Kayne
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Re: Dealing w/ Lethality

Tue 26 Nov 2019, 15:00

Thanks for response, Fenhorn!

The NPC are trying to take out other PCs first, the more intelligent the better picks they do (like for example, take down minstrel first, archers later and the tank in the end) but usually this Orc takes down one or two enemies per turn and runs through battlefield, so it's pretty hard. However on last sessions players were attacked by flying demon on suspensed wooden bridge so Orc coulnd't do much and most of the actions were taken by minstrel and two other players which are great with bows.

About Berserker trait, you are completely right. I totally forgot that he can stand up only on next turn (in comparison to UNBREAKABLE trait which allows to to stand up immedietaly). And also I forgot about possibility of loosing weapon. I need to reread these rules one more time I guess and refresh my memory.

Ok, that's great! This opens a few more possibilites for my NPCs and monsters to make some damage to this Orc.
 
Mr Oldtimer
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Re: Dealing w/ Lethality

Tue 26 Nov 2019, 19:28

Don’t forget that engaging trolls in hand to hand combat, or rather on arms lenght, will deal a point of damage to agility that can’t be soaked by armor. Each round. Having 6 points in strenght usually means less points in agility. A good way to take down tank fighters...
 
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Ebrim
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Re: Dealing w/ Lethality

Tue 26 Nov 2019, 20:01

Do you make your Orc hold two fingers in his mouth every time he talks? Should be a requirement for Orc players.
 
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Eldhierta
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Re: Dealing w/ Lethality

Wed 27 Nov 2019, 16:22

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.
How many sessions in are you? From all the dice you're throwing about and all talents in play I'd place you at least thirty sessions in. And then I think a certain power level could be acceptable. Start playing around with gods and ancient curses, go toe to toe with Quetzel or send them to slaughter the demonic siblings in the Bright Vault. There are challenges to be had in this game, I promise you.
 
PencilBoy99
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Re: Dealing w/ Lethality

Sat 30 Nov 2019, 05:00

Thanks!
 
Alucard89
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Re: Dealing w/ Lethality

Tue 03 Dec 2019, 14:42

Thanks for response, Fenhorn!

The NPC are trying to take out other PCs first, the more intelligent the better picks they do (like for example, take down minstrel first, archers later and the tank in the end) but usually this Orc takes down one or two enemies per turn and runs through battlefield, so it's pretty hard. However on last sessions players were attacked by flying demon on suspensed wooden bridge so Orc coulnd't do much and most of the actions were taken by minstrel and two other players which are great with bows.

About Berserker trait, you are completely right. I totally forgot that he can stand up only on next turn (in comparison to UNBREAKABLE trait which allows to to stand up immedietaly). And also I forgot about possibility of loosing weapon. I need to reread these rules one more time I guess and refresh my memory.

Ok, that's great! This opens a few more possibilites for my NPCs and monsters to make some damage to this Orc.
Actually RAW Berserker works same as Unbreakable. 

Unbreakable: "you can spend Willpower Points to immediately get back on your feet".

Berserker: "You immediately recover as many points in the attribute that has been decreased to zero as your rank in BERSERKER". There is no mention about anything taking place "next turn". 

So RAW they both allow you to get up immediately as recovering points means you get up. I think Berserker was desigend as sort of "alternative" for non-orc players but since Orc can also take it... 

Sure, you can houserule it to work that way but at this point it may be taken by your players as "Ok, I am gonna now nerf your talents". Imo such houserules should be introduced at the beginning of playing since maybe now your players wouldn't want to take those talent? 

But, getting back to your problem with that Orc player.


Also I would be careful at trying to find a ways to kill/hurt that Orc player (or rest of the party) on purpose . First of all if I am correct - I think that he is the the only melee/tank player? It seems he build his character well so he can protect rest of his party and be a meat shield for them. Which imo proves he tries to cover his party weakness when it comes to melee combat. I see nothing wrong with that. Seems like party has great synergy. Which is also good as teamwork is always better then bunch of solo rambos (my party sadly...). Another thing - are other players salty about this player being so strong or do they enjoy their party right now? Does Orc player roleplaying well or he/she is just "me swing, me kill" and is not participating in roleplaying at all? 

Because if this player is just good at what he built for (he built master Fighter, he is master at fighting) - it seems ok to me. Rest of the party is very vulnerable without him so I think it's good that they got themselves a tank. It makes party want to stick together and have clear roles. I bet that Orc player is not really good at social or survival things so he sacrificed a lot to be good at combat, so him killing everything and being hard to kill is kind of.... to be expected? 

You also said you had encounter on bridge and Orc player couldn't do anything because he is melee monster. So he/she is also not really good at ranged combat. So you have a player who put well build Fighter that is monster in melee, hard to kill in melee but he is not really good at anything else - seems fine to me. 

Also, as I fellow GM I can give you one advice - don't try to "win" vs that player, planning how to kill him or make him obsolete etc. unless it serves a story. Such GM vs Player fighting usually ends up in bitterness at table and if your players are having fun right now - It would be shame to suddenly break it. Just play the game and let players enjoy themselves. Not every story in Forbidden Lands needs to end up with players dying :). Remember also that not all players like to play super deadly settings. I don't know your players but if they have fun the way they are playing right now and they didn't show any sign of "we want game to be deadlier and harder" - they might not really care about that.

Fun at table is the most important thing. Rest is just recommendations.
Last edited by Alucard89 on Tue 03 Dec 2019, 15:01, edited 1 time in total.
 
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Fenhorn
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Re: Dealing w/ Lethality

Tue 03 Dec 2019, 14:58

The Berserker talent has been clarified that you get up on your next turn in the 2nd printing of the Player's Handbook.

You can read more in this post (or the entire thread actually).

Link to a good post regarding this.
“Thanks for noticin' me.” - Eeyore
 
Alucard89
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Re: Dealing w/ Lethality

Tue 03 Dec 2019, 15:04

The Berserker talent has been clarified that you get up on your next turn in the 2nd printing of the Player's Handbook.

You can read more in this post (or the entire thread actually).

Link to a good post regarding this.
Hm, do I miss something or official errata doesn't mention anything of that?: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rvuhlstdhkf28 ... G.pdf?dl=0 

Because if it's not in errata- it not really official, at least for me. Was there another one?

Anyway @Kayne - if you want to change how the talent works now (I assume you and your players are already months into playing together judging from amount of xp) I would at least offer player to refund those xp points if he/she wants, because changing talent now after months of ruling it may be little bitter without allowing for talent change.

I personally have rule that I don't change rulings in the mid of current campaign (unless something is really really super broken and destroys every session and frustrates everyone) and always present all erratas and houserule at the beginning of new one. 
Last edited by Alucard89 on Tue 03 Dec 2019, 15:29, edited 1 time in total.
 
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Fenhorn
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Re: Dealing w/ Lethality

Tue 03 Dec 2019, 15:26

The Berserker talent has been clarified that you get up on your next turn in the 2nd printing of the Player's Handbook.

You can read more in this post (or the entire thread actually).

Link to a good post regarding this.
Hm, do I miss something or official errata doesn't mention anything of that?: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rvuhlstdhkf28 ... G.pdf?dl=0 
They only wrote the "big changes" in the official errata list. Some people in the thread in my link above have simply checked both printings to see everything (big and small) that they have changed.

For the orc's talent and the berserker talent, there was a discussion about this in the Swedish section. Some pointed out that it could be bad to use the talents since both talents require you to be broken and that most likely mean that you are prone (probably also not holding your weapon) and since the talents doesn't give you any free actions or making you all of a sudden stand up (the use of the word immediately is unfortunate). What people pointed out was that until the orc/berserker get a new turn, anyone can attack him, probably breaking him again. Especially since everyone will know that the orc/berserker will rise again, he just doesn't have any actions yet. Tomas said in that discussion that, the orc doesn't have to use the talent when he goes down, he can use it when he get his next turn and then he does have two fresh actions. This way, the orc would still be broken during all the enemies turns, preventing them from attacking him (other than with coup de grace) and then on the orc/berserker's next turn he can rise with his two new actions to use.
“Thanks for noticin' me.” - Eeyore
 
Alucard89
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Re: Dealing w/ Lethality

Tue 03 Dec 2019, 15:35

The Berserker talent has been clarified that you get up on your next turn in the 2nd printing of the Player's Handbook.

You can read more in this post (or the entire thread actually).

Link to a good post regarding this.
Hm, do I miss something or official errata doesn't mention anything of that?: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rvuhlstdhkf28 ... G.pdf?dl=0 
They only wrote the "big changes" in the official errata list. Some people in the thread in my link above have simply checked both printings to see everything (big and small) that they have changed.

For the orc's talent and the berserker talent, there was a discussion about this in the Swedish section. Some pointed out that it could be bad to use the talents since both talents require you to be broken and that most likely mean that you are prone (probably also not holding your weapon) and since the talents doesn't give you any free actions or making you all of a sudden stand up (the use of the word immediately is unfortunate). What people pointed out was that until the orc/berserker get a new turn, anyone can attack him, probably breaking him again. Especially since everyone will know that the orc/berserker will rise again, he just doesn't have any actions yet. Tomas said in that discussion that, the orc doesn't have to use the talent when he goes down, he can use it when he get his next turn and then he does have two fresh actions. This way, the orc would still be broken during all the enemies turns, preventing them from attacking him (other than with coup de grace) and then on the orc/berserker's next turn he can rise with his two new actions to use.
Thanks for clarification, it makes sense. Actually I was always ruling that you don't have to use your talent if you don't want to unless it's passive like Fearless or Defender 2 etc. So my Dwarf player with Berserker sometimes use it immediately and sometimes waits with it for next turn. Depends on initiative etc. So I don't think any change in errata was needed, but I understand reasoning. But I always thought that " recover immediately" is just an effect of Berserker/Unbreakable but you can activate your talents whenever you want. Since activating talent doesn't cost action, nothing was stopping player to activate both at the beginning of his next turn. But I can see how people would read it differently. Some things are ruled very "lousy" to say the least (like in every RPG).

As for holding weapons - that is again house ruling, nothing in RAW about that and applying logic in RPG leads to unnecessary complications, so I would be careful with it. Adding more and more rulings which will clearly be targeted at that specific player (or players) will only lead to player thinking that GM targets him personally and that will end up bad for whole table from my experience. I would definitely advise against adding unnecessary complications to "Get Up" talents like "you need to pick weapons + your are prone so you need fast action to get up" etc. because that can be seen (understandably) as very frustrating rulings, so I would just stick to simple RAW rule of "you get up from broken ready to continue fighting thanks to your talent". That is just my opinion but I don't like to be "against players" myself.

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