One of the many things that's turned me on to 3e is the abstraction of range and the inclusion of 'terrain' cards/types and whatnot. It seems like the best of both worlds, it's abstract enough that you don't need a battle mat or a massive amount of space to narrate a combat, likewise, if you want to lay things out more in line with a minis game or tactical map a few tweaks and references to 'realistic' ranges hopefully would make it more like other RPGs.

So tell me more about how movement/range works. How does moving between terrain types really function (like from the 'road' to the 'ruined inn' at the side of the road)? How are 'traps' handled (or are they) when the party has to move along a corridor? Is everything broken into the melee/short/medium/long bands or is there any further discrete measurement done?

Thanks!

The movement system is in ranges:

Engaged

Short

Medium

Long

Extended

Extended to long is 3 moves, long to medium 2, medium to short 1, to engage is 1.

You get one free move, so any additional are 1 fatigue. So yes you could sprint from extended to engaged. It would be awful for you, but that possiblity is there. The cards provide some possibilities if you are in that terrian.

I intend for this game to move away from a gridded battlemap to a dry erase board. If the chacters are in that terrian they get the effects.

This is a great question...one i wanted answered as well...my concern is that all the area cards are all 'big' areas "forest glade", 'crumbling ruin', 'wizard tower'...etc etc.

My feel is that this system has killed the classic dungeon crawl experience. I am a FFG fanboi so i picked up a copy today and look forward to reading the core book tonight so hopefully i can answer soon. Hopefully, they have not killed the classic dungeon crawl...

Nostromo said:

In some ways I wish they did kill it. I'm so over dungeon crawls. I'm looking for more political intrigue and investgation adventures. Still I think a dungeon crawl is quite possible if that's what you want. I mean there will need to be more terrian cards at some point.

agreed.

I am REALLY not being a smart ass here...I really think they will have a 'dungeon crawl' expansion pack soon i am sure where all the 'areas' are classic dungeon rooms or obstacles etc...so you are probably right, they haven't killed it, it is just waiting for a deck of cards to be released

Yeah I'm trying to make up things like : "Room with lots of collumns" and "Thin Catwalks over rivers of lava" and "Inside of a Giant Clockwork factory".

Yeah.

Or how about terrain cards that are turned face down, so the players don't really know what they are getting into when the go to that area. Each card can be one room, and successful searches can reveal kinds of special actions are available in that area. For instance, one face down card could be a corridor with flame-jets in the walls. A successful search would allow one of the players to peek at the card, which would have directions for disarming the trap.

Or how about a narrow bridge card that, as a maneuver, you can make an opposed check to push enemies into the abyss. Or any chaos symbols that pop up make you fall to your doom! Or even make a check and you can push someone off. Banes mean you lose your own footing and lose your next action unless someone grabs you, the chaos symbol means you are dragged down with the Balro... um I mean, evil creature.

Or how about a terrain card for an alchemists laboratory where you can use maneuvers to throw vials of random ingredients in your opponents face. Success and he gets a face-melting. Roll a failure and you enlarge him by 50 percent. Roll banes and you explode everyone in the room, roll boons and the monster shrinks down to the size of a mouse. Bonuses for having an alchemy skill.

Or maybe something simple like a hidden arrow slit room card. Put the monsters on it and have the characters try to find the entrance while being pelted with arrows.

The thing I like the most about cards is that you can get really wacky and specific without complicating the game. "Where is the rule for pushing a creature off a ledge" is something you don't ever need to hear in this game. All the specific references are just right there out in the open and are as easy as just picking a card from a deck and tossing it in with your adventure notes. Homebrew is as easy as a 3x5 notecard.

They have terrain cards??

I'm not sure the system as written is desighend to have players transiting terrain mid combat... Rather that seems the sort of thing that the you narate happening.

IE haveing defeated the rovaning band of beatmen on the Old Road you group comes to a well lit tavern and seeks shelter against the nights chill. GM then replaces card and gets on with the next encounter.

I don't really see the strong reason to go jumping though terrains... most by default are not set with distinct borders.

Aren't there tons of games that do dungeon crawls really well, including Warhammer Quest which may be re-released at some point? Not to mention FFG's very own excellent board game Descent.

D&D is very often about dungeon crawls as well.

I thought Warhammer was always about different things like character/ investigation stuff, claustrophobic fright night scenarios, long journeys through the woods, urban adventures, etc.

... yeah, why are people looking for dungeon crawls? That is a D&D concept, at least to me - try to kill off wave after wave of enemies by yourselves in WFRP and you'll all die horribly. And seeing as XP is from sessions, not killing stuff, there's little incentive. I refer you to Warhammer Quest if that's what you want to play

cetiken said:

Terrain used in the middle of an encounter could be used to add various DICE to the dice pool by the GM. Like a fortune die if the PC is on higher ground, or a misfortune die if target is behind cover etc.

But otherwise, I agree. Story Mode of the game is where you would handle the issue of slumping up the mountain etc.

cetiken said:

When we played the demo adventure there were 2 terrain cards in play during the main encounter. You could go along the old road, which improved your movement somehow, and you could go off into the forest glade, which gave you cover. Maybe our GM did it wrong, but it still was easy to do and worked just fine.

He had some of the beast men come out from the forest glade, and we failed our perception checks so they got the jump on us. I assume this was becuase they used the terrain.

Maybe other games do 'dungeon crawls' better than this edition of WHRP, but there will be times that an exploration of a catacomb or ruined temple will happen, how do folks with the game plan on handling them? Just story mode through them so there's no grit to the exploration, or do you have some alternate ideas? The facedown cards seem like an interesting touch, maybe writing up areas so that they're X range long and are covered as areas. So the corridor with columns might be extreme range long, taking that many moves to cross...?

I will notify the players that there are some global effects constantly in play while they're in the specific location.

For example, while in the Tomb Dungeon, they will be made aware that:

1. As a maneuver, they can take advantage of one of the many statues, collumns, and rubble to either grant them cover (ranged attacks against them are more difficult) or an extra [W] fortune die for Stealth purposes.

2. Any time a player rolls a Chaos Star, they tripped over a hidden trap. Make a <P> reaction test to avoid being hit by a dart or something.

3. Any time a player rolls a Twin Tailed Comet in Story mode, they stumble over a small gem or minor artefact.

Something like that.

Surely you just do it the way we always used to do it. Description

As you open the old wooden door your torch flares from the sudden draft, it's flickering light spilling into the small room. Sitting round a rough table are several small goblinoid figures. They look up at the sudden interuption and spring to their feet.

Roll initiative due to the size of the room you are all at short range though you can move down the corridor to medium range and still see into the room. (for example). Run the combat refer to any special rules (The gound is slippery with water and moss add in 1 challenge die to physical actions for example).

Then after combat describe the other features of the room exits furniture plot features etc.

Just guessing at these things as I don't have the core set yet.

I'm planning on using these range divisions with zones from FATE 3.0 so you have a broad map or areas rather than trackers between groups like in the WFRP raw. This also has the neat idea of barriers (like a wall) representing additional effort to move between areas. I'd check out Diaspora for the best development of these ideas so far.

SRD for Spirit of the Century (the original FATE 3.0 game)

http://zork.net/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html

SRD for Diaspora (better development of these features)

http://www.vsca.ca/Diaspora/diaspora-srd.html

I think it will work fine for people who are going to do dungeon crawls. Notable good thing: no stupid, dinky, meaningless, ongoing, tracking modifiers. You can still use gridded maps and the works. Just give up on all those unnecessary complicating factors that got thrown into every version of D&D since 1974 and WFRP since the 80's. There's a reason why rolemaster(aka WORLD OF CHARTS) isn't still around.

jh