Maybe this has been discussed already, but I don't recall, so please excuse me if it has...

It is possible for a hero who is Wounded to be treated, gain 2 Endurance points per prolonged rest, and then be Wounded again before he fully recovers (maximum Endurance). According to the rules, any hero that is Wounded a second time immediately falls unconscious. If he has been reduced to zero Endurance at the same time, he dies from a killing blow. Since the treated hero is still Wounded (the Wounded box will not be unchecked until he recovers maximum Endurance), he is affected by these rules and will either fall unconscious or die.

My question is: If the hero has already been treated and is Wounded again, does he need to be treated again?

I would say yes, because it is a fresh Wound. But this is not spelled out in the RAW. In fact, when discussing getting a second Wound, page 143 of the AB says, The second Wound is not recorded in any way. The character was simply knocked out, or passed out from shock. Maybe as a clarification in the Treating Wounds section on page 145 it could be explained that a fresh Wound requires treatment in order to gain 2 Endurance points per prolonged rest rather than 1.

You're right - it does not adequately spell this out. The not recorded in any way does seem to support that nothing more needs to be done - character just falls unconscious thanks to a second wound.

It makes more sense however that the second wound needs "treated" before having the advantage of a better healing.

However unless there's verbiage detailing that a character that "falls unconscious" needs to meet certain healing measures criteria before they can benefit from the Endurance recovery, then I would say that the RAW does not support the more logical approach (at least logical in my mind YMMV).

When Wounded again, I would say the treated Wound condition would become an untreated Wound condition.

JamesRBrown,
Well, this is awkward. I completely agree with the sentiment... but if I'm not mistaken your example character should be dead.

Let me repeat what I understood from your post, just to make sure I'm not making an error. You stated that the character had a Treated Wound and 2 Endurance. While in this condition he engages in further combat, receiving another Wound and was reduced to 0 Endurance (or less). So the character has 2 Wounds (1 treated, 1 untreated) and 0 Endurance at the end of combat.

If the above is correct, technically the character is dead because, according to the RAW, the character has received a Killing Blow (AB 143).

However, like you, I'm not sure that I particularly agree with this as it makes sudden death a bit too sudden. However, the posted suggestions conflict with Killing Blow.

See my next post...

Here is my suggested re-writes (in green) and deletions (in red). While this seems complex, this is meant more to update all of the affected bits to prevent dispute. (Black is unchanged text or commentary.)


Wounded (AB 143)
(1st Paragraph is unchanged.)

All Wounds inflicted on a character should be recorded, as a numeric count, in case further combat inflicts additional Wounds which aggravates their condition, causing unconsciousness or death.
(Note that this would require changing the Wounded checkbox on most Character Sheets to a field.)

Upon receiving additional Wounds, the character lapses into unconsciousness due to shock. All wounds need to be Treated in order to heal quicker (see Treating Wounds, below).


Knock Out
(1st Paragraph unchanged.)

When a character who has already been Wounded (regardless of Treated status) takes any additional Wounds, he immediately becomes unconscious (see below).

The second Wound is not recorded in any way. The character was simply knocked out, or passed out from shock.


Unconscious
A character who receives a second Wound (regardless of treated status) or who isn’t Wounded but is reduced to zero Endurance passes out and drops unconscious. He is now totally in the hands of his companions – or worse, in those of his opponents.

As soon as an unconscious character gains one or more Endurance points, he wakes up immediately (whether he fell unconscious due to loss of Endurance or because he was Wounded after his Wounded box was already checked).


Killing Blow
Adventurers are at risk of dying when they drop to zero Endurance while having an untreated Wound, but they can also be killed outright:

A character who is already Wounded is killed immediately when he receives both another Wound and is reduced to zero Endurance points by a single strike from an opponent. In this case the treated status of the wounds does not matter.


Treating Wounds (AB 145)
(Insert the following as Paragraph #3)
It is easiest to treat all wounds received in a single encounter at once with a single Healing roll. Any additional wounds received, in later encounters, will require additional Healing rolls. So if the character engages in two combat encounters in a day and is Wounded in both, two Healing rolls are allowed, as they are treating different Wounds.

(Insert the following as the final Paragraph)
Characters who have a Treated Wound, but have not yet recovered their full Endurance, risk additional wounds, unconsciousness and death if they engage in further combat. Any new Wounds inflicted immediately causes unconsciousness due to shock. If the attack against the character inflicted a Wound and enough damage to reduce their Endurance to zero or less, the character is unconscious and dying.

(I realize the inclusion of this last paragraph is a circular reference, but it seems appropriate so that in a 2nd Wound situation the LM knows exactly what content he should re-read.)

In your example, you are correct. But the reference in JRBs post to 2 Endance seems to be the recovery rate not how much the hero has in total at any point.

Yes, I meant the recovery rate of 2 Endurance per prolonged rest. I wasn't debating the conditions for a killing blow.

Let me give an example for clarity. A Barding warrior starts with 27 Endurance, but after being in a fight is currently at 20 Endurance. He takes a Wound and loses another 5 Endurance, bringing him down to 15. The combat ends and the Barding's Wound is treated, so the player notes this. After a prolonged rest, the Barding recovers 2 Endurance points bringing him back up to 17 Endurance. He will continue to gain 2 Endurance per prolonged rest until he regains all of his Endurance and is no longer Wounded. After a few more days he has 23 Endurance, but is attacked by Orcs. In the battle, he takes a Wound and drops to 18 Endurance. This would be his second Wound, since the first one is not yet healed (but treated).

I believe the rules say he should immediately fall unconscious because it is his second Wound. However, the rules do not state that he needs to be treated again to keep gaining the 2 points of Endurance per prolonged rest. This is such a MINOR thing, but I think the intent would be that when he takes the second Wound and lives, it needs to be treated or he will revert back to gaining 1 point of Endurance per prolonged rest.

For the record, I like the killing blow rules. They are simple and deadly.

Yes, I did misunderstand the character's Endurance total in the original post. Thank you both for correcting me.

JamesRBrown,
In both examples you do not provide the character's endurance value. Nor what condition they're in - Unconscious, Dying, etc - although in hindsight I should have assumed you meant alive & conscious. The ambiguity there caused me to interpret things differently.

Despite my error, I think the suggestions made are valid for clarity in a second wound situation. Although I am sure that Francesco could write better prose.

Garn, sorry for the confusion originally. Sometimes things get lost in translation.

I have a quick comment about the caveat you include in your signature. Surely you must have had a chance by now to read the rulebooks! You are no longer new. I would change those statements.

In my opinion, the rules are fine as they stand.

If a character was wounded and treated, he needs to be careful if he engages in combat until he is fully recovered, which is how it should be.

I know that combat is hard to avoid if you press on with the quest, but sometimes you have to decide whether to retreat or risk all.

A hero that dies in a battle when he was already wounded, is certainly worth a song and has a heroic legacy to pass on to the next character.

JamesRBrown
Actually, I have not completed a read-through of both books in their entirety. I still need to finish the LMB. Distractions abound and quiet time to read and digest material are at such a high premium they might as well be listed as commodities on Wall Street.

Garbar,

I, and perhaps other users, have found that English is a language fraught with imprecise usage, vague meanings, ambiguous phrasing and sometimes just plain hard to understand. If it's not outright wrong.

Perhaps every word written in The One Ring is perfectly clear to you. Unfortunately for my sake, it is not always perfectly clear to me. Based on the number of questions seen here, apparently other readers are also failing to comprehend the wording and intent of the RAW from time to time.

Anyone who thinks there are deficiencies in the wording of TOR should look into the wargame De Bellis Antiquitatis or DBA. It is only 4 pages, but even after twenty years the same rules points are still being debated by the same people. The rules are written in a very tight fashion so as to leave no uncertainties or ambiguities, but still....

As for TOR, I wonder if the problem isn't the assumption of current gamers that the RAW should cover every possible situation explicitly and hat he game should always be played by following the RAW to the letter. I began playing in the days when anything over 32 pages was a long rulebook. We just made everything up. Roll the dice and move the game along.

I think it is quite clear that a character who is Wounded (his current Endurance is irrelevant) takes a second or subsequent Wound in combat immediately falls unconscious. If he is reduced below zero Endurance he has taken a Killing Blow. By the strict letter of the RAW he does not require further treatment to continue to recover two points of Endurance per night of prolonged rest. He was Wounded, the Wound was treated, he second wound is not marked or recorded in any way. I also think that may reasonable LM and players should be able to work out for themselves if in their view and in their game the second Wound should require treatment before the character resumes recovering two points of End. If they cannot easily work this out among themselves, are you sure that these are people you want to invest the significant amounts of time and energy that an RPG require with? Life is too short to waste it gaming with Leo
Le whose company you don't enjoy and who make every situation that occurs in the game grounds for a prolonged debate.

I disagree.

You are not obligated to use any material posted here by me or any other user. Nor are you obligated to use any material that SG/C7 release free of charge, or publishes for profit. I am also afforded these same options.

I am sure both you and I are aware of this.

So why such vehement denouncement of something that is no use to you (as by your own admission you understand the RAW), and by inference, of no use to any other members of the TOR community?

Reading comprehension is not a simple Pass/Fail situation. What is clear to you may not be clear to someone else. My suggested clarifications of the affected portions of the text, generally make changes to the verbiage used - not to the mechanics. Even in my suggestions I have stated that the wording and tone I used are likely sub-standard in comparison to Francesco's writing style.

There are five areas where my suggestions may be altering the game mechanics, depending on Francesco's intent. Something that I cannot actually know.

• Changing the Wounded checkbox to a numeric field. (Minor at best, but necessary to keep track of the treated status of multiple wounds.)
• The consideration of a wound's treated or untreated status with regards to the Killing Blow game mechanics. (Minor. This is implied by the RAW but needed to be spelled out once 2nd Wound treatment became a concern.)
• The "in a single strike" portion of Killing Blow. (Major, and in error. This is an unintentional change to the mechanic as I surmised that the 2nd wound and the excessive damage would occur at the same time, which in hindsight might not be the case.)
• Leaving an open-ended wound treatment mechanic to avoid situations which prompted the original question. (Minor. This is an extension of the original topic premise carried forward to a logical conclusion in the extremely rare, perhaps impossible, situation where an nth wound needs to be treated before 2 End recovery resumes again.)
• The suggestion to group wounds from encounters together and using a single Healing roll to resolve them. (Minor. This is meant to account for any encounter that results in multiple wounds but not death - which should be impossible but with the 2nd wound question arising, might by some fluke, occur.)

The rest is all wording meant to add clarity to Francesco's intent (as I understood it) and account for the treatment of a 2nd Wound. Period. Unconsciousness, Dying and Killing Blow should not otherwise differ from the RAW, game mechanic wise. A character should still die on the acquisition of a 2nd Wound and zero Endurance.

If your reading of the material differs substantially from the above, then I failed to write my thoughts and intent clearly.

This might have been revealed more congenially if I had been asked.

PS: Francesco, you've written a wonderful game and I appreciate all of the work that must have gone into your efforts. For a non-native speaker your grasp of the language is superb, better than my own. However the implication made by others, that your every word is absolute perfection, is a premise that I cannot accept.

I understand what you are saying Horsa, and I agree with the general sentiment that not every situation is going to be explicitly covered in the rules, nor do they have to be. Mine is a simple suggestion of clarification based on common sense, and I really didn't mean to spark a debate about the English language. I also agree that the RAW can be manipulated to increase the enjoyment of players or fit the needs of the scenario at hand. The authors do this themselves several times in their own published adventures. An example of this is found on page 62 of Tales from Wilderland during a battle against the Outlaws. When the Beorning allies begin to chant for Beorn to arrive, any hero may join in using the Intimidate Foe special task, even if they are not in Forward stance.

I love the flexibility of TOR! At the same time, the rules are a huge part of the reason that the game is so wonderful...at least for me. Take out the combat rules regarding stances determining TNs and turn order and you just don't have the same game really. This can be said for a number of elements.

And just to be clear, your explanation of what happens when a second Wound is taken is spot on. The rules are very clear. If a hero takes a second Wound during combat, he falls unconscious. If he was reduced to zero Endurance at the same time, he dies instantly (killing blow). No question.

My issue concerns a Wounded hero who has already been treated (even if he had taken a second Wound and survived). I am not suggesting that each Wound from the same combat needs to be treated in order for him to gain a treated status (although Loremasters could decide that they should, I suppose). The treated hero, who is now gaining 2 Endurance per prolonged rest, enters battle again and takes another Wound and passes out. I am suggesting that at this point, the hero needs to be treated again, or the hero reverts back to gaining only 1 Endurance point per prolonged rest. It only makes sense, as this is a fresh Wound from a new combat.

Sorry guys. This is such a MINOR thing and I didn't mean for it to cause a conflict.

Garn, your edits do a good job at clarifying. One of the things I would change, however, is in your final paragraph. Your final sentence, which reads, "If the attack against the character inflicted a Wound and enough damage to reduce their Endurance to zero or less, the character is unconscious and dying," should say, "If the attack against the character inflicted a Wound AND enough damage to reduce their Endurance to zero, the character is killed outright."

The other thing I would eliminate is the need to record Wounds individually. There is no need. The rules can remain the same here, because a hero is either Wounded and treated (Wounded status is underlined) or Wounded and untreated. Wounded and treated means they are gaining 2 Endurance per prolonged rest. Wounded and untreated means they are only gaining 1 Endurance per prolonged rest. When they take an additional Wound after being treated, they should erase the underline notation until they are treated again. That's my whole point.

This post has been edited by JamesRBrown on May 15 2012, 04:20 PM

JamesRBrown,

Oops! You are correct. In writing that I flipped the mechanics around, 'dying' vs 'death'. Although a slight counter-offer: "... the character has suffered a Killing Blow and is killed outright." (That last paragraph was meant as a summation and cross-reference so the LM knows what to re-read and why - Killing Blow.)

Short Answer: Revert paper back to an underline; digital, assuming this unofficial suggestion is implemented, will probably use my suggestion (which equates to an extension of what they're already using).

Long Answer: Mostly this is a perspective and implementation issue; we're focusing on different types of CS (paper vs digital-only). For digital CS, underlining is awkward to implement. Checkboxes, with nth wound situations, are now revealed to be an inadequate methodology.

So I suggested a method that I thought was viable for both mediums rather than excluding one. BTW, I wasn't suggesting recording them as discrete bits of data (for instance, "Wound: Broken Arm") if that is what you were thinking. I was talking about a change from, almost literally, "Wounded [√]" to "Wounded #".

However, this numeric method is not optimal for paper, as it would require the addition of a "Treated #" field (digital CS already include the equivalent) to prevent a mixed treated and untreated state. From the digital CS perspective, this becomes "Wounds 2, Treated 1", which records the situation accurately.

If underlining is a problem, then I would suggest making a 'Treated' box to check after the hero has been successfully treated. It can be unchecked when the companion is Wounded again. So, I still do not see the need to know the exact number of Wounds a character has, just whether or not his latest injuries have been treated.

Since it only takes a second Wound to cause the character to fall unconscious or die, his Wounded status (checked or unchecked) is sufficient. Likewise, his treated status (checked or unchecked) is sufficient for letting you know whether he should gain 1 or 2 Endurance points per prolonged rest.

Again someone pulls out that old chestnut of "well, in MY day we knew better..."

There are plenty of us who have been playing for just as long AND actually like to see rules that are written in clear, concise language!

I don't want/need a rule for everything, but I like those rules that are present to be communicated clearly. I am free to change any and every rule I like, but having a clear sense of how the rules are intended to function and interact (because it's a system of systems, you know) makes for a better experience for those of us who care.

As has repeatedly been pointed out, the RAW are neither clear nor concise in many places. Doesn't mean we don't like the game, but neither do we need the silliness of "well, I just don't understand why people ask questions" talk.

If you accept and love every word, that's great. Just don't bother lecturing your gaming elders on "the right way" to game. Save that for the rpg.net forums.

Well Said!

Keep in mind also:
1) Francesco isn't writing in his native language
2) English really isn't ONE language anymore
3) The distribution is worldwide, not just US nor UK.

What may be clear on one side of the pond might not be clear on the other, as American, Candian, and Australian English have notable differences in lexicon.

Its actually muddier than that - I'm an American (from California) and sometimes I have no clue what other Americans from other states such as New York or Texas are even talking about!!!! Then within California - I got no clue what my kids and their friends are saying. Course the same was probably true 25 years ago for me and my parents.

JamesRBrown,
Re: Treated Box.... I can only respond with /Ack! /Doh! /Facepalm
As the obvious logic of that answer escaped my original thought process.


All,
Thanks for chiming in. Sometimes, when I hit a section that I'm having trouble with, and no one else is commenting or asking questions, I start to think it's me, that I'm not comprehending something that is dead obvious to everyone else.