Is it possible for an uninjured PC to be killed with one blow? I mean outright killed, not dying.

As it reads, the PC must already have one Wound, then receive a 2nd Wound and reduced to zero Endurance (or be unconscious/unable to defend themselves).

So no troll smashing an uninjured dwarf's head to pulp with one swing?

From what I can remember off the top of my head, there are no explicitly stated instances when a completely hale hero can be killed outright. However, I personally feel that a sleeping/intoxigated/insane hero could easily be killed with one blow, but I think that's more of a Loremaster choice. I suppose you could argue that as the combat is turn based, all attacks are really happening simultaneously, so if your dwarf was shot and wounded by an archer and then squashed and wonded by the troll, who would theoretically have been killed instantly, though it may not appear as such. That's my opinion anyway

As far as I can recall, this is the closest you can come to an 'insta-kill'. However, I'm still reading so I could have missed something.

This may be a case of the spirit of the game taking precedence over realism.

In Tolkien insta-kills seem to be reserved for NPC opponents, and used chiefly to showcase the heroism of the protagonists.

Orcs fall with cloven heads, or skewered on spears. Boromir is "pierced by many arrows" but still lives long enough to give a dying speech to Aragorn. Theoden King falls trapped beneath Snowmane and gets to speak a farewell. Thorin is overwhelmed in the fighting at the Lonely Mountain but takes many goblins with him.

I should note that in the style of play to which I have become accustomed the needs of the story suprcede the rules mechanics, so if there is a story need for a hero to be killed by a single blow, he will be.

I don't actually intend to one off a PC. It's just coming from a Warhammer (v2) background, I've seen it happen (but there they may have Fate Points to fall back on) and I thought it odd that TOR pc's were slightly care-beared in that regard.

Also, my experience has been that players have a healthy respect for combat and tend to avoid it when they know at anytime they are one arrowhead or one knife thrust away from the long sleep.

I inwardly sigh with relief when they bribe/talk their way out of or flee from combat that any normal, sane person would know isn't going to end well.


Thanks all for the replies, and I agree with Garn that No Quarter is the closest a PC will come to be insta-killed (for now).

Not always IMHO. There are a couple of instances where heroes are also felled by single blows in an instant. Both Galdor the Tall and his son Huor were killed by arrows shot through the eyes. Náin was killed by Azog when the latter broke Náin's neck with a mighty swing. For all of these, regardless whether the heroes were wounded and/or weary before, these blows/hits themselves were instantly deadly.
Shots through the eyes seem to have been quite "popular" for Tolkien for such cases, since Arathron II, Aragorn's father was killed in the same fashion by orcs.

Therefore it is IMO not justified to narrow it down to "heroes die heroically with dying words" and fodder like orcs die quickly with instantly killing blows.

Even in Middle-earth, great heroes have been (and probably continue to be) felled by single, instantly killing hits to vital areas. And here technically and logically it doesn't matter whether the hero was weary and/or wounded before or in full health and well-rested.

Cheers
Tolwen