This part makes no sense to me.
"In most circumstances, Wounds are a shared Consequence that players overcome as a group.A Risk with a Consequence of 10 Wounds, for example, can be overcome by any and all players.
"If the Consequence is not fully over come... all Heroes are dealth the remaining Wounds.
"A Hero who wishes to protect her friend can choose to take some or all of the Wounds that would be applied to her ally, so long as the Hero is in a position to help and spends one or more Raises.
If the wounds are a shared Consequence, why would you ever spend Raises to take another heros Wounds, rather than reduce the shared Consequence with your Raises. It seems one Raise at the shared Consequence stage reduces the whole parties potential Wounds by one, but once you get to dealing remaining Wounds as damage to individuals the same one Raise, just shifts Wounds rather than elimiates them. So your ally takes one less but you take one more.
I think "in most cases" reflects the author's belief that combat is going to be only one out of many possible Wound sources.I do not think the Shared Consequences mechanic was ever intended to be available in the same sequence as the Take Another Hero's Wounds mechanic. I
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”
- H.L. Mencken
Right. "Take another heroes' wounds" is for when brutes are beating up on the scholar, or the villain is about to land a killing blow on one of your companions. Shared consequences are for when the group sprints across s burning room, or the ship is being shelled, or moving through the jungle being harassed by swarms of biting insects.
Seems odd that they are mention in that section then.
What would constitute a 10 wound consequence?
I understand it does mention this in the rules, but it never gives you an example of what would happen for the players to deal with this kind of grand amount of damage.
After all, running through a burning room would only give you 1 or 2 wounds and the collapsing room in the dramatic sequence example I believe also only gave you 2 wounds.
Here's the thing: a 10 Wound collective consequence for a party of five is very different from a 10 Wound collective consequence for a party of three.If you mean a 10 Wound consequence for an individual, you're looking at significant fall, a grenada going off very close, a vicious shrapnel wound from a direct cannon hit... Really, 7th Sea 2ed is all about context. What is and isn't a 10 Wound Consequence is really a matter of what comes before and after. To me, Wounds as Consequences are somewhat boring on an individual level: yes, I can threaten you with 10 Wounds and that might leave you helpless, but most players know you're not going to kill them straight out for a bad dice roll, so they're inclined to chance it. If I say "Consequences: Lose 5 fingers, one Raise per finger saved, starting with the right thumb and moving right," suddenly the stakes just got very real. The 5 Raises needed to save all five fingers are worth way more to a player than the 10 needed to avoid all Wounds.
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”
- H.L. Mencken
With shared consequences, I don't think of them as X wounds. Rather, I think of them as Y wounds PER HERO. This makes it a much better challenge and more flexible.
that said, good question. Maybe we should add this to the Consequences resource: a selection of scenarios that deal group damage.
Except, that's not what the rules say. A Shared Consequence of X Wounds is X wounds per Hero.
I can think of a time when applying both rules would be numerically useful (rather than purely dramatic, which seems to be considred an entirely understandable reason to do anything in this edition :) ).
Between the heroes, we have reduced the Shared Consequence to 3 wounds, but there is only 1 raise left, and my companion is about to go out. If I spend the raise against the Consequence, they will still take 2 wounds and be rendered unconscious. If I spend the raise to take their wounds, I end up taking 6 myself, but the companion is untouched.
Maybe I wasn't clear. Shared consequences are, for me (the GM) a raise soak. They are meant to soak up some of those outlying raises to keep the rest of the actions manageable. So rather than me (the GM) setting an arbitrary number (10), I think it's easier to base it on the number of heroes present in the scene. 5 wounds per hero is a pretty hefty amount, but it's an easier gauge than 20 wounds. The big numbers can be misleading. Smaller numbers PER HERO let you dial in the challenge specific to the cause. That's all. It's not a change in the rule, just a difference in how I approach things in prep.
In other words, when I say X wounds per hero, I mean X x # of heroes = total shared consequence wounds. How the players divvy them up at that point is totally up to them.
"Except, that's not what the rules say. A Shared Consequence of X Wounds is X wounds per Hero."
Right. I am not sure what the problem here is though. It still changes based on party size because 5 characters spending Raises take fewer wounds than 3 characters spending Raises. I suppose, as the text indicates, in very limited situations, the Shared Consequence and Take Another Hero's Wounds mechanics overlap, but it's addressed pretty clearly on page 174.
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”
- H.L. Mencken
It is also an important overlap for a fight where the duelist in the party has taken the brunt of the combat and now we are at the point of taking that shared consequence damage. It could reach a point where the shared damage will overwhelm to duelist and there is another player who has not taken a single wound and can afford to take on a few extra flesh wounds to keep the duelist on his feet.