but that's a bit like always looking for those certain crowd favorites.

Monsters are all about fighting: attacking and defending. Nemesis characters and human NPCs can be treated similar to PCs.

I created this "Monster Critical Wound Table" to emphasize the critical wound effect on monsters. I designed these effects:

• Debilitating effect: monster primary ability is decreased by 1. It's usually Str, Ag or Int.
• Crippling effect: misfortune die to all checks
• Deep wound: possible 0-3 more wounds based on an additional roll
• Breaching effect: lowered soak and defense
• Devastating effect: all abilities are decreased by 1

If GM uses laptop or iPad to track monsters its easy to make the above changes without micro-management.

This table is for GM only and should keep its structure and effects hidden from the players and emphasize the story-telling effect of the attack instead.

Monster critical wound table on page 2 of pdf.

Link to PDF

"1 black dice to fellowship" is the useless effect, but you also have a nice description and localisation written on the card.

As I agree with your analysis concerning the rule effect, this is what I do in my game :

1. Critical wounds are unsoakable extra wounds for both PCs and NPCs.
2. Only for NPCs, Critical wounds resultat also in extra normal wounds equal to the Critical Wound's Severity (inspired by henchmen)