Goblin Fanatics?

By Crazy Aido, in WFRP House Rules

I might be running a game at some stage that involves everyone's least favourite greenskins.

One of the things I was thinking of including for the sake of being an absolute bastard was fanatics . So the question now lies in how precisely I should manage them.

I was considering...

Goblin with two extra wounds and 5-6 strength. Lots of agro, two expertise, decent defence and obviously, frenzy.

They have one action, swinging that ball and chain. (Marriage joke pending)

This would likely appear as:

Success:Damage+2 against everyone(including other gobbos) in close range.

More successes=more damage, up to perhaps three or four, maybe more.

Boons=manouvers towards a nearby group. Or crits. So many crits.

Banes=Move away

2 Chaos stars=Dead Gobbo.

I actually used a Warhammer Fantasy Battles scatter die (the one with the arrows). And just rolled it to see what way the fanatic moved. If I scored a hit, I decided what way he went. Then I moved the goblin two manouvers in that direction and checked it came close to, or went through some players. That worked well and all the players had fun each time the scatter die was to be rolled. I actually hit some PCs before the fanatic spun right into a wall and became goblin paste.

I allowed the players to roll coordination checks to dodge the Fanatic, rather than rolling for the goblin. The difficulty of the coordination check depended on how close the goblin got when I had rolled the scatter die. For example, when the goblin went right through a players standup I assigned 4 challenge dice, but when it passed a player in close range it was only 1 challenge die. Most checks were 2 or 3 challenge dice. Then I assigned misfortune to most checks due to the ground beeing wet and slippery.

It was a while ago but I think it went something like this on their coordination checks:

Failed: Goblin damage + 2.

Bane: +1 damage.

2 x Bane: +2 damage + 1 critical.

Chaos star: +3 damage +1 critical.

Success: Goblin damage -1

3 x Success: No damage.

Boon: -1 damage.

2 x Boon: -2 damage.

Comet: Redirection. The player gets to decide which way the goblin goes next.

Dodge: I allowed players to use their dodge active defence to reduce damage by 2 (before rolling coordination).

Interesting, I've been thinking about using Night Goblin Fanatics well, mostly "reskinning" existing cards to reflect their attack but I like making it a PC roll to avoid, use that Dodge speciality for a white die on the Coordination check. Given the Fanatic "goes until it drops" and can only be engaged with missile fire, making it more a "moving effect" is a nice idea.

Yes, I thought so too. My players had a lot of fun with the randomness of the fanatic, as well as fearing it. They spent some time coming up with ideas on how to trick it, capture it or avoid it. and generally had a good time with it.

One fanatic I used died when a player managed to get comets on two consecutive coordination rolls (the player redirected the fanatic, and followed it and had to make a new coordination the following turn) and managed to redirect it into a stone wall, with much cheering and enjoyment from the other players.