Questions about 3e that I'd like to have answered...welll...now.

By commoner, in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

So I've been reading over every ounce of pertinent information to 3e and I have come up with a list (actually a short list) of questions that I feel we should have had answers to already, but have not. Of course, that's not to say the designer diaries are bad, actually, I quite like them and I like the speculation about them that occurs from how they're written...however, there are several questions from them that would ease our understanding of how they function:

1) What are on the actual sides of the dice?

I'd like a breakdown, side by side what's on the dice, (for example: On the Characteristic dice there are 4 Successes, 2 Boons, 2 Blank). I'd like to see it for every die. It has been a nagging question since the system was first introduced and it still is. I see rules that give skill dice, talent dice, fortune/misfortune dice, and I wonder, what does that actually mean? Why is getting fortune dice better or worse than Talent dice or the like. What are my chances of failure on a Challenge die versus a Misfortune die, and what are my chances for Boons, etc? This would help us, as a group, be able to gauge the effectiveness of the core mechanics and know how they play out in detail. I thought maybe FFG maybe didn't want us home-brewing our dice now, but now that the Emperor's Decree has been put out, I know we'll see them then, but I'd rather focus then on gameplay and enjoying the event rather than counting die sides.

I don't even think we'd need a designer diary dedicated to it, just a post here in the forums or a general announcement. I know the marketers wouldn't love that, but those who are here all the time talking about this game would greatly appreciate it. Has this been bugging anyone else but me?

2) How does contests between two characters work?

With more action cards being revealed, we need to know how these mechanics work. It is fundamental to all game systems and without the question answered the cards make little sense to how they will be resolved mechanically. Ultimately, when it comes to mechanics, the first question is the most important, but this runs a close second.

3) How do weapons, damage and how much damage a character can take actually work in the system?

I remember ynenn commenting on how all the design diary replies to combat training 102 focused on replies only concerning the recharge mechanic. The hit/defense system was straight forward enough and very clear. However, it was hard to speculate on how the card's damage modifier + weapon damage versus soak mechanism actually works since, at this time, there is no frame of reference. What I think was lacking from this is how many "hit points" for lack of a better term does a character have. How is it determined and how is their soak determined. How does a character get a base damage score? How is this as well determined, by weapon, base Strength, or what? Maybe the "Mook" rules would not have been received so critically if we truly understood how their ability to take damage is truly lower than a major NPC or PC. It's another nagging question I've had about the game. So we have all these new dice that give us different success methods, well, how is that going to work in the combat and damage mechanics has been a question burning on my mind since the system was first announced. We've had part a good starting point with the combat system, but this question is the third major question I feel we need to answer?

How do you guys feel about these questions and if you have your own, post them up!

I might just be talking out of my hat, but I think we've got the answers to your questions 2 and 3.

Then again, I might be plain wrong.

Question 2:
In "Combat Training 102", under point 4, it talks about adding the target's Defence to the dice pool as Misfortune dice.

Ynnen mentioned on the forum (somewhere) that opposed rolls only involve 1 person rolling, so I'd assume that they work in the same way that combat does: you add Misfortune dice to your pool, based on your opponent's "defence".

We're just not clear on what range these "defence" ratings are in. The example Bestiary characters have a range of 0 - 2, but I'd guess it'd go a bit higher than that.

Question 3:
In "Combat Training 102", point 6 shows how to calculate the damage, but doesn't give any concrete examples. Gurni's character sheet comes to the rescue again! I think it's got everything we need to run a quick example.

Example: "A bad night for Gurni"
In a feat of sheer incompetence, Gurni hits himself with his (not-so-trusty) hand axe.

Damage Potential : 10
- 5 (Gurni's Strength)
- 5 (damage of Gurni's hand axe)

Damage Reduction : 6
- 4 (Gurni's Toughness)
- 2 (the Soak of Gurni's Leather)

Damage Potential - Damage Reduction = no. Wounds.
10 - 6 = 4 Wounds (Ouch!)

Gurni's Wound threshold is listed as 14, so I reckon he's down to 10, with 4 wound cards sitting in front of him.

The following is (even more) guesswork.

We don't know how criticals work, but we do have a critical value for his hand axe: 3. I'd guess that if you inflict a number of wounds = the critical value in 1 hit, that's a critical. So, in the above example, not only is Gurni down to 10 wounds with 4 wound cards in front of him, but I reckon he's got to turn 1 face up. Even more ouchies!

Still, at least he'll hopefully not do that again.

/guesswork

Katzenhandler said:

....

Question 2:
In "Combat Training 102", under point 4, it talks about adding the target's Defence to the dice pool as Misfortune dice.

Ynnen mentioned on the forum (somewhere) that opposed rolls only involve 1 person rolling, so I'd assume that they work in the same way that combat does: you add Misfortune dice to your pool, based on your opponent's "defence".

We're just not clear on what range these "defence" ratings are in. The example Bestiary characters have a range of 0 - 2, but I'd guess it'd go a bit higher than that.

...

This does concern me a little and realy looks like you are going to want atleast half the dice as miss fortune dice, espceially given when you stack the opponent resistance + inheriant action difficuilty + situational difficuilty it will make for alot of missfortune dice.

commoner said:

3) How do weapons, damage and how much damage a character can take actually work in the system?

I remember ynenn commenting on how all the design diary replies to combat training 102 focused on replies only concerning the recharge mechanic. The hit/defense system was straight forward enough and very clear. However, it was hard to speculate on how the card's damage modifier + weapon damage versus soak mechanism actually works since, at this time, there is no frame of reference. What I think was lacking from this is how many "hit points" for lack of a better term does a character have. How is it determined and how is their soak determined. How does a character get a base damage score? How is this as well determined, by weapon, base Strength, or what? Maybe the "Mook" rules would not have been received so critically if we truly understood how their ability to take damage is truly lower than a major NPC or PC. It's another nagging question I've had about the game. So we have all these new dice that give us different success methods, well, how is that going to work in the combat and damage mechanics has been a question burning on my mind since the system was first announced. We've had part a good starting point with the combat system, but this question is the third major question I feel we need to answer?

How do you guys feel about these questions and if you have your own, post them up!

say your dwarf troll slayer has good, sharp two handed ( for a dwarf) axe. He roles his attack ( reckless of course) and get a hit! lets say that the attack he uses gave him 2 extra dmg if he got 2 or more successes, and he did! his axe does 3 dmg and he gets to add 2 more making it 5 dmg to the given target. not lets say that if he got a comet left over after everything he could get a critical wound off, and he does! one of the wounds ( 1 - 5 ) is a critical wound. The GM draws 5 cards from the wound deck and for the critical wound he flips over the last of the 5. The effect on the face of the card is now in effecting that given target.

1) Personally, I'd like to see what the skulls in the bestiary mean, and how they're derived.

4E might leave a lot to be desired, but their monster creation and challenge rating system is, as far as I can tell, the best that exists w/ regards to judging difficulty. Leaving this part of the game ill-defined is scary for prospective GMs. However, with a non-level based game with parties that include various levels of combat ability, it might be the best that can be hoped for.

Obviously the system doesn't need to be as finely tuned as D&D because experience points aren't derived from monster challenge ratings. However, in 4E, I can grab a monster (or group of monsters) from the book, adjust their level upward by 2, and have an encounter where I can gauge the difficulty quickly against characters I have never seen in less than 3 minutes. I don't expect a game without levels to be able to match that, but I do expect it to compete on more of a level than "Skull ratings are eyeballed and unexplained," which is what I'm currently a little worried is true. I've got faith the system is better than that, but I'd like to know why it is!

2) I'd also like to see, more than just what dice have which symbols, a write-up of a sample introductory combat. Go through initiative, players choosing from their cards, monsters using their vicious bite or whatnot abilities, damage resolution, etc. All of this information should be available currently anyway after the demo in Germany. Let people have the "an orc versus a dockhand is x% deadly in 2e and y% deadly in 3e" debates because it's a valid concern for many people. You might lose customers if the game is "less deadly," but being quiet about combat resolution in a game that's based on grittiness... well, I suppose you might just be waiting for the public demo to release this, but it seems like an odd choice this close to release.

I guess in general I understand being tight-lipped from a marketing perspective, but how long does the NDA hold out til? Release or the demo? We've all got more questions about the game, but those two above, plus others mentioned, are the only real ones where I can see holding off hurting more than drumming up support.

Terwox said:

1) Personally, I'd like to see what the skulls in the bestiary mean, and how they're derived.

4E might leave a lot to be desired, but their monster creation and challenge rating system is, as far as I can tell, the best that exists w/ regards to judging difficulty. Leaving this part of the game ill-defined is scary for prospective GMs. However, with a non-level based game with parties that include various levels of combat ability, it might be the best that can be hoped for.

Obviously the system doesn't need to be as finely tuned as D&D because experience points aren't derived from monster challenge ratings. However, in 4E, I can grab a monster (or group of monsters) from the book, adjust their level upward by 2, and have an encounter where I can gauge the difficulty quickly against characters I have never seen in less than 3 minutes. I don't expect a game without levels to be able to match that, but I do expect it to compete on more of a level than "Skull ratings are eyeballed and unexplained," which is what I'm currently a little worried is true. I've got faith the system is better than that, but I'd like to know why it is!

2) I'd also like to see, more than just what dice have which symbols, a write-up of a sample introductory combat. Go through initiative, players choosing from their cards, monsters using their vicious bite or whatnot abilities, damage resolution, etc. All of this information should be available currently anyway after the demo in Germany. Let people have the "an orc versus a dockhand is x% deadly in 2e and y% deadly in 3e" debates because it's a valid concern for many people. You might lose customers if the game is "less deadly," but being quiet about combat resolution in a game that's based on grittiness... well, I suppose you might just be waiting for the public demo to release this, but it seems like an odd choice this close to release.

I guess in general I understand being tight-lipped from a marketing perspective, but how long does the NDA hold out til? Release or the demo? We've all got more questions about the game, but those two above, plus others mentioned, are the only real ones where I can see holding off hurting more than drumming up support.

I'm with you 100% Terwox. A walk through would be great. Since I read a different post about another complaint racket concerning the game and the general lack of information out there about 3e, I decided to do a little thread-necromancy on this bad boy and boost it up there. I think a lot of us what to know what this actually means from this point forward rather than simple conjecture. So here it is an expanded list of things we want to know. If anyone else has ideas them on here. I put my above list into this list so we can expand it.

Here are the questions I wish they would have answered and nobody is asking any of these questions:

1) What are on the die sides? This answer would clarify the following: Why are white and black dice used so much? Which are better: yellow, green, or white dice, they are all d6's afterall. Which is worse: A challenge die or a misfortune die?

2) What is the scale of difficulty. 1-5, 0-5, 1-10 challenge dice, what? I know they said their were x levels of difficulty, but really, how do they transfer to the practicality of dice rolls.

3) What are the max attributes?

4) What exactly is a talent? How do they effect the cards? What do they actually do? They show us a talent die (yellow) but every talent card they've showed us pull out white dice? When the heck, how the heck, what the heck are they actually for?

5) HOW DO YOU MAKE A CONTESTED CHECK. I'm using contested check here loosely, as that is the standard for most games when two character's go head to head. However, Warhammer supposedly has some other mechanism in place, how does it work then? Knowing this would seriously help make the system more understandable.

6) How does magic work? I got an impression of Priestly Magic, but no word on Wizards and no practical understanding of priestly magic.

7) How many attacks, actions, etc. do you get per turn?

8) How does a character without action cards really stack up to a character with action cards. Are they balanced? Are they as good? If so, how?

9) How does the Fatigue/Stress Mechanic actually work? I keep reading something causes stress or fatigue, but no answers as of yet.

10) How much damage can a character take. How do weapons and character abilities and cards stack up to a wound and what happens when somebody runs out of wounds. How does healing work?

11) Examples. We need more examples. More cards, more talents, more of everything really. We simply just haven't gotten into enough of the nuts and bolts to really make a clear measure on the quality of Warhammer.


Maybe I should email them the list and see if Ynenn will post a reply.

I can answer some of these questions from reading the forums and the diaries.
Disclaimer: I know nother beyond what I've read here. Any or all of this could be wrong.

1) It's not that a die is better than another (though I'm sure some are more beneficial than others), but it's that each die is used for different situations. The black dice aren't used 'more than' other dice, they are used to represent detremental conditions. Check out the dice symbol descriptions in the design diaries, here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=794 then check out the dice roller here: http://www.gmtools.excelocms.com/
Between the two you should be able to get an idea of what's on the dice, what each is used for, and what the typical results are for the various dice pools.

2) The difficulties are 0-4, representing challenge levels Simple, Easy, Average, Hard, and Daunting. Simple is 0, easy is 1, Average is 2, Hard is 3, Daunting is 4. That is not a cap to difficulty, just a sample of typical difficulties. Details can be found here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=794

3) I don't know the answer to this one, but here is a sample character sheet for a starting character: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/wfrp/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay-character-generation/WFRP_CharacterSheet_GurniThorgrimson.pdf and here are some samples from the Bestiary: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/wfrp/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay-enemies-npcs-monsters/WFRP_BestiarySpread.pdf
This may not answer your question directly, but you can get a solid idea of what the typical ranges are.

4) "These yellow six-sided dice represent dedicated training or exceptional aptitude with a skill or special proficiency." They are not for 'talents'. Talent cards are like talents in WFRP and DH. They give the character special abilities or augment skills, stats, or rolls. You can use the yellow dice if you are trained in a skill. There may be other circumstances that allow you to use a yellow die. Talents will likely be modifiers or triggered. In fact, it is possible that talent cards would allow you to roll additional yellow dice under certain conditions.

5) There was a discussion earlier about this. I started a thread on the subject with some false perceptions. It appears that the opponents stat block adds to the difficulty of the challengers roll. A single roll is made and the results interpreted from that. Looks like we will have to wait for another diary or the product release to get the details.

6) If this version is like other versions, and if it's as streamlined as it appears, then the Magik system will be very similar to the priests system. If there were a huge difference, I would assume that would have been mentioned and we'd be look at (or for) another design diary. Looking at the card samples, it looks like the systems are very similar. If you understand the priest magik, you probably understand the winds magik. There are likely different charts for failure and a different (but similar) process for building the energy to cast, but it should be very close.
Reference the spell cards that have appeared in the design diaries (for example: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/wfrp/warhammer-fantasy-role-play-dice-preview/Spell_Example_Omen.jpg ) and cross reference with the Action Card Analysis http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/wfrp/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay-action-cards/WFRP_ActionCardDiagram.pdf

7) It appears that attackers get 1 action. They chose a card and go with it. It is unclear (at least to me) what else happens during a turn. There may be a maneuver, there is likely a cool down for cards with tokens on them, and there may be other phases or abilities. Reference Combat Training 102 http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=859

8) No character will be without action cards. Everyone gets basic action cards. Some of them have prerequisites, but no one will be without basic attacks. Build points are used to purchase more advanced cards during initial character creation and more can be purchased as the character levels. To answer your question, class specific cards will be more powerful than basic attacks, but will also likely be (in some circumstances) situational. I think 'Greater Risk = Greater Return' will be in full affect here.

9) According to the design diaries, stress/fatigue is handed out for a variety of reasons. The GM may decide that this action is very stressful and the player(s) must make a roll or suffer a stress. If you look at the character sheet, the top is orange and represents fatigue (physical stats), the bottom is blues and represents stress (mental stats). It is unclear (to me) what the effects of accumulated stress/fatigue is, but I would suspect it adds detremental dice to your pool when you roll. In other words, if you are fatigued, then you would add 'bad dice' to any rolls represented in the 'physical' half of the character sheet.
This appears to be seperate from 'party tension' as listed on the 'Party Sheet'. The tension meter triggers an effect whenever you hit the marked numbers (for example Tension 5 and 10 on the 'Gang of Thugs' party sheet).
I think both are tools for use by the GM to ratched up real life player tension, to demonstrate to the players how serious a situation is.

10) There's not a lot on damage and healing so far, but looking at Gurnies sheet here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=820 you can see that his weapon does damage (it has a damage and crit value). It is probable that this is augmented by strength and how well one rolls. This gives a total damage. It would then be reduced by the players defenses (read the bestiary entry linked above), and armor (once again, check out Gurnies sheet - leather armor has a defense of 0 and a soak of 2).
I would assume that these the remainder are deducted from your 'Wound Threshold' and when that bottoms out, bad things happen. There was some mention of 'running away' or retreating but I can't find it.

I suspect healing will come in the form of spells, potions, and the 'First Aid' skill. I can't really see any mystery here. Cast the spell, drink the potion, or bind the wounds and they will likely remove wounds and/or critical wound conditions.

11) There are more design diaries coming. They come every week. If I had to guess, I'd bet they will keep coming even after release (if FFGs other games are any example). Yes, there are still questions, but, like a good game master, ynenn is building suspense - lol

From what I've seen ynenn reads all posts here. Poor guy (heh). You must scrape your eyes across my wall of text! Take 1 critical wound!

Terwox said:

1) Personally, I'd like to see what the skulls in the bestiary mean, and how they're derived.

4E might leave a lot to be desired, but their monster creation and challenge rating system is, as far as I can tell, the best that exists w/ regards to judging difficulty. Leaving this part of the game ill-defined is scary for prospective GMs. However, with a non-level based game with parties that include various levels of combat ability, it might be the best that can be hoped for.

Obviously the system doesn't need to be as finely tuned as D&D because experience points aren't derived from monster challenge ratings. However, in 4E, I can grab a monster (or group of monsters) from the book, adjust their level upward by 2, and have an encounter where I can gauge the difficulty quickly against characters I have never seen in less than 3 minutes. I don't expect a game without levels to be able to match that, but I do expect it to compete on more of a level than "Skull ratings are eyeballed and unexplained," which is what I'm currently a little worried is true. I've got faith the system is better than that, but I'd like to know why it is!

A little off topic but the accuracy of the challenge rating system in D&D is one of the aspects of that game that I truly hate. The reason is that if combat is unpredictable (which I like) it is difficult to provide an accurate challenge guide to opponents. In D&D the GM generally knows if the Party can beat the opponent(s) that he throws at them. Personally I do not find that a fun situation as I like to be surpised when playing. So as a general rule I find that the less accurate a challenge system is the better the overall combat system.

Foolishboy said:

A little off topic but the accuracy of the challenge rating system in D&D is one of the aspects of that game that I truly hate. The reason is that if combat is unpredictable (which I like) it is difficult to provide an accurate challenge guide to opponents. In D&D the GM generally knows if the Party can beat the opponent(s) that he throws at them. Personally I do not find that a fun situation as I like to be surpised when playing. So as a general rule I find that the less accurate a challenge system is the better the overall combat system.

i dissagree, i once was in a party that spent 40 min trying to kill a level 1 dire rat....a party 8 PC's couldnt kill 1 dire rat....thats just sad! so to say that the callenge rating system in DnD is predicable is false.

Farin said:

Foolishboy said:

A little off topic but the accuracy of the challenge rating system in D&D is one of the aspects of that game that I truly hate. The reason is that if combat is unpredictable (which I like) it is difficult to provide an accurate challenge guide to opponents. In D&D the GM generally knows if the Party can beat the opponent(s) that he throws at them. Personally I do not find that a fun situation as I like to be surpised when playing. So as a general rule I find that the less accurate a challenge system is the better the overall combat system.

i dissagree, i once was in a party that spent 40 min trying to kill a level 1 dire rat....a party 8 PC's couldnt kill 1 dire rat....thats just sad! so to say that the callenge rating system in DnD is predicable is false.

I did not say the Challenge rating system is predictable. I inferred that the combat system in D&D is predictable. I take it that your party of eight players (who's levels and classes you have failed to mention) did eventually kill the level 1 Dire Rat. Again note in my previous post I did not mention anything about killing opponents quickly.

- Dice: Yellow are better than white. I know at least that yellow have a comet, a 2-hammer symbol (well, hammer +) as well as a boon icon. The white dice are probably only single hammers or blank. Just a guess, of course. It's possible it has a boon instead of a hammer on 1 side, and we know at least 2 sides are blank (probably 3). So, yellow not only has better symbols, but probably more sides with symbols. Green and red appear, from the pictures, to only have 2/10 sides blank. The blue dice have at least 2 sides blank, I would expect probably 3 or 4 blank sides. Misfortune are likely half blank and the other half are banes and swords. We know that the purple dice show: double-swords, chaos, sword, bane, double-bane. You can also see that there are at least 2 sides with a single sword, so that's 6/8 sides bad, plus 2 blanks. So, it's pretty obvious that the purple dice are worse than the black dice. I would expect, similarly: white < blue < yellow < green/red. Yes, it would be nice to know what all the side are on all the dice, though.

- Contested rolls: Really, it comes down to whether the number of challenge dice or misfortune dice go up with an increase of the defender's skill. I agree, this would be VERY nice to know.

- Difficulty levels range from 0-4 challenge dice.
"For standard tasks, there are five challenge levels – Simple, Easy, Average, Hard, and Daunting."
"An average task adds two purple challenge dice to the action’s dice pool."
If an Average task gives 2 challenge dice, an Easy task has no dice (only misfortune, probably). Now, the question becomes, what constitutes a task that isn't "standard". GM fiat?

- Max attributes? It seems to follow the Warhammer scale of 1-10. 2-4 are starting, with 5 being the max a starting character can get. It isn't clear if stats can be increased by advances, I didn't see any mention in the advancement diary.

- Talents: You are confusing skills and talents. Talents are their own cards that have special affects, and can be played to give modifiers (extra white dice, for example). Skill Expertise provides the yellow die.

- Arcane magic: I agree, it would be nice to hear something about this. I expect (and hope) it has some similarities to the divine spellcasting, since that looked very well done.

- # of attacks: Unless you play a talent card that lets you do otherwise, I expect you can only play/use a single action card per combat round.

- Balance of action vs non-action card PCs: This is only something that playing can determine. What is good for one group of players is different than for another group. From what I gather, talent cards are pretty powerful, so can easily balance vs action cards. Being skill heavy, well it might not make you as good in combat, but just like every other RPG, you are best (and better than others) outside of combat. Of course, it also depends on the skills ... because as you can see that skills do affect rolls like combat (giving yellow dice) for attacking and defending, as well as contested rolls.

- Stress/Fatigue: Excellent question. I would like to know how this works too!

- Challenge ratings: WFRP has never had a challenge system before. 3e provides one, but only to rank single monsters against each other. A PC group is just too dynamic; numbers, careers, player knowledge/experience/personality all have too great an impact.

dvang said:

- Challenge ratings: WFRP has never had a challenge system before.

I think you'll find that WFRPv2 had the "Slaughter Margin" it was however practically useless.

Foolishboy said:

Terwox said:

1) Personally, I'd like to see what the skulls in the bestiary mean, and how they're derived.

<snip, end quote>

A little off topic but the accuracy of the challenge rating system in D&D is one of the aspects of that game that I truly hate. The reason is that if combat is unpredictable (which I like) it is difficult to provide an accurate challenge guide to opponents. In D&D the GM generally knows if the Party can beat the opponent(s) that he throws at them. Personally I do not find that a fun situation as I like to be surpised when playing. So as a general rule I find that the less accurate a challenge system is the better the overall combat system.

What you've just described, you wouldn't of described if you'd ever DM'd D&D, and you possibly wouldn't of described if you'd even played D&D.

If you want a combat to have an unpredictable outcome in D&D, throw challenge rating equal to level of the party plus three or four, plus or minus for munchkining if it's 3e.

The difference appears to be that, in Warhammer, a GM throwing a monster at a party has to learn the system more and eyeball how difficult a situation will be.

That is not a checkmark in Warhammer's favor unless you don't know what you're doing. Say you want a predictable combat in Warhammer. How many skulls is that? Say you want an unpredictable combat. How many skulls is that? Making the DM's life harder for no reason other than "the DM shouldn't understand the outcome" would be horrific game design. I'm pretty sure combat outcome probability got sacrificed on the altar of having a system with no levels that doesn't lend itself to being predictable. That part is fine.

Having combat be unpredictable is a valid play concern, but it would be horrible (and lazy) game design if they "achieved" that through making monsters purposefully difficult to balance.

The concern about a too exact challenge rating system is, in my opinion, mostly due to the fact that with such a system you're SURE of the outcome.

And in a WFRP like setting, nobody must be sure to beat somebody else.

My favourite example is the 12th level D&D paladin that enters in a downtown tavern hunting for an Evil sorcerer. As he enters he casts "Detect Evil" and discovers the sorcerer. Now, most of the customers of the tavern are regular scum and sorcerer's allies, but they are no threat to the paladin, so he can either ignore them or simply slaughter them while walking towards the sorcerer.

In WFRP the situation is like that:

A full career Witch Hunter enters in the downtown tavern, trying to figure out whose of the many customers looks like the description of the Warlock he is hunting for. At a signal of the disguised sorcerer, three thugs, very distant one from the other, embrace their crossbows and point them to the witch hunter that now has to find a proper cover and fight for it's life while the sorcerer, undisturbed, starts chanting...

As you can see, the feeling the player has in the 2 examples is very different. In the first one he can be overconfident that his character will not die, as level 4-5 warriors/thieves armed with crossbows are no match for him.

In the latter, the player is very conscious that a single xbow bolt can bring his witch hunter to crit and he has to face 3 xbow wielders, each having roughly 40% of possibilities to hit him, making an almost sure hit each round. He simply can't ignore them nor he can slaughter them. He HAS to play tactically or be wise and have some backup plan for that cases.

Terwox, check out the designer diary where Jay discusses the skulls, I think it was in the diary about challenges. The skulls only give the DM a reference of assumed difficulty versus relative to other monsters, and only individuals of those types. It is a rough estimate. It also has absolutely nothing directly to do with difficulty vs the PCs. The reason for this, is because there are way too many variables in WFRP to provide a formula for challenges vs PCs. Things like: PC careers, number of PCs, number of monsters, PC equipment, PC known actions and talents, player play-styles, player experience, etc, all factor into how difficult an encounter will be. In addition to all that, in general WFRP has always been more about roleplaying than dungeon-crawling hack and slash than D&D (tha'ts not to say that D&D can't be run more roleplaying, or that WFRP can't be run more combat focused). As Erik alluded to in his post, in the warhammer world everyone and everything is still relatively dangerous and it's not always easy to tell who is easier to handle than someone else. It's not about mathematically breaking an encounter down to say: There are 4 PCs of level 4, so I need to set up a CR 4 encounter here. The GM, instead, fits encounters to the story. More work for the GM? Yes, in general. It has always been this way, though.

EDIT: OOPS. Nothing to see here. I misread someone's post.

dvang said:

Terwox, check out the designer diary where Jay discusses the skulls, I think it was in the diary about challenges. The skulls only give the DM a reference of assumed difficulty versus relative to other monsters, and only individuals of those types. It is a rough estimate. It also has absolutely nothing directly to do with difficulty vs the PCs. The reason for this, is because there are way too many variables in WFRP to provide a formula for challenges vs PCs. Things like: PC careers, number of PCs, number of monsters, PC equipment, PC known actions and talents, player play-styles, player experience, etc, all factor into how difficult an encounter will be. In addition to all that, in general WFRP has always been more about roleplaying than dungeon-crawling hack and slash than D&D (tha'ts not to say that D&D can't be run more roleplaying, or that WFRP can't be run more combat focused). As Erik alluded to in his post, in the warhammer world everyone and everything is still relatively dangerous and it's not always easy to tell who is easier to handle than someone else. It's not about mathematically breaking an encounter down to say: There are 4 PCs of level 4, so I need to set up a CR 4 encounter here. The GM, instead, fits encounters to the story. More work for the GM? Yes, in general. It has always been this way, though.

Yes, the more I thought about it the more I realized this. I suppose I simply hoped that monster creation and eyeballing had a math model behind it ala 4E, where you knew what you were getting into when you created a monster.

D&D, btw, doesn't account for character classes, PC known actions/talents, play style, or player experience in the challenge rating system.

And, even though in Warhammer the characters are not supposed to know what is more dangerous than what, that does not mean the players, specifically the GM, should not be able to figure it out easily my main argument is that conflating these ideas is just an attempt to conceal things.

But yeah. Can't do challenge ratings if you don't have levels, basically. I'm just big on monster creation, and having to eyeball that entirely is disappointing if it is the case. On the other hand, at least the monster statlines are very small.

about what 's on dice i've been researching each video ans photo and here are the results of that liitle research :

blue dice :

- succes *4

- boon *2

- blank *2

purple dice :

- challenge *2

- 2 challenges *2

- skull

- 2 skulls

-chaos star

-blank

white dice

- blank *3

- succes

- boon *2

black dice :

- blank *3

- challenge

- bane *2

Gren dice :

-blank

- succes*3

- succes + boon

- succes + delay *2

- boon *2

- one unknown

red dice :

-blank

- 2 succes *2

- succes + exertion *3

- 2 boons

- skull

- 2 unknown

yellow dice

- boon *2

- succes

- righteous succes

- sigmar's comet

- blank

lenaianel said:

about what 's on dice i've been researching each video ans photo and here are the results of that liitle research :

blue dice :

- succes *4

- boon *2

- blank *2

purple dice :

- challenge *2

- 2 challenges *2

- skull

- 2 skulls

-chaos star

-blank

white dice

- blank *3

- succes

- boon *2

black dice :

- blank *3

- challenge

- bane *2

Gren dice :

-blank

- succes*3

- succes + boon

- succes + delay *2

- boon *2

- one unknown

red dice :

-blank

- 2 succes *2

- succes + exertion *3

- 2 boons

- skull

- 2 unknown

yellow dice

- boon *2

- succes

- righteous succes

- sigmar's comet

- blank

Thanks man. You rock. That honestly will help clarify a lot, even if it is a good rough guide? Can anyone confirm this. I'd do it myself, but simply don't have the time.

Based on the video shots of the dice, I ran a layout for each type

Fortune (White d6):
1 Boon
2 Success
3 Blank

Misfortune (Black d6):
1 Bane
2 Challenge
3 Blank

Skill (Yellow d6):
1 Comet
1 Success Plus
1 Success
1 Blank
2 Boon

Characteristic (Blue d8):
4 Success
2 Boon
2 Blank

Difficuilty (Purple d8):
1 Chaos Star
1 Bane
1 Double Bane
1 Blank
2 Double Challenge
2 Challenge

Recless (Red d10):
Inconclusive, not enough good shots to realy determine layout other than a few sides

Conservative (Green d10)
Inconclusive, enough shots to get a good idea, but not good enough to be certain.
Though lenaianel results seem about right with the blank being
a Success + Boon as I found 2 of them.

If its wanted I can show the layouts on the d6s and d8s