We recently started playing WHFP in my group and after one session I'm starting to wonder if we understood the Target Defence value right or did we miss something in the rules.

We played so that for monsters Target Defence value is the number next to Agility in parenthesis (usually between 0-2) and for PC's the value is Defence gained from any armor and/or shield they have equipped. Each point of Defence value added a misfortune die to the check vs. Target Defence.

It just seems so easy to succeed in every vs. Target Defence check. A pretty basic fighter character can easily have at the very beginning atleast St 4 + Weapon Skill trained, so it's 4 Skill dices + 1 expertise die vs. 1 challenge die and 0-2 misfortune dices. With those odds it seemed that we never missed Basic Melee attacks.

It would seems logical that Agility value enhances Defence value somehow, but I can't find any mention about it in the rules.

You're doing it right, but also consider Page 58 of the corebook says "The GM may decide the action in question is better served as an unopposed or opposed check."

Yep you are doing it right - dont forget monsters have access to all appropriate basic actions like block/dodge/parry - and also A/C/E budgets they can use.

I am considering a house rule where I use Agility to modify base difficulty to hit, but Im having some trouble finding the right balance. In the mean time I try not to think of it as one swing per roll, it is a series of blows and one (or more) of them gets through if you roll a hit.

You have it correct. Hits are pretty frequent and nasty. Makes every combat a risk and not something to enter in lightly even against lowly goblins or drunks in the bar.

You could extrapolate the use of a monster's Aggression budget to add misfortune to an attacker's roll. Page 43 talks about doing this on an opposed check which normal combat is not, but I don't see much harm coming from using it for defense instead of only for offense.

Remember that monsters can also use basic action cards like dodge and parry to make it harder to hit them. But because of the shared recharge effect of action cards for monsters it effectively means that the important critters will most often take advantage of these active defenses. I kind of like that little effect that enhances the perceived importance of the "boss" critter.

You are doing it right. Others have already addressed the other points of monsters getting the basic actions/defenses and the A/C/E budget to modify rolls with. As for Agility, while it doesn't directly modify defense in a consistent manner for PCs, you need a 3+ to qualify for Dodge and a 4+ to qualify for Improved Dodge, so it does have bearing. For monsters it's up to you to say whether the Defense rating is due to natural armour, quickness, or some combination of both. If you think the PCs consistently have it too easy, adding an extra <P> from an assumed Improve Dodge ability of a monster with a Agility of 4+ every now and then is going to make them a bit more difficult to hit.

That being said, yes, PCs are generally more successful than not for basic combat hits; however, a PC with Str + Weapon damage of 9 or 10 is only going to be whittling away at an opponent with T+Soak of 6 or 7 and 14 Wounds. The more powerful attacks that are governed by recharge often require multiple successes to do a +1 or +2 damage and a single success most often just does normal damage, so putting down an opponent quickly isn't likely and the combat will still last a few rounds even without the ocassional miss being factored in. I prefer this system where the players hit more frequently, but wound loss is slow, to a system where damage potential is high, but you chances of hitting are low. Both could wind up taking the same number of rounds, but one system gives the players a sense of gradual accomplishment while the other feels random and luck driven. A system where wound reduction was low and hit frequency was also low would just make combat take too long and become more frustrating than enjoyable.

Conversely, it's also generally just as easy for monsters to hit the PCs. And the monsters usually outnumber the PCs. So yeah, fights are often short and brutal.

monkeylite said:

Does anyone use this? I have only played one session. I shot the guy, just some bandit(not even a boss), twice, after sneaking up and taking them by surprise, and he still he just got up next to me and clobbered me twice leaving me with only 2 wounds before we took him out. Suffice it to say and didnt last against the bandit boss! It seemed my character was far greater skilled than the bandit with weapons training and 4 agility but the dodging and parrying didnt really do squat!

I only got he the rules yesterday and I read the section quoted above butit seems almost like a throw away line! the difficulties go through the roof compared to the unapposed check. So it appears that unapposed its hit every time and opposed near impossible!

If it was opposed check what would you oppose with?

Weaponskill (STR) vs Weaponskill (STR)

or

Weaponskill (STR) vs Coordination (AGI)

would you still add black dice for defense?

I play usually Str vs Str, and Ag vs Ag and I use all black dice from defence as normal. It works for us.

For melee I used to use Str vs AG but am arsing about with Str vs Str. It hasn't made too much difference so far. But I'll probably stick with Str vs Str to avoid Ag becoming too desirable.

Good question Kaptain O. Hopefully not STR vs STR otherwise most characters would never be able to hit an Orc! (vs STR 5+3 challenge dice). Id lean toward AGI

You would almost think it was an error including that line and yet the Opposed check difficulty chart is repeated in the combat section which includes the other opposed check modifiers. How would you use those when also considering the active defenses?

monkeylite : Do you use the opposed rolls in every fight? Why would STR Vs AGI make AGI more desirable when it STR that normally determines hit and damage? I ahvent had a good read of the rules so I dont know how useful AGI generally.

Azza said:

Yeah, we use opposed checks always in fights when it is clear that the foe is squaring up to or is very aware of his opponent and is putting effort into thwarting him.

I find Ag to be a generally much more useful outside of combat, and making it the focus vs Melee and Ranged attacks might give it too much precedence. But really we did Str vs Ag for a long time and it did well enough for us, and we haven't really had enough of a go with Str vs Str to see.

It does seem odd that they do mention the option, then don't really give any explanation of when or why you might exercise it.

The opposed test table states that if your stat > opponent's <P>, your stat = opponent's <PP>, your stat < opponent's <PPP>. There's probably few instances of the outlier results of Simple or Daunting, so depending on what kind of foes the PCs are routinely running into for most combats, the difficulty is going to be higher than the default of <P> and you will see more checks that are <PP> or <PPP>. This means the PCs will miss more. Using the default, it is more likely than not that the PCs will hit just about every time. While they may still need several hits to whittle down a foe with many wounds and decent T+Soak, they're still hitting nearly every time. This may seem too heroic to some and using opposed checks raises the stakes a bit, especially when the PCs are facing opponent(s) with a Characteristic higher than theirs. Then the PC will be doing <PPP> checks and the opponent will be doing <P> checks, making it much more likely that the PC will lose a one-on-one fight.

This will emphasize melee fighters being better than say, Wizards in hand to hand combat since the higher Str character is going to be more on par or even better than many opponents, whereas a PC that focuses on WP or Fel is more likely to be at a disadvantage to most foes. Same for Archers with high Agility. They will generally be better in Ranged combats than others, not just because they are rolling more dice, but because they have a lower difficulty as well. It's a double whammy.

Personally, I don't want to have to do the stat comparison thing for every attempt. I think it will slow combat down. Much faster to just always take a single <P> then throw in the other modifiers. Secondly, I don't have a problem with the PCs hitting frequently. Third, I can hold on the the opposed option for really special foes. Using the opposed checks for special foes only rather than all the time will be another thing that makes them stand out from the routine opponents that the PCs face.