If an attack is successful, instead of adding straight Strength or Agility + DR:

DR + # of successes on Characteristic and Stance dice

Not nearly deadly enough. You're going from, say, a guaranteed 9 Wounds (DR5 + S4) to anywhere from 5-9, with an average of about 6 or 7.

If you want a more random range, I'd suggest adding [W] or [WW][bB], with successes adding damage and challenges subtracting damage. That will give a slight, yet balanced, spread from the default damage potential.

Characteristic Fortune dice could add to the damage. Also, the action you perform will be adding (and sometimes subtracting) damage.

What we started playing before we owned the set and since we haven't fully adapted our main game to the new system 100% (as we're still testing out the standard WFRP rules in a four session game) is this Mordenthral:

Strength + a lower damage value of the weapon + # of successes. We still haven't tweaked it out fully and play-testing is still happening, but what we're looking at is a list as follows:

Hand Weapon: +2 or +3 damage modifier.

Great Weapon: +4 or +5

Hand and a Half sword: +3 or +4

Pistol: +2 or +3

Long Bow: +3

Bow: +2

Rifle: +3 or +4

This mechanic is very rough. I do like Warhammer's flat damage value, but it's a bit sloppy in execution, as are all flat damage systems. A toughness 4 monster in heavy armor is roughly a 9 soak. An Average person with a strength of 3 +5 is eight damage base. If your entire party are non-fighters, they're all dealing the minimum 1 damage continuously. That means it will take 12 hits to kill a toughness 4 monster. Talk about taking forever (and a serious lack of deadliness).

In the end, this fixed damage ratio mechanic makes it absolutely necessary for low strength characters to rely on combat action cards so they can at least deal 2-3 points of damage. Sounds all good in theory, but an Envoy who has never fought in his life is going to perform absolutely poorly in a fight. Plus, he'll have absolutely no chance of digging himself out of the hole unless he shifts up his character to be, "oh, and I wanted to be a swordmaster, but flunked" so now I've got double strike. At least with a success variable mechanic it gives character's a leg up and still doesn't require an additional roll. It also is very quick since you're already counting dice and still maintains the spirit of flat damage while offering the fun world of variable damage as well.

On this point, you may want to lower armor (our current setting deals very little with armor so we haven't had much to do with it yet). What we're thinking is Light gives 1 Soak. Medium 2 Soak and 1 Defense, Heavy, 3 soak and 1 Defense (or maybe 2 defense). Putting more on defense allows for the subtraction of successes, which in turn actually lowers damage (since it is now success dependent) just at a more variable rate, meaning sometimes it's holding you're butt together, other times, it's not. I know this harkens back to DND Armor class, but the system already persumes the hit and wound is a flat single roll, so by placing armor more on defense and less on straight soak also makes that presumption. The idea is, sometimes the attacker finds the biggest opening, other times, they do not.

One last thing to consider, while I'm on this topic, anything that "lowers soak by one" should really have their damage increased by 1 and just remove the piercing element. There is no reason on God's green earth why you should roll dice, add up damage, subtract 1 from soak, then subtract soak from damage. In essence, that subtract one from soak is a +1 damage. Anything designed to pierce through armor, should simply add damage against armored opponents equal to the penalty it normally applies to the armored opponent's soak. This is of course, unless they are using something like Execution strike which lowers soak for the entire turn. Keep that, because that applies to all attacks that turn, not just that single attack.

Let me know what you think. We've been playing this way and find it to be very brutal and fun. We've also been experimenting around with lots of mechanical bits of the system so if you're interested I can tell you more. Our notion is the system is great, just doesn't play the way we want it to, so we've been modifying it ever since.

Sure, I'd be interested in reading what else your group has been doing.

I agree that Pierce 1 is pretty worthless. IMHO - pierce should simply ignore armor soak. That would achieve the intended goal without being redundant with damage modifiers.