If 5 characters (with the Flanking Manoeuvre attached to their party sheet) are in the same engagement with some enemies, do every single character gain 5 white dice for the Talent with melee attacks?

I don't have the card in front of me... but it has been attached to every party I've run for.... one of us misread it. I think it just gives you ONE dice if you are with allies in an engagement. I don't think it is a white die PER ally. It is already crazy good at always getting one extra dice.

Yeah the wording is pretty clear on that. It's the use of "at least" instead of "per" which gives you a maximum of one fortune die.

The funny thing is, the card provides that fortune die to you and your allies, so it doesn't need to be in the party slot. Only one character in the engagement needs the talent for everyone to get the benefit.

Yeah the advantage of it being in the Party slot is it works if you aren't one of the first people into the engagement... or are the first one ' knocked out' of the engagement. Since it doesn't exhaust it just seems like a natural fit there.

Flanking Manoeuvre: "When in an engagement with at least 1 ally, you and your allies add [W] to Melee Attack dice pools against engaged foes"

So...

CH1 is engaged with 4 allies (CH2, CH3, CH4, CH5), so he and his 4 allies (CH2, CH3, CH4, CH5) add [W] to Melee Attack dice pools against engaged foes.

CH2 is engaged with 4 allies (CH1, CH3, CH4, CH5), so he and his 4 allies (CH1, CH3, CH4, CH5) add [W] to Melee Attack dice pools against engaged foes.

CH3 is engaged with 4 allies (CH1, CH2, CH4, CH5), so he and his 4 allies (CH1, CH2, CH4, CH5) add [W] to Melee Attack dice pools against engaged foes.

CH4 is engaged with 4 allies (CH1, CH2, CH3, CH5), so he and his 4 allies (CH1, CH2, CH3, CH5) add [W] to Melee Attack dice pools against engaged foes.

CH5 is engaged with 4 allies (CH1, CH2, CH3, CH4), so he and his 4 allies (CH1, CH2, CH3, CH4) add [W] to Melee Attack dice pools against engaged foes.

It would seem to me that everyone would get 5 White dice...

That's definitely NOT how we're playing it. My party has it attached to the party sheet, and each character gets 1[W] from the card, not 5 [W].

John

johnmarron said:

We all agree that this way it would be too powerful...

I know this is slight threadjack, but the very existence of this card seems to negate the use of the Assist Maneuver during melee as a means to provide a "free" [W]. Barring the fact that you might occassionally have other uses for the one free maneuver during your turn, why would you invest an advance in taking this Talent, when most of the time you can do the same thing with a plain old maneuver? I think the assist maneuver is listed since all encounters may not be combat encounters and not all checks, even in combat, are attacks. If a player is trying to break down a door so the party can escape the horde of gobbos coming down a tunnel and another wants to assist while the rest of the party holds off the horde, this is a good use of the assist maneuver. Assisting a First Aid check can be justified as putting pressure on a wound while another character slaps a bandage on. Justifying the use of the assist maneuver in melee as, "well, I'm flanking" seems like a weaker argument in light of the existence of this Talent. In short, I feel the GM has the right to adjudicate what is a valid use of the Assist maneuver and when assistance is appropriate. Just because Assist is listed as a possible maneuver doesn't mean it is available or appropriate in all instances.

Amen Brother!

I've been ranting against the assist in combat so much I stopped because I figured I was alone in my opinions and didn't want to just be spammin.

I feel the combat mechanics are fairly balanced as they are without extra white and black dice. Add a free white for Flanking Maneuver, an extra white for someone assisting you (and it clearly says more than 1 person can assist with no limit... so all 4 of us can assist the Trollslayer if he is the one who is laying down the smack!), plus the addition of white dice I'm supposed to give for creative thought and roleplaying and it starts to get nuts. This is if the players don't have numbers on their side for an extra white... which they will at the end of fights even if they don't initially....

After many runs of the demo and various short adventures from 1E upgraded we are kicking off a real campaign tomorrow night and I am thinking of using a house rule to mitigate this: You (players) can only add a number of white dice for any reason up to the number of black dice being rolled.... basically using talents and tactics (RPing ideas, etc) to offset potential misfortune unless actually spending fortune tokens. I (GM) could still hand some out for particularly great ideas or unique situations but no 'free' bonus dice for flanking manuever, declared flanking (using a maneuver), or assisting.

I am not anti-roleplaying or creativity... I just think in a Warhammer world combat should be scary and not easy at all.

LukeZZ said:

I am not seeing how you get 5[W]? It seems to me that it reads that each PC should get +1[W] no matter the number of allies after the first.

I'm not seeing it either. It looks pretty clear to me that you only get 1 [W].

You get one white fortune die for the flanking maneuver talent, no matter how many allies that are in the same engagement as you.

Period.

...or else you should really fear snotlings with flanking maneuvers.

What Luke ZZ mean is:
- You get one [W] from having the talent yourself.
- But since the card is socketed to the party sheet all of your party members are also considered to have the talent.
- They each give one [W] to all of their allies, thus you would get 1 [W]+1[W]/per ally in engagement with you.

I think it's pretty obvious that this is not how it should be interpreted but by RAW I think he's correct. Essentially, having the Flanking Manoeuvre talent card in a party socket is equivalent to every player having the card socketed (in which case you would get multiple white dice). It is of course not possible to let multiple players have the same talent if you abide by the restrictions set by the core set card numbers. But using the party sockets lets you get around this.

I think it needs to be clarified, perhaps limiting the amount of [W] to one per person and talent card. Having the talent in a party socket would still be beneficial since it could be used in different engagements at the same time.

I would not allow this to stack with the [W] you can get from assisting, you get either 1 [W] from Flanking Manoeuvre or 1/2 [W] from having an ally assist you. Also I would not let either of those stack with the outnumbering bonus.

I see. Interesting.

I would assume that Flanking Maneuver bonuses don't stack, so if you're receiving one [W] flanking bonus die, then that's all you get.

But yeah, I see what you're saying now. The rules don't discuss it, so there's nothing saying you can't get 5[W] dice from flanking.

Let's not forget that "engaged with" basically means in base to base contact for miniatures. So in a typical melee, the most characters engaged together will be three or four, around one or two enemies. I wouldn't let engagements include a whole melee of 20 combatants, for example. Engaged with means very close to each other, able to interact (exchange weapons etc...). So placement here is critical.

Narratively speaking, the flanking card means that character is able to help coordinate the attacks of his mates, so he will do that with those that are fighting with him, in his immediate vincinity !

So there is a very good reason to slot this talent on the party sheet. It means that everyone in the party has been briefed by the character on the hows and dos of coordinated attacks.

And only one [W] should be added, IMO.

gruntl said:

The assumtion being made here, is that having the talent socketed to the party sheet is the same as each individual having it socketed separatley. I don't believe the rules support this. A talent socketed to the party sheet can be used by any member of the party, but that does not mean that I have the talent as a character in the party. I wish I could use the exact syntax of the books right now, but I don't have them with me ATM, but I do see a significant difference between:

A.) A party having the Flanking Manoeuvre talent socketed to its sheet.

and

B.) A party of 5 people, each with a separate instance of the Flanking Manoeuvre talent socketed to their individual Character sheets.

As was already mentioned, due to the limitations of the core set, depending on how you play, it may not be possible for more than character to posses the Flanking Manoeuvre talent anyway. No matter what I see the abosolute limit of dice you can gain to be 1[W] / Flanking Manoeuvre talent slotted, and even this does not seem right to me

BCA said:

From the Core Rulebook:

"when a talent is socketed to a party sheet, the ability is conferred to the entire party – everyone benefits from the leadership or knack of the character providing that talent"

LukeZZ said:

Your individual analysis is quite clear, yet your conclusion is a bit flawed. You've basically counting the dice multiple times; the set of players doesn't changed.

A much simpler view of this is that CH1, CH2, CH3, CH4, CH5 are all the targets of the benefit described in the card ("you and your allies") and are all engaged with each other, so the actual set is {CH1, CH2, CH3, CH4, CH5}, and to each member of this set the bonus of one [W] is applied. Hence, in conclusion CH1 has one [W] he can use for his Melee Attack, likewise for CH2, CH3, CH4, CH5. The flaw is that you're taking {Ch2, Ch3, Ch4, Ch5} + {Ch3, Ch4, Ch5, Ch1} + ... and coming up with {5xCh1, 5xCh2, 5xCh3, 5xCh4, 5xCh5} (which literally doesn't make sense, there aren't 5 characters of each, so in reality the correct set addition comes out to {Ch1, Ch2, Ch3, Ch4, Ch5} getting the boon.

In total 5 [W] have been added, but that's 1 [W] to 5 different characters' dice pools. Five [W] have not been added individually each character's dice pool.

Additional, justification comes from the fact that the dice other players roll has no effect on the die a particular character rolls. Furthermore, when it's CH1's turn then his allies receive one [W] if they were to happen to roll during his turn. In CH2's turn one [W] is available to him and his allies, etc... Somehow extrapolating that since, in Ch2's turn Ch1 is going to get [W] that he should get [W][W] seems like stretching things. Much less when you extend it across all turns.

Finally, bonuses are not carried over from roll to roll, nor are they accumulated, unless the GM deems it that way (but it's not an intrinsic quality of fortune dice). If a GM gives me a [W] for a particular action, I don't get 2 [W] on my next round.

You missed the point Lexicanum (you may want to read through the entire thread). We're discussing the Flanking manoeuvre card when attached to the party talent slot. No one is claiming that one PC having the card would give 5 [W] to all allies in an engagement. We're discussing the situation when all 5 PC's have the Flanking manoeuvre talent slotted (or equivalently, at least according to RAW, the talent is slotted in the party card).

Damnit, I thought the discussion was about the talent being socketed to the party sheet, not that each player had one talent card active and socketed to their own character sheet. That'll teach me to be reading and responding to threads at 4 AM in the morning. Sorry about that LukeZZ.

However, wouldn't that still be multiple boons coming from a single source (Flanking Maneuver)? Tricky situation though, as all players would probably feel justified as they spent the talent points to buy a card each.