Fatiguing Strike and Skull Hits

[mlangsdorf]

I have a Mystic Knight with the Fatiguing Strike Imbuement and a broadsword that does 2d+1 cu damage normally. My knight hits an unarmored man in the skull with his broadsword while using Fatiguing Strike, so the attack is a 2d+1 fat attack. I roll a 4 on the damage roll.

What happens to the target? Does he lose 2 FP or 8 FP? Assuming he started with 10 HP and 10 FP, does he need to make a knockdown check, and if so, is it at a penalty? For that matter, if he doesn't have High Pain Threshold, does he suffer a shock penalty?

My best reading of the rules is that the x4 wounding modifier for skull hits applies, and the strike does 8 FP of fatigue. But it is not an injury, because no HP are lost, and thus there isn't a shock penalty or knockdown check. But it doesn't look like the rules on location hits, shock, and major wounds were adjusted to take into account fatigue attacks, so I'm not sure what the intent of the rules is.

[Rupert]

Campaigns says (B398) that Fatigue damage always ignores hit locations.

[mlangsdorf]

Nice! I missed that.

Still, an 8 point fatiguing strike to the torso of an unarmored 10 HP, 10 FP foe still doesn't cause a major wound because there's no injury. I think that's correct but it's not entirely obvious if that's true.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Nice! I missed that.

Still, an 8 point fatiguing strike to the torso of an unarmored 10 HP, 10 FP foe still doesn't cause a major wound because there's no injury. I think that's correct but it's not entirely obvious if that's true.

Well, it's not doing an injury of greater than 1/2 your HP, because it's not doing HP damage, so I'd say it can't cause a major wound, or a shock penalty (and thus no knockdown and stunning either).

What I'm not sure on is whether a massive FP loss that put you into negative FP and thus caused HP loss could cause a major wound.

[mlangsdorf]

We've already house-ruled that fatiguing attacks can't do HP injury even if you go below 0 FP. Because otherwise the doctor's "mercy" attacks had a higher death toll than the brutal wrestler's deliberate neck snaps. You can work yourself to death or starve, but a knock-out attack can't kill you.

But okay, I think I understand how this works, now.

[Eric Funk]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

We've already house-ruled that fatiguing attacks can't do HP injury even if you go below 0 FP. Because otherwise the doctor's "mercy" attacks had a higher death toll than the brutal wrestler's deliberate neck snaps. You can work yourself to death or starve, but a knock-out attack can't kill you.

But okay, I think I understand how this works, now.

Consider Rules as Written for Fatigue (B426)

At 1/3 FP left (And below) (3 or less for average FP10 human) target is at half dodge, move, ST. -- a sitting duck for further attacks.

At 0 FP, as above and the target is effectively out of combat after statistically one more action before fainiting. (10 or less is 50-50 odds). (but "Good" heroes beware of the heart attack clause)

At -FP, auto unconsciousness (out of combat).


I believe part of the implications for the HP loss at 0 FP is for a shock penalty to further actions. (B419) It also stems from the GURPS Magic system of exertion of life force at that point...

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Eric Funk

I believe part of the implications for the HP loss at 0 FP is for a shock penalty to further actions. (B419) It also stems from the GURPS Magic system of exertion of life force at that point...

I've always wondered whether to double-count that where applicable.

We know there's ways to mitigate shock (IQ/DX penalty) suffered from points of injury, such as "High HP and Shock" or just having "High Pain Threshold"

Burning HP (B237/M8) which is necessitated by Magery limited with Injurious Magic (T25) works differently though. It specifies:

"This is instead of the usual shock penalty for injury, and High Pain Threshold has no effect."

The "instead" makes me think "don't double-count it" but does that actually mean that this injury doesn't cause shock? Or just that... the shock happens AFTER the spell is cast?

We know spell rolls are made before energy is spent (since the outcome determines cost) which I think would mean that you could still apply shock penalties to the NEXT turn, but it's not happening during the turn, which is why a unique "burning HP" penalty is introduced instead.

Of course this circles back to an old dilemma of - what if that penalty influences your crit range for paying no energy whatsoever (crit success) or only 1 energy (normal failure) which we got a 2005 errata for at http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...8&postcount=12 saying the HP cost is always full and not reduced to 1 on failures.

This makes me want to look at it like some kind of special skill where you get a temporary pool of magic-only FP that lasts a second in exchange for spending HP. That way it would fit under the normal system easier. There might even be a way to design that using GURPS Powers for an Energy Reserve.