Just starting up a new campaign, and one of my players has put created a pit fighter dwarf. He did everything by the book, but it struck me that starting characters can be quite strong in V3 - has anyone else thought this?

This dwarf, for example, is starting with St and To 5 and Ag 3; Skills : Athletics, Intimidate, Weapon Kill (specializing in Great Weapons); Talents: Strong Willed and Exceptional Training; and Actions: Wrath of Morgim, Thunderous Blow, Reckless Cleave, Beat Back. Sure, he's broke, but apart from that this seems a pretty powerful starting character in the melee department.

Thoughts?

That's actually a trap that can catch players if they commit their characters to a fight. So much can happen in a fight for this edition that raw stats can lose value. This holds true with the impact of challenge and misfortune dice and the dangers of stance dice.

If he's really broke he doesn't have a great weapon to use with that specialization!

I do find that starting characters give a much more 'capable' impression than they may have in previous editions - but so far none of it has panned out in a detrimental way with my group and the campaign - they ARE stronger - but as mentioned above - the way the system works limits it nicely.

The player has gone for an entirely fighty character, which makes sense for a dwarf pit fighter. For a starting character it seems a little too fighty, but we're not talking about a well-rounded character, and after all, the game's called Warhammer and we're not picking flowers. I'm guessing his mental stats are all rated at 2, in which case stress is going to be really tough to deal with. You can't fight very well if you can't keep your wits about you.

Being Broke means he can't afford a great weapon or a single piece of armor. That's kind of odd, but you could explain it by saying that the character has recently escaped a rough life fighting to make their handler lots of money, and that they couldn't take anything with them.

But don't feel obligated to provide any snazzy weapons or armor. Make him work for those things using only the tools he starts with.

In another thread we've talked a little bit about how to make Wealth more important. I think character creation is more balanced if you treat Wealth as not just being about what you start with, but how you think about money in general. Most of your friends are broke, and you don't know how to hold onto money, so you shouldn't expect to go from rags to riches. Get used to rags. To make more out of this idea, consider that this character might hook up with more money-savvy characters for the same reason that they might hook up with him because of his fighting abilities. Ultimately, he might able to put some money together, but he's going to need help. If you have wealthier characters in the group, maybe let them know that it's a bad idea to split the party's profits evenly. The pit fighter doesn't know the value of money, and he's likely to squander his share. After all, he's managed this far with hardly anything more than a dagger and the clothes on his back.

I'm curious about how his first battle goes, considering how invested he is in combat while not equipping himself properly for it.

DagobahDave said:

Completely agree, with the addition of Wealth reflecting, to some level, social class and as such it may influence social checks depending on situation.

After explaining the above, I talked to two of my players about why their characters were 'Poor' and we worked together to ensure it fitted thematically. Generally they're pretty happy to roleplay it. Looted some silver in the last adventure? Drinks on the house for everyone!

Hi There,

I just read your posting, and I believe that your dwarven character made a mistake regarding spending his character creation points.

In your posting, you stated that the Dwarf is starting with Strength/Toughness 5 and Agility 3. Checking the initial dwarf stats, I can see that he normally starts out with a St/To of 3 and an Ag of 2. In order for him to increase Strength from 3 to 5, he needs to spend 9 creation points (read "Generatre Characteristics" - p.28). He would also need another 9 points to increase Toughness to 5 and 3 more creation points to increase Agility to 3. This means he has already spend 21 creation points on stats (he is now over budget) and didn't buy any action cards or skills yet!

I suspect that you have been charging him 5 creation points to increase Strength to 5, which is why he had the extra points to spend. Keep in mind that, for stats, you must pay for each level you increase, and not just for the final level you end up at.

Hoping this helps.

- Jeffrey

Before raising abilities with points you get +1 to the primary abilities of your chosen career. A Dwarf pit fighter will have 4/4 in strength/toughness (at least I think those are the primary abilities for a pit fighter) before spending a single point. So getting 5/5/3 in strength/tougness/agility will cost 5+5+3=13 building points.

Thanks for the clarification Gruntl.

Guess I posted a little too quickly on this issue. During character creation in my group, two players tried to jump there starting stats multiple ranks. This problem just reminded me of what happened a week ago.

- Jeffrey

Yep, there really seems to be a problem with the fact that players can access powerful action cards right from the start. The dwarf has set himself up with Improved Parry and Riposte right off the bat - which basically means he can add a challenge die to an opponent attacking him, then if the opponent misses he can get a free attack back.

Not bad for a starting character, and all perfectly legal. WTF?

Getting injured in this game can be so crippling that I don't have the slightest problems with characters being really competent. Even if they just take one critical in a fight, that can seriously mess them up. And even then, all his toughness and parries won't protect him from insanity, which can take months to heal and can make the character unplayable if he accumulates enough. His toughness and combat action cards don't help protect him from Fear and Terror.

I have an Irobreaker in my group with thoughness 5 and his armour of 5 (combined soak of 10) which makes it pretty hard for anything but trolls and ratogres to hurt him properly. But I don't thinks its a problem since as mentioned above crits and wounds can be pretty harsh on heroes especially if they don't have a healer among them (and these don't). and besides there are other ways of hurting a character. with 5 strenght and 5 toughness and3 agility the rest of the stats are 2,3,2. 3 WP doesn't leave room for a lot of stress which he found out when he was attacked by a ghoul last time. There are lots of creatures who does fatigue and stress damage which can be really useful when you have these metal dwarves running around. Sure they are hard to wound and they kill a lot around them but they can still be overwhelmed by standard skaven attacks or ghouls and zombies.

find their weaknesses and let them know they are not invulnerable even if they feel so. and then I haven't even started on social encounters... how would they stand up in court or convince the bandit leader to let them go when all his brainy friends are out cold...

Thanks guys. I guess the other good thing is that he can only unleash this combination every 4 rounds ...

... unless he uses fortune points that is ...

hah and only use fortune points should you keep rewarding!

One of my players created a Sword Master with high offensive capability focus.

We are playing with A Day late and we played slowly to be 100% sure we are doing dice pools right and learning the system.

From what I have seen he hasn't been completely obliterating targets. Just cause the skills/abilities make them capable it doesn't make them consistent.