Massive Damage

[CosmicCowboy]

Just started reading my Conan book, and had a question on Massive Damage. Under the heading Massive Damage, it says that, if you fail the Fortitude Save, you are reduced to -1 HP and dying. On the next page (different heading) it says if you fail the save you are dead. Is this something cleared up in AE? Thanks.

 

[Trodax]

In the AE, if you fail a massive damage save, your are immediately dead (if you don't spend a Fate point to instead be "left for dead", that is).

Hope that helps.

 

[BhilJhoanz]

Very devastating IMO but it's part of the fun of the game. In my experience it's better to use your fate point to avoid the blow all together and stay on your feet than to be left for dead.

Once a player falls, the others tend to go down more quickly. For example, I was in a brawl about a month ago and my GM announced that he had Crit'ed a sneak attack on me. Before he even rolled the dice, I asked if I could use a fate point to avoid the blow -- mission accomplished! and last weekend, a cultist threw a glass orb at me -- recognizing it for what it was, I asked to use a fate point to try to catch it. GM set a reflex save (DC15) to catch -- I made it (miraculous for a soldier too!).

In both cases, the fate point was used to avoid the possibility of having to use a FP for Left for Dead -- not only keeping my character alive and able to continue to contribute to the fight but adding a heroic, swash buckling sense to the game.

 

[CosmicCowboy]

In the AE, if you fail a massive damage save, your are immediately dead (if you don't spend a Fate point to instead be "left for dead", that is).

Hope that helps.

Yep, that clears it up.

 

[slaughterj]

Very devastating IMO but it's part of the fun of the game. In my experience it's better to use your fate point to avoid the blow all together and stay on your feet than to be left for dead.

Yeah, but that's not one of the listed uses for Fate Points. It lists Left for Dead, Mighty Blow, Repentance, and Destiny, none of which allow the use you put it to. That's fine if your GM allows that use, but he and you should realize that people will always select that option over Left for Dead, making that a meaningless option. Because I like the idea of Left for Dead (sets up great "captured" scenarios, etc.), and it is the one in the book, I'll be sticking with using that one.

Another consideration - if you use a FP to avoid a blow, a fall, etc. and you are still up, then you still face danger and the character can still get killed once out of FP - but if you use the FP to be left for dead, then you'll still be around. To me, that's the point of the FP, for that use, to allow a way to keep characters around if all else fails, but that is circumvented if you allow people to circumvent being hit, damaged, etc. with a FP, because they are still subject to the same effect the next round. Put it this way, as a GM, I feel no need to fudge combat rolls, like I would if the roll would kill the PC, if they can use a FP to avoid such a grisly fate.

Finally, the Left for Dead option allows for the PC to be mildly penalized for fighting to the death, rather than being smarter, if the GM so elects, because the GM can then imprison the PC, steal their stuff, etc., which also fits with the whimsical nature of goods in the Conan world.

 

[BhilJhoanz]

I think that using a FP to avoid a devastating blow falls neatly under the Destiny column of uses. Remember, use of a destiny FP isn't only limited to the examples in the book -- it can be for anything. And by no means does this make one invulnerable -- I can be whittled down over time and our GM hands out FP very sparingly so I run the risk of having none if I were to use them frivilously.

I certainly agree that if you're in a hopeless situation being left for dead is a good option to consider but a fight can turn from "going well" to "deadly" if your principle fighter gets dropped with a single lucky roll. I look at using FPs in this instance as a heroic countermeasure to ill-fate. By staying on my feet, I continue to take an active role in the outcome of the fight. Furthermore, judging from the REH I've read, Conan would always choose an immediate advantage over future possibilities -- capture and submission was never an option for the Cimmerian.

 

[argo]

Using a FP to earn a chance to make a Ref save and catch an incomming death orb sounds cool and I would probably allow it just for that reason alone. But I would never let a fate point be spent to simply avoid a blow that would otherwise hit. I have made it very clear to my players: these are Fate points, not hero points. Heroics come from the character and the player, the fate points are there to keep the story moving in outlandish pulp-fiction fashion (living when you should have died, finding the one item you need to finish the job even though the odds of doing so is 1000:1). I don't allow FP's to reroll botched dice rolls or otherwise overturn the vague chances of luck (even though I enjoy playing with otner systems that use similar mechanics to do just that). I think that it is one of the things that helps keep the pulp flavor of the game distinct from more generic action-adventure games.

Later.

 

[Fyrestryke]

I play with Bhil and I agree that they should be used for heroic actions. Our GM agrees too and I tend to take his word on all things Conan. If someone wants to spend a precious (we get precious few) fate point on something besides what's in the book, that's entirely up to him. We don't sit there and say, "oh, I missed that roll, I use a fate point". We come up with creative ways or storytelling that dictates why we succeeded instead of failing.

Using a fate point to avoid a lethal blow is a lot more heroic than just standing there and dying because it's not your turn in the round.

We've had some rip roaring adventures. Sometimes, we even use fate points (I dumped my last two at one time once) to save our buddies.

 

[argo]

Using a fate point to avoid a lethal blow is a lot more heroic than just standing there and dying because it's not your turn in the round.

Yeah, thats exactly my point. I want my Conan game (not your conan game but my conan game) to look like this: player falls to a lucky crit by an opponent three levels lower than him, gets clubbed over the head, wakes up on a corpse-ridden battelfield with only a broken sword and procedes with tracking the bastards down to exact his bloody vengance.

Using FP to avoid lethal blows, etc take the game in a much more action-hero direction. Theres nothing wrong with that, I'm just pointing out the consequences: this is how a GM controls the flavor of his game.

Later.