Since strain thresholds have values very similar to wound thresholds, why Grist gives only +1 to strain while Toughened gives +2? Shouldn't both give the same bonus?

LukeZZ said:

Probably not.

A point of strain can be regenerated by expending a single advantage during combat, and can be refreshed as many times as you wish during combat, and again at the end of combat with a disc/cool roll. Strain can also be spent in a number of ways, which means a point of strain has substantial utility.

Wounds, however, cannot be refreshed from rolled results, and healing a wound takes longer and is more difficult than compared to strain. Also, a point of wound has very few uses, and therefore low utility.

From a design standpoint, a increasing strain capacity has more utility (more uses & easier to refresh) and is therefore more valuable than increasing wound capacity. By this logic, Grit should provide a reduced numerical bonus compared to Toughened.

You also have to look at what the cost of these talents are, and how easy/hard they are to get. It could be that all of the Toughened talents in the trees are deeper and therefore cost more. Or it may be easier to get a bunch of Grit talents hight in the trees for low cost, which allows stacking, which would in turn mean the talent would need to provide less numerical advantage. I didn't dig through all the trees to determine if this was true though.

So, a few possible explanations. There are probably more.

-WJL

Uh, this got double quote/posted. I can't figure out how to delete it, so I'll make some use of this post.

You could argue that since wounds are more difficult to recover from than strain, they are more valuable. My counter to that would be the value comes from rarity and utility, and in this case, the comparitive utility value of strain capacity vastly exceeds the comparative rarity wound capacity. Therefore a point of strain capacity should cost more than a point of wound capacity.

-WJL

LethalDose said:

Another thought is that Strain and Wounds, though similar in threshold values, are accrued in different amounts. You gain mostly Strain in 1-2 point increments, while Wounds come easily come in at 6–9 a hit. Adding one Wound Threshold does very little (it only matters if just happen to take wounds equal to your threshold), while one more Strain is half a maneuver.

Doc, the Weasel said:

That's a very good point. two extra wound make it that much more likely you'll stay concious and uninjured after a second hit.

-WJL