The Recover Action Seems Broken in One-on-One Fights

[u/Mr-AlRealHuman]

I've been looking at the rules for combat in the Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player's Guide, and I think I've found a potential loophole that makes one-on-one fights against most enemies unwinnable for the enemy.

Here's my reading of the rules:

• Wounds and Damage: An attack can cause a wound, but a character can only suffer a maximum of one wound per attack, regardless of how much damage is dealt. When a character is wounded, they roll on the Wounds Table.
• The Recover Action: The Recover action is a powerful tool that can be used on a player's turn. It allows a character to perform several beneficial actions, including removing the Staggered condition from themselves and treating a wound. The document states that treating a wound with the Recover action prevents it from adding extra dice to future rolls on the Wounds Table.
• The Combat Loop: In a one-on-one fight against an enemy that only has one attack action per turn, a player character (PC) can be wounded during the enemy's turn. However, on the player's next turn, they can use their action to take the Recover action, which treats the wound. This prevents the wound from adding a penalty die to any subsequent rolls on the Wounds Table.
• The Outcome: Because most non-Champion and non-Monstrosity enemies only get one attack per turn, a player can effectively reset the wound accumulation penalty after each successful hit from the enemy. This means a player character's risk of a catastrophic wound is never increased, making them effectively invincible in a prolonged one-on-one fight. A peasant with a staff could, in theory, eventually defeat a troll by constantly chipping away at its wounds during their turn and recovering after each hit from the troll.

Am I missing something, or does this make one-on-one fights against single-attack enemies trivial for player characters?

[u/DexterDrakeAndMolly]

I think you can't treat a wound until away from the action.

[u/Express_Coyote_4000 → u/DexterDrakeAndMolly]

Yeah, I haven't run a game but I would insist on, at the least, getting to a safe zone. The idea of treating wounds in the middle of the fray is pretty strange to me.

[u/Danadas]

I don't think so but they did say that they are looking at the Recover action and there might be changes in the future

[u/Ori_Sacabaf]

You're missing that, beside the test that can be subject to all kind of malus, the Treat a wound part needs a gold status trapping, meaning, unless you're a scholar, a noble, a knight or a courtier, you need to craft via the Craft Trapping endeavour, meaning you have to get the right lore beforehand if you don't already have it (so if you're not an apothecary or a high elf) and spend a substential amount of silvers. That can be an adventure in itself.

But if the players manage to each get a kit, yes, some one-on-one fights becomes dumb. But that's one of the many jobs of a GM: prevents such events from ever happening.