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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5876198" data-attributes="member: 42582">Obviously not for fatal damage - but given that fatal damage is identified only when certain extreme conditions are reached (three failed saves OR negative bloodied) the prelude has itself to be narrated in a fairly flexible way. Fatal damage, for PCs, is therefore not going to be disembowelling or severing of limbs - because that can't be narrated in the right way. It's going to be a bruise to the abdomen that (as it turns out) ruptured an internal organ, or a blow to the head that (as it turns out) was more than just glancing.There are other corner cases too. In my last session, for example, a PC got shot by an assassin with poisoned bolts. The PC - a very tough dwarf - is heavily armoured. I was happy to narrate this as the bolts passing through chinks in the armour, delivering the poison, though not severing any tendons, ligaments or vessels.There are odd cases for NPCs also. For example, in a couple of fights over the past year the PCs have fought NPC wizards with hundreds of hp (an elite and a solo). In these fights, even many "hits" are narrated as causing the wizard to have to parry a blow, or deflect a magical attack, with his/her staff. I certainly don't narrate it black knight style!, as if the NPC were still standing after taking blow after blow. (Contrast the fight against the dragon having hundred of hit points, where it did in fact withstand hard blow after hard blow. Contrast again the fight against the hobgoblin phalanx (a huge swarm), in which the effects of successful attacks were narrated as sending one or more of the hobgoblin soldiers flying.)Of guidelines for narrating "damage" in this sort of system, the best I know (and the ones that have influenced me the most) are those in the original HeroWars book (HeroQuest revised uses a different mechanic for resolving extended contests, and so while on the whole a clearer set of guidelines, doesn't give advice for this particular issue).</blockquote>

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