Winning a contest and getting wounded

[Nicolas Crost]

Hey everybody,
I have a question regarding contests in general and especially fights. Do I understand the rules correctly that there is no way to win a simple or extended contest (not a group contest) and to be wounded in any way? Basically the rule seem to indicate that only the loser of a contest carries away lasting negative modifiers of any sort. Is that correct? And if so, is there any way to handle the heroic "I got half my arm slashed off, but I defeated him anyway" result (without resorting to final actions)?

Thanks in advance! I will be asking questions around here pretty often in the future because although I love HQ it still needs some clarifying for me...

Nicolas

[Ian Cooper]

Hey everybody,
I have a question regarding contests in general and especially fights. Do I understand the rules correctly that there is no way to win a simple or extended contest (not a group contest) and to be wounded in any way?

The only way to be wounded is to pass below 0AP. You can be wounded and continue if you are raised above 0AP and continue the fight. This might happen because you are lent AP, or because you succeed at a final action. Remember that if you pass below 0, the consequences of defeat remain even if you rise above 0.

But otherwise no.

Remember this is cinematic combat. A wound is either superficial - causes no real impairment - or disabling.  Ther final action rule simulates the option to 'come back from the dead' and turn the course of the battle.

[newsalor]

If you wish to do it differently, then you could perhaps give a single hurt to a PC if the opponent manages to take a big chunck of your PCs APs with one swoop. "The Old Game" had this option, but it has been deemed unfit for HQ. Also, keep in mind that an unrelated contest could score a wound to a PC, even if he wins the over-all extended contest.

Note that the winner can be wounded (superficially) by the book. IMO this is fine, but if you want to you could rule that they are fatigued and bleeding nonetheless and give them penalties if they fight again soon. Remember that the rulebook gives examples of penalties for this sort of things. Do it the way that feels best.

[NickHollingsworth]

... you could perhaps give a single hurt to a PC if the opponent manages to take a big chunck of your PCs APs with one swoop. "The Old Game" had this option, but it has been deemed unfit for HQ. ...

I hadn't even noticed this had gone. It just shows how difficult it is to read something you think you know and spot the changes.

I liked the old rule: swap 7AP damage for a 1 hurt.

Its also possible to go to negative AP and thus be 'defeated' but come back into the fight through your own actions or the help of another character. In which case you might turn out to be hurt or injured depending on how you lost your AP and the ability that brought you back in. If it was something like Healing you'd be OK. But if it was something like Impassioned Cry For Aid that made you stand desipite your wounds then your wounds still exist and after the fight you will probably have to be carried to the victory feast.

[pete_darby]

Or, IIRC, it can be a question of what the important contest is: if the question of short term wounds, fatigue, etc is part of the focus of the session (frex, in a siege or extended battle), the extended contest is running through the whole session, and each individual fight is a simple contest affecting one exchange in the ongoing extended contest.

So an Orlanthi village defending itself against a troll raid through the night can be run as above (with the help of repeated viewings of Zulu...); each loss of AP represents wounds, fatigue, arrows running out, armour breaking, even theistic feats failing as the gods are called on too many times...

Usual vague promise: one day, I will run a dungeon crawl in HQ as one massive extended contest...

[kalyptein]

Actually the 7 AP for 1 Hurt rule is in the new rules too, its just tucked away in the Narrating chapter if I remember correctly.

I was pondering the 'win but get hurt' scenario myself.  Perhaps you could handle it by saying if not the kinds of fight where you want to contemplate having the heros truly defeated (just some thugs or the like) but you want to know if it cost them something, then roll the contest, have the heros win on anything besides a Complete Defeat, and say that the wound penalties for a "defeat" are injuries sustained before winning.  Would that work?

Alex

[UzUztroll]

>>>>
Do I understand the rules correctly that there is no way to win a simple or extended contest (not a group contest) and to be wounded in any way?
<<<<

You have to be defeated to get a significant wound of any kind (i.e one that gives you a penalty), but the rules do allow for the situation you mention:

For Simple Contests the narrator may allow an already defeated hero to 'have another go'. See page 182 of HeroQuest - Allow Repeated Attempts. The Monty Python sketch of the de-limbed knight asking for the fight to continue springs to mind here.

If defeated in an extended contest you can sometimes get back to positive AP (and then go on and win) if your opponent blows his parting shot badly. See page 69 for the rules and an example. Also every villian blows their parting shot badly against the main hero, it's in their blood.

Cheers
Jonathan

[contracycle]

>>>>
Do I understand the rules correctly that there is no way to win a simple or extended contest (not a group contest) and to be wounded in any way?
<<<<

You have to be defeated to get a significant wound of any kind (i.e one that gives you a penalty), but the rules do allow for the situation you mention:

Therefore, you can sustain INSIGNIFICANT wounds, cuts, bruises etc at any time.  Thats just colour attributed during explanation and has little or no mechanical effect.

[Brand_Robins]

Everyone else has explained the canon rules well enough, and are all quite correct. There is, however, a discussion on just this matter on the HeroQuest rules mailing list. The idea being moved about is, basically, giving PCs the ability to "pre wound" themselves in order to gain a bonus on a roll or contest.

The most centralized post about the issue is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hw-rules/message/15635

This rule may not be for everyone, and I've yet to playtest it, but I find it intriguing as it gives PCs the ability to do a certain amount of resource managment, deciding what is really worth paying in return for success.

[Mike Holmes]

I've been following that thread, and it intrigues me. Here's how I see it.

If I said, "My character hurts himself" you'd probably respond that he succeeded, and apply the -1, per the automatic success rule.

If I said, "My character fights with a height advantage from the staircase," you'd probably give me a bonus for the tactics per the rules for bonuses.

So, given that accepting a wound might in some cases be a tactically sound thing to do, I'd allow the player to get it automatically (or maybe even roll for it in the right circumstances), and then get a bonus for it. None of this seems to be outside of the rules at all to me. I would require an "unrelated action" to do this, however.

This all said, I don't see this as, in any way, a fix for the original problem. That is, you still can't get hurt by "accident" using nothing but the extended conflict rules. So I'm glad the 7AP exchange exists.

Moreso, however, I think people keep missing out on the fact of the Unrelated Simple Conflict. Basically, people keep assuming that an extended Conflict can only be about getting hurt. That's not true, even if harm is a potential of the situation. Let me explain.

The example given is that of the character who is attempting to get their friend out of a barn that's burnng. Well, what's the Conflict? Most assume that it's the PC against the blaze. But that's only one way to frame it. Instead, it's the PC against the blaze killing their friend. No threat to the PC.

How does this help, I hear you saying? Well, the barn blaze now, as an unrelated action, can attempt to wound the PC at any time during the Conflict. The outcome of the AP battle does not determine if the PC is wounded per se, but what losses come to them as a result of failing to get their friend out.

So, just because harm is a possible result of a conflict, don't assume that it's best to frame it that way. Think of it as an argument sort of Conflict in terms of the outcome, but then have Unrelated Actions as the cause of the harm. This is more interesting, and allows for all the effects that you might want to see to occur.

Think about it, instead of having the barn throw fire at the PC each round, sometimes it puts up obstacles to getting the friend (AP bids), and other times it drops a timber on the PC (unrelated action of attacking). Very cool stuff.

The system is versatile if you really think about framing your Conflicts correctly.

Mike

[Nicolas Crost]

Mike,

thanks for your answer, great stuff! For me (having had the HQ book for about a week now...) it is rather difficult to grasp the possibilities in using extended and simple conflicts. Especially that you can nest simple conflicts in extenden ones is... great, but was not too obvious for my d20 clogged mind.

So, can anyone give a long example of such an extended contest, using all those possibilities (ap lending, augmenting yourself as well as others, unrelated actions, parting shot, final action, narrative that leads to the use of different abilities, etc.)? While I love the flexibility of the HQ rules, I sure wish there were (even more) examples...

Now that I think about it, there is one more thing: I isn´t entirely clear how often I can augment myself and others. Do I have to use an unrelated action to augment others skills or not? I remember Ron playing it in a way that everybody could interrupt at any time, not spending an action. Does that work? What do the rules say?

Well, I hope you don´t mind me asking all sorts of weird questions. HQ ist just so flexible and ... different. I am just starting to grasp the concepts.

Nicolas

[simon_hibbs]

Now that I think about it, there is one more thing: I isn´t entirely clear how often I can augment myself and others. Do I have to use an unrelated action to augment others skills or not?

That's right, you must use an unrelated action to do any augment, either on yourself or on others, if you're in an extended contest.

I remember Ron playing it in a way that everybody could interrupt at any time, not spending an action. Does that work? What do the rules say?

That's certainly not how the rules are intended to work.


Simon Hibbs

[simon_hibbs]

Therefore, you can sustain INSIGNIFICANT wounds, cuts, bruises etc at any time.  Thats just colour attributed during explanation and has little or no mechanical effect.

That's right, but if you are defeated but somehow get back into the contest you could sustain a significant would that way. There's also the optional rule where your attacker wounds you in stead of inflicting a 7 AP loss.

So there are two ways you could be significantly wounded in HeroQuest, and yet still go on to win the contest.


Simon Hibbs

[Bankuei]

Hi folks,

Interesting thought occured to me about this concept.  I was thinking of some potential situations where a conflict "guaranteed" to succeed, although the actual success level is to determine what the cost will be to the hero.  

Chris

[Drastic]

Hi folks,

Interesting thought occured to me about this concept.  I was thinking of some potential situations where a conflict "guaranteed" to succeed, although the actual success level is to determine what the cost will be to the hero.  

Chris

Yup, and it seems to me that approach is a good one to ease people leery of some of HQ's niftier aspects into things.  It's a good approach for any stories where mook-fights play a role ("cinematic combat" games like Feng Shui, Exalted, Buffy, etc.), where other games (of, I suppose, the simulationist/gamist vein) would have encounters that exist designed almost entirely to simply wittle the heroes' resources (hit points, spells, drama points, whatever form they take) down a bit, with actually stopping the pc's being a rather unlikely event--a total defeat, in simpler terms.