Hi,

We all agree that critical wounds are not juicy enough for monsters, don't we? They are a bit of lackluster and fitting more for PCs.

On the other hand, rules system is lacking the surprise element of going for instant kill. The cruel brutal world of Warhammer should be all about finishing your opponent with a single blow, even the mightiest of enemies could fall with one well-placed arrow.

I've combined critical wounds on monsters and instant kill to one simple house rule. See my house rules here . Page 6.

In short:

Each time a monster suffers one or more critical wounds it must perform a Resilience test, difficulty based on number of critical wounds suffered. Player may use fortune points to add misfortune to this check and using Chaos Points (ACE-replacement) house rule, GM may balance the odds as well.

Failure = instant kill (with brutal narrative!)

each Base = +1 wound

I think the extra check is justified as the reward is so great and adds to the excitement of the battle with some player interaction of using fortune points.

Our group is not excited about critical wounds and never even remember to go after these .. with instant kill, they will sure get interested!

Sounds a nice house rule for critical wounds. Will you apply it also to PC? I think it will be cool.

Cheers,

Yepes

No, I don't think it is applicable to PCs - way too lethal. If you look my other house rules, Death is covered by a Resilience check system but much more lenient.

Sounds like it could work. But I don't think I'd really enjoy having to roll that Resilience test over and over again for the NPCs. A simpler version would be to just let normal NPCs work like henchmen (extra wounds=crit severity) plus that they get the critical effect. Or, if you have Omens of war, use all of the severe crits from that pack as instant kills on NPCs, with the gruesome narrative from the cards applied. Personally I would also not use instant kill rules on nemesis NPCs.

It's a good call to not apply the instant kill rules on PCs, with no fate point mechanic instant kills would be really unfun for PCs.

In our games criticals on monsters are rare - very rare. Maybe one per session. My group simply does not utilize them. That's why I'm not too worried about the extra die rolls.

Also, I don't do hidden rolls as GM so players are looking at the roll with "did I kill it" type of excitement.

I don't mind monster criticals not always mattering. I find PC's score criticals more often than monsters and regard criticals not always hurting monsters as "just part of system balance" and all the more reason for a PC to want a Vicious weapon or other critical tweaker.

In terms of house rules, okay to tweak things but I avoid requiring additional rolls as that slows play. My one "policy" more than rule is that monsters react to being critically wounded (e.g., are more likely to fight all out or retreat). I've had a thug who took three critical wounds just surrender on the spot, for example. It's not a "insta kill" but it "feels right".