Wight question

[MikMod]

A wight can only be harmed by missile spells and magic weapons.

So if a wight of an armoured warrior is hit by a +1 magic sword, what damage is done:

A) Normal sword damage, +1 for magic, minus the wights armour

B) One point of magic damage, stopped by the armour

C) Normal sword damage +1 for magic, wights armour isn't not really effective 'armour' and stops no hits from the 'magic' attack

D) One point of magic damage. The wights armour isn't 'real' armour here.

And any thoughts about wight talents like Toughness?!

Many thanks in advance!

[tomc]

It's pretty much up to what the GM wants to do. But that's how I've always played... And there's certainly no need to be consistent in my world.

I'd rule that the wight's armor has no effect, and since the weapon is magic, it does all of it's damage, not just the +1.

[hcobb]

What if the Wight had known Shield Expertise or other combat talents while she was alive?

[Shostak]

Solution A sounds like the best to me.

[Chris Rice]

I would play as option A, unless the Wights armour has rotted away with time.

[larsdangly]

I can't picture doing anything other than A. This seems to me like another of the many instances where the specific wording of the RAW permits a number of interpretations, but most readings don't pass the sniff test when you think through their implications. TFT is particularly rich in these sorts of ambiguities, I think because it is written in a relatively loose, informal way, yet describes a game that has all the tightly fitting gears and pulleys of chess.

[Skarg]

I think the intention is surely option A.

I can see a possible interpretation E though, which would be the armor is solid and protects against the normal damage, and then if that damage is equal to or greater than the armor, then the magic damage is done.

(Would be wicked, though.)

[MikMod]

I was thinking D might be right, because the wight is a kind of ghost, a sort of image of the person that was, with no physicality, so the 'armour' isn't going to work like actual armour, and the size of the sword isn't relevant here, it's how magical it is.

Of course it's not totally clear how the wight is causing physical damage if it's not physically present...

I guess if A is correct then people are happy for the wight to also have Toughness and Shield talent, etc?

[Skarg]

Yeah, MikMod, there is a wide range of possible self-consistent interpretations or choices GMs could apply to how they work in their games, of course. As you wrote, if the armor is ghostly maybe it doesn't protect them especially if a magical weapon only does the damage amount of its magic.

In that case though, the GM would have to answer what happens if a magic weapon hits a wight that doesn't do any magic bonus damage, such as sword enchanted for DX +1. No damage? 1 damage?

I tend to think that since the Wight description says to use the ST, DX, MA, and "carries the weapon it used in life" and "makes only normal physical attacks", that the Wight would be able to use the combat talents it had in life. I'd probably tend to give them all the arms they had in life (maybe minus any enchantment effects), and have that armor protect them from magic attacks as if they were all there. OR, to have the Wight only have a weapon and no other equipment.

At least, that'd be my generic baseline. I tend to rarely use ghosts at all, and I also tend to actually have pretty specific versions and variations of things when I do put them in a campaign.

[hcobb]

You see a dead body behind the wight and grab the magic sword he carried in life to use against its spectral twin.