So, we got a preview of some nasty Severe Inujuries, they look great overall. The Warhammer world just became more grim and perilous, and I like it. In the preview FFG also states that these cards are critical wound cards that should be mixed with that deck.

This approach sounds good, simple and fast but I am a little concerned about the probabilities. I hope that there will be some kind of though on how many % of the wound deck that should be Severe Injuries. If you have two core sets, all the expansions (including the vaults) you will have a much larger pile of wound cards than someone who only has the core set thus resulting in different probabilities depending on what you own. I for one hope that FFG releases some kind of % that they see as an "appropriate" ratio for severe injuries/wound deck.

Furthermore this approach means that FFG "have to" provide new severe injuries each time they provide us with new wound cards in expansions to keep the % "right" and I hope that they have planned for this. Otherwise Severe Injuries will become less and less likely with every released expansion (if it contains wound cards that is).

Any thought?

Yeah, I'm not to worried about the probabilities, they'll probably be low enough to not matter. From the two examples though it definitely seems like something I'd want to explain to the group, pass around some samples and let them decide if they want to include them in the game. It seems like a significant change to the rules that we should decide as a group whether to use them or not.

Eventually there will be enough card bloat that you'll have to cull the herd for a game session anyway. I mean as cool as it will be to one day have 1000 different critical effects you'll probably want to cut the deck or pick your favorite out of the pile. Just like you wouldn't have every feat/spell/whatever book available at every game session for another more traditional RPG system. It becomes a GM control issue rather than a FFG control issue. You want 20% Severe Wounds...make it so. I will probably just houserule some % chance that a critical wound becomes a severe wound because I like rolling d100's...makes me feel important

I'm a new DM to the game already in love with the wound deck as it stands, so this news is icing on the cake for me. I see your point about the ratio of Severe Injuries in the deck but I also see the potential for a GM to vary the lethality of his game by controlling this ratio. If you want a more deadly game add all the Severe cards or heck even remove some of the old wound cards. If not limit the Severe cards to one or two real nasty surprises. More ways for the GM to personalize the experience. What a game!

So was that severity 13 for head shot and you were dead? All of my guys are toughness 3, I don't think they would make it that far without dying normally. Cool idea though, makes people more worried when they get those criticals finally something more worrying than "nagging injury!"

Fenderstat said:

Really I saw that as a way to actually threaten the party's Toughness 5 Dwarf. Which of course means in actual play the priest would draw it and die on the spot. (And then the dwarf would loot the corpse before it stopped twitching, but that's a different issue entirely.)

Fenderstat said:

True. I was saying with t3 characters though, the rating of 10 would be much more achievable for a t3 character than 13 (not complaining though!). It will also stop those "t5 dwarfs" from feeling like they are invincible. The more I reads the more I wants!!

Fenderstat said:

Aye, I really like how it lowers toughness "strength" slightly. But I must really also admit that "Combat just got more deadly". Drawing one of these would atleast make my players recoil into a corner out of fear from more crits...

Yeah, I like the way this will make every 'flip' of a wound card an event for my players. I'm really happy with the way they've been added in, it all looks good and makes sense. Hopefully there'll be injuries like losing fingers/ears etc. with lower severity thresholds that won't be crippling for characters but will leave them properly battle-scarred!

commuterzombie said:

Agreed, that'll be great.

Wrote this on the front page, but am putting it here too:

Sounds good, but there's a couple of things that don't sit too well with me with this.

Firstly, I can be inflicted with a 'Severed Leg', and yet still have my leg (only its crippled). Second, I can then suffer a critical wound after this, say, a Mangled Eye, which then triggers the severe effect and my leg falls off. Hmm...

hehe, I intend to not say anything to my players, will be fun when the first one gets such a card *mad evil insane chuckle*

Just wanted to check what people thoughts on this.

From my reading of the rules (and I don't have the new players guide so I'm not sure if they've reworded it) it's totally possible to have more Critical wounds than you have toughness. It's only if you pass out due to taking too many normal wounds that you have to count up the number of crits you have.

So serious wounds actually punt the lethality of the system back towards 2nd ed and the 40K rpgs where you can lose limbs and stuff.

scimon said:

That's certainly my understanding of the rules at present. Things have definitely got a bit dicier for my PCs!

Cool. So it's totally possible for a PC to have 5 or 6 crits and still be wandering around (probably do lots of favours for the priests of Shaylla and trying to hide behind the Iron Breaker).

Staying engaged with the Iron Breaker is the general combat tactic of my party.

As I recall, the core rules say death only occurs when both your total wounds exceeds your wound threshold AND a number of those wounds are crits in excess of your Toughness (number of crits overall, and not severity of them). So a T 4 PC with 15 Wounds, can suffer 10 crits and they can operate. The second they drop (absorb 16 wounds in total) they're dead.

There are a number of ways of resolving the ratio. One idea is to keep the normal wounds and the severe wound decks separate and you only draw the severe ones as a result of specific triggers (i.e. certain results auto-trigger a severe wound instead of random draw):

• Massive success (4+)
• Great Success (3+) with x Boons
• Success with y Comets

There are a bunch of similar but easy ways to arbitrate their use without worrying about combining massive wound decks.

Sausageman said:

Lol yeah I can see the sillyness of that. If the player somehow survives the mangled leg and eye. I would apply the affects of the lost leg once they recieved healing. "The healers did all they could to save your leg but in the end it just lost too much blood and they had to chop it."

I love the idea of these cards, they are kind of like a ticking time bomb that can turn even the most reckless adventurer into a pacifist. "Do we really need to attack this group of orcs or can we just sneak by and call it even?"

The Red Goblin said:

I couldn't agree more with your points here. As far as receiving a severe wound but not having a high enough severity and then eventually triggering the severe effect goes, I believe that FFG stated it succinctly in the "A Grisly End" post; and I quote:

"Battle in the Old World is a dangerous proposition. Even a goblin with a pointed stick can deal a lethal wound to an unlucky or unwary opponent, and given the state of Old World medicine, even an apparently humble wound can prove fatal if it becomes infected."

The end of this statement is rather evocative because the critical portions of the Severe Wound cards are rather "humble", however gangrene can set in and blood loss can lead to body parts being just beyond saving, thus becoming more severe.

This is what I thought they'd do with severe wounds (as I stated in Reckless Dice Podcast ep.5), however the severity trigger is a surprise to me. In my mind it was just an "oh well" type of situation, where the severe wounds were worked into the deck and if you just so happened to receive a critical and you drew one of the Severe Wounds then woe is you. I'm really excited about the potential that is underwritten with this new addition to the game. Omens seems like it will really bring alot to the table, solid mounted combat rules, enhancements to your combat actions, and severe wounds.

The game once again evolves! I love it.

Sausageman said:

You could explain it that the continued action/trauma caused your damaged leg to give out.

Perhaps the strain of trying to avoid the blow to the head caused you to twist the leg wrong, such that it becomes useless.

Perhaps the opponent's attack was a slash to injured leg and then the blow to the head. Remember, a single attack action is not a single swing. So the "feint" actually connected with the injured leg, rendering it useless, which then allowed the opponent to strike the critical blow to the head.

... and so on ...

There can be rationales for just about everything if you stop and think about it.

<shrug>

I am looking forward to this expansion. The "Severe wounds" really do seem like they will make criticals more of a threat. Iron-Breaker meet snotling horde with low CR weapons

k7e9 said:

Simply, trim the fat out of your wound deck. I mean, it's a deck. Cut it down to adjust based on the needs of your game and your story. It's as simple as that.

People talk about throwing off the percentages, as if the designers calculate this stuff out. The game won't break if you have less than a 2.16% chance to get a flesh wound.

Just like it won't break if you rework the decks to be more or less deadly by leaving certain cards or numbers of cards by the wayside.

Regardless of your playstyle though, I really don't think it is an issue that the FFG designers need to deal with. Incorporation or even avoidance of additional rules should be something any GM can handle in their own way.

Big decks, little decks, mathematically calculated decks...they are all beloved in the eyes of the dark gods.

I just want to see the looks on the faces of my players when they A) are killed due to a headshot, or B) kill an NPC with one.

It's fine with severe criticals for players. But I find that the criticals when applied to NPCs are really worthless. Hopefully there will be something in these new rules that make criticals better against NPCs.

I am thinking about a house rule for it until then.

When you give a NPC one or more critical you roll a number of misfortune dice equal to the highest severity. One bane allows you to give the monster a minor effect like a black die or whatever you can think of... or give yourself a fortune point to use in that encounter. Two banes lets you give a major effect like two black dice. Three banes rolled is fatal and the NPC dies.