Hello everyone,

Now that most of us have played the game a bit, how do you feel the rules are working for you ? Is it too easy to get successes ?

I gather that a warrior with Str 4, 2 reckless, 1 expertise will hit a top notch warrior with plate and shield and improved parry more that 50% of the time !

What will it be when the said warrior moves to Str 5, 3 reckless, and 3 expertise ?

So is it me, or defensive capabilities are "weaker" than offensive ones ? Which in game terms means that an expert swordsman can't keep weaker opponents at bay by consistently parrying/dodging their blows ? In V2, an expert swordsman with 65% WS and a shield could block 75% of the time the first blow, then maybe have a 50% dodge on the second. Coupled with a Defensive Stance (-20% WS to opponents), the swordsman could really hold his position for a long time (covering some allies' retreat for example).

I get the feeling that this won't be possible in V3, because of the way the defense works in combat.

Also, out of combat, you get the same "easiness" regarding test difficulty, don't you ? I mean, Daunting 4d should be near impossible, but to a skilled character, it's hard but not daunting. So should there be a 5d difficulty (Sheer folly, ah, MERP) and a 6d (absurd) ?

What in game experience of these aspects of the system do you all have up to now ?

Do you think Rank 3 characters will be able to succeed a bit too easily ?

Generally, unless there is a good reason I set difficulty at Average (2d). And I do the opposed check combat thing whenever it makes sense. I run competent 2nd Rank party, with strengths in every facet of the game (except social!). There's only 1 '5' characteristic in the party though (cheesy wood elf Ag). And to be honest I'm extremely happy with the balance and success rates, and everything like that. My players seem to feel challenged but competent; they're confident generally but certainly not complacent, and it's still easy enough to make them soil their pants. The only thing I have trouble with is if I give the wood elf some space and fair warning, he is apt to go all Legolas over the game. But, otoh, in melee he's as competent as an initiate of Shallya's younger sister on an off day.

I've seen some pretty great looking dice pools come up empty. Sometimes with no result at all, and sometimes with a pair of eagles that are only able to be used to get back a fatigue. Are you sure you are rolling all the 'bad' dice you should be?

Against a good warrior - rank 1 - that would be:

1 purple - basic difficulty of combat, several blacks for the armor and at least 2 more blacks for an active defense? In a one on one fight you can block one round and then parry and dodge both on the other round. If you really feel like that is still too easy you could give an NPC you think should be stronger the advanced Dodge/Block/Parry... those add extra purple dice that can be harsh.

Also remember that if you are using a monster/npc from the books you will have your pool of dice and can use those to add difficulty... plus environmental stuff if you think hitting is generally too easy.

As the GM, I find it almost impossible to hit the group`s dwarf tank. He is a soldier with tower shield, improved block and improved parry. When he uses all his active defences in one go, I can forget about hiting him. And oh, he has riposte, so he usually makes 2 attacks in a round in which he is attacked.

so no, I think the game is pretty balanced from my experience of the game. Take a look on p 60 of the rulebook under Tactics & combat modifiers, to get ideas how to make combat more difficult by adding a few disadvantages.

I will not reccomend adding another challenge dice to combat, just to make it more difficult. that can unbalance the game, depending on action cards the players have. use misfortune dice instead. And remember monsters can dodge, block and parry just as the players can. You can even add other actions cards to their reportaire, usually 1 per expertise they got if you want to make the combat really challenging. What about a orc with improved parry and riposte? or an skaven with double strike?

the possiblities are almost endless.

I have raised a discussion on providing guidelines on when to increase the difficulty of a "vs Defence" test. I think the idea really rocks if used correctly and is inherently balanced with a risk/reward structure.

I just have to ask.. What is Riposte? - An action a talent. Can't find it anywhere..

Other than that, i totally agree! I think it is quite well balanced

A skaven with double strike! Gotta love it!

Riposte is out of the Toolkit. Allows you to take a swing at an enemy that just missed you after you used a Parry active defense.

Mark

@monkeylite

Interesting, you set the base difficulty at 2d for combat. And add the card based difficulty dice as per RAW ?

Does that make some actions too hard ?

Mal Reynolds said:

But if he uses all defenses on the same blow, isn't he vulnerable for the next round ? Did that cause him harm ?

Jericho said:

No, sorry, I wasn't very clear. I set 2d difficulty as the standard check outside combat unless there's a good reason not to, ie everything is average unless it isn't. So my players will know that it's always an average check unless I tell them it isn't.

For combat I use the RAW ( The GM may decide the action in question is better served as an unopposed or opposed check. p.58) but I favour the Opposed Check method whenever possible, so whenever it's a 'fair fight,' whenever, say, two characters are concentrating on fighting each other, or one character is shooting at another and his target is putting all his attention into avoiding the shot, basically any excuse which might make the opposed check relevant, then we use it. But if there is no clear opposition then we use the RAW combat 1d difficulty.

This does make things harder for the party or the enemy or both depending on the relative stats and all card-based diificulty dice are added exactly as the RAW. But I don't find things are too hard. If the monsters are out-statted by the PCs then generally there are more of them, so only the one who squares up to a PC is going to have to make an opposed check, then rest will have difficulty 1d, if they can outnumber him, or attack him from distance, etc. And the same goes for the PCs. If you get a monster that out-stats the PCs then they might be attacking it at 3d+modifiers which is not easy, but they would need to make sure they can bring other attacks to bear, or put all their resources (fortune and other bonuses) into the right moment, or try to match up the right stats (ie if it's strong, then they want to take it out with Ag based attacks, if it's agile, then they need to get in its face with some Str based melee), which I feel brings in some decent tactical factors and works very well for us.

It works so well for us, I have trouble resisting recommending this method in every thread.

I've been playing RAW with combat and social tasks, setting difficulty for non-combat tasks in ways that we all think make sense. And so far our experience has been good; the PCs succeed better than 50% (which I think is right - too much failure and no one is having fun), but they still have consistent enough failures for them to see how they can grow. Our tanky dwarf as taken her fair share of licks too.

I am curious about the people who have modified the base rules: did you start playing that way? Or did you feel something was "off" at the outset so you house-ruled it? What do you think is an acceptable amount of failure? What do you think is the ideal percentage of failures?

Jericho said:

Yes i suppose he would be, when fighting a demon on the rooftops, he was wounded the round after he had depleted all his active defences. But he figures that taking damage every other round is better than distributing his active defences, thus increasing the chance of being hit every round. He wants a save bet instead of 2 uncertain bets. But I noticed that fighting lesser opponents he does often choose between improved block and improved parry. But on the rooftops it was just that one deamon.

heres an idea, dont attack the dwarf, go around him and hit someone soft instead! what semi intelligent being would decide itd be a great idea to beat on the metal encased dwarf and ignore that succulent bright wizard thats about to blow his mind in a few seconds?

and use ranged attacks or gang up on him with multiple people. if there are two archers shooting at him with big ol crossbows and a beastigor is wanting to shove a spiky tree branch down his gullet he wont be able to use all his actives on one guy, or if he does he will be very open to the other two attacking him.

I found that my group (Human Merc, Human Burgher, Sword Master, Woody Thief) were more than a match for the Beastman groups in the two intro adventures once they understood the system.

The Sword Master is only S3 but his base attack pool is 3 Blue (invariably ramped up to 3 Green), 1 Yellow (WS Trained), and 2 White (Greatsword and Specialisation). The best the Beastmen could muster in defence was the Wargor: 3 Black (2 Defence and 1 Active) and 1 Purple. The Wargor was down in 3 rounds (admittedly the last wound was from a Fatigue).

I think in this game the bad guys best defence is a good offence. Getting the Fearsome Charge helped put the Sword Master on his back on 0 Wounds.

I like the increased success rate because fights have become quick and bloody rather than the tedious slug-fests they were in v1/2.

My only slight concern is that the Wood Elf Thief with Ag 5 and Ag Fortune is already dishing out hurt from a distance at a rate of knots. Base damage 10 eats NPC's (he slaughtered the big bad (before he could bring up the bigger bad) in two rounds of Legolas action. I might have to make things less conducive to archery in future combats just to give the others a chance.

Interesting, this last reply.

I tested combat with non-combat PCs and they had major trouble. Combat PCs seem pretty good, though. Suits me.

Parries, blocks and dodges seem way less effective than in V2, though. So you can't "heroically" parry round after round as I mentioned in an earlier post. Combats indeed seem to be more about offense, "get the guy down before he does you". Which means PCs will not last long against multiple opponents in a long combat scene, since they will have trouble not getting hit and with the minimum 1 wound of damage, they'll always wear down after a dozen rounds...

This said, it seems like good fun, so I can't wait to properly test the new system with Eye for an Eye...