How should Superficial Wound Penalties and the +2 Ob for being knocked down affect split pools like bloody versus or counterstrike. I’ve kind of gone back and forth on whether those penalties just affect the offensive, or if they should do both
They effect both. I’m looking for a source now. Sorry.
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The main rule book says that “Taking a superficial wound gives the character a +1Ob penalty.” (p.486) There are no qualifiers on that, so the penalty applies to every test.
p.455 indicates that a character who is knocked down suffers +2Ob to attack and +1Ob to all other tests.
A split pool is two tests, so—as @Gnosego says —both suffer penalties: +3Ob to attack and +2Ob to defence.
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I actually had a related question to this. Do light and heavier wounds also affect both attack and defense? On a first reading, it seems like they just decrease your total dice pool, which would mean it’s only affecting one side of your split at a time. This would make superficial wounds significantly worse than light wounds, since in dice splitting, they count twice and statistically speaking +1 Ob is worse than -1D, since the former is essentially -1 success, and the latter is -1/2 success. (for the record, I don’t really have a problem with supies having this quirk, since intuitiveness of the rest of the wound system makes up for this)
I do note that in Block and Strike, it explicitly says that all penalties apply to both attack and defense. Is this supposed to be different than counterstrike, or supposed to be the same (where -1D from a light wound would “count twice”)?
They do not, you don’t subtract dice at the end of assembling your die pool, your stats and skills are simply lower by however many dice. That’s why you can’t roll B0 skills
My understanding from an old thread that I can no longer find is that penalties apply to both pools. Light Wound is -1 to your Block and -1 to your Strike.
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Oh yeah, but that’s because Block and Strike is Block and Strike, right? I was just going from memory, but yeah, that’s definitely what’s in the rules. For Counterstrike you’re fine though
Nah, I think the same rule applied to counterstrike. I think it was all split pools.
But I can no longer find the source, so… 
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Sadly, the threat in question seems to be gone. But the answer at the time was: yes, for counterstrike, too, penalties apply to both pools.
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Thanks! It’s good to know I wasn’t hallucinating that thread. 
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