Questions from a Fatemaster

[DefinitelynotJK]

Hello everyone. As the title would suggest I am running a campaign of Through the Breach (Northern Aggression mixed with other modules), however I've noticed a few issues while playing. To simply cut to the chase:

1) The Reinforced Armor Modification -

From Into the Steam (Page 174), after a player brought it to my attention, this thing has to be a joke, right? It gives you a stackable Hard to Wound that only costs 12 scrip.  Now considering the only way that I can recall getting Hard to Wound is through being a specific type of Stitched or using a Destiny Step, this thing seems fundamentally broken. 

What I then ask is what to do with it? I know Into the Steam's an old book now and that a lot of its material got updated for 2E, and due to this mod not being included, do I remove it as an option (effectively banning it)? If so, then does that apply to all the other gear from ItS that didn't get ported to 2E?

2) Barbed Whip -

Within the Core Book, the Barbed Whip (Page 226) is listed as having a range of Melee 3. Yet then the stats for the Guild Huntmaster (Page 321, Core Book still) is listed as having a Barbed Whip with a range of Melee 2. And whilst I've noticed that NPC's often use differing attack profiles on weapons, everything described in the Huntmaster's attack suggests it's just using the regular stats of the whip. 

So what range does this weapon have 2 or 3? Is the equipment listing wrong or is it the Huntmaster's stat block that's incorrect? Or is it supposed to be this way? After skimming through all errata, nothing's laid light to this discrepancy (if it even is one to begin with).

3) How do you actually kill subordinates? -

Excluding instakill effects (talents, suffocation, etc) how as a Fatemaster are you supposed to kill a Fated's subordinates rules as written? As whenever they drop to negative wounds, they simply fall unconscious and take a critical effect. But provided you have some form of healing / critical effect removal, they can't die. I guess an enemy could stand over their unconscious body and waste actions on them, but beyond zombies or certain beasts, is that really going to happen?

What I've had in mind is a loose house rule (that hasn't come up yet, but one I've thought of to consolidate this issue) that 'if the subordinate is reduced to a number of negative wounds equal to its maximum wounds, it is killed.' So if it has 4 maximum wounds and is brought to -4, it's dead. Maybe half of maximum wounds (so in this example, -2)?

These issues have been bugging me nonstop so if anyone has any answers, you have my eternal thanks 😄.

[Ebb]

Hello!

1) - You're right, Into the Steam is a little wonky in places, and Reinforced is strong. It helps that ignoring Hard To Wound (and Armor) is relatively common but I think it's still a bit much. One of the house rules I have that applies here is:

Reinforced: A character wearing two or more pieces of armor with Reinforced gains Hard To Wound +1

This doubles the cost, and prevents it from stacking with itself (it still stacks with other sources of Hard To Wound, as it should). This should help in your case, however, I personally also have a bunch of other house rules attached to certain Pursuit Talents (such as "Bring It!" Into The Bayou pg. 102) which amount to: "While this character is not wearing armor, they may etc..." I find that armor itself is too useful in relation to it's cost so these adjusted Talents help to balance it, and it means that characters don't feel as punished for not wearing armor for ascetic/character/strategic reasons.

2) - I've never used a whip irl, but it makes sense to me that a Barbed Whip would be shorter, and if characters want to they can purchase the Extended upgrade (melee 3 is the max range for Extended anyway)

3) - Subordinate and low ranked characters automatically falling unconscious makes sense as a way to save a lot of time, but I myself have always ignored that rule. I enjoy the drama of the critical effect flips, and this buffs both minion FM characters, and all the Talents that improve the Fated's ability to inflict criticals (which otherwise feel a bit underutilized).

If you prefer I could suggest you rule that the "coup de grace" rule (Core Rules pg. 302) can be used during Dramatic Time on Subordinates.

I feel that I should mention one of the many things that I enjoy about TTB, is that the simplicity of it's individual rules, in combination with all of it's complexity makes it robust enough to be adapted for different players needs.

I hope some of this helps (=

[Deathinabox]

For 3) I rule for any minion or peon characters (subordinate or not) when they take a critical hit for dropping to 0 or less, if they suffer a moderate or severe critical they are killed instantly. This typically means if they are knocked to 0 with a moderate or severe hit, they just die and they survive a weak hit (barring weird flips on the table). I think a lot of abilities in the game were designed around the idea that things die when they hit 0 health, but that's not how the game works.