My group is new to games that are as lethal as Forbidden Lands - it's very easy to die in combat (you're broken and then roll badly on the table). What things can player's do to manage this lethally?

1. Avoid combat
2. Armor and Helment
3. Avoid combat
4. Ranged w/ Cover
5. Saving Actions for parry,

etc.

Lethality goes both ways... Strike first.

Biggest thing is looking for solutions to problems that aren't "hit it until it goes away."

If that's by far the most desired solution then the party should be looking for as many ways to stack the odds in their favor before the hitting begins because once the hitting begins anything can happen.

Finally, it is very easy for the players to be broken but far less likely for them to die outright. It can happen, but it's not going to happen as frequently as you might be thinking. When your players are broken, let them live if it's at all plausible given the situation. If the bandits got the better of them, they're not going to go around murdering each of them in cold blood, maybe they'll try to ransom them or sell them off to slavers or Rust brothers. Usually there's a way to "let them live". That said, if they die, they die - don't go out of your way to save them from death to the detriment of the story or to cheapen their experience.

In our experience so far it's very easy to get Broken in combat, and then it's just a random roll on the lethality table with about a 12% of a crippling permanent injury or death (on the slash table for example).

One of the best defensive strategies is to get the Talents that grant free Dodge or Parry checks. When combined with Talents that grant extra attacks, the PCs in my group hack their way through enemies and monsters pretty easily. The key might be to just survive the first few sessions so you can get enough XP to buy these Talents.

Run away. Our AP campaign is mostly about our characters running away.

There's also the "Lucky" talent that further reduces the chances of dying/being severely crippled with a critical injury if all your plans go wrong. Just the first rank (3XP, lets you roll twice and keep the better roll) can be really useful

There's also the "Lucky" talent that further reduces the chances of dying/being severely crippled with a critical injury if all your plans go wrong. Just the first rank (3XP, lets you roll twice and keep the better roll) can be really useful

Heh, as soon as lucky shows up I figure it’s time for npcs with executioner to become more common.

Actually I have completely different experience. FL is (almost) not deadly at all. It's very difficult to kill player characters. For example I have one player which created Orc with 6 Strength and profession Fighter. The Unbreakable trait from Orc and Berserker general trait makes this character unkillable. Especially if you are wearing plate armor and with Fast Footwork (you can stand up as free action), it's very very difficult to break your Strength and even if you do, with Lucky trait there's very small chance for killing your character and thanks to Unbreakable and Berserker trait you never lay down and do nothing - you always instantly stands back up and kill whatever is trying to kill you.


And because this character is unstoppable (and has above 15 dices for each attack and have two attacks in turn due to double weaponry) I can't even make much damage to other player characters, because this Orc will just never get knocked down and just goes crazy on battlefield and rushes from one enemy to other. You could go for damaging Wits… But with Fearless trait it's difficult. Damaging Empathy can leads to frenzy breakout - which is exactly what player wants and by rules it's his to pick an outcome. There's always an Agility… But even if things go south (due very bad dice rolling for example) there's always a Minstrel in team to quickly regenerate your falling comrades. And there's OP goblin wolf raider which shoots to kill making circles around his team mates.

So if your players knows what they're doing while creating and then developing their characters, then there's almost no chance to kill player character. And it's good and bad.

That orc is extreme. If That group would have been NPCs and I would be a player, I would plan to take out his comrades first and just try to avoid him.

Also remember with the Berserker traits, he will still suffer all the effects from being broken. This does not only mean the critical injury, but also that he will fall (if broken in strength or agility) and most likely also drop his weapons. The talent only let you recover attribute points (on his next turn), it doesn't give you free actions. This mean that he will for a little while be broken. Anyone near him can move to him and perform a Coup de Grace on him or grapple him.

Also to be broken by Empathy is not the same as using the berserker talent (or unbreakable talent). He will still be broken and he will explode in a violent outburst, kicking and breaking everything around him (or withdraw). This doesn't necessary mean that he will do combat any particular foe in a controllable fashion. This is something that should be roleplayed and if the player can't do that, the GM will have to step in and play him for the duration of the outburst. It should never be a good thing to be broken. An orc can use his unbreakable kin talent to become unbroken again or those with the berserker talent can use that so they can go back into battle in a more controllable and normal way.