Enemies and Critical damage

[EmilMasback 2]

Hi everyone. I stumbled across the "Righteous fury is not critical damage" thread and realized that i do not know with a satisfying degree of confidence that normal "minions" die when reduced to zero wounds. 

 

At page 250 under Righteous Fury, it's stated that the GM may remove name-less enemies as casualties when they suffer wounds with Righteous fury, an we've been playing with 0 wounds as the death for normal foes.

 

I am however unable to find a clause that states that enemies suffer death (at the Gm's discretion) when reduced to 0 wounds. It certainly speeds things up, I just want to make sure that it's a house-rule so that I don't think I know the rules when I'm in the wrong (gaming with other groups and such).

 

If anyone know if I've missed anything, please let me know and direct me to the paragraph ^^

[bogi_khaosa 267]

I don't know, but I will point out that "minion" (assuming it was meant to be capitalized ), refers to a category of enemy, such as grots and other very weak critters.

 

I really dislike the "enemies die at 0 Wounds" notion (one, on aesthetic grounds, and two, it makes many talents quite worthless). But I suppose this depends largely on preferred game style (action heros vs. normal guys). 

[EmilMasback 2]

The talent issue is why I'm looking into it in the first place. At first I figured it buffed Righteous Fury, but we had been very VERY wrong to assume that it actually did damage (and critical damage at that). 

 

Upon correcting this mistake the next insight was, quite naturally that some talents were very circumstantial if normal enemies died straight of at 0 wounds. They're still ok I guess, but if your big evil enemy has reached critical wounds, he's about to bite the dust anyways, 2-3 extra wounds at that state might off him, but it's nothing the next two attacks shouldn't take care of. 

 

And yes, "minion" is a type of enemy, but the text in righteous fury also mentions "unamed soldiers" and hits heavily at any foe that is not of greater importance, minions would more frequently then others fall under that category, but not always.

 

In the end it's up to the GM, so I'll simply ask when playing under new rule, I think that's easiest, for everyone. 

Edited September 9, 2013 by EmilMasback

[Magnus Grendel 11,679]

I tend to play it that way as well; if only because when I have a squad and a half of Dominate Soldiery in a firefight, I do not wish to track critical injuries to each and every one of them. 0 Wounds = Dead is simple and cuts down on the book-keeping...

[bogi_khaosa 267]

Don't do it. 0 Wounds = dead will screw up certain enemies. What makes Orks tough as nails is True Grit, which gives them a damage soak of 12 (minimum of 1) once they hit 0. An Ork who dies at 0 Wounds is not much tougher than a Guardsman.

 

If you do, give them more wounds.

[LuciusT 128]

One thing I'm experimenting with, somewhat successfully, is that when mooks reach 0 wounds (+/- a little) I have them make a WP test. If they fail, they decide that it is time to be somewhere else.They might retreat, attempt to surrender or try to play dead. Functionally, they are removed from combat without actually being dead... and possibly cause trouble for the PCs who now have to deal with prisoners or, worse, escaping foes who could bring back reinforcements.

 

Orks - thanks to their Mob Rule trait - are less susceptible to this. 

[bogi_khaosa 267]

I'll do the math just for the hell of it. In my example below the lasgun is firing in Overload, because I don't want to worry about AP, and we'll count a -7 Critical result as death because I don't want to get into various different locations.

 

An Ork that dies at 0 Wounds vs. an Ork that gets to use his God-given True Grit.

 

Average damage is 10.5 - TB6 = 4.5 average wounds per hit. I'll round to 5 to make things easier.

 

One hit: Ork goes down to 7 Wounds

Two hits: Down to 3 Wounds.

Three hits: Down to 0 Wounds (or -1 Crit). Ork dies if he dies at 0 Wounds.

 

Out True Grit Ork keeps going though.

 

Four hits: 10.5 - 6 for Toughness Bonus = 4. Then ANOTHER -6 for True Grit to a minimum of 1 = a -2 Critical effect.

Then another 5 hits to reach -7 and death.

 

So, if you have him die at 0 Wounds, an Ork Boy will die after 3 hits on average (the same as a Guardsman I believe BTW). If he does not die at 0 Wounds, it will take 9 hits with an overloaded lasgun to kill him on average.

 

(Not counting Toughness Tests for critical instanr death and Blood Loss.)

Edited September 23, 2013 by bogi_khaosa