I don't get how we can determinate the defense values of a character. I mean apart the shield which gives us two points of defense values, Do any other factors help to calculate it ? Does the agility of a wood elf gives him a bonus in defense values for instance ?

I hope that I am clear enough... ^ ^

P77 of theruebook : just lok at the defence value of your armor and add the defence value of your shield, that's it

Exemples :

cloth = 0

mail shirt = 1

brigandine + round shield = 2

full plate + tower shield = 3

Thx for the answer !

I think It would be great if a character with a high agility characteristic can improve his defence value.

Can we use fortune dices in order to give misfortune dices to a NPC who wants to hit us ?

Hauer Glaeken said:

nope but there are some basic actions (dodge,parry, block) that add to the defence value. There are also improved versions of those action cards.

pumpkin said:

But I believe monsters can use their A/C/E to add misfortune dice to the players. Just an FYI.

Monsters and NPCs can use their a/c/e dice on the player's opposed checks, but attacks aren't opposed checks. Monsters/NPCs do have access to parry/dodge/block, though.

I find that the defense system in WFRP is pretty jaring when compared to "conventional" RPG design. I am not sure I like how it has been done one bit. I have to play yet, and it might work great. But looking at it from the "outside" I have issue....

Players going in believing that taking a high Agility will increase Defense are doomed to disappointment. This is not to say that a High Agility does not impact game play at all. Just that if your only reason is with defense in mind....don't bother.

The few Options you can take do add some level of advantage.

Training Coordination, Weapon skill & Resilince will grant you a bonus on Basic Dodge, Parry and Block actions, but this advantage vanished once you move to the advanced options- I find that just a tad bit odd..

You do, on the other hand, gain a "Special" effect . Some are automatic, but others happen only if your defense is successful, ....I think I would have rather kept the Bonus die.

All and all when I look at the Defense Rules I can't help but think that at least in part the designer wanted to demphasize/limit the importance and impact defense plays in the game, and did so by limit player control/options.

Chipacabra said:

I thought that attack action cards like 'Accurate Shot' (using this as it appears on the FFG website in the WFRP news) are opposed checks. In this instance the check being Balistic Skill (Ag) Vs Target Defense.

So you'd have to check the difficulty based PC's BS and the NPC's defense. Usually easy <P>. And that agression from the a/c/e pool of the NPC add [M] if GM chooses to. And that is added to the pool for each defense the target has too.

Duran Elderbar said:

I don't believe it is a true Opposed Test as they implies you are checking the Active Characteristic versus the Defender's Characteristic to determine difficulty <P>. Rules as written, an opposed check would be Observation versus Stealth; where you compare the two characteristics to derive the difficulty.

Anything versus Target Defense appears to be a standard check as the difficulty doesn't change, but you do add misfortune based on the defender's skills, defending actions (parry, dodge, etc).

But thinking about it, maybe it is... Target's Defense tends to be quite low anyway, but in the event that your Ballistic Skill is a 2 and their defense is a 3 then perhaps the difficulty does indeed go up... ?

I posted this is another thread.

There are two types of check: standard and opposed.

The action card check line written as "X v. Y" is obviously an opposed check, by definition.

A Simple check has a difficulty of 0; default difficulty for Melee and Ranged attacks (it says nothing about spells) is 1d.

I don't want to assume that this means attacks are Easy. It's just a default Challenge dice that is always added to Ranged and Melee attacks. Then you add more Challenge dice based on 'WS or BS v. Defence'

In addition, anything that in other versions would be -20 or -30 adds another Challenge dice (like attacking with your off-hand). Anything that would be -10 adds a Misfortune; anything that would be +10 adds a Fortune; and anything that would be +20 would remove a Challenge dice.

This gives a rough rules-ish feel for adding and removing dice. In reality I would do it ad-hoc without thinking of it in terms of percentage adjustments.

So a standard Ranged attack against an opponent at Close range, wearing clothes, in broad daylight on a dirt road would have a single Challenge dice and no Misfortune.

A Ranged attack against an opponent at Extreme range, wearing plate armor and using a shield, at night in the rain in the forest would be more like 4 Challenge dice and 5 Misfortune.

The definition of an Opposed check is Characteristic vs Characteristic.

While attacks that say "vs Defense" might seem to be an Opposed check, Defense is not based on a Characteristic, so it is not therefore an Opposed check. Hence the reason why the rules state a 'default' difficulty for melee and ranged attacks as <P>. Of course, the GM can feel free to increase/decrease the Difficulty if they feel it is warranted.

Defence is a Characteristic of armour.

Characteristics, per the WFRP rules, are: St, To, Ag, Int, WP, Fel.

Characteristics provide blue Characteristic dice.

The rules say that those are six characteristics. It doesn't say that they are the only characteristics, or define "characteristic" as being only one of those six.

Armour has five characteristics: Defence, Soak, Encumbrance, Cost, Rarity.

"Versus" indicates opposition. Checks without the "vs." are standard checks.

Under "Opposed Checks" p. 42 "Sometimes a task is more difficult to accomplish because someone is actively trying to prevent the character from succeeding."

Are you suggesting that when a character attacks someone they are not actively trying to prevent the character from succeeding? Or that 'versus' does not mean that two values are opposed?

Under "Action Card Elements" p. 50 " Action Check: ... If the check is opposed, it will also list that here, explaining which of the target's skills or characteristics are opposing the check."

Under "The Combat Sequence" p. 58 "The characteristics, abilities, or equipment of the target may influence the action's challenge level."

Example: Accurate Shot: Ballistic Skill (Ag) vs. Target Defence <- This is a characteristic of the target based on their armour (equipment.)

Further down p. 58 "The default difficulty for Melee Attack and Ranged Attack actions is Easy (1d), but may be modified by a variety of factors."

Under "Challenge Levels" p. 42 "A typical character with proper training, resources, and the right stance for the situation should reasonably expect to succeed at most easy tasks he attempts."

The real point is, regardless of whether you go with my argument or dvang's, if you only have PCs roll one Challenge dice on every attack, you're making it too easy. This is Warhammer; attacks are not "easy."

Point me in the rules where it says Defense is a "characteristic".

The only discussion/reference of "characteristics" is about the 6 characteristics (St, To, Ag, Int, WP, Fel).

While I see your logic, it fails because Defense is not a skill nor characteristic of the target.

I will point out that the majority of Defense values are 0 or 1, or occasionally 2 and rarely 3. With a typical warrior having a St of 4, you're looking at the average attack actually being more than twice the Defense, making it even EASIER to hit than you are suggesting (because more than twice becomes a Simple 0d test).

The fact is, Defense adds , not <P>. That is how it affects an attack. You're double-counting Defense if you have it do both.

dvang said:

Point me in the rules where it says "vs." means it's not an "opposed check."

dvang said:

characteristic
n
1. a distinguishing quality, attribute, or trait

Defence is very much so a 'characteristic' of the target.

If you look through the Bestiary section of the ToA you will also find the Defence, Soak and Damage of each creature very clearly placed in the 'characteristic' section of each.

On page 58 of the rulebook it states:

"The default difficulty for Melee Attack and Ranged Attack actions is Easy (1d), but may be modified by a variety of factors. The GM may decide that the action in question is better served as an unopposed check or opposed check."

The first sentence indicates that the GM may add or subtract challenge dice on an attack based on outside factors, but does not seem to imply that any of the standard rules for an attack would add or subtract these dice. The following sentence clearly shows that an Attack roll is not considered to be either an opposed or unopposed check since it indicates that some situations may call for one of those checks instead of a standard check. I also believe that that sentence is in reference to non-attack checks during combat since the paragraph it is contained in is speaking of all checks during combat and not just attacks, seemingly indicating that standard attack actions (ie the ones on the cards and not some spectacular assault that a player has cooked up) are never considered opposed or unopposed checks.

The rulebook mentions that Melee and Ranged attacks default to easy. It implies quite clearly that they are not opposed checks.

Yupsate said:

In that exact same section it also states that defence rating adds misfortune dice to the roll. If you also add in <P> dice based on an opposed check including defence, you effectively end up accounting for defence twice.

If melee/ranged attacks were supposed to be opposed checks vs defence, the first sentence quoted above would simply have no place in the rulebook, as melee/ranged attacks would have no default difficulty; it would completely depend on the opposing characteristics, like any other opposed check, hence by default the basic melee/ranged attacks are not opposed checks (or the statement above is an error.... )

pumpkin said:

Oh, exactly like you just said....

The rulebook mentions that Melee and Ranged attacks default to easy. It implies quite clearly that they are not opposed checks.....

If they are not an opposed check, succeeding on an attack becomes ridiculously easy and It's even worse if you add one or two expertise yellow dices (if you character manages to attain the rank 2).

We had a discussion on a subject with monkeylite that may interest someone :

"On p58 it says: The GM may decide the action in question is better served as an unopposed or opposed check. I use opposed checks in combat all the time, as long as the target is aware of the attacker and is actively doing something about the attack (like fighting with him or trying to get out of the way) .

Is there a lot of failing to hit by the combatants when you do this? How does it on average effect the pool? are people regularly rolling <PP> or <PPP> in their pools?

Yeah, lots of purple dice are common, and I guess there's bound to be more missing. But I've been very happy with the balance of the fights we've had, and never thought there was too much missing. Otoh, all my main PCs are combat competent. So I'd say if you're concerned with the way the various stats contribute to the fights , then try it both ways and see which way feels better. It certainly feels, to me, to be the most natural way to do things. "

I think he made a point here. If you don't use opposed checks, Agility is nearly useless in a fight (Dodge adds at best one purple dice to the difficulty of the attacker) and it's VERY difficult to miss for the attacker.

Yer, that's my question about <P> dice slap bang in the middle there!

The point is though, that that's how monkeylite chooses to do it, rather than any suggestion that that's how the rules say you should do it.

I think possibly FFG have tried to make hitting more likely because V2 had the issue where a fair few combats would go on for rounds without anyone hitting anyone.

I'm certainly going to look at adding extra purple dice into combats where possible, its just that generally I'm not going to make them opposed as I don't think that is the intention of the rules.

I mentioned in another post that i might introduce some kind of house rule where you could make combat an opposed check Vs agility (plus getting dice for any defence values as normal, but wasn't sure what to make the buy in for that, making it a manuver seemed too light (I didn't want every combat to become opposed, its the exception rather than the norm, so possibly making it the result of a successful use of perform a stunt manuver was also an idea; sort of like a total defence option....

pumpkin said:

What about dodge and improved dodge?

Insofar as I can tell there is nothing prohibiting a character from having both. That would allow a character with high agility to either dodge 1 attack really well, or dodge 2 attacks ok.

I am not sure but I think that you can't use dodge and improve dodge at the same time. And even if you could, It would give you two black dices and one purple dice. A dangerous NPC (Chaos Warrior for instance) will still hit you easily whether you have dodge and improve dodge or not. Again, if you use opposed checks it should allow you to use your agility and add purple dice to your adversary's attack dice roll. With this way, Melee combat becomes much more challenging.