Im a DnD player and have been for a long time, and im proud to say that DnD has nothing on this game.....ill still play DnD but ill never DM again, WFRP 3E is the best game system ive seen in a long time. It bring roleplaying back to character interaction and less on KILL KILL KILL!!! MAGIC ITEMS!!!! MUST HAVE EXP!!!!!! the "leveling" in the system is soo much better, you just become a "pro" at what you do and then you make another career!! thats amazing, no more lvl 20 paladin crap! i just hope we see the game soon before i explode with joy!

Warammer roleplay has always pretty much had that aspect to it, its not unique to wfrp 3rd. In fact some people are concerned that WFRP 3rd is going too far in the direction of DnD high level super powers, big fights and the like, but even if it does take a step in that direction, i still don't think it will be as DnD as DnD is!

welcome to wfrp though, please keep the tentacles inside the car and enjoy the ride....

from solely being a DnD player i can tell you its nothing like DnD and WFRP 3E is one im talking about because 2E is for all we know "out of print" and i wana get into a game that is on going

Hi

I too have played a lot DnD, especially in the dark ages between the end of 1st wfrp and the release of the 2nd wfrp. We have had some truly good times in Forgotten Realms, using the in-depth plots and intriques of wfrp to fuel my DnD adventures.

I however noticed a stronger focus on combat and heroic actions in the 2nd edition wfrp than from the previous one. But once settled it really didn`t matter.
I fear yet a stronger focus on combat and the heroics, in the form of more combat/action related talents, and less of the other, in this new incarnation of WFRP. As the transformation from the 1st e to 2nd e clearly shows; several non-combat or non-action skills,talents and even characteristics where removed, and the trend continues.

Characteristics have gone from 11, (M, W, A are excluded) in the 1st edition, to a mere 6 characteristics in the latest version.

Would these more combat/action orientated rules, have any impact on the setting and world of warhammer? Will it change the strong gravity that the warhammer`s world have? I am not sure about that.

Will it have any impact on the players? we do know that certain rules and mechanics to influence how the game is played. For instance some players get more and more reckless as more Fate points they get. Maybe.

From what I read so far of news and examples I am not sure that FFG has missed the target. I suspect that a far greater and more grand strategy and scheme is at hand than just fleecing us from hard earned cash. There is implications that DnD 4 edition is not doing so well.... and if FFG has launched a...I dare not speculate more. But thing stirs in the RPG universe.

WFRP 3E, if given enough press could take over DnD 4E easily! 4E DnD is very Power gamer focused and is nothing of what a RPG should be......its very easy to bring someone into RPing. WFRP is focused on who you and and what you do as a character rather then what your kill......i like it...alot

Mal Reynolds said:

My D&D4 GM (a critic of D&D4) likes saying: "if the mechanics give you only a hammer, then you only see nails around you"... and that's what happens with D&D4. Sure, you can always roleplay using almost any rules, but D&D4 mechanics clearly put the focus in "character's balance" and "combat, XP, treasure" so no wonder most games of D&D4 turn out to be a soulless tactical fantasy battle game, where a player feels outraged if he is not able to down more monsters than another player...

I also see WFRP3 giving a bit extra weight to combat situations and that scares me a bit. It is also the reason I don't like the Henchmen rule... If you see a Beastman, it is the job of the GM describing it as your usual dangerous Beastman or as a bloodthirsty Beastigor, but there should be no metagaming in the players' minds... they should not ask themselves "does the GM want us to flee, ergo this is a normal Beastman, or does the GM want us to fight, ergo this is a Henchman Beastman"... that does not get the players into roleplaying mood, it puts them only in "gamey mood"... Players should always fear combat, that gives them more incentives to talk, bribe, investigate and try to plan the combat ahead to have an extra advantage... that's what WFRP was always about, the grimness is not only in the world, it's in the fear of your character turning up dead, insane or corrupt if you do something stupid or you are unlucky...

The players should think as their characters would, that's what makes RPGs a roleplaying experience. If they see 20 Beastmen, Orkses, even Goblins charging towards their group they should run "y punto"... they should not spend a single second of their time considering fighting them; now, if they are defending a fort and have prepared for the siege, and have a couple extra guards to help them, well then the situation changes, but because the players prepared themselves, not because the GM decided to use Henchmen to "balance the combat"... Each creature/monster should have an inherent/implicit threat value... Giving "levels" to monsters only detracts from the "suspension of disbelief" experience...

A well written post, cogollo ... but you have a different view of the henchmen rules than I do. You described it as a way to make enemies easier for the player to fight. I don't think that is at all the intent of the rules. I think the intent of the henchmen rules is to make handling multiple enemies easier and faster. A group of henchmen is at least as dangerous, if not more, than a single non-henchman.

Consider the Beastman example mentioned. Only one beastman attacks, as if it was a non-henchman, but gains an additional fortune die for each additional henchman in the group. That's a lot more chances for success, and therefore more likely to hit and possibly number of successes also affect damage. So, offensively, a group of just two henchmen is more powerful and dangerous than a single non-henchman. Defensively, they are generally weaker. Instead of 12 wounds a single beastman gets, they get their Toughness of 4, so it would take a henchman group of 3 beastmen to equal in wounds a single non-henchman. Also, add in the fact that they share health, so damage removes one henchman faster. However, the only real thing the loss of a henchman from a group does is remove a single fortune die from their offensive power. In this case, 4 wounds in order to remove a single fortune die from the beastmens' attack. It isn't until the group is down to a single beastman henchman that the offensive abiliy scales down to equal to a single non-henchman beastman. Yowch! So henchmen, although easy to whittle down, are at least as dangerous as non-henchmen until they are totally eliminated. Looking at this, I'd hardly call them easier or safer to fight. A single henchmen group of 20 is putting out a hell of a hurting with +19 fortune dice, you bet the PCs better run.

cogollo said:

This is a good way to explain it and I tend to see it in the same manner. The difference being between cinematic and gritty.

I've also played DnD and ADnD and WFRP. I also thought after playing DnD that is was a bit money / magic item oriented. So welcome to the WFRP world. All this discussion on henchmen and mechanics is very well, but when it comes to the game, it all depends on how the GM presents the scenario anyways.

Thats why I look forward to see a session video where Jay is the GM. It would be great to see what the man is made of ...

And after all I think Jay owes us a session demo video

dvang said:

I see your point here and I must say I am not 100% sure I won't use the Henchmen rules, I'll have to read them carefully when the game is published and maybe I'll change my mind...

still, I usually don't use many creatures in the combats in my campaigns, as I don't like my players slaughtering tens of, say, Skavens... I feel they could be interesting if you want to make a Warhammer campaign with legendary Heroes in mind, but I feel it would be missing part of the gritiness of Warhammer. They also could be interesting for managing swarms of puny creatures: snotlings, spiders, wolves, Barcelona football fans (sorry for my dear neighbours for the pun, I come from Madrid in Spain, have nothing against them but could not resist myself...).

I'm fine with my players finding a 1 on 1 relation of numbers in a battle difficult enough, I don't see why they would enjoy killing tens of creatures in regular combats, that sort of combat gets repetitive too quickly (at least that's my feeling of Minions in D&D4).

I like the Henchmen rules from a GM perspective of time management and fun factor.

I strive to have one on one per player basis type combats. But that doesn't always make sense. Especially interuppting a cult ritual. A cult of 4 ppl? can happen, not very epic. By the time my players get that far, they are in their 2nd to 3rd career, certainly have good gear and can defeat 10 snotlings even 20 maybe.

My players fear combat, i've beaten it into them. But when the story would be "cooler" with a grand melee, well I do it. I usually give the players an edge in game that gives them a belief that they can resonably defeat such masses of opponents, or they are in a situation where they can't successfully flee.

But why I don't do that sort of thing often, (other than wearing out the tecnique) is how long it takes to run a combat like that. And when you are running each combatant its quite tedious. Also the players are waiting for their turn, but i've to to resolve combatant 1-20 even with sudden death rules and hit me anywhere rules, its time consuming, and ultimately "NOT FUN" for me as a GM, and for the players sitting there waiting.

As long as you can have a snotling roll a killing crit, the game hasn't changed from 1st ed enough for me to worry about players not feeling risk, and trying to avoid risk with alternate decisions to combat.

So from that perspective I love the new Henchman stuff.

Necronomicus said:

I see your point, so I'm starting to appreciate that probably the Henchmen rules are an interesting addition, as I have had also a couple big combats in my campaigns and it would be nice to have something to speed them up... I think I'll use the Henchmen rules, but only in special occasions.

its best to use them only when its important to the story, in DnD 4E thats a fair encounter, one baddy for one hero.....not so cool take for EVER!! but yeah i like this idea because it makes your hero's FEAR combat....and i like that alot....my guys are like KILL KILL KILL....and now that will be "can we just talk?"

cogollo said:

It not only gives extra weight to combat situations. If you mean with extra weight extra rules and extra cards and extra counters, then EVERY aspect of roleplaying gets extra weight. Even simple things like climbing. The most extra weight get the rules in general. While 2nd ed. was not perfect it didnt stand in the way of roleplaying (aka portraying a character) and faded smoothly into the background. NOT so the 3rd edition rules. Did you look at the suppllied cards? There are HUNDREDS of them alone in the basic set. you have to look and focus at the abilities of those cards the WHOLE time during gaming instead of concentrating on roleplaying. Alone the godly favour card has half a dozen different effects on allies, enemies your horse and Kaiser Karl Franz. Much fun for anyone playing this abomination.

In 2nd edition combat sometimes was long, this is correct but it was easy to grasp and exciting. In 3rd edition a PC has to keep track of "x "(5 or 10 or even more?) combat power cards at the same time. No wonder that they are introducing henchmen rules. Its not only to let the PCs feel like heroes (which is BTW very warhammery indeed) Imagine the mess the GM has when he has to keep full track of the powers of 12 normal non-minion enemies in a combat.

Additionally you have to "tap" and "recharge" cards. Magic the Gathering anyone?

superklaus said:

In general I agree with you superklaus but I dont think it will be nearly as clunky as you describe. I think as many people have said, the cards in front of you is no real difference then a book. (However, its a lot harder to lose a book then a single card and all the sudden sorry folks, no more fireballs). The cards just take the place of looking up your skill or action or talent in the book everytime you use it. However, the tapping, recharge and other boardgame/card game/video game effects do bother me.

In all honesty I can tell you this, I can break down Rogue Trader, Dark Heresy and WFRP and tell you many facets I despise (sorry FFG/BI a rank system is still a level system in disquise) but overall the feel, flavor and style fit what to me is a certain atmosphere for the setting, much how WEG Star Wars was far more Star Warsy then WotC Star Wars D20.

Im not opposed o dice pools or cards, Im opposed to drastic unreasonable change to a system that has worked, still works and will always work better for me. As many people have said my 2E books are not vaporizing off my shelf and they will be used. I didnt mind the excessive number of D6s in Sta Wars (especially when force points went a flying) and fondly recall and love the battle magic card system used in Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3E and 4E.

What I dont like about 3E largely is the attitude that I cant hate it until I pay $100 for it. And I dont like any system that feels it is above standard dice (D6 not six sided dice with icon, symbols and heiroglyphs that require me learnign a micro language to play, I hate that) and then having to compare your results to a chart (or eventually memorize) what each result does and means and then how they apply to each other is a lot more demanding then just comparing a dice roll to a number, be you rolling below it or above it and so forth.

And then there is the transfer of a beloved system to a totally different system. Yes, nostalgia is a problem for me. I might not mind some of the elements of 3E but Id mind them evenless if they were for some totally different game.

And I have been through this before. When Mayfair lost its license for D.C. Heroes and West End Games picked it up as D.C. Universe, toally different system, rules and feeling in the game. And it was not for the better. The same goes for the original rules for D.C. Heroes when they were leased by Pulsar Games to make Blood of Heroes. It was the same system, more or less, that I had loved for years. But different setting, and that gave the rules a different feel.

I dont think at all that this new system wont work, I just have no interest in it and would rather it failed and that FFG go by to (yes) my PRECIOUS 2nd EDITION.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Well the clunkyness could be the choice of my rather limited vocabulary. (english is not my native tongue) Sorry for this.

Peacekeeper_b said:

If there is the same info on it, ok. But as the things are portrayed in the previews there is ALOT more info on the cards than it was ever in any book. Or do you think that a single talent where you get +5% toughness needs a card? I dont think so. But this is different in 3rd edition. In this ed. cards there are not just simple adds like +5%. As I said before, alone the divine favour card has half a dozen effects! So from a designers PoV not to put the effect description on a card would rather be foolish.

So 3rd ed. cards are in effect a good design solution for so many effects and much superior to any book. BUT (and this is a BIG but) what I think is the big mistake and the abominiation is the AMOUNT of effects a card like for example divination have. The sheer amount of effects is ridicolous and totally against the kind of smooth play 2nd edition offered. I really dont want to count beans or hammers or squirrels and staring on my half dozen open, non-tapped, power cards constantly only to spot every single hammer or squirrel or chaos slime blorp the dice are showing up and afterwards interpreting some odd effects in a given roleplaying situation. THIS is not a LCG where such spotting procedures are standard, its a RPG!

Peacekeeper_b said:

Yes another example that my rant is quite correct.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Well I dont care if they go back to the 2nd edition. I dont think they ever will do. But I also hope that this 3rd ed. heresy will generate so few responses that they go straight ahead to a 4th edition which should be a worthy inheritor to the 2nd ed. without all these "tools" (which are not more than childish toys)

Peacekeeper_b said:

Nostalgia is a problem for me too, my group is torn over the idea of a totally new edition. As a GM I use quit a lot of time to prepare them for this inevitable change. Since second edition will not be supported anymore, I will have buy the 3rd edition. I have neither the time nor the skill to produce materiall of my own.

You can hate WFRP 3 as much you want, for I understand why there is so much opposition to this change... We where left out. Yes we where left out in the creation and process of WFRP 3. It was developed under secrecy by FFG, and than dumped on our lap, saying deal with it. I think FFG would have come better off if they were more open about it. It wouldn`t hurt to announce at a early stage that they were going to make a new edition for WFRP, maybe even let us write comments and suggestion to how we would have wanted it. I think that would have been a better approach.

Hoping for somthing doesn`t make it true, why not reconciliate yourself with the fact that 2nd edition is over? It make the hurt less, and maybe you can start to enjoy the prospect of new products for the warhammer rpg. It took some wailing for me, especially when I looked at the shelves of all the 2e products I have, knowing they will be incompatible with WFRP3.

im gonna give it a chance. but i think they(FFG)should have just ran with 2nd ed! i mean,didnt the system win a award or some such?

KONRAD said:

Mal Reynolds said:

i can understand that coming from a DnD 3.5 background and into the 4E.....and its hard...and i have LOTS of money in DnD 4E and now all my guys are going to WFRP V3, but with 6 guys including me its 23 bucks US, as i have said, which is less the one Players handbook per person.....hello deal!

Every so many years RPGs come out with a new edition to keep things new and interesting. Every RPG has it happen, unless the game goes under. Some versions are a bit 'newer' and have more changes than others. Take the D&D line ... Chainmail to Basic D&D, to AD&D, to 3.0, to 3.5, to 4e. There are some huge changes in there, and with every version change (even the less drastic ones) there was a big uproar amongst the community about how the game was ruined and why didn't they just update the X rules instead of making Y changes. History shows, however, the game actually improved in many ways as the designers and players learned better what worked and what didn't work. And, the game still sells and players still have fun. Even players that played older versions can end up liking the newer versions. I believe that WFRP is the same way. People will want to cling to the old ways, but many will try 3e and find that although it is different, it is still an enjoyable game and still feels like the Warhammer world they live.

Of course, I'm known as an optimist. So I to see the positive more than the negative anyway.

True, there are always new editions.

But the change from D&D to AD&D wasnt quite as severe as WFRP 2E to WFRP 3E, at heart it was the same system more or less. And the change from AD&D 1E to AD&D 2E was even less so. The core systems were the same more or less. Roll D20 based on level against AC to hit, weapons do X damage, you gain X HP per level and X spells and so forth. You had races and classes (basic had races as classes, but they could essentially cross over to AD&D with little to no work).

The notion of Hit Dice, Hit Points, TCHAC0, Armor Class, Level, Class and Alignment were all there with 75% recognition and interchangability.

3E was quite a departure, but you still had the same core attributes and level system but the game was made more open for choice and change. But you could still look at the game and see it was at heart the same system just streamlined and while I am not a 3E fan (long live AD&D 2E) it still looked the same at heart.

Mutant Chronicles 1E and 2E were even less of a changed, as were all the editions of Role Master, MERP, Hero System and on and on. What we have with WFRP 2E to 3E is not a new edition, but an entirely different game.

Peacekeeper_b said:

If you say new game system I agree. But in the totally of it, its the same setting (regardless of when the setting date is) ;-)

Peacekeeper_b said:

Well if you have played 3.5 and 4e...........yeah you would see the HUGE DIFFERENCE

Farin said:

Never got into 3E as 2E was D&D at its best. My experience with 3E is basically D20 modern stuff. I will never try 4E.