stigate a combat to ambush a target. First, rounded by a large group of enemies.
down the initiative list. If you
make a successful Stealth check against the
When making a strong strike, you
hold your action until the
target’s Awareness check. If you succeed, make one huge attack at a -3 to your roll
very end of the round, you
you go unnoticed and can sneak up on your which does double damage against the op-
must either use your turn or
opponent. Next, make your attack. You gain ponent. Strong strikes are best when you
sacrifice it. You cannot hold
a +5 against all targets who were unaware need to do a lot of damage to a slower target
your action and choose to
of you. This bonus lasts for the first round with a lot of armor.
act at the beginning of the
of the combat. If one of your targets notices • Bows: When using a strong strike with a next round.
you but doesn’t have time to alert the rest,
bow you pull the bow to full draw and fire,
you still get the bonus against those who
doubling the damage. Since it takes quite a
aren’t aware. After you make your ambush
bit of time to draw and nock arrows, bows
attack, everyone in the area makes an initia-
can only fire once, even if making a fast
tive roll and initiative continues from there.
strike.
Fast Draw
Your first attack (the ambush) isn’t counted • Crossbows: You cannot make strong or fast By declaring a Fast Draw at
in the initiative.
strikes with a crossbow since they have one
the start of the round, you
raise your initiative by +3
Damage
draw length and draw weight.
for that round by taking a
Damage is split into two categories: lethal Hit Location
-3 to your at ack. However,
and non-lethal. Any wound that brings After you attack, determine what body part
you must make an at ack
you closer to death deals lethal damage. you hit. Unless you aimed for a specific spot,
and you cannot benefit from
When your amount of lethal damage is roll on the Humanoid or Monster Damage
aiming or any other aim-re-
equal to your Health Points, you enter Location tables.
lated ability.
Death State and begin dying (see Death
Aiming for specific parts is harder,
& Dying). Temporary damage that im- but can be worth it. Each part has a penalty
pairs you (concussion, shock) is non-lethal to hit it and a damage modifier. After you’ve
damage. When you have taken non-lethal reduced your damage based on armor (see
damage equal to your Health Points, you Damage Reduction), you multiply the re-
are knocked unconscious and treated as maining damage based on the modifier for
stunned until you recover at least 20 points the location.
of health with recovery actions and make a
Stun save.
Damage of both types is usual y de-
termined by rolling different combinations
of 6- or 10-sided dice. Different weapons
also do one of four different damage types:
piercing, slashing, bludgeoning, and ele-
mental.
154
Humanoid Damage
When an attack strikes you, subtract the SP
Party Initiative
Location
of your armor from the incoming damage.
To speed things up, you can
It’s important to remember that armor is
choose to designate one play-
based on location: A steel plate under your
Location Roll Penalty DMG
er as the Leader of the party.
silk shirt doesn’t protect your head.
Head
1
-6
x3
The Leader rol s initiative for
the entire party and their rol
Torso
2-4
-1
x1
Damage Resistance
is added to each other play-
Damage resistance (DR) is structural or
R. Arm
5
-3
x1/2
er’s REF score to determine
magical protection from specific damage
L. Arm
6
-3
x1/2
their initative. This method
types: fireproof clothes, for instance, or
is good for getting initiative
R. Leg
7-8
-2
x1/2
scaly skin that turns blades. Like armor, DR
for large groups of enemies
L. Leg
9-10
-2
x1/2
saps the sting from attacks. If you take dam-
as wel.
age of a type (piercing, slashing, bludgeon-
ing, elemental) you’re resistant to, halve the
Monsters which have different anatomy damage before applying your armor.
from humans have a different table for dam-
age location. When fighting a non-human- Layering Armor
Layering Table
oid monster, roll on the Monster Damage Layering armor may seem like a good idea.
Each extra layer of light or
Location table.
Stack up a gambeson, a brigandine, and
medium armor adds +1 to
some plate armor and you can laugh off a
Monster Damage Location
the EV of your total armor.
damn ballista bolt! Unfortunately it doesn’t
Every layer of heavy armor
work like that for two reasons.
adds +2 to the EV.
First, armor is cumulative: under-
Location Roll Penalty DMG
neath your brigandine is a gambeson and a
Head
1
-6
x3
chain mail shirt and underneath your plate
Torso
2-4
-1
x1
armor is another gambeson and another
chain mail shirt. So your stacked gambe-
R. Limb
5-7
-3
x1/2
son, brigandine and plate armor is real y
L. Limb
8-9
-3
x1/2
three gambesons, a brigandine, two shirts
Special
10
-2
x1/2
of chain mail, and plate armor over top of it
al . Throw in four layers of armored trousers
Certain types of attacks (bombs, traps, and and a great helm with two padded caps, two
some spel s, for example) strike multiple chain mail coifs, and leather hood? Not only
body locations at once. Bombs and explo- do you look like the Michelin Man’s merce-
sive traps hit everywhere, dealing their nary brother, you’re also wearing about 39
damage to every location separately. In this kilograms of armor alone, each layer adding
case, calculate full dice damage for each lo- more encumbrance. For this reason you can
cation separately.
only stack three pieces of armor and you
can only wear one layer of heavy armor and
Armor
one layer of medium armor.
Armor is anything that makes it harder for
Second, each layer of armor doesn’t
an attack to kill you. For players, this most- add its full SP. Any armor lighter than your
ly means reinforced clothing and plates of heaviest armor acts as a buffer between you
steel. For monsters, this can be hardened and the blow. To determine how much ex-
skin or natural shel s. All armor has a stop- tra armor you get subtract the lighter armor ping power (SP). The stopping power of ar- from the heavier armor and find the differ-mor determines how much incoming dam- ence on the table on the next page.
age it absorbs when an attack strikes you.
155
This bonus is the amount of armor you add Using Cover
to your heaviest armor. If you have 3 lay- When you are under fire from archers, ar-
Layering Example
ers, calculate the layers in pairs: Compare balists, mages, and the like, you can choose
Say for instance you want to
your first and second layers to find their to take cover. Anything solid that comes be-
wear a gambeson, a brigan-
combined strength, then compare that aug- tween you and a projectile counts as cover.
dine, and a full plate armor
mented strength to the third set of armor to An attack must penetrate the cover before
on your torso. Wel, first look
get the full strength of the armor.
it can get to you. If an attack does enough
at all of the individual stop-
damage to exceed the cover’s SP, the rest
Bonus Armor Table
ping powers: gambeson (3),
of the damage strikes you and must get
brigandine (12), and plate
through your armor before doing damage
armor (20). Now subtract
Difference in SP
Bonus Armor
to you.
the gambeson from the brig-
0-4
+5
Common Cover Table
andine and we get 9. If we
compare that to the table it
5-8
+4
shows us that with the gam-
9-14
+3
Cover
SP
beson and brigandine our
15-20
+2
Stone wal
30
SP becomes 15 (12+3). We
then subtract that 15 from
Large tree
30
the SP 20 plate armor and
Armor Piercing
Brick wal
25
get 5. Consulting our table
Wooden wal
5
again the total SP we have is
There are two armor piercing levels in the
24. We also have a total EV
Witcher TRPG: armor piercing and im-
Heavy wooden door
15
proved armor piercing
of 3.
. Armor piercing
Steel door
20
weapons negate the damage resistance of
Cart
10
any armor that they hit. Improved armor
piercing weapons not only ignore damage
Tent
5
Human Shields
resistance but also halve the SP value of the
Thatch roof
7
As Cover
armor they hit.
Wooden barrel
10
If you are using a human
Staged Penetration
Brambles
7
shield and someone tries
Attacks that hurt you also damage your ar-
to attack you through
mor, making it less resilient to further at- Human Shields
the “shield” they must
tacks. Each attack that penetrates a piece of We all knew it would come to this. Yes,
do enough damage to
armor and does damage to the wearer re- people, animals, and monsters can count
get past the “shield’s”
duces the SP of the armor by 1 point. When as cover when in a pinch or feeling vindic-
BODY stat, plus any
the SP reaches 0, the armor is ful y broken tive! To use a person or creature as a hu-
torso armor they have.
and no longer soaks any damage. In the case man shield you have to put them between
The “shield” takes dam-
of shields and weapons, blocking an attack you and the attack by rolling a Brawling or
age as if they had been
negates the attack but reduces the item’s re- Physique check against their Physique or
hit and any damage that
liability or SP by 1. When the shield’s SP or Dodge/Escape. If you succeed, they are hit
penetrates the “shield’s”
weapon’s reliability reaches 0 it’s useless for by the attack instead of you. If you are al-SP (BODY+Armor) hits
blocking or attacking. Weapons and armor ready grappling or pinning the person, you
you in the torso.
can be fixed with appropriate crafting rol s are not required to make this roll and the
(see the Crafting section).
creature you are holding is considered cov-
er for your torso. Any attack that hits your
torso hits the “shield” instead of you. For
information on attacking through a human
shield, see the sidebar.
156
Reliability
Criticals and Fumbles
Lost Teeth &
The reliability of a weapon determines how Fortune plays a big role on the battlefield.
easy it is to break. Not only will this apply You may get lucky and strike a vital loca-
Dented Helmets
if you attempt to block with the weapon tion, but you could just as easily trip on a
Didya know my back five
(see Staged Penetration) but it also applies rock. Criticals and fumbles have more im-teeth on my left side are
to fumbles. If you fumble an attack, block, portance during combat than in everyday
wooden? Yeah. Second War
or parry with your weapon it can take extra encounters.
took a bit more outta me
reliability damage.
When you roll a natural 10 on
than I figured goin’ in. Also
10-sided die you’ve rolled a critical. Roll
taught me not to rely on hel-
Wounds
again and add both rol s. If you roll another
mets too much. For a while
Assuming your armor didn’t stop an attack, 10, roll a third time and add that value too.
I wore a helmet like a lotta
you take damage. Enough lethal damage This can continue many times and doesn’t
the other lads. One battle,
will begin to hamper your actions. This is end until you fail to roll a 10. For example,
the black ones broke our pike
called your wound threshold, and it var- rolling a 7 after rolling a 10, gives you a total line and hit the arbalists hard.
ies based on your maximum Health Points. of 17. However, if you roll a 10 after rolling
I grabbed my axe but some
When your current HP goes below your a 10 you roll again. This new value is added
bloody bastard got me with
wound threshold, you halve your REF, DEX, to the 20 you rolled before.
a blow to the head so hard
INT, and WILL: you’re holding yourself to-
Not only do criticals allow you to
my jaw snapped shut and
gether with sheer wil power and adrenaline. hit opponents with ease, they also give you
I crushed five of my teeth.
a chance to inflict punishing and lethal crit-
Lucky I puled my tongue in
Wound Threshold Table
ical wounds on your opponent.
or I’d have a hard time bein’
Fumbles, on the other hand, are a
the chatty son a bitch I am
warrior’s worst enemy. When you roll a nat-
Max Health
Threshold
now, heh.
ural 1 on a 10-sided die, roll again and sub-
–Rodolf Kazmer
15
3
tract the next value from your base. Just like
20
4
criticals, if you roll a natural 10 after rolling
a natural 1, you must roll again and subtract
25
5
that value as wel . You cannot drop your
30
6
base below a value of 0. As an example, rol -
35
7
ing a 7 after rolling 1 means that you sub-
40
8
tract 7 from your base. So if you had a 7 REF
and a +6 Swordsmanship, your roll would
45
9
bring you to 6. However, if you roll a 10 after
50
10
rolling a 1, you roll again. Say you get a 4.
55
11
This means you subtract 14 from your base
60
12
and bottom out at 0. Just as criticals can dis-
able enemies, fumbles punish you based on
65
13
how high your negative was, as shown in the
70
14
Fumble Outcome table.
157
Fumble Table
Roll Type
Result
1-5: No major fumble.
6: Your weapon glances off and
you are staggered.
7: Your weapon lodges in a near-
by object and it takes 1 round
to free.
Reflex
8: You damage your weapon se-
(Melee)
verely. Your weapon takes 1d10
points of reliability damage.
9: You manage to wound your-
self. Roll for location.
>9: You wound a nearby al y.
Roll location on a random al y
within range.
1-5: No major fumble.
6: Your weapon takes 1d6 extra
points of reliability damage.
7: Your weapon is knocked from
your hand and flies 1d6 meters
away in a random direction (see
Reflex
Scatter table).
Defending 8: You are knocked to the
ground. You are now prone and
must make a Stun save.
9: Your weapon takes 2d6 extra
points of reliability damage.
>9: Your weapon ricochets back
The Witcher Pen & Paper RPG Page 35