So here comes my first question on the board, a really basic one, but I'm still slightly confused. If you hit a named character, but the outcome is zero, do the attack still damage the opponent but only with the static weapon/fist/kick/str etc damage? For some reason I thought it wouldn't, that you at least needed an outcome of one, so it wasn't just the static part of the damage. For some reason I wanted a dynamic part of the damage and a static part. All the examples I can find in the book there is an outcome above zero.
I think I also got tricked into thinking this way by reading the rules for unnamed characters getting hit, in there it says "If the Outcome is between 1 and 4, the GM may elect to describe various ill effects [and so on]", no mention that it should be between 0 and 4 if it should rhyme with rule of how you determine success.
I've always assumed (and played it) that an Outcome of 0 can still do damage. But then again, I've always ruled that something interesting happens to a mook with an Outcome of 0, too.
I can't remember if I've seen any official clarification about this anywhere.
I've not had this come up but unconsciously I guess I've always gone with the traditionalist view that Damage = Wounds, so if something doesn't actually affect your life stat in some way, it isn't standard physical damage, because it doesn't get past your Toughness. It might bruise you or count as "damage" but not "Damage", so I think this a per-GM ruling. This applies doubly for named characters, sometimes I didn't even consider 1 o 2 pts of real Damage or Wounds lost much of note for named characters, barely worthy of being called Damage, but that's my GM style - for the technical rule-triggering needs, they still count of course, as long as the Outcome raise actually means Damage is inflicted. If the Outcome increase doesn't bring actual damage with it that brings it above the Toughness, then to me it isn't damage - it might be an impressive hit, knockback, etc. but not significant lasting effect.
The text of the Combat Beiefing in the back of the rule book would indicate that having an Outcome of 0 could do dame to a named character. The 0 Outcome is just not adding anything to the formula.
If the resault obtained is 0 or less, when you use the formula above, the character suffers no Wound Points.
An Outcome of 0 can cause damage to an Unnamed Character, but the GM doesn't have the option of electing to the describe varrious il effects suffered of the attack if the Outcome was a 1-4.
Wow looks like I picked the wrong week to quit injecting the blood of my enemies into my eyeballs. Yes I totally agree with these last two posts. If that is what the OP is asking, if an attack still does damage if the Outcome is less than 1, YES, as long as it exceeds the target's Toughness. The Outcome is just EXTRA damage. The base damage is still damage. I should not post when I'm astral projecting.
We tried it out yesterday, effectively lowering the difficulty with one for mooks to hit the players (which seems to end up being a lot), that combined with the mooks being lots of them and having shotguns ended up with four out of the five players having to roll death checks, two of them ending up unconscious and one dying.
So the PCs got hit a lot more by mooks, it did nothing for them hitting mooks and it is even against named, they get hit more, but also hit the enemy more often.
You might have to give an example or two, I'm not clear on how us answering question about an outcome of 0 doing damage equals lowering the difficulty for mooks and your players all having to roll death checks - what enormous point did I miss that resulted in that?! I really feel like something went over my head.
Previously a mook with 8 in guns needed to roll +6 to hit a PC with dodge 13, now they needed +5. If I understand the probability chart (that I can't recollect where I found) the probability goes from 9.5328 to 11.4286 per cent, so that PC will get hit 20 per cent more than before (if I can think correctly this time of day.)
Against dodge 14, 7.1429 to 9.5238 per cent, that PC will be hit 33 per cent more than before.
This combined with us playing the Blood for the Master scenario from Marked for Death and the scene involves 20 swat-mooks with a mix of 10 damage SMGs and 13 damage shotguns that the PCs angered ended up with a lot of hits on the gang.
If your using a premade adventure you may want to modify stats, etc so it fits your group better. The fan book Out for Blood has some very good advice on making fights in a game balanced.
Note that the SWAT team members are armed with Sig-Sauer P-220 pistols. They are 7+1, capacity, not a 9+1.
Marked for Death's adventures from what I understand were written using a draft copy of the core rules so some things don't work out perfectly. If you go to play the Shaolin Heartbrak scenerio, get the text only version Allen Varney has made available online at his website. It has some text that got cut from the publish version in it, and Mr. Varney had some notes on why the NPCs ended up with the schticks they did.
You miight want to offer some comat advice if you think they need it, to rember things like cover and using things in the fight scene to their advantage. Running is a good tactic and making the enemy divide up forces so they don't face them all at once.
If your running a fight that is ballanced and the players just do something incedibly stupid that causes them to get injured or even lose characters. They have only themselves to blame.
If your dealing with new players, running a sample fight or 2 before you actualy start running a game may be helpful. So they can see how the system works and experiment, while not have to wory about having charaters injured or killed.
We are going to start the next session with the discussion on what kind of action movie they want to emulate, the Asian genre where heroes die, sometimes a lot or the Hollywood genre where basically everything ends well for the hero every single time (except if it is a western).
The scene in question was nothing that couldn't be avoided by not throwing a grenade at the swat-mooks when they came in. The PC that ended up dead made three mistakes in a row, first separating from the group by staying inside the pizzeria/temple, and then once inside separating from the NPC that he was in there with, and finally having chosen to min-max his character and opting out from placing any points in fortune and thereby missing his death check by one ...
So I'll ask them how much they'll like to be penalized for making bad choices.