Now, me and my squad just started playing a while ago and at first things were very hard mainly because we didn't fully understand the rules, our idea was that we would just start playing and then learn on the go. This is a bad idea in this game as we more or less forgot to use squad mode abilities, kept saving our fate points (despite them being refilled quite often) and so on.

So, partly, the reason why things turned ugly fast was because of that. First session of play, one guy down. Just minor injuries though. Two or three sessions later we lost a leg and an arm, but don't worry we found them. The leg was mine. And to be honest, I did take a whole lot of punishment before I went down. A horde of Tau fire warriors, plus the Tau general and his two bodyguards had their go at me before I went down and I still took out most of them as well. But that's another story. In the short next mission I lost an arm, though that was mostly my own doing as it happened, although I would've lost a few arms and such the next round anyway.

What I'm wondering here is, do everyone else have these troubles with injuries? At first you can take quite a pounding, then suddenly your arm falls off if someone sneezes.

Deathwatch is definitely an "all-or-nothing" game, more so than any of the other 40K RPG systems, thanks to how much soak a Space Marine has and the relatively easy access they have to Field Saves. Since they're up against foes that can drop twenty or thirty wounds on them in a single round, getting past their shields and landing hits can result in player characters going from perfectly fine to bleeding out- figuratively speaking- in a matter of seconds. Keep in mind that all Marines have the True Grit talent, which basically doubles how many critical wounds they can take before they start dropping.

Yep, it helps and they CAN get back up through healing quite fast as well so they can take a lot of damage and survive. It's just the Fatigue statistic, along with some stun and other penalties, really don't happen that often because it seems usually once you get there, you're gonna go down with a lost arm the next round or the one after that.

Since you get no penalties before that, it just seems like an attack that does 40 or so dmg putting you (along with armor reduction) on zero wounds, makes you loose Cohesion possibly, but besides that… It's the same as a hit that barely did 1 damage. Would've been cool with something along the lines of any hit that does more damage than your toughness bonus gives you a fatigue, or stun, or just a -10 penalty for a round.

Also the crit lists with 1-7 being more or less "Ouch, take a penalty" and 8-10 being "dead, deader, deadest" seems a bit like it could've been handled better then again I guess you're supposed to use your fate points to survive so perhaps it evens out. Ah well.

Yes, that is generally the problem with DW crit table. It really kinda lacks certain "oomph" to it.

Luckily me and my group have changed to use the Black Crusade critical table which has much more interesting critical effects, which also happen more often since we also use the Black Crusade righteous fury/zeal/hatred rules, which cause 1d5 critical damage instead of Greater Daemon killing c-c-c-c-combos from single bolt rounds.

They also changed True Grit so that instead of halving critical damage, it causes critical damage to be reduced by your toughness bonus to a minimum of 1. So with marines instead of outright exploding due to critical damage, you often take small chipping critical hits that get you closer and closer to death all the while having interesting effects

will definatly look into that

thanks a lot

It is important to remember that ZH is 1d5 Critical Effect as opposed to Critical Damage. All of the inconvenience, no accumulation toward greater effects/death. And that it isn't modified by talents and things that change critical damage. But yeah, a lot more stunning/fatigue.

Yeah, we' ve had three missions and already one guy is a walking machine - he lost both arms to genestealers, then lost most of his internal organs when he suicide bombed a hive tyrant. Just roll with it - he's already become one of the team heroes, along with the Raven Guard Tech-Ninja and Punchy Mc Punch Punch, the strong and hungry Sanguinary Priest.

Since an apothicary join the squad injuries aren't that bad now.

But don't forget that if using fate point to stay alive as GM you can do as you feel it maybe the arm or leg can be saved.

Maybe only the bone has to be change for an iron part.

If mutilating players bother you why not let them some proudy scars quite impressive as critical must be needing great care and hospitalisation to use the limb again. As a full burn of the head skin making bones and jaws appear with no more nose than two holes in the middle of the face and no more hears to be seen exept that two pinky button on the skull side. Can be funnier than using the table without making your funny critical.

Maybe the body of the SM work against him and the bones fused in a none to be seen shape?

Have fun the bodys of your player lay in your hand like wet clay, don't hesitate to put it in the hoven.

You need to suffer to please the corpse empror on his throne on earth… Oups sry the god emperor… Damned I lose my cover…