I see where you're coming from Dvang and argue it well, but let me make a slight clarification.

What is so bad about a trained soldier who knows how to get around armor spamming the same attack? Wouldn't he try it at every opportunity he gets? Wouldn't he constantly do it rather than hit hard. I mean if you come to a fight with a sword, a knife, and a machine gun, which one's are you going to use? You'll spam the machine gun till its out of ammo, go down to the sword next...if and only if that breaks or you're disarmed, your opponent gets to close you'll go down to a knife and only if that's lost will you down to a your fists, and if those cut off, legs and teeth. Maneuvers with those weapons are spammed until they are countered or are no longer applicable (gun runs out of bullets). A guy with a machine gun fires, fires a lot, sprays or short bursts. Sure he can switch between them, but does it at his leisure. That's just how it goes. If you try to split logs you spam the same action over and over and over again for each log. When you do most actions, you find the most effective way of doing it and spam. You may stop when tired, wipe the brow, then get back at it. It's simple nature that when you find the best system of doing something you do it until someone else shows you a better system.

The recharge system is counter-intuitive to that effect and natural system. I'll go into that a little more, but I gotta run, so I'll get back to you.

One last thing I should point out real quick, I know the actions will be different depending on the cards. But, my point with that is, if you have other, secondary limitations to a cards abilities a player has to react to his situation with the cards instead of having another artificial mechanic steps in and takes over (the recharge system). I would argue that someone who has a mega smash and light smash as I outlined may choose to use one or both against an NPC in armor. Light stabs until he's halfway down, then hit him with one powerful final blow. It's hella cinematic and would be a great system. If there is a cost, things sacrificed to use an ability it adds tons of detail.

The problem, as I see it, commoner, is that things like splitting logs where repetitious actions are common (and most efficient) do not involve a dynamic situation. You soldier is not going to keep thrusting his knife at the enemy in the exact same maneuver over and over again. He's going to slice and then stab, sometimes high and sometimes low, so he remains unpredictable to the enemy. The enemy is going to do the same. To spam an overhead swing at an enemy is to make yourself very vulnerable and predictable, regardless of how effective it will be *if* it lands. Not only does it make the attacker more vulnerable, but it makes the attack more easily avoided/blocked/less likely to land. Thus, such repetitious attacks are avoided. Now, it's true that occasionally doing the same attack twice or three times in a row is sometimes done ('realistically'), and that is not still not allowed in the 3e rules. However, there always comes a point where, since this is a game, rules need to avoid being overly complex. Each exception to a rule makes the rules that much more complex, so a line needs to be drawn somewhere. I'm not saying that these are the greatest rules of all time or anything. They might even end up frustrating and getting house ruled. But I don't see them any more unrealistic than other RPG rules, and I like the fact that it causes players to need to think about when to use certain attacks and have them rotate out different actions rather than using the same one every attack because they like it best.

commoner said:

In history, an entire battle was won hitting German plated soldiers (a novelty for that time) in the armpit, were plate offers no cover.

commoner said:

The bold part is the important bit. He'll try it every opportunity he gets, but that opportunity won't come up every single. round. The recharge-system if an abstract way of representing that, with banes on the attack roll (which add to the recharge time) adding some variety (your opponent takes care to limit your openings). Melee combat should not be reduced to spamed attacks - it is both boring and unrealistic.

I think Jericho and Commoner make good points here.

I also find it's a pity that the initial idea (using dice pools) was innovating and seemed exciting to use but the action cards I've seen and the recharge mechanic are not very appealing to me... In D&D4 you also have lots of "actions" with fancy names you can do with your character so that at the end the game focuses too much in the combat tactics using the powers you have instead of describing the scenario to the characters, letting them say what they want to do, then deciding how to solve the action... players no longer describe anything, they just move their miniature on the table and say the power they are going to use... At the end I realised with D&D4 that it became a sort of tactical combat game and, let's face it, there are much better tactical combat games out there, Descent being my favourite.

So, I was a bit tired of the mechanics forcing too much tactics in the games and combat in RPGs being influenced by MMOs, and when I saw the dice pool and how WFRP3 intended to manage movement and distances, I was very pleased but, as Jericho and Commoner point out, I see too much "gamey" aspects in the action cards for my taste...

I'm going to buy the game, but I will most probably redo a lot of the action cards myself... Maybe FFG could publish alternative combat rules that cater more to those of us who want to see a bit more realism in the game?... I would like to see:

• Combats that are shorter and that involve less tactical discussions during the combat. One idea I proposed was giving the PCs some time (a minute, for example) to decide what to do (could be done by them choosing the action card they want to use or writing down their intention), then making them roll initiative... but anything that avoids people endlessly discussing tactically how their characters will act (instead on thinking in-character how their characters would act) would be useful.
• Action cards that leave more opportunities for the GM to decide the result of the action. At the moment, basically you just add your successes and banes and read in the card what happened... this is not what we were told at the beginning... well, at least for story mode the GMs will have some freedom, I hope...
• Equipment that gets damaged during combat... I think one of the aspects that make a universe gritty is that you have to take care of any penny... seeing your equipment destroyed during combat would add to that feeling... doing this with the dice pool banes should be easy...
• Nasty critical hits, as in the old MERP or Rolemaster... I think FFG will provide WFRP3 with this...

So, to end my comment, I like the dice pool mechanics, I like that the game will use cards and counters, but I feel the actual implementation of the combat using these tools is a bit too much MMO for my taste.

dvang said:

i agree fully. Im a Martial Artist and if i punch or kick the same way every time in a sparring match.....im gana get destroyed!! but if i move in different patterns and attack different ways the other guy is gana get distracted and i have a better chance at winning that match i have faught many people and some are very "patternistic" (thats no a word but im gana use it lol) . they fight the same way and move the same way every time they attack....its easy to find the weakness and hit them hard! so the recharge is very logical and tactical....if you attack one way....dont do it again for a while...then the enemy knows what your thinking and can strike and strike hard

Interesting thread.

Regarding the inefficiencies of spamming an attack.

Wouldn't that be better represented by the rules by adding misfortune dice if you use the same attack over and over ?

Or put it another way, add one misfortune die per remaining recharge counter still on the card ?

That would acount for predictability in combat, but it would remain realistic in the sense that PCs should always be allowed to do what they want, even if what they want is stupid. Let them try ! Is my motto. The recharge rule as it stands doesn't let them try, it's more "let them wait".

Maybe in a certain situation, your only chance at winning is using the same tactic over and over, because of the targets toughness and soak, for example.

If only your Great Cleave can get through, you'll want to try it as often as possible, maybe even more often than is good for you...

The game has to be able to deal with irrationnal and emotional use of skills. Or else we're back into systems optimisation mode, which has no place in RPGs, IMO. So many other games let you play like that, rpgs are about player creativity and FREEDOM.

Jericho said:

Nice idea. I need to think about it when the game is out.

Jericho said:

That's another way to do it, but neither option is really more 'realistic' than the other. Just because a character wants to use the same option again and again, doesn't mean he can . It isn't just about increased difficulty, repeating the same action may simply be completely impossible, or so difficult as to not be feasible. Obviously whether this was true or not would depend on the action in question - but rather than having different rules for each action, FFG decided to go with a simpler option. Neither is more realistic than the other IMO.

I like your idea, Jericho, and I think it might make a good house rule if people want. You can use the ability early, but add more misfortune dice the faster you try to hurry it.

I will also point out, though, that some attacks/actions might take longer than 4-6 seconds (a round) to set back up and execute, and of course you only want to execute it when you have the opportunity to have it be effective. If your opponent is currently ducking, you don't want to swing for his head. If you are attacking a german soldier in his armpit, you need to wait for the german soldier to expose his armpit.

The recharge system, as I see, abstracts this concept into a somewhat predictable method for accomplishing a quasi-realistic combat, while also providing additional types of attacks and actions beyond the v2 Standard/Swift/Lightning attack.

Hmm, for the house rule we might want to add a limit, such as 3 additional misfortune dice. So, those actions that recharge the longest (4+) will *have* to recharge a round or two before they can be used early. This seems like it could be a 'best of both worlds'. Some actions are just too complex to pull off one right after each other in a short time, yet the player can hurry them up and use them faster than what might be prudent/optimal. I'll certainly keep this in mind if I 9and my group) don't find the recharge system working for us.

We'll need to see which talents or abilities make recharge times shorter.

Also, we need to see what kind of actions the game has to offer, and which careers can buy them.

Then, if needed, maybe we can cook up a houserule using misfortune or fatigue or a combination of the two.

Jericho said:

I like your idea as it adds freedom to the players and GM and it is very simple to houserule... basically you use the cards as given but instead of forbidding a character to use the same action over and over you allow him to try but with higher difficulty level.

I remembered once reading that the GM should never say no to a player's idea but instead assign a difficulty... that's exactly what you propose here and I like it...

Such a little thing... yet still you saved me a lot of houseruling work... Thanks for sharing the idea!

After reading all this my only worry is how much paperwork there will be for a GM. If he's got 8 orcs doing block/parry/dodge, is he going to have a boatload of counters, timers, and extended effects? I left 4E D&D because DMing it flat out sucks. It's a nightmare of accounting, auditing, balancing the books, bookkeeping, calculating, computing, tallying and reckoning. GONE was the feeling that even I, the DM, was able to "describe" anything in combat..I was too busy counting S%^&.

Anyways, I'm still preordered

jh

Jericho said:

interesting......i can see the logic here.....and it took me a bit but i like it...i MIGHT use it...ill see how the recharge works out tho...very nice idea : )

Emirikol said:

I think the idea (presented in an earlier spoiler) is that if you have 8 "identical" orcs than they count as one group with regards to what powers they can use. There might still be 8 attacks but only one will be able to use a given special power until it recharges. ofcourse if you have 8 individual orcs it'll be hell - but that's not very likely.

Emirikol said:

If you look at the PDF on monsters that was in the adversary designer diary you can see how it will work. Instead of having seperate special actions for each of the NPC, the group as a whole gets some. While an action is recharging none of the NPCs can use it. So if you are facing a warband consisting of a chaos warrior leading three chaos marauders and the chaos warrior uses Reaving Strike, none of the NPCs can use Ruinous Attack until it has recharged. Very abstract, but it'll cut down on the book-keeping.

I think that the basics of the combat round are clear.
At least about the mechanical approach.

In many games we have, practically, only one type of action: the generic attack.
In many other games we have two: the generic attack and the parry.

V3 seems to elaborate on this (simple) concept and this is a welcomed innovation.

But why introducing a recharge? Why impose this types of limit? To me seems a little "artificial" limitation.

I'd like to understand why the designers developed this recharge mechanics.
What was the indented effect? What is the rationale behind this approch?

Inject more dinamism? Force the player to change actions? Balance? Realism?

DeathFromAbove said:

I'm pretty sure they've introduced the cooldown/recharge mechanism to avoid players (and even GM's) constantly spamming their "best" attack. Most systems with powers or non-standard attacks have either a cost (like Exalted) or a limit on use (like DnD) in order to force a bit of tactics, to avoid the 'powercreep' ("why spend xp on another power when it's weaker than my current spam-power") or spamming problem and to (potentially) make fights more interesting.

42! said:

well put : )

Yes, I think this also.

This will could bring the topic in another direction.

42! said:

Yes, well said and that's my impression as well. There are added benefits, like making the players think about which action to use and when, but I expect to avoid players being able to get spam whichever action is 'best' repeatedly. Instead of a straight cost (like the fatigue suggestion earlier in the thread), the "cost" is time for the action to recharge again (i.e. a limited re-use). It also dovetails into similar mechanics (from what I can tell) with the magic (both divine and arcane), making the system more unified.

Is making the system more unified an end in itself ?

Why should rules for combat actions be similar to those for spells and prayers ? I don't get that one. These are very different actions, storywise, and shouldn't the mechanics differentiate them as well ? We probably won't get "Build Boat" action cards because Boat building is better catered to by another type of mechanic than cards with recharge values.

Making the system unified feels a lot like MMOs, where every character needs his or her powers for combat scenes. And the best way to balance it all is to unify everything according to the same mechanic. And since wizards and priests have spell powers, we then take the spell system (which has always used "recharge" values for spell durations) as a base and devise melee combat actions on a similar template.

Making melee actions similar to spells mechanics wise does unify the system, but it also misses the point that melee and magic should be two very different things. Or else we might get the feeling that magic is in fact Marvel Superheroes type powers (ie. quick release, melee like effects mostly).

Matter of taste maybe, but I prefer spells that are long to cast, that have risky and devastating effects when they succeed. Have fire darts be used as sword strikes is, hmmm, banal. Makes magic feel cheap and predictable.

In V2, many spells did have that gunslinger powersurge feel, but many others were very atmospheric and to the point. So I could live with that. Now I can't wait to see the complete list of action cards, spells and prayers that comes with the boxed set. That will be the ultimate test IMO. Then we will know if V3 wants to unify and make "elegant" mechanics more than produce rules that give life to a truly atmospheric and believable gaming environment.

It makes the system easier to learn and easier to understand. It makes changing characters from a spellcaster to a fighter (and vice versa) not as large a leap of learning. The point of much of 3e is to try to make the game easier to understand and use, without delving into the rulebook. Thus, making combat actions somewhat similar to spells (notice they aren't exactly the same as far as we can tell. Divine casters need to try to gain favor, etc) by using recharge, allows players to more easily transition and understand the mechanics of the different career types since they have that much more in common.

...and from a GM' s standpoint, having a more unified system makes it easier to manage combats where players are taking a wide variety of actions.

It also helps players really understand the advantages and disadvantages of each type of action.

My design guideline has always been: Simple without being Simplistic