Include the Gamemaster’s chapters — monsters, secrets, and the underworld What’s this?

His Majesty the Worm

Introduction
The Basics
The Adventurer
The Guild
- The Guild Roster
Kith and Kin
The Four Paths
The Crawl Phase
The Challenge Phase
The Camp Phase
The City Phase
Appendix A: Sorcery
Appendix B: Alchemy
Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- X
- Z

Gamemaster Content

His Majesty the Worm / Chapter 7: The Challenge Phase/ Wounds

Piercing and Critical damage

There are two types of attacks that have special rules: Piercing damage and Critical damage. Creatures in Appendix C: Dungeon Denizens occasionally have abilities that deal one or both types of damage.

Critical

When struck by Critical damage, mark Injured. If already Injured, mark Death’s Door. If you are already at Death’s Door and take Critical damage, you die.

Critical damage towards enemies reduces their Health to 0. They are at Death’s Door.

Piercing

Sidebar

We fragile things

Almost all weapons and enemies deal 1 Wound. A knife can kill you just as dead as a battle axe. Assuming that everybody in the combat is a competent fighter struggling hard against each other, every real weapon in the battle will deal equally-deadly damage. If not everyone is a competent fighter, why are you bothering with a Challenge? Just have the adventurers put down the non-combatant.

The GM should use their discretion to frame the impact of different weapon types. For example, some enemies (like skeletons) might be completely immune to sharp weapons like daggers; the adventurers would need something like a mace to bash the skeletons to dislocate their bones.

Piercing damage cannot be absorbed by armor, shield or helm. A successful Piercing attack always causes a Wound.

Piercing damage toward enemies bypass their Defense and directly reduce their Health (see below).

In this section

Critical
Piercing

← Notching armor Health and Defense: Tracking enemy damage →