Level 4 Harm
Just rereading the Harm rules and wanted to make sure I understand.
If you sustain level 4 harm, that’s fatal in all cases, right?
But if you suffer harm that rolls up to level 4 (because your level 3 harm box is already full), you might die, but equally, if the circumstances fit, you might instead be able to suffer a permanent physical disability of some kind. So it’s something akin to Trauma, but physical, like loss or limb, blindness, partial paralysis, need for a pacemaker, etc.
Is that basically it?
And once someone suffers level 4 and they aren’t killed off, I assume they’re removed from the scene in the same way as if they Trauma’d out, right?
(I guess theoretically, if you were unlucky enough to fill up all your level 1-3 harm boxes, you could hit level 4 with a level 1 harm, so having the option not to kill them outright is helpful there.)
That’s my reading too. If you suffer Level 4 harm straight up, it’s fatal. But if you suffer Level 3 harm when you’ve already got Level 3 harm, it might be fatal, but it might instead be a permanent character debility.
I think Level 4 harm is always fatal, but it doesn’t have to be immediately fatal (regardless of the way it’s obtained). Taking immediate action (and possibly very extreme action) to save someone could be on the table if the fiction permits. Are they wasting away, bleeding out, or missing a head? Some level 4 is more quick to get to the ghosting than others 🙂
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Sean Nittner It’s page 31 (39 on my PDF copy) that talks about “loss of a limb, sudden death, etc.” as a possible option for level 4 harm sustained through roll-up. Maybe your interpretation is right (you’re obviously a lot more involved in this project than I am), but it just read like the person might not die if they take another significantly severe consequence. Maybe it isn’t fatal if someone (PC or NPC) intervenes to prevent it?
I think John was giving us some options rather that setting this in stone. Looking at the two passages:
If you run out of spaces on the top row and need to mark harm there, your character suffers a catastrophic, permanent consequence (loss of a limb, sudden death, etc., depending on the circumstances).
That looks to me like the roll up to Level 4 harm can be just as instantly deadly as taking it directly, I mean “sudden death” is one of the examples he gives.
Harm examples
Fatal (4): Electrocuted, Drowned, Stabbed in the Heart.
So, stabbed in the heart sounds pretty bad. But drowned. How many movies have we seen where someone was drowned and we thought they were lost till a brave hero pounded their chest, breathed into their mouths, and prayed to all the forgotten gods, only to have the near-dead cough, spit up water, and keep ticking?
My big take away is that you let the fiction dictate what’s possible. If a Red Sash does Level 4 harm to you by decapitating you, that’s probably it for you. But if a Lampblack holds you head in the void sea until you stop shaking, maybe there is a chance.
This is off topic but i feel it would be ato missed opportunity to not mention the era appropriate treatment for apparent drowning.
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On a more serious note it seems important to me that, mechanically at least, the only way to FORCE level four harm is via rolling from level 3. Theres no roll (I dont think) that can technically force more than severe harm. And if the fiction demands it, say in the case of decapitation or falling off a building, a resistance roll could reduce it. At which point if it rolls back up to four its back into that grey area.
By a strict mechanical reading these rules cannot force character death on a group.
From everything I have heard John say (which is admittedly, A LOT), this is a gray area because of the philosophical decision he made about the game early on. About having players work out when things get deadly, for example, and giving them the tools to do these sorts of things and have interesting discussions when it does happen.
Sean Nittner sounds like Drowned can somehow be Not Drowned at your table. If you get drowned, I think you die. You have to resist (or another PC does) or the PC totally drowns. :shrug: maybe not important to you but it sounds like I maybe just misunderstood
And Mike Hoyer, I think that is one way to look at it, though I don’t exactly agree. I have in fact told a player his PC will die if his result was 1-3, which he then proceeded to do with three dice. He ended up resisting and taking 0 stress with 1 damned die, and using armor to get it down to Level 2! and still had armor to spare if he needed it. lul. So it’s really hard to do Any harm that sticks, but inflicting death is totally do-able (hell, advised I think), albeit one of those things you really only have to do once to set players’ expectations of what’s “too far”
Mark Cleveland Massengale Oh of course! I should clarify. I didn’t mean that there’s no way to kill characters in BITD, I just mean that the rules will never FORCE a table (both the players AND the GM) to kill a character. There’s no worry of the old “Critical failure when attacking a kobold; chopped off my own head” scenario popping up unexpectedly.
Mike Hoyer, thank you sir for that public safety tip, as well as for the nightmares I’ll have tonight.
As to the harm, the conversation that takes place with your group is the right one for you group.