Someone propably has cried over this one, but I cannot help myself....

I cant understand the reason to remove these from stats and move them to basic skills with your basic benefitting stats STR and AG. One of warhammers uniqueness was that a character that wasnt STR hulk could be very good in melee indeed.

The first problem with moving WS/BS to basic skills is the argument over which stat should benefit it. I'm gonna draw some examples out of kendo, but most of these examples can work for pretty much for any melee skill or ballistic skill

Slashing with the sword fast and strong has very little to do with STR. It is all about technique. Slashing the sword in exactly right way. Actually in kendo STR is the least beneficial attribute. (I'm currently desperately trying to use less strength, as forceful strike is usually very lacking in technique)

If anything could attribute to your fastness, it could be AG (as in initiative). Yet again a more skilled fighter can read your moves, so that even though you're naturally fast your clumsy technique gives away where you're going to attack.

Not so surprisingly WP affects your battlestance. If you're weak willed and unsure of yourself, you will make too sudden moves and open yourself for attacks. Or make half-hearted attacks, cause you're scared of the strong willed opponent. Also a strong willed fighter can "force" the other to action with his will. Push him to attack too soon for example.

Even T attributes to weapon skill as wearing armour, breathing technique etc. can wear you down prettty fast.

A fighter with high INT is a creative fighter, fast learner, good at spotting where the opponent is going attack next.

Reading your opponets attack style is much the same as reading your opponents manners in haggle, or bluff with FEL. Of course the other one could be bluffing or acting that he is bolder attacker than he really is too for example...

All these attributes affect the fighter, because when you fight intensively your whole body and mind is in the fight. But it would be awkward to have a benefitting stat that would be counted from all stats. Besides, you don't need to have good "stats" on all these attributes to be a very skilled fighter, what matters most is how pure and perfect your technique is. Your weapon skill.

I would imagine that it is to keep the design model simple.

Having melee ability based on STR and missle fire based on AG (or DEX, for instance) isn't anything new, a certain game has being doing that since its conception (and still is, I assume).

Sure having WS/BS as a seperate stat was useful to show that not all skilled fighters were hulking brutes, but this can still be shown in the new edition but a relatively low STR PC, training in WS, the end result is more or less the same.

It will be interesting to see if rapiers and foils (clearly not a weapon relying on natural strength) have any specific rules to help smooth the removal of WS as a stat, but in the big scheme of things, i think this rule change will have a relative minor impact on people switching from 2nd to 3rd.

Damage is always based on str in 2nd ed which again isn't strictly true, certainly again not in the case of rapiers, and that has never caused any real points of contention when playing

ymrar said:

Now that is all fine and good and sounds like it would work if you too all of the stats are used for combat (maybe you could switch them out every few turns) but that might be kind of complex. Though when I first heard about third edition I would have agreed that WS should be it's own seperate stat like in 2nd edition but then after many months of previews I looked at some of the actions and the chaos warrior stats in one of the previews and I thought about it and it made sense that WS should be a skill.

Under your argument a high elf envoy would be able to use a sword just as well as trained swordsmen and anyone and his mother could use a weapon and be good at it.

I proposed a solution in a previous post:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=149&efcid=3&efidt=210870

Of course, because the stats only vary from 2-5 the difference, as Kryyst comments at the end of the post, won't be big. Also, looking at the dice available in the pool, it seems that having a skill trained will be much more important than having 1 point more or less in the corresponding stat.

My preference is for seperate WS/BS Stats. However, given the dice pool mechanics I think it would be more difficult to include WS/BS as independant stats.

Isn't Kendo a very region specific fighting style that's pretty useless against warriors of different styles?

Didn't the Samurai always get pretty much OWNED by other types of fighters in the world? Anime isn't real life. I'm pretty sure that strength and toughness are hugely important in the real world.

Anyway, on the topic at hand: I don't see why a low strength character couldn't focus a LOT of points into the WS "skill" and still be a good fighter.

Necrozius said:

Kendo as a sportive practice maybe...and maybe not. But please... could you specify how and when was proven that Samurai were OWNED by other warriors wielding not ranged weapons during Nippon history?

As a Kali, Krav-Maga, JKD and PananTukan practicioner I can tell you that yes, Strength and Toughness are quite important in a fight, as are stamina, willpower and intelligence, but ONLY if you know how to use them in a fight, hence the importance of having WS and BS as separate stats and not depending skills. WeaponSkill is in fact the degree of your taught or self taught martial training. The importance of Strenght and Toughness are already given by the fact that caused/received wounds are depending on them.

If you look at the dice in the new video, you will see that the yellow "skill' dice are far more beneficial than the blue 'stat' dice. You also have to remember that their is no seperate roll for damage either. If you look at the dice a weak fighter with strength 2, but with a weapon skill of 3, will get much more beneficial results from the dice pool than a fighter with strength 5 and no weapon skill, although they roll the same number of 'beneficial' dice, ie 5. It is obvious that people are reacting to the changes, without knowing the complete rules or their possibilities. I would suggest waiting until they either see the rules or read others objective reviews, before they decide whether losing WS or BS as a stat is a dealbreaker. I started out a big negative but am now a positive, but we still don't know enough from the diaries to say whether the game will be better than V2 and I have preordered it.

Isn't Kendo a very region specific fighting style that's pretty useless against warriors of different styles?

Didn't the Samurai always get pretty much OWNED by other types of fighters in the world? Anime isn't real life. I'm pretty sure that strength and toughness are hugely important in the real world.

Wow. Because real life is what I wanted to base my argument, real life it was. I train kendo, I have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. I've trained Capoeira. They are all very different martial arts. Very. Different attributes are more beneficial to each sport, but they are all very dependant on the SKILL.

Under your argument a high elf envoy would be able to use a sword just as well as trained swordsmen and anyone and his mother could use a weapon and be good at it.

Yes, the high elf envoy and his mother can be good with a sword, IF they TRAIN it. Of cause their careers are filled with so many other duties, that they are not given a lot space for it... just like in 2nd ed and propably in 3rd ed.

If you look at the dice in the new video, you will see that the yellow "skill' dice are far more beneficial than the blue 'stat' dice. You also have to remember that their is no seperate roll for damage either. If you look at the dice a weak fighter with strength 2, but with a weapon skill of 3, will get much more beneficial results from the dice pool than a fighter with strength 5 and no weapon skill, although they roll the same number of 'beneficial' dice, ie 5. It is obvious that people are reacting to the changes, without knowing the complete rules or their possibilities. I would suggest waiting until they either see the rules or read others objective reviews, before they decide whether losing WS or BS as a stat is a dealbreaker. I started out a big negative but am now a positive, but we still don't know enough from the diaries to say whether the game will be better than V2 and I have preordered it.

How convinient that the STR monster has a skill of 0 in their example... The skill is based on STR, so when he puts same amount of points, he will be automaticly better in 3rd ed. This is the point.

Anyway, on the topic at hand: I don't see why a low strength character couldn't focus a LOT of points into the WS "skill" and still be a good fighter.

But the skill is still dependant on STR or AG. So a naturally strong character is naturally better with a weapon in 3rd ed. Which, I can assure you, is far from truth (In real life...). And, yes basing it on STR is very normal in RPG... That's why I'm sad WH has lost something unique (among other things...)

Yeah disregard my last comment. I must've missed the part in your first post where you mentioned that you actually train in these martial arts.

There are a LOT of people on the internet who get all of their knowledge of martial arts from japanese cartoons and I find that irritating. They often cite the histories of "glorious Nippon" and how ignorant all "Gaijins" are about stuff like Cowboy Bebop and such.

Obviously you're talking from real life experiences, so I'll step down.

But yeah, you said it yourself: skill is important. Being a good fighter isn't wholly dependant upon physical strength.

In this new system, a physically weak character can still invest a lot into Ws and be decent at combat. Perhaps, like most RPGs, there'll be a Talent or Feat or whatever that allows an agile character to use their Dexterity instead of Strength when using light weapons.

Yes, but that does not change the fact that in V3 a Strong person is by default More Skilled in combat. Which in my opinion is a step back from V1 and V2.

Erik Bauer said:

Yeah, it is a change from earlier editions, for sure.

Personally, as a player of both D&D and World of Darkness settings (both systems use Strength + melee and Dexterity + Ranged), this change does not bother me very much.

We have had these arguments about a number of attributes and skills over the months. As has been said elsewhere, if you want to houserule that WS is an attribute based on STR, 3 x DEX, 2 x INT or whatever nobody is stopping you, its a free world. However what FFG have done is to get rid of the multiple rolls in combat for each attack and have decided for simplicity to base it on STR and shooting on DEX. If you want someting more 'realistic' I would use the HERO system and set it in the Old World. I do not expect a fantasy RPG fight to be that realistic as each one on one fight would take forever to do. This is what FFG have decided to do, I can see its advantages aand disadvantages, and if you want WS and BS and damage rolls back, then houserule them, nobody is stopping you.

The big issue for skill with a weapon is its fairly much tradition for RPGs to use Strength for Melee and Agility for Ranged. This is mainly because the characters that are good in melee are typically seen as strong while those good at ranged are typically seen as being agile.

I think though ultimatly its more about the system being based on a single characteristic to influence a skill, while skills are extra. What else would one base it on assuming you have the option of only a single characteristic without making one characteristic more desirable than others.

Loswaith said:

I would base it on Agility. As that would represent hand eye co-ordination, speed and accuracy. While strength would be involved in the damage aspect.

I looked at that and due to a fair number of things based on agility, I have an inkling it would make agility a more desireable characteristic over any other.

Though for 3ed ed I couldnt say because Im not sure how the advancement of Characteristics is fully going to work as careers dont seem to list any Characteristic advances.

Necrozius said:

I don't know about the new WoD, but in Vampire: The Masquerade you use Strength + Brawl for unarmed attacks, grappling etc and Dexterity + melee if you hit with a melee weapon. Brawl is is the equivalent to a basic skill, means you can use just Strength to hit without penalties, while melee is a trained skill, so if you haven't trained swordfighting you're more likely not to succeed. Makes sense to me.

Another WhiteWolf system imo manages the whole issue even better: in Abarrent, a system about superheroes, you have brawl as a Strenght based skill, and melee and martial arts as Dexterity based skills. I think most people who actually train martial arts will agree with that.

I'd liked the aspect of training to matter quite much in the new WH, I'll have to see how it works out. I think it's good to be able to have a character who is a skilled fighter, but doesnt have the muscles to take full advantage of it.

Loswaith said:

It would unbalance stats, since ranged to-hit and damage are based on agility. The point is that the game does need to balance out the attributes, and therefore has to make some concessions regarding 'reality'. For example, Block is based on Toughness, Parry on Strength, and Dodge on Agility. Are those completely "realistic"? No, but they balance out the defenses so that each stat has a corresponding one.

And yes, the 6-sided Expertise dice [Y] are relatively more powerful than the blue characteristic dice <B>. Those yellow dice [Y] are the only dice with Sigmar's Comet *C*... which can be used as a success *S*, a boon *B*, or a Critical depending on the user's choice. Plus, the Righteous Success result (I believe only on the yellow die [Y]) counts as both a success *S*, and allows a roll of an additional skill die [Y]. So, comparing a S5 no-skill vs a S4 1xWS will favor the lower-strength higher-skill combatant.

Look at career cards (you can see some in diaries or videos, and you'll notice each career has 2 stats listed. Those are the stats allowed to be increased when in that career (that count towards career advancement). To increase a stat, you spend Advancement Points equal to the value. So, raising a stat from 4 to 5 will cost 5 Advancement Points. Pretty expensive, since you are supposed to get 1 (maybe 2 on special occasions) Advancement Point per session. Of course, it probably should be this expensive since the scale is basically 2-8 with 3 as the 'average' value.

dvang said:

I'm very sensible to the combat rule issue, sorry.
I must admit that v3 combat rules aren't a concession to "reality". They redifine reality.

I'd like to take Little John and some other developer a week with me.
Sure they'll get some insight on combat... with/without weapons and with/without armour.

Edit : Never mind: it's not worth it.

If you want to play a game that simulates reality as a priority, go buy Riddle of Steel.

The priority of this game is clearly not to simulate reality. The priority is to have a playable smooth game above all else. "Reality" gets (thankfully) sacrificed.

It's confusing how people think design principles should involve attack stats that derive from more than a half dozen statistics. That would be shoddy game design. This game is already fairly complicated comparatively to other games when determining attacks, unless you'd like to drudge out Synnibar or something.

Terwox said:

You see? My concern is not about reality, I do not want to play Rolemaster at all, but about variability. In V1-V2 you could have a very strong character that was not able to fight or a very weak character with plenty of weapon skill.

Now that variability has been broken. Yes, you can DEVELOP your character to be different, but 2 starting characters with St Bonus 3 will have the very same combat skill. That's not a lot of variety in my opinion

Erik Bauer said:

Unless say one of them had trained in weapon skill and the other hadn't.

There is still variation in v3 - it comes from weapon skill. only difference is now it's a skill and not a stat.

There were no weapon skills that affected chance to hit in WFRP2 - it all came from a stat. You can still have a weak but skilled character - by investing more points in Weapon Skill and less in strength. Or a brutal but clumsy fighter with high str and low WS.

the only difference - WS has moved from being a stat, to being a skill. And because of the weighting of success on Expertise dice (as i understand it) skill is more important than the base stats. A WS3 S2 character is more likely to do well than a WS1 S4 character. Same dice pool - much different chances of success.

there's always the option of house rules - or new talents - or a talent that allows light weapons such as daggers and rapiers to substitute Agi/Dex (can't remember the stat off the top of my head) in place of STR maybe (similar to weapon finesse in D&D).

Erik Bauer said:

Unless they purchase different actions. Or one chooses to up his strength to 4, or one chooses to specialize in weaponskill, or ballistic skill. Or one chooses talents that affect combat and one chooses talents that affect social actions. Or one chooses a starting package with more money and buys a better weapon.

Yeah, except for those things, you're right.