Mortal Wounds at high HT

[cccwebs]

The HT roll for preventing death is not a Quick Contest or a Regular Contest, but a success roll. If you wish to turn it into a "Contest" roll, then you effectively grant one of the features of the Unkillable advantage to every character with an effective HT score of 18+. (in other words, it would be impossible for a character with a modified HT of 18+ to ever die from a required HT check at the negative multiples of HP because it would be impossible to fail only by 1 or 2)

Really? You think that a HT 10 person who rolls 13-16 gets to live? That they don’t suffer the “worst result” (death), because it’s not a critical failure? Have you even read the death rules? "If you fail by only 1 or 2, you’re dying, but not dead" it says that twice.

No, in the case of the HT roll you only have 3 possible results, remain alive, "cling to life", and death. Any failure by 3 or more automatically generates the death result. Any failure by 1 or 2 generates the "cling to life" result. Any success generate the remain alive result. A Critical Success generates the best possible result, which in this case is remain alive. A Critical Failure generates the worst possible result (especially if it's an 18) which in this case is death. Since the "death check" isn't a Contest, ignoring the results of a critical doesn't apply, and quoting Kromm on Contest results doesn't help you in this case. (Especially when you insist that a 17 or 18 will be a failure regardless of modified HT, which BTW is a part of the rules you wish to ignore regarding Success Rolls which includes the rules for Critical Successes and Failures)

Though in this case, it doesn't really matter. You can continue to prioritize rules as you want, and I will do the same. Hopefully Kromm, or some other "official" entity might happen to stop in a grace us with an "official" answer. Until then, in my games (and in the games of many others who have responded in this thread) a critical failure of a HT roll which is required because of reaching a negative multiple of HP will result in death no matter what the HT score is. The only way out of that is to take Unkillable and remove the necessity to make the HT rolls entirely.

[cccwebs]

Asked and answered.
My PM to Kromm

Originally Posted by cccwebs

A question has come up relating to the required HT rolls to stay alive at -HP (the multiples) for a character with an effective HT score of 16 (or greater). Under Mortal Wounds (Campaigns p423) it indicates that if you fail the HT roll by 1 or 2 then you do not die but are Mortally Wounded. So, the question is if a character with an effective HT score of 16+ rolls an 18, does this fall under the "1 or 2" margin or would this be considered a critical failure which would result in death (since a Critical Failure should always result in something bad happening)? If we can ignore Critical Failures here, then a character with an effective HT score of 18+ would never suffer from the HT checks (to stay alive) at -HP, effectively gaining a part of the Unkillable advantage.

His response

Originally Posted by Kromm

For those with HT 16+, a 17 is an ordinary failure and a mortal wound. An 18 is a critical failure and means death.

[Wicked Lurker]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Would you prove that by sharing them? And also what a critical failure does for him? (which I admit I forgot to add in the OP, I'll edit it now)

I really don't think its hard to come up with these, but anyway-

Crit success on a deathroll:
get +1 on further rolls to avoid death in this combat or
if a deathroll in this combat fails its a major wound instead or
if you fail the next deathroll in this combat you fall unconscious instead.. etc.

Crit failure on a deathroll:
got dismembered (lost head, limb, cut in half), harder to resurrect etc. or
body was completely destroyed by the attack (treat as -50xHT damage) etc.

I never said it was. You said: I showed you a case where Criticals don't overrule.

I was also specifically mentioning success rolls.

[Gurps Fan]

Originally Posted by Kromm

For those with HT 16+, a 17 is an ordinary failure and a mortal wound. An 18 is a critical failure and means death.

Good one. That solved everything. And I just wasted hours on #20. Sigh.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by cccwebs

The HT roll for preventing death is not a Quick Contest or a Regular Contest, but a success roll.

Will you stop using strawman arguments? I never said it was a contest I said it was based on the margins like a contest.

Originally Posted by cccwebs

If you wish to turn it into a "Contest" roll,

I don’t. I’ve said this before. You keep saying that I want to turn it in to "Contest" roll. This is known as a "strawman argument". Because you’re unable to argue with what I’m really saying, you pretend I’m saying something else and argue against that.

Originally Posted by cccwebs

then you effectively grant one of the features of the Unkillable advantage to every character with an effective HT score of 18+. (in other words, it would be impossible for a character with a modified HT of 18+ to ever die from a required HT check at the negative multiples of HP because it would be impossible to fail only by 1 or 2)

You haven’t read the contest rules either have you? In a contest it’s still possible to fail by 1 or 2 (or more) no matter what your score.

If you’re mortally wounded, any failure = death; see my table for the probabilities. So no matter how high your HT, you can always suffer instant death at -2X HP, -3X HP and -4X HP.

Originally Posted by cccwebs

No, in the case of the HT roll you only have 3 possible results, remain alive, "cling to life", and death. Any failure by 3 or more automatically generates the death result. Any failure by 1 or 2 generates the "cling to life" result.

Criticals are covered by “any failure”. And when you have a HT of 16+ an 18 is failure by 1 or 2.

Originally Posted by cccwebs

(Especially when you insist that a 17 or 18 will be a failure regardless of modified HT, which BTW is a part of the rules you wish to ignore regarding Success Rolls which includes the rules for Critical Successes and Failures)

I'm not ignoring them, Your ignoring what I say and pretending I'm saying something else. I do agree 18 is still a critical failure (I said this back in post 14), I just don't think it's relivant.

Originally Posted by cccwebs

Until then, in my games (and in the games of many others who have responded in this thread) a critical failure of a HT roll which is required because of reaching a negative multiple of HP will result in death no matter what the HT score is.

No, you have to fail a HT roll to die, just reaching a negative multiple of HP doesn’t cause death.

[NineDaysDead]

I would find this more convincing if Kromm had noticed the falsehood in your argument:

Originally Posted by cccwebs

If we can ignore Critical Failures here, then a character with an effective HT score of 18+ would never suffer from the HT checks (to stay alive) at -HP, effectively gaining a part of the Unkillable advantage.

Really? How does it give part of the unkillable advantage? You can still die at -2X HP, -3X HP and -4X HP by failing by 1 or 2 and becoming mortally wounded, then failing again and dying. And you can become mortally wounded at all the same multiples, which isn’t fun.

[cccwebs]

Post massively edited in the interest of not getting myself banned on this forum because I responded to "flamebait"

What I will say, NineDaysDead, is that you are incorrect per the response from Kromm. The end result is that for the required HT roll (due to reaching a negative multiple of HT) for a HT 16+ character, a roll of 17 results in a Mortal Wound and an 18 results in death.


Deal with it.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

I would find this more convincing if Kromm had noticed the falsehood in your argument

That statement was irrelevant to my ruling. My ruling was one that I had given dozens of times before, and which should be a FAQ. The designers' intent was that 17 = failure = mortal wound, 18 = critical failure = dead. We thought it would be self-evident that on a success roll, which this is, and outside of a Contest, which this isn't, a critical failure would give the worst-case result. Here, that's clearly being dead. Unfortunately, I guess that was neither self-evident nor clear. But that's how the rule is supposed to work. No amount of HT buys you immunity to instant death by going to -HP and rolling an 18. To avoid that, get Luck.

[zogo]

Originally Posted by Kromm

No amount of HT buys you immunity to instant death by going to -HP and rolling an 18. To avoid that, get Luck.

Or of course buy Unkillable 1 and not have to roll at all ;-)

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by zogo

Or of course buy Unkillable 1 and not have to roll at all ;-)

Wouldn't Unliving also have the same effect?