evilben said:

ahh yes of course... lol. Sorry.

But there are serious issues with the system in general. Even newly created players almost never miss. I have made my house rules for a new system that gives a much better hit percentage while still allowing for varying effects.

Short explanation (find the whole thread with statistics here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=166&efcid=3&efidt=277452 )

Success and damage:

I find that my players don't want to bother with reckless stance because they often need just 3 successes and any extra successes are wasted. For that reason I have decided that any successes above 3 give extra damage. I allow players to pick multiple damage bonuses from successes. 4-5 successes would give the player +3 AND +1 damage. 6 successes would give 2x+3 damage on the card. That way it's more rewarding getting more successes. I use the same for multiple critical wounds etc. I just allow players (and monsters) to use all the successes, boons, and comets to gain multiple effects. The same is true with banes and chaos stars of course. This gives more variety instead of damage just being either 9 or 11 for instance and no other result possible.

Assisting in combat:

I do not allow assisting in combat to give other players an extra fortune die. As it is I find that with only one purple die under normal circumstances it's hard enough to fail altogether even for freshly created combat characters. Instead I allow another kind of defensive assist. If two players are engaged with the same npc one of them can assist the other allowing him to perform a parry or block for an attack against that player. This could lead to two blocks against one attack or even two blocks and two parries. The assisting player uses his free maneuver for this assist and he uses his active defence card(s) as well.

Fixing the high hit percentage while maintaining variety:

1. You subtract 1 success for every point your enemy has in melee/archery/athletics/whateverskilltheGMthinksfit

2. Defence adds black dice as normal

3. Default difficulty for an attack is average (2d).

4. You need at least one hammer to use a sigmars comet as a success.

Some fasle information has been passed here and I must apologize. evilben is right, I cannot think of a time when someone assisted the Elf archer. We do see a lot of assists and I do make them justify it (which isn't hard when two players are engaged with the same targets) but not with the Elf.

I don't know if we've had any ambushes, perhaps not - which is good advice. Also, engaging the Elf and throwing tougher challenges at the group may work, but here's the problem: it is very easy to disengage if a ranged fighter is attacked. Also, the PCs have participated in a couple of more challenging encounters and in one particular instance the Elf killed 12 Ungors before the party had to flee the terrifying Wargor and Gor tearing up the melee fighters. Part of the problem is the party unbalance, so if more capable enemies approach the group in order to balance out the Elf, the other melee players may have a very tough time keeping up. It seems like a precariously fine ledge of challenging the party sufficiently and completing a total party kill when you have one player who is substantially stronger than the next. I guess, yeah, I could ambush them every other encounter and sneak up on the Elf repeatedly, and have fights in closed quarters but I'm willing to bet adding in these cheesy elements just to neutralize the Elf will annoy the player greatly.

charlest said:

You needn't do it repeatedly. Just put up some undead archer specialists with rapid shot and a hidden necromancer binding their wounds and focus fire on the elf. Problem solved, permanently!

On a serious note though, ranged fire is incredibly deadly. It's the main reason modern troops use ranged weapons and not chainswords (despite what GW would have us believe). There's an inherent advantage to ranged attacks, which as you've mentioned include easily disengaging. Maybe that's where the disconnect is happening, that there's no "balance" between range and melee attacks?

If the elf player is going to be upset by you actively trying to attack his weak spots then I don't really know how to help and keep the RAW. I'm not trying to suggest cheesy options, but I would expect the enemy to realize: "Oh my, there's a really deadly archer amongst the group. We're getting slaughtered. Maybe we should do something about that?" and whip up a plan to eliminate the threat. Personally, I find it ten times cheesier to have wave after wave of mobs die on the battlefield as they get whittled down by archer fire. Even Orcs would quickly realize they need to break the archer.

Are you fully burning through A/C/E dice? I mean these guys are dead otherwise might as well burn those points. Also have you tried rushing the elf by burning wounds or using the alternative official maneuver rule using Aggression? 3-5 wounds and you've got the Elf engaged close range where you'll be able to burn through melee actions.

Have you used ranged opponents against the players? What has been their strategy? Can you replicate that strategy and use it against them? Would they find it "cheesy" if you used their effective tactics against them?

If what you're interested in is toning down the deadliness of range attack I'd suggest adding 1 defense to the attacker per range manuever cost. Reflecting a bit the loss of momentum at increasing range distances. So at close range, no penalty, medium range +1 defense, long range +3 defense, extreme range +6 defense.

Anyways, thanks for posting so much information and engaging us in this discussion. Your particular dilemma has been really interesting and made me think a lot about things. I wish I could have provided suggestions you felt you could use in your game.

charlest said:

I believe he needed quite impressive amount of arrows to acomplish it...

And how often the bane line is being resolved? Or do all enemies in close get killed beforehand so there's no one to engage the elf?

he carries 24 arrows with him at all times, sometimes more.

enemies rarely get to close range of him, if they do, its simple enough to back up and keep shooting.

charlest and i both agree with you on adapting to a situation, but it doesnt make sense for a totally different group of people to learn from battles they know nothing about. after the first volley baddies do tend to head his way, but its the first volley that is the real killer.

it hasnt really made sense for a heavy ranged opponent to show up in our game yet, but that situation is soon going to change, so we can see about the ranged characters firing back soon.

our situation has been resolved, but i am curious if anyone else has used this card and what their opinions on it are from actual use, not theory.

I have used, but don't remember any actual statistics about its real use. We've played about 5 sessions and I didn't manage to finish of anyone with it But I believe to have really unlucky rolls. Usually I prefer Snipers Shot, and keep Rapid Fire in case of being swarmed or something. And I'd rather use the conservative side as with toughness at 3 i try not to get fatigued too much. Three successful shots was my max achievment.

Rapid Fire is not overpowered because

a) It is very fatiguing at reckless stance. You get exertion results and loading a bow requires maneuver.

b) Archer becomes exposed to enemies which are at close range. Enemies will target the archer and banes grant free engage for enemies. Archer in melee cannot use blocks and parries.

c) Sensible GM would not allow the archer to disengage from melee and then start shooting again. This can be best handled by house rule or alternatively even using RAW as follows: Enemies enclosing the archer take Perform the Stunt action and declare that whenever the archer tries to disengage them from melee in order to use Rapid Fire they immedietely follow him and stay engaged. GM deems this action as simple difficulty.

I see this card to be powerful but very risky which propably was the intention.

Thug said:

a) crossbows and guns require a maneuver to reload, bows do not. you can spend two boons to recover a fatigue. with enough dice, which are easy to get, you can very easily roll enough white/yellow dice to get plenty of boons to keep yourself fine on the fatigue front.

b) its really not hard to stay out of close range, a maneuver and you have just stepped into a range that nullifies that clause in the card. (i dont have the card in front of me, but i believe it also has the whole two boons for a free maneuver thing on it as well, so its really easy for an archer to back away from enemies.)

c) yes, you could do that, it might work. but you have to realize he is not by himself, and giving up an attack like that leaves you vulnerable to the archer companions. also, perform a stunt is an opposed roll, id most likely say by agility to prevent being surrounded. well, the archer has at least four, most likely five agility (if he was created to be an archer) so your mooks will probably be rolling 3 <P> to surround him.

remember, i am saying that this card is overpowered because it continues to grow with the character using it much more than any other card in the game. in the beginning it is strong, very strong, but it has its limits. but when you get to rank 4 it is a very feasible situation to have someone using it that has a 6 agility 3 favors in agility 3 expertise die in ballistics and a specialization in long bow. so thats base [6 blue, 4 white, 3 yellow] i bet you there will be enough boons around to easily keep the archer at a very low fatigue and with a nice distance buffer between him and the baddies.

Just attack with a bunch of gobbos with snotling meatshields constantly trying to engage and give the gobbos the rapid fire action card too. They have an agility of four and you can use their aggression dice, their special attacks and their expertise plus one action cards and whatever else you can think of. then when the players scheme up a way to get the on the gobbos you can borrow their combined ingenuity to do the same thing right back. saying something succeeds too much or too little only matters if you compare it to what is important. who cares if it does more damage always than some other card? something always will and who really wants a bunch of cards (options) that do the same damage yet seem different anyway? you don't need ambushes or plate mail you need more combat in tight and crowded spaces where there is no escaping to close range. corner the party and watch the elf sweat. maybe the first ranged card he will get after he dies is one that works when he is engaged.

i still think if you need to engineer combats to specifically defeat one card, and if you dont engineer combats in that way that one card wins, it means the card is broken. and, in my opinion, (im not the elf) even if i died it would still be the 1st card i took on my next character (if i was going to make another ranged character) because in all situations but getting cornered it wins.

remember, as characters get stronger rapid fire grows tremendously. its easy to reach a point where you are rolling so many positive dice, that unless the GM blows all of his options on one shot there is a very small chance that the elf will even roll one bane that allows you to engage from close. i have no problem that some cards do more damage than others, thats just the way thing are. my issue (as you would know if you read my posts, because i have stated it in almost all of them) is the ceilingless nature of rapid fire. every other card has a hard ceiling, there is some point where, no matter how well you roll, you cannot do more damage than X. that is not the case with rapid fire and it is the only card that i know of that follows this pattern. remember, one str on any melee card gets you +1 dmg (and maybe activate something else on the card doing another finite amount of damage) but one agility on rapid fire does +1 dmg per shot and also gives you a very good chance and hitting with one more more additional shots each doing weapon DR + agility damage again. thats a lot more than +1.

i read all your posts and now i am done because youd don't want to have a conversation you just want to say the same thing over and over and now I am bored.

evilben said:

I hope you're only allowing one fatigue to be recovered every roll, no matter how many boons are rolled. You can only activate a special ability (like fatigue recovery) once per roll.