Taking Damage

Play

Tal and Moss are fighting against a Warband from a neighbouring Realm. They’ve already taken Damage from arrow fire.

Ref: Okay, now it’s the Warband’s turn. As you’re both individual combatants, they get +d12 and gain Blast, attacking both of you.

Ref rolls d8 and d12 for each target, taking the highest single die against each. The dice against Tal are 8 and 5; the dice against Moss 8 and 7.

Ref: The horde of attackers surge onto you, spears and axes coming from all directions. Both attacks are Bolstered, so you’re both facing 9 Damage. You both have 3 Armour so we can knock those down to 6.

Tal: I’ll stand firm using Deny on the 8.

Ref removes the 8, leaving the 5. Tal passes her Save against Fatigue.

Ref: So that leaves 2 Damage after Armour.

Tal: Could I use Deny again?

Ref: No, it’s once per Attack.

Tal: Right, got it.

Ref: So you’ve got 2 Damage coming in against 2 GD, leaving you at exactly 0 GD. That means a Scar. I roll on the Scar table with the die that caused Damage and get Distress, so I guess a spear just narrowly missed you, a few inches and you’d be missing an eye! Lose (rolls d6) 2 SPI.

Tal: Lucky escape I guess.

Ref: Moss, you’re on 1 GD and 6 VIG, right?

Moss: Yeah. I guess I’ll Deny the 8.

Moss removes the 8, leaving the remaining 7. He also fails his Save against Fatigue.

Ref: Oof, so 4 Damage means 1 to your GD and 3 off your VIG. As you’ve lost half of your VIG in one go that’s a Mortal Wound. Moss is overwhelmed by the Warband, kicked to the ground, an axe buried in his gut. He’ll die if left untended, and I wouldn’t expect mercy from these raiders. What’s the plan?

Thoughts

Keeping your Knight alive involves managing a few different resources. Armour and Guard are the first lines of defence, Vigour a more precious resource, and Feats a further tool for survival.

The Referee has to balance keeping the players aware of these while also indulging their senses in the description of the actual battle. Too much focus on numbers and resources and it becomes just a dice game. Too little and you risk the players not being able to make informed choices on how to proceed with the fight.

Ref strikes a decent balance here, but as I’m writing this for an example of play, there’s perhaps more explicit explanation of the numbers than I would expect at the table.

As a general procedure I describe what the attacker is doing, roll their dice out in the open, give a chance for the Knights to use Deny or other Feats to modify those dice, and then tell the player how much Damage they’ve taken.

The player can then report back whether the Attack caused a Wound (VIG loss) or Mortal Wound (half of current VIG lost), and I can describe the Attack and its impact accordingly, shifting the focus back to what’s actually happening to the characters.

As players get more experienced they’ll feel more confident weighing up their options when faced with Damage. The situation faced by Moss here is a good example, and I suspect he slightly underestimated the danger he was in.

I’m not optimistic about his chances in this situation. Perhaps a chance to consider whether surrender is Knightly.