Do you use the endure harm move every time your health is reduced?
Do you use the endure harm move every time your health is reduced? Initially I thought yes, but it makes some odd results. Are certain abilities seem based on automatic damage, like drawing the circle and using the option to bloody yourself, or the swordmaster's ability to take -1 health while swearing an iron vow? It would be a bit strange to shrug off the damage you just did to yourself, or to be an ironclad who can take many instances of 1 damage and largely ignore them. How should I run this?
Hi, Joel. Yes, you Endure Harm or Endure Stress whenever appropriate (you face physical harm or mental stress). Reducing your health or spirit track is a result of that move, and you can indeed bounce back pretty effectively when you only suffer 1 harm or stress.
ReplyDeleteNote: the updated moves and assets (coming later this week) have rephrased this a bit to make the flow more clear. A prompt to suffer harm is now written as "Endure Harm (X harm)."
Couple of factors to keep in mind, related to your examples:
The Ironclad asset has some updated language that restricts the bonus to a fight. I thought that this was fairly implicit in the framing of it being armor (i.e. it does you no good if you intentionally cut your hand when swearing a vow as a Swordmaster), but I had a couple of comments on it so made it more explicit. Also, the Ironclad asset doesn't let you shrug off damage. It gives you a mild bonus (+1) as an add to your roll when you Endure Harm, or a moderate bonus (+2) if you take the encumbered debility. Neither makes a strong hit a sure thing. Even with +4 on your health track and a +2 for being geared for war, you'll roll a weak hit 30% of the time, and a miss 5% of the time. And, on a strong hit shrugging off 1 point of damage still costs you momentum. As you play, you'll discover that momentum can be pretty precious. Much of the time with a strong hit on Endure Harm, I'll embrace the pain and take the +1 momentum. Why? Because Embrace the Pain sounds super metal and I hoard momentum like it's gold.
- Someone cutting their hand on their sword as part of a vow, or bloodying themselves to amp themselves up for a duel -- and then managing to shrug off or even feed off that pain .. well, that's thematically cool and makes for awesome character moments. The risk is relatively low, which means players are more likely to drive the narrative towards those moments.
Try it out in play! I'm happy to suggest some remedies if you find it overly fiddly, or if your players are super-skilled at "gaming the system". For example, I had a playtester who opted to only Endure Harm or Endure Stress when facing a dangerous or greater cost, or when the track fell below +3. That worked pretty well for him, and might be a good approach for a large table to reduce the dice rolls.
Ok, that all makes sense. I like that way of looking at it. Definitely looking forward to the updated language, and really hoping to try them out in actual play soon.
ReplyDeleteSo, to be sure, if I scored a weak hit on Face danger, and suffered -1 health, should I roll Endure Harm?
ReplyDeleteThe result of endure harm is to suffer -health, and the result of the weak hit on face danger is to suffer -health. Both seem like reults of moves so does one triggers the other?
Hi, Julien Blic. Sorry for the confusion. The moves and assets have been tweaked a bit to clear up that awkwardness. Prompts in moves such as Face Danger to suffer harm are now written as "Endure Harm (1 harm)" -- essentially telling you to make that move and giving you the amount of harm to suffer as part of that move.
ReplyDeleteYou can view the updated move reference sheets here:
drive.google.com - Ironsworn-Moves-Final.pdf
The site will be updated with the revised rulebook, moves and assets later this week. Thanks!
Thanks a lot, and no problem, your game is great!
ReplyDelete