Greyscale Confusion

[DJGanektakazoink]

Sorry for the newbie question, but I have a little thing I need a little clarification (if anyone will give it):

a grey weapon inflicts, of course, grey damage. However, any normal, mortal human, orc, elf, dwarf, etc. has only black wound tolerance/threshold, or whatever word is used that escapes me at this particuarly moment. Being that a normal person doesn't have grey wounds, is any amount of grey damage instantly fatal?

[luke]

yes.

Gray damage is serious business in the game. Think Hercules or Achilles tossing aside legions of soldiers in order to get to their real opponents -- Hectors or Hydras.

hope that helps,
-L

[Ubby]

On the flip side of that coin, are there any scenarios in which mundane weapons can bring down a creature or hero with a Gray/White Mortal Wound? Or is it simply a matter of inflicting enough mundane wounds to lower the # dice in a stat to zero, thus incapacitating said creature?

I always think of the Bard/Smaug encounter from The Hobbit where one arrow felled the mighty dragon. Of course it was a more than special arrow so I guess you could make the argument that it did Gray/White damage.

[luke]

A case could also be made that Bard called on an Epiphany to Gray out his skill. Of course, it would have been an extremely lenient GM that let a Gray bow skill count as Gray damage.

Dragon-slaying stories are an interesting case. In many instances you have regular folk enacting some plan -- spikes, barrels, sword from below, arrow in the gut -- that just couldn't have resulted in Gray damage. Wiley knights in spiked armor don't inflict that kind of damage.

So what's going on there? I think it hints at a very difficult to accept fact -- dragons aren't that tough. It's all flash and fear, because underneath, they are vulnerable.

That's a tough pill to swallow given our DnD heritage. Even I couldn't abide by it in the Monbu. I made our dragon pretty darn tough.

Of course, our saviour from this state of affairs ("but I want my dragon to have a Gray Mortal Wound!), is the Gray weapon damage. A heroic caliber weapon used to destroy the beast -- viz a viz Bard, Siegfriend, Beowulf -- that dissolves in the dying creature's ichor when he is killed.

That's the only way I can see it, either our perception of dragons is wrong -- they are largely mundane creatures -- or Bard and company were blessed with a little heroic love. One of them's got to give!

-L

[Kublai]

Bard's black arrow was most certainly a heroic shade weapon. He probably had a high black skill, doubled his dice, open-ended his 6's, and rolled a 6 on the DOF! G12 to Smaug with no armor allowed (Bard made his Ob10 shot!).

Smaug was tougher than you think, Abzu! He just got punked. Stupid bird telling all his secrets! :evil:

[Durgil]

Being the serious Tolkienphile that I am, I would definitely have to agree with Mr. Kublai. I also think that he used some Artha to aim the arrow directly where it needed to go. The heroic weapon did the rest, IMHO.

[DaGreatJL]

Ok, so here's a related question on a bit of a tangent; how does one acquire a gray weapon? Does it require a gray weaponsmith? The book mentions instilling Artha into possesions; if one invested enough to shade-shift it, would it then do gray damage?

[Kublai]

Grey Skills (permanent or temporarily epiphanied) should be required to make Grey Weapons, but not without Grey Materials (aka a Dwarf Forge/Mithril/Adamantine/wood cut from the heart of a thousand-year-old Yew tree/etc.). Increase the Obstacle by 2 or so, as well.

There's been no indication of what amount of Artha is required to make a mundane item heroic, but there's always been the stance that this is a legitimate means of creating one. Perhaps the same amount of Artha needed to grey a skill should be necessary to grey an item? Yes, that would mean you must temporarily epiphany your weapon at least once!

[Rindu]

So, can a creature/person with Grey or White Mortal Wound be harmed by someone wielding a weapon which inflicts Black damage?

[luke]

So, can a creature/person with Grey or White Mortal Wound be harmed by someone wielding a weapon which inflicts Black damage?

it is possible, because all superficial wounds remain in the black shade.

-L

[Kublai]

Creatures with a Grey Mortal Wound often have Superficial and Light wound tolerances in the Black scale. Therefore, a mundane weapon could feasibly bring them down. I am not so sure about White Mortal Wounds, but even they probably have a high Black Superficial, so a mundane axe or a hammer still can hurt it.

[eruditus]

I want to see the monday group fight that undead, giant half-man-half scorpion without the NPC doing gray damage. :twisted:

[Yagathai]

You forget that one of the PCs was capable of doing grey damage as well. Buli could theoretically have handled it -- assuming that three or four G2 whacks would have taken it out, and that his armor held up.

[eruditus]

You forget that one of the PCs was capable of doing grey damage as well. Buli could theoretically have handled it -- assuming that three or four G2 whacks would have taken it out, and that his armor held up.

Unfortunately Buli was in a nasty lock at the time and only escaped because someone else was doing gray damage. Of course, if he had escaped he could look forward to a 25 foot drop too.

Lock not-withstanding, Buli's armor was holding up well against the creature's stinger. What really did it, in the end, was the Necromancer's "Undoing" abstraction.