I've posted a new designer diary taking a closer look at challenge levels and using dice to help modify and arbitrate the difficulty of tasks.

In addition to providing some examples of adjudicating difficulty during play, this diary also features a guest appearance by Clive Oldfield, one of the contributors to the project.

Big fat speculation here:

but based on what I can see of the dodge action card in the product description it looks like when you dodge you might add misfortune dice to an opponents roll based on your agility. and for every blank that is rolled you add a recharge to your card. so I'm guessing that armor is represented with the purple challenge dice. this is me guessing. but if this is the case then its a pretty cool way to do things all in one dice roll.

chojun said:

To the bolded text.
Pretty cool, maybe.
One roll, not at all.
It probably is spectacular too, but think of how many of them you will need to roll.
If above quoted speculation is right you roll as much as in 2-nd ed (1 roll for the attack, 1 roll for the damage).

The thing that disturbs me from the moment I read about dice pool in 3-rd ed is amount of dice to roll in one roll.

In 2-nd ed most of the time you rolled 2 dices, in case of fights up to 4 dices, magic needed more, with chanelling, magic dices, and chaos dices you could roll even 6-8 dices sometimes, but no more. The result was flat, and without many additional info (but if you want you could make them give you as much info as you need, just count success levels, doubles etc.). You rolled the dices, added modifiers, voila.

Now, in 3-rd ed:
- challenge dices 0-4 depending on the task
- attribute dices speculation will be 2-6 dices (no idea how much attributes changed in new ed)
- if you are skilled enough add expertise dices 0-3 is my assumption
- if something bad add misfortune 0-3 dices probably
- if something good add fortune dices 0-3 dices probably
So in general you will need to roll 2-19 dices in the extreme cases (I ommit the fact that some skills, and dice symbols allow for rolling additional dices, or rerolling the ones already rolled). That means that an average character on average task with average skills with some luck and misfortune will need to roll about 10 dices. Then some of them can be rerolled. And only after that you know the result.

We can speculate that typical fight roll will be:
- roll about 8-10 dices on an attack roll,
- depending on the attack outcome (some fortune dices maybe), you weapon damage (probably a few lets say 3), and armor (assuming 0-5) make another roll and count the damage, special symbols can trigger critical wounds and so on

Well, lots of dices to roll. And even with additional info they bring I'm still sceptical.
Looks like I will need to take some of my old dices, paint them, and roll for a bit.

there is a 90% chance I'm wrong. and I'm wrong a lot. I'm just looking at what I can see on the dodge card. I can see a black dice blank on the card.

there is a possibility that on a dodge the person dodging rolls the misfortune dice, instead of the attacker. and there is the option that the one party rolls the good dice, and the other party rolls the bad dice. this would cut down on the " dice bouncing off the table and rolling under the refridgerator syndrome"

Yeah, I'm probably wrong too

But I'm afraid that ending the "dice bouncing off the table and rolling under the refridgerator" syndrome will start a new one called "dices bounced off the table and now one is under the fridge, the other is under your desk, the third is in my sister's room, the fourth... why don't we use some bigger table, this 10-person one is too small for all this shiny stuff and all the dice" and so on, and so on.

Well, WFRP 3e does come in a box , so one could always use the conveniently provided box to roll dice in and keep them from rolling off the table.

From what I've seen so far, I don't think there is going to be a separate damage roll. You'll inflict damage based on the attack being used and how many extra successes/ boons you get.

And I'll have to second the usage of a box in which to roll dice, as I've mentioned in other threads.

NewTroski said:

Yes, you are probably right.
I watched again part 4 of the seminar, and according to what I have seen on the troll-slayer attack card reckles side it appears to be truth.

Here is what I found on this card:
Special: you may not use any Active Defences while this card is recharging.
Success: you hit for +1 damage.
3 Successes: you hit for +3 damage.
Boon: +1 damage, and ignore your target's armor (here is a word that I'm unable to read) value from this attack
2 Boons: +3 damage, +1 critical (this ones looks curious, what does it mean +1 critical ?)
Sigmar's Comet: inflict 1 critical wound, then inflict normal wound equal to it's severity
Bane: suffer 1 fatigue
Chaos Star: suffer 1 wound

Still, some fight example would be nice, because I have no idea how all this attacks, damage, parrying, dodging, and armor can be put into a single roll.

Sunatet said:

From what we know, there are wound cards and Critical cards (broken hand, blood in your eyes, shattered pelvis etc...). So some special attacks increase the chances of dishing out criticals.

Of course, some monsters may be immune to criticals, or have pre-written rules for them instead of taking criticals etc...

Necrozius said:

Yes, but the assumption was "only one roll", and there is another line (next to the quoted one) that says:
"inflict 1 critical wound"

So we have "inflict 1 critical wound" and "+1 to critical" statements.

If we assume that one roll gives us all the info about if hit succedded, and how much damage it inflicts then "+1 to critical" seems a bit enigmatic.
Unless of course, there is separate damage roll, or some additional critical hit mechanics (like mentioned pre-written rules)...

I would really like to see some combat action in the next diary (I will make a sacrifice to Khorne in that intention).

I wonder if all these different effects stack on the axes. If you get four axes will everything stack or do you take the higher axe result?

From reading the cards, it looks like they are cumulative.

Example on the 'Omen' card:

1 Boon: Add 1 recharge token

2 Boon: Add 1 recharge token

If they didn't stack, the second line would be moot.

Sunatet said:

Why is it enigmatic? +1 Critical just means that the target suffers an extra critical injury. That probably just means "pick one of these random cards - that's the critical he suffers".

macd21 said:

Seems enigmatic because of the statement above the one You quoted:
-> So we have "inflict 1 critical wound" (and that one is for sure "pick one of these random cards - that's the critical he suffers") and "+1 to critical" (and that one is enigmatic to me because of the previous one, doesn't sound like pick one of the critical cards, more like add +1 to critical roll or something) statements.

Sunatet said:

I think it's more likely to simply mean "inflict one additional critical wound".

macd21 said:

Maybe, maybe not, I have no idea...
Let's hope next diary gives us some more info about that. Right now, it's just assumptions and maybes.

Based on what I've seen so far, I feel safe assuming that maybe criticals in combat are figured out entirely by the one attack roll.

+1 critical could mean a great deal many things, but I have a feeling that it's effects are in addition to whatever the result was. Like, "target takes an additional critical card on top of whatever damage and criticals he's already taken".

Or perhaps each critical card has a few degrees of bad effects. Like they can get WORSE.

Like that bleeding eye socket that halfling thief got? Well, now it's GUSHING A FOUNTAIN AT YOU. Take a reflex check or choke on rancid halfling EYE blood.

The Wound cards have two sides. A generic "Wound" side and a hidden Critical side. I believe that when you take a Wound you draw a random Wound card. When you take a critical, you flip over one of your Wound cards to reveal the Critical side.

It is possible that +1 Critical means an additional critical ... or it could mean an increased effect/level on criticals showing. Similar to how 1 Boon does X and 2 Boon does Y.

Looking at the dice system I can see it is definatly more complex than 2nd ed, though I doubt it will be more complicated once you get used to them.

For me as a player I like the vagueness of the system I prefer general idea of chances of success, however as a GM I like hard difiniative numbers.
While looking at the dice as a GM I keep thinking so how much harder does adding the one missfortune (black die) make the test? Is it different for each players skill level? How much harder does it make for a green individual, a master, someone in between?

While adding dice for increasing difficuilty will it actually increase the difficuilty, sometimes yes, sometimes no. Based on probability as a whole it will, though the amount it will do so will depend heavily on the characters current ability, since each added die changes the current difficuilty by a percentage based on the chances of the faces showing up.

Why doesn't missfortune and fortune dice cancel each other out?

While as a player I look at how the numerical factors of how much does changing my stance (thusly dice) help or hinder my outcome in a slight scale, a little, alot, nothing at all?

While I like the idea of the dice telling how a character succeedes, why would a character know if it was because of skill, luck, training or situation. As a person I couldnt tell you for a significant ammount of tasks, why I succeed or fail in things I attempt is down to luck, skill, training or simply situation.

The player in me likes the Idea, while the GM side of me is cringing in the potential brain explosion of the magnatude of calculations Ill need to achieve. While both still arent sure if its worth the change.

Loswaith said:

Because both could produce results after the roll. For example, the fortune dice could result in a boon and the misfortune a bane. These don't cancel each other out.

macd21 said:

"Banes and boons cancel each other out – if there are an equal number of both rolled, no bane or boon effects will be triggered". This is from the dice symbol pdf.

Amketch said:

If you cancel banes and boons out after the roll, there is still a chance that rolls might result in either. If you cancel the dice themselves out then there will be no chance of both (ie one or the other) and in cases where the number of dice are equal, there might be no chance of either.

(obviously the results might be available from other dice types, of course.)

Amketch said:

Woops. Still, Amketch has it right: the odds of getting a bane or a boon are increased when you add the dice. While there is a chance that the two will cancel each other out, that isn't likely. So if you add 1 fortune and 1 misfortune dice, the chances of getting either a boon or a bane are increased, though the chances of getting both at once are not (which is probably a good thing).

The main reason I ask is tecnically good fortune would cancel out bad fortune, they are diametrically opposite dice from all I can tell.

Seems a weird thing to go this is more difficult because of this and easier because of this, yet neither could actually be the case depending on the luck of the dice, making successes or failure more about luck than simply any skill or preperation (or lack there of) on the part of the player/character.

So what happens when the results of a dice through all cancel each other out?

Like rolling 2 challenges, which cancel out 2 hammers, and rolling two banes which cancel out your two boons.

Do you ignore the lack of a good or bad result and just re-roll immediately?