Hi all - long time!
Are there any Action Cards that you think are too powerful and need to be nerfed to better work with the game. I got hints here and there that certain melee actions might be a bit over the top.
Reason why I ask is that I wanna remedy those cards before we run into a situation that gets out of hand.
Cheers
Have you checked out the errata? There are at least two cards that have updated versions.
This thread has a debate on it.
This thread has Yepesnopes posting his nerfed versions of some cards, although the files no longer work.
http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/81647-action-cards-balance/
My two cents on some of the cards that are frequently mentioned:
Immobilising Shot
The idea of this cards is that the target gets hit with an arrow or javelin that pierces through his body and plants itself in a nearby wall or the ground, thus making the target unable to move. "Move", in this case referring to switching range bands/engaging characters. If this happens, feel free to use the Perform a Stunt action for the pinned NPC to do things like throw stuff at the players, call for help, cloak him or herself in armor or shadows, etc. Or if used against a larger opponent, consider whether the arrow/javelin is even big enough to pierce all the way through and into the ground, or whether it is strong enough to hold the NPC. If a player uses immobilising shot against a bloodthirster, consider making him use up a bunch of arrows in order to do so, add difficulty to the roll, etc.
Rapid Fire
This is going to slaughter lightly armored targets. Make sure to use up the players ammo for making this attack. All of those extra purple dice should be giving you a lot of banes/chaos stars to work with. Make sure to use those. Maybe the bow breaks afterwards. Maybe all of the ammo is expended. Maybe nearby people are caught in the crossfire. Maybe the character suffers a lot of fatigue if using a bow. Maybe reinforcements show up.Maybe an arrow/bullet accidentally hits something the player really wishes it wouldn't. ALWAYS let the player's action do what it says on the card, but be willing to complicate things with it.
Reckless Cleave
The issue with this card is that if a character with a high soak value uses it, loss of active defenses isn't going to matter much. If a heavily armored character is tearing things up with this card, start using perform a stunt to attack him where his or her armor is weak/not present. Make use of the A/C/E to both block the use of this card and then pile on the attack to the player who has used it. Again, let the player get in his mega damage, but then show him the downside of this card by being hit with a massive attack.
Honestly, even doing this, you might consider increasing the recharge value of this card a bit, so it can't be so frequently used.
Troll Feller Strike/Giant Feller Strike
These work similarly to reckless cleave. If your player is really tearing through NPCs with these cards, consider just having a second or third Heavy NPC to hurt them. The player may take down one, but there's another who is about to lay down a world of hurt. Hell, consider using the Henchmen rules with something like a group of trolls or other heavies. This will essentially create a single attacker with lots of wounds for the player to eat through, but also makes sure that the weaker players don't get OHKO'ed by them, since they will only get one attack a turn.
Those are a good list of ones to simply remove from game or modify. Immobilizing shot is the worst one in my view, way too hard on foes without ranged actions and not very intuitive in how it works etc. On Rapid Fire, I (a) made sure arrows were crossed off for every shot - track ammunition, the tricked out elven archer was forever scrounging arrows; and (b) on chaos star because you were using bow so hard and fast gave it the Damaged condition (-2 DR) which I did not permit to be repaired in field (and again, he was often at -2 damage on all ranged attacks because of damage to bow).
I did remove those, there are more than enough action cards anyway. The Zweihandler fighting style is also too strong, since one of my players want too fight with a two-handed axe I'll keep those cards but will nerf them.
Also, there are almost half of the action cards I marked as 'advanced', for rank 2+ characters.
Oh among spells, the Light Order spell that allows knowing if someone is lying and the Celestial order spell to teleport are also both "grim world inappropriate" magics for mere mortals. Slann may teleport armies around but even Teclis has to hoof it, and a spell that solves mysteries destroys roleplaying.
I think the "Swiftwing" spell looks mostly ok. It even has an amusing chaos star effect that the GM can have a lot of fun with. It's not like the wizard can take anyone with him or use it for actual travel. It's just a strategic tool during combat.
For the one about telling if someone is lying, the GM has to take it into accout, but it can lead to a lot of interesting stories:
*How about an enemy who is a master manipulator? No one knows who they are working for or what the plan is. Typical Tzeenchian cult tactics.
*The wizard can't just go around shining his light on anyone he feels like. That's the kind of thing that attracts all kinds of wrong attention. Particularly if the suspect is a noble of some kind.
*The spell tells if the subject is lying, but can't make him actually speak the truth. Or even speak at all. What do you do with someone who plain refuses to answer questions at all?
Edited by RalzarRanald's "find any object you specify" was a thorn in my side. If a GM simply says' ok, you know it's in this town somewhere..." that's probably a good way to deal with it..but having a giant glowing arrow in the sky right to the point is problematic.
Yup that spell too is a bad one that blows a hole through real investigations etc. Just as no attack action should be a "I win button" for melee, so too no spell or other action card should be one for mysteries or social encounters.
Reckless Cleave , Immobilizing Shot , and Rapid Fire , as mentioned by others, seem significantly above average, and can make it very hard to keep NPCs in play past the first round. You could cull those three from the deck, and the game would be improved greatly.
Ironbreaker and his starting Gromril are ridiculous. It's possible to make an Ironbreaker feel challenged or imperiled, but it's a lot of hoops to jump through if you don't want to also kill the rest of the party along the way.
All the reactions that give extra actions (or move your action up in the initiative order) are potentially problematic. It becomes more pronounced if you let PCs buy the same Action cards as other PCs, but it's still potentially an issue if any single PC gains more than one of these cards. Off the top of my head these are Me First, Warning Shot, Shoot First And Ask Questions Never, Coup De Grace, Do It Now, etc. There may be some I'm forgetting. It's also possible that one or two I listed that are less troublesome than the rest of their kind and they're all just blurring together in my head.
Some of the Ongoing Actions, and many of the cards with an "!" in the recharge area can get really weird if the players have any of the things that let them pull recharge tokens off of actions trivially. For example, the various staffs in the wizard PODs that pull recharge off a spell. There's also two-card combo of talents that gives "take 1 stress to gain a white die" coupled with " whenever you take a stress, remove a recharge from one of your cards " that can quickly become broken, especially if both are slotted in the party card. Any of those can make a "this card recharges at the next rally step" (or Act, or sunrise, etc) card much better, or can go absolutely bonkers with the Ongoing cards that do something again each time a recharge is removed. It feels like there should be a rule that you can't use Fortune Points or other tricks to remove recharge from any of those sorts of cards, but officially there isn't.
Along those lines, there's a spell in the Bright Wizard POD that's just sick. Firestorm , I think it is. Even without the staff that came in that same POD, a typical casting does between 20-50 damage on the first turn to everyone in the target engagement or Area (a term that is loosely if at all defined by the rules). You cast it, and spend your 3 Fortune Points for the session to pull recharge off immediately and blast them multiple times in the first round. It's crazy good, and only Rank 3. The Rank 5 area-effect Bright Order spell is much less impressive and has a much higher chance of misfire. I'd swap them, or just get rid of the Rank 3 spell entirely.
Many of the game's published adventures are mystery-oriented, and yet the game has tons of mystery-ruining blesings and spells. If you're running that kind of scenario, you'll need to carefully read all the Celestial, Verenean, Sigmarite , and Ranaldian cards before the players buy them. Oftentimes, half the fun in Warhammer is knowing who not to trust, and this sort of action can kill the fun if the GM hasn't prepared for it ahead of time.
While I haven't personally found X Marks The Spot (the Ranald blessing mentioned above) to be a real problem, it can easily cause major trouble if the GM's not expecting it and the plot line doesn't take it into account. Valvorik and Emirikol warned me about it ages ago, and that warning kept it from wrecking my campaign of The Enemy Within. (Thanks, guys! You saved my game!) It's important to note that it's _not_ a "find _generic_ object" spell, it's very specific. Mass production, repackaging, alterations, counterfeiting, planting evidence, or even just giving something a good wash and a polish, can and should beat this Rank 1 blessing, or at least add penalty dice depending on the situation. It doesn't work on people, but it can work on a person with a distinctive outfit or mask that the players have seen. It's also worth noting that knowing where something is does you little good if you can't get there safely.
Bamboozle (another Ranald blessing) is very potent. The trick to remember is that the GM adds penalty dice based on the Target's personality and the specifics of the thing the PC is trying to trick them into doing. If a successful casting of Bamboozle is going to squash the opposition or solve the entire plot in one roll, make sure you jack up the difficulty appropriately. I've found that players might not be motivated to remind you that the card implicitly encourages ramping the difficulty, so if you've got a Ranaldite at the table, take note. The other weird bit about this spell is that it becomes much more potent when the PC rolls a delay symbol.
Extra Credit: It's not just player actions that are ridiculously broken at times. The Skaven basic attack has a boon line that does 1 Fatigue to the target, per skaven in the engagement. I've accidentally created situations where a dozen or more skaven henchmen were in the same engagement, and thus this basic attack became a one-shot on anyone. Oops.
Edited by r_b_bergstromThanks for heads up on Firestorm and perhaps upping its Rank (have my first Bright Wizard PC)
I should mention as well there are a couple of swordmaster-oriented cards (Tower of Hoeth swordbearers etc.) where the text goofs and makes a Delay result a "good thing" because it is written to add a token to the card but you want them taking longer to recharge. Now you can decide that's intentional, sometimes there are actions that make those results good but usually they don't "replace" the bad effect (e.g., a teardrop fatigue result can get you something extra but is still fatigue whereas in this case "it's all good") - at minimum if keeping the "it's a good thing" I suggest still having it be a Delay and remember that lets GM puts 2 recharge token on any card a PC has not just one currently recharging (e.g., you're so zoned in on this action, we'll say you' re not using Improved Dodge for a bit, 2 recharge tokens on it).
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Agree with valvorik, if a delay is rolled the good thing should be in addition to the normal effects of the delay.
I generally put recharge tokens from Delay symbols on either an active defence, on the favourite action of the player or on curry favour/channel power (in case of a priest/wizard).
Sometimes moving the initiative down is fun, but mostly I use the recharge option. :
Hee hee hee, another evil GM. Yes I too sometimes (not always) tell the spellcaster that delay has muddled their interaction with the winds a bit, 2 charge on channel etc. That really makes it matter to them, just as the reckless spellcaster is seeing stress mount and threaten insanity.
That to me embodies much of thematic concept of interacting with winds - go slow and be safer (how rune/ritual/hedge magic works mostly in my view) or go fast and risk going mad!
I find mucking initiative usually only matters if at critical time (it changes first/next to act to foe and you really counted on that being a PC doing something), if it's just generic it doesn't have much impact and targeting an action card has more impact.
In narrative/interlude time I have delays mean more of day spent or "foes have longer to gather and get ready" etc.
Edited by valvorik