We just finished the 3rd installment of Eye for an Eye with Giztman as GM for the Reckless Dice Podcast, and during the Q&A / Downtime period following the session we discussed how fatigue and stress work. I was under the impression as per the WHFRP Rulebook pg 62. that a character is fatigued / distressed once he has suffered more fatigue/stress than one of his physical/mental characteristics. However that character only takes a penalty if the check he/she is attempting is keyed to the fatigued/stressed characteristic in particular.

Example:

Lukas Haas the friendly, yet strangely odd, Ratcatcher has been exerting himself quite a bit in order to chop firewood before the rains hit. he has suffered 4 fatigue so far and his physical characteristics are as follows,

St 3

To 4

Ag 4

So in this example Lukas would be considered fatigued for all intents an purposes, however he would only suffer a misfortune penalty when attempting a check based on Strength. If he were to suffer one more fatigue then all three of his physical characteristics would suffer a misfortune penalty, 1 misfortune to each for any Toughness or Agility check and 2 misfortune for a Strength check.

Am I correct in this interpretation of the rules? If not what am I doing "wrong", do you guys play differenty, if so why and how?

That's how we do it too.

So I think you are correct.

yes that is also the way we do it.

Yep that's correct. The main thing to worry about is if you have a character with a "dump stat" of 2, then you're looking at being distressed or fatigued very quickly. If you obtain the other (fatigue or distressed) at the same time you are strained and you're basically gaining a temp (possibly permanent) insanity for every point of fatigue or stress from there on. Misfortune dice or passing out are the least of your worries.

Thanks for the clear up guys! I thought I'd read it right but was unsure.

I agree that passing out is probably more of a Boon than a Bane Rorschach Six!

Rorschach Six said:

The DISTRESSED condition is when you have suffered more stress than Willpower, if you have more stress than Int or Fellowship then you are just STRESSED, and that work as the OP discribed. DISTRESSED is more dangerous as this is the point at which you start to gain tempory Insanities. I'm sure it was just a slip on your part but I felt it should cleared up.

This stuff is easy to forget, thats why I created the charactersheet expansion, that sits under the half sheet... HERE

Technically, the Fatigued and Distressed conditions only apply to characteristics, not the characters themselves. So, for example, if your Troll Slayer has a Fellowship of 2, and has suffered three Stress, then their Fellowship characteristic becomes Distressed (and starts suffering a misfortune penalty), but the actual character is not considered Distressed.

Also, there is no condition called "Stressed", just Distressed. It's just that when your Willpower is Distressed you become vulnerable to Insanity.

Re-reading it you are right, I differentiated it, so that my players would have a easier time knowing when they are in danger of gaining temporary insanity, so just ignore my above post it's house terminology.

For a rule that at first made perfect sense in my head, i am thoroughly confused again lol =)

This thread helps quite a bit, but i still manage to run in circles when trying to nail it down.

When initially reading the rules i was under the impression that once a stat, say Strength, becomes fatigued (this suffering misfortune) all physical characteristics suffered that misfortune. is that wrong? Is each stat 'measured' independently?

Also, i know that once you double +1 your toughness with fatigue you pass out, what happens when you double +1 your strength or agility?

Gitzman

Yeah each stat is independant, for each point of Fatigue or Stress you have over the stat you are using you add 1 black die to the pool, at this point (and this may be your confusion) you are considered Fatigued, but only to figure out if you are Strained (any of your Physical stats surpassed by Fatigue points at the same time as any of your Mental stats are surpassed by Stress points).

A character passes out if as you say he has suffered 2 X TO or 2 X WP

If a character suffers more Stress than WP he must draw an Insanity and checks it's traits.

The reason I created the character sheet expansion is because, although the game is easy to run, there is a lot a small stuff like this that can run under the radar.

Great podcast by the way, I can't wait for the next episode.

All the best

Mike

Thanks for the clarification,

But i would still ike some clarification on what happens when you go double +1 on a stat other than Toughness or Willpower. Does anything happen aside from generating loads of misfortune dice when super fatigueing your Strength?

As an example:

Strength: 2
Toughness: 4
Agility: 3

If this character has 5 fatigue, what happens?

• He suffers 2 Misfortune to Agility checks
• He suffers 1 Misfortune to Toughness checks
• He suffers 3 misfortune to Strength checks

Is this all? Or does he pass out from double + 1 strength?

Gitzman

No as written the rules only mentions more than 2 X Willpower or Toughness.

Hope that helps, now off to get ready for tonights game.

@ Gitzman

Toughness represents physical fortitude and therefor the threshold a character has for fatigue. So in your example you are correct in stating that the Strength score just suffers a bunch of misfortune. You as the GM could change this to difficulty die if the character has over twice the non toughness/will power characteristic in fatigue. Or not allow the player to attempt tasks with that stat as its key. But those are house rule suggestions, the RAW state that a character only passes out if Fatigue is greater that twice their Toughness.

Ok cool, that makes good sense now =)

Thanks everyone!

Gitz

(i'll learn to play this game some day lol)

Gitzman said:

You run a great game considering the medium. I have a blast and it tends to move smoother than a super rules heavy bookfest.

I need to up the ante and get into character, less of the "Lukas Does X" more trying to act as would Lukas. I was stating my actions more so as an aide for newer roleplayers trying to describe to them what I'm doing in game terms not Narrative terms.

I like to pretend i know how to GM better in my head than i do in reality. But i do think that the flow and energy of a game works best when everyone is participating activly and enthusiastically. Playing with you bones brought out my good GMing i though, though many of the other dudes in our sessions made it a little harder as they require much more coaxing to activly interact.

Its difficult doing pick up games, and adding MapTools and a remote medium on top of that, it seems to require an especially outgoing person to really pull off successfully. I'm glad you had fun, i look forward to more games with you in the near future.

Gitz