The Sage’s Answers, Part 15

Hello, everyone! Its time for another set of questions answered!

Just to remind everyone, here we’ll be answering questions players and GMs have asked about The Witcher TRPG with the goal of turning them into an errata and updating the book down the line.

Cody Pondsmith, our line developer, will be answering five to ten questions each time we post. We’re going to shoot for either every weekday or every other weekday, schedules allowing, and when there’s going to be longer breaks, we’ll try our best to let you know in advance. We’ll be posting each The Sage’s Answers on our blog, our Facebook, and on the r/WitcherTRPG subreddit. On our blog, I’ll be tagging each entry with “sagesanswers” to make them easy to find.

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Leandro B asks…

About skill bonus from Lifepath or racial modifiers. In pg 49 says that racial modifiers can raise a skill above 10. But it is not 100% clear if they can raise a skill above 6 initially. And what about Lifepath skill bonus? Can they go above 6 or 10?

Cody answers…

Hey, Leandro! Racial modifiers can raise your skills above the starting cap of 6! Life Path skills cannot however. For example, being from Angren gives you a +1 Wilderness Survival. This means you start the game with a Wilderness Survival 1 even if it is not a Profession skill and you don’t choose it as a Pick Up skill. If Wilderness Survival is a Profession skill for your PC, you don’t have to place one of your 44 points for Profession Skill to get it at rank 1 as is normally required and if you want to raise it, the first point from your pool of 44 you put into the skill raises it to Wilderness Survival 2.

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EshinHarth asks…

Since most of the npcs that fill the world of witcher are common folk, I guess we are going to need a lot of those. So, 50 points give or take?

Cody answers…

Hey, EshinHarth! For absolutely average peasants I would actually give them 40 points start for Statistics. This would give them 4 points in every stat with a few points to add to stats you deem important (farmers might have a higher Body, while a blacksmith might have a higher Craft). For slightly more important NPCs (anyone you think might stick around for a few games) I would give them 50. The Game Type suggestions are based on the assumption that you are already talking about “Adventurers” so “Average” is more, “average for main characters”.

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Destined asks…

Another question that just occured to me regarding signs (if this is already on the list, feel free to ignore it): If I use Igni, which has a cone attack, does it hit each location on one enemy seperately or does it deal damage only once? The former appears a bit overpowered, especially against enemies that are susceptible to fire (like Drowners). You could totally obliterate an entire group of them.

Cody answers…

Hey, Destined! Igni doesn’t hit every location on an enemy. It only deals damage once. There are very few attacks that deal damage to every location separately. We’ll make a note about that!

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OfficePranks asks…

When performing a maneuver attack, such as a disarm or trip, do you apply the penalty for targeting a limb?

Cody answers…

Hey, OfficePranks! You do not apply any location penalty to a maneuver attack. The more complicated maneuvers have their own penalties which are listed with the attack.

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EshinHarth asks…

Can my Man At Arms use his action to make a Zweihand attack and then use extra attack?

Cody answers…

Hey, EshinHarth! Your man at arms could use Zweihand and then make an extra attack. Both attacks would be at a -3 penalty though and it would cost a total of 13 Stamina between the two, meaning that you couldn’t do it a lot before you had to rest.

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And that’s it!

Keep your swords sharp!