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. Chaos stars also cancel a success as well as giving the extra effect.

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/whateverskilltheGMthinksfits

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.

Gallows said:

Interesting. While playing I though also that it was easy to hit for a starting character using full scaled stances. The target haven't got a personnal passive defense value. There's just armor/shield for Defence and defensives reactions.

1) I asked myself if I could consider combat checks like any opposed checks : comparison between opposed characteristics determine the number of challenges dices rolled... IE : Let's say STR vs STR in melee and AGI vs AGI ranged. Your opinion ?

active char. > x2 passive char = 0 challenge dice // active char. > passive char = 1 challenge dice // active char. = passive char = 2 challenge dice // actice char. < passive char = 3 challenge dice // actice char. <1/2 passive char = 4 challenge dice

2) Ranged attack are as deadly as melee attack, without exposing the attacker. This is realistic, but not really balanced... I had an other idea, if 1) not applied : add 1 challenge or 1 misfortune dice per range increment. What do you think about it ?

First I thought about figuring agility into defence, but that would be bad for melee oriented characters relying solely on strenght.

In our next session I am going to try out this idea instead, for added passive defence.

Atheletics add defence for ranged attacks and spells.

Melee adds defence for melee, but if you use your dodge reactive defende then you may use athletics instead.

This would potentially add 3 to players/monsters defence.

I did some tests (25 rolls). The dice pool was set up so it was two equal opponents.

3 green

3 blue

2 white (strenght)

2 purple (default + parry)

2 yellow (melee)

5 black (3 defence + 2 melee)

OnNot a single miss! I could try to do it 100 times for a more accurate statistic, but I think it's not far off. The point is that as players and monsters get better it gets a lot easier to hit but you gain NO extra ability to avoid attacks. That is wrong and a big flaw in the system. Two very skilled fighters would cut each other down very fast and be unable to defend effectively.

To be honest two very skilled fighters should hit 50% of the times if they had the same skill!

I tried to find a system that did that and for the test I used two characters with melee 3, 7 strenght (+1 fortune die), 2 defence from armor/shield and 4 stance die. I gave one purple die for each point in melee (meanint 0-1 melee is 1d, 2 melee is 2d and 3 melee is 3d base difficulty). Chaos stars cancelled out a success like I said earlier.

The pool looked like this:

3 blue

4 green

1 white

2 black

3 yellow

3 purple

Not a single miss! I even had a roll with six crossed swords total, but there were 9 successes (including a comet). To me it seems the system is incredibly broken. Now if I add another purple die for active defence.

4 misses out of 25 rolls.

I don't know how to fix this, because it seems incredibly broken for several reasons.

1. Experienced players and npc will never miss.

2. Getting 3 successes for the good effect on the card happends every time.

3. Active defence is useless, since that one die adds so little to the chance that the opponent misses.

willmanx said:

You might try my proposition number 1) : make combat checks be like opposed check. It increase the number of Challenge dices. And these dices are the nastier for successes...

Your last dice pool is a 90% success and 67% 3 success roll as checked on The online compact dice roller

With 2 equal fighters, My solution would only roll 2 challenges dices (one less)... But hey, 3 yellow dices is quite something... Initiative become REALLY important there.

willmanx said:

Yeah but as you see from my test even with 4 challenge dice I hit on 21 of 25 rolls (and chaos stars also cancelled successes). I don't know what solution there is without redesigning the entire system.

sorry i edited my message to add more elements... and now I seek some balance there ... Here's what seems better :

Consider combat check as opposed check (against STR in melee atk, against AGI in ranged atk)

AND

had some 1 black dice per range attack. You might had some black dices too while in melee with dodge specialized or stuffs like that...

Your uber warrior will certainly have some soak, that's another element which is important about balancing the game. As INITIATIVE is really important, I'm not sure your uber warrior would use CONSERVATIVE stance because it could delay his actions... RECKLESS stance could be dangerous too concerning fatigue/stress.

My players always use conservative stance, because there is no need for the extra successes you can gain from reckless at all.

I'll come up with a working sombat system later today and post it here.

But if FFG ever intended players to fail it's obvious that the designers aren't matematicians.

I think the only way forward to create a balanced system is to set a requirement for minimum successes depending on some stat of the defender. So a number of successes would be automatically be subtracted instead of adding black and purple dice for defence and melee. With this system chaos stars do NOT cancel a success. Only crossed swords.

If melee and defence subtract successes I get the following result:

The pool looked like this:

3 blue

4 green

1 white

3 yellow

1 purple (default)

Subtracting 5 successes.

14 hits and 11 misses. That's a lot closer to what I want to see and active defence would suddenly become quite handy even for advanced characters.

Now I just want to test the same with a beginning character with the following dice pool

3 blue

2 green

1 yellow

1 purple

Subtracting 3 successes (1 melee and 2 defence).

Result: 10 hits and 15 misses.

That second one with new characters is a bit low considering equal opponents. Lets try again with only melee subtracting successes and defence adding black dice. So for the experienced guy 3 successes are subtracted and 2 black dice added. For the new guy 1 success is subtracted and 2 black dice added.

Experienced guy: 21 hits and 4 misses

New guy: 15 hits and 10 misses

Not quite there yet. For a new guy those two subtracted successes from armor is too much, but 5 succeses subtracted for the experienced guy and around 2 for the new guy seems reasonable. Instead I'll try to add black armor for defence and subtract successes for melee AND set the default difficulty to average (2d).

Pools for the experienced guy:

3 blue

4 green

3 yellow

1 white

2 black

2 purple

Result: 15 hits, 10 misses

For the new guy I have this pool:

3 blue

2 green

1 yellow

2 black

2 purple

Result: 14 hits and 11 misses

That's pretty good!

So the conclusion is that the following system will work as a more balanced system:

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

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.

I will test this system with 100 rolls and report back.

100 rolls with the following rules:

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

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.

Experienced guy against an experienced NPC:

3 blue (strenght)

4 green (stance)

3 yellow (melee)

1 white (fortune die)

2 black (opponents defence)

2 purple (default difficulty = average)

3 successes subtracted (opponent melee)

Result: 56% hit on 100 rolls

New guy against a new NPC

3 blue (strenght)

2 green (stance)

1 yellow (melee)

2 black (opponents defence)

2 purple (default difficulty = average)

1 success subtracted (opponent melee)

Result: 37% hits on 100 rolls

A bit on the low side for the new guy, but the same will apply to monsters. It does however create some nice variety in the damage results. I will use this on our next session and see how it works out.

Gallows said:

100 rolls with the following rules:

A starting fighter can start with a strenght of 5 and the stat limit is 10, so having 5 strenght for a new fighter isn't unrealistic and 7 for an experienced player not at all too high. A dwarf for instance starts with strenght 3 and +1 if his career has strenght as primary ability... then it just costs 5 points to raise it to the starting max.

But remember that most inexperienced NPC won't have a skill trained, so you don't get that one success subtracted which gives a success rate of 58% with a 4 strenght character.

The experienced player against a NPC with just 2 skill points in melee gives a success rate of 79%, so it's really easy with this system for the GM to tailor the encounters to fit the players and giving some much better success rates.

One of the things that I have observed is that even though hits are scored, the results are only a few wounds. This means that if you reduce the chance to hit, combats would be like 4th Ed. (Long and boring). I have 2 groups- 2 beginner and 1 high level (16 xp). As we play, they both are challenged in combats against equally powered enemies. If you increase soaks, the best you can do is 1 wound, 2 on a crit. I think the system is not about missing, its about hitting more and trying to get the higher damage with the crits and extra successes. In this way it varies from previous editions and most other RPG's.

Rich Gain
Jester's Playhouse

But that's my point. With combat ending up only doing 1-2 hits the fight will still be long. On top of that it's quite silly that the active defences are fairly weak in terms of making the opponent miss... even the advanced ones. With an experienced player with a strenght of 6, melee of 2, speciality and two strenght fortune dice the chance of 1 success is 97% and the chance for 3 successes against a npc with 2 defence is 82%. So 82% of the time he will do max damage and even if the npc parries, dodges and blocks with advanced defence all at the same time, the chance of 1 success is still 76% and the chance for 3 successes is 45%. That is simply so wrong if you ask me. Even if the player/npc misses the maximum damage difference is still only 2 wounds.The same will hit the players making reactive defence almost pointless. When players get even more experienced it gets even more silly. The game really is missing some kind of passive defence being figured into the roll.

Then you have the bonis dice you can get for various reasons... they aren't needed a lot for experienced players since the success limit is 3 successes. With our house rules the tactical choices from cards etc. become more important and defences actually work.

With my system it's also possible to use multiple lines of success meaning with a great roll you can do more damage. This adds more variety and will stop the fights with more experienced players bogging down to many 1-2 wound hits where it's just a boring game of attrition.

So the lack of a passive defence giving some more balanced hit ratios and actually making defence, bonusses etc. worthwile is an issue. The other issue is the very poor variety in damage. Damage is either 0, 9 or 11 for instance.

Our next session is this weekend and we'll test out this system and evaluate. We DO NOT want longer fights, because we have total focus on the story. But when we do have a fight we want descisions to have an actual impact on the rolls. I'll report back with the results on how our session went. We'll get to the big end fight in "eye for an eye", so we will see how it works out.

But the best thing for the game would simply be some kind of passive defence stat that applied a subtraction of 0-5 successes from the newly created character to the very experienced character. Perhaps rank is really the best measure. Rank minus one. The current system will work but since those skills are cheap they will become too valuable for their price. The system works in terms of the math, but it needs to be a seperate stat of some sort.

Instead of using a skill I suggest the following to calculate player/monster/npc passive defence.

Players get a passive defence equal to their rank (max 5)

Monsters get a passive defence equal to their threat level minus one (max 5)

Other NPCs get an appropriate passive defence (max 5)

This way it's streamlined.

A rank 2 character (10 exp) for instance could have the following dice pool for attacking:

3 blue dice

3 green dice

1 white

2 yellow

2 purple

2 black (enemy defence)

2 successes subtracted (for an npc with threat level of 3 or another rank 2 character)

Chance to hit would be 59% - this would be lowered to 46%, 34% and 25% with 1, 2 or 3 adv. defences

These success rates do not take into account fortune, card bonuses, agression/cunning/expertice etc. so it seems pretty fair. Of course a late rank 2 character would have a better hit ratio against another rank 2 if he had trained his strenght again, but I think it's fair to assume that players are unlikely to train their main stat more than once per rank.

I don't like your subtraction idea as it inevitably slows down an already slow mechanic. At higher levels the system does have more and more issues, I totally agree with you.

For the low damage variation what we have done is lower all weapon damages by two (a sword goes from a 5 to a 3, for example). Then each success scored counts as one bonus wound. This does have a direct factor on the cards, which we also help sort out with not only an opposed resolution, but a character engaged with multiple opponents adds 1 Black to their to his roll (as is suggested above), but this is automatic, same for players effecting other characters. I have to run, but as soon as I get a chance, I'll post up my other thoughts (should be tonight). Have a good one.

New thoughts and ideas from another debate:

On opposed rolls in combat... with 2d + 2 misfortune for an equal opponent makes success rate go from 90% to 66% for a new guy and from 99% to 93% for an experienced guy (20 exp used).

But I really do like the idea of the opposed rolls, because it struck me that it would be natural to use opposed rolls whenever someone parry! If that's not an opposed roll then I don't know what is. So advanced parry would be 3d + 2 misfortune (with skill and special).

But with that in mind my 1-5 passive defence subtacting successes may be too much. 0-4 or 0-3 may be better. I'll have to make some calculations again.

Some quick calculations: (default difficulty 1d in this example)

new guy vs. new guy: 87% with no parry 46% with adv. parry (0 successes subtracted)

experienced guy vs. experienced guy: 80% with no parry and 45% with advanced parry (3 successes subtracted)

That's not bad at all considering you can have 3 defence cards and that it's fair to assume that it's not hard hitting someone not actively defending.

So the passive defence with opposed rolls on reactive defence could be:

Monsters: Threat level minus 2 (max 4)

Players: Rank minus 1 (max 3)

Success and damage:

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. This gives more variety instead of damage just being either 9 or 11 for instance and no other result possible. Critical hits count as a number of hits equal to their severity, so if you draw a 3-critical you would draw two aditional normal wounds.

Assisting in combat:

I do not allow assisting in combat to give other players an extra fortune die. 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.

Rolling the dice:

1. You subtract 1 success for every passive defence of the opponent.

2. Defence adds black dice as normal

3. Default difficulty for an attack is easy (1d).

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

5. If getting parried/dodged/blocked the attack is an opposed roll.
for instance +2d difficulty for equal stats +2 misfortune for skill/specialization and then finally +1d for parry.

Passive Defence values:

Players get a passive defence equal to their rank minus 1 (max 3)

Monsters get a passive defence equal to their threat level minus 2 (max 4)

Other NPCs get an appropriate passive defence (max 3)

I have an interesting thought on this that could open up some varience.

What if all the monsters were leved 1-4 and the only difference between a level 4 monster and a level 1 is that the level 4 gets 4 passive purple to hit?

And the heroes are a level = to their rank. So when the hit rank 2 they get 2 purple passive defense, rank 3, 3 purple, and so on.

Then, when designing adventures, the GM chooses what level of each monster to use. Realizing of course that a level 4 to a rank 1 party is overkill and a level 1 to a rank 4 party is fodder, the GM has several options for encounter building that leads to different "power levels" of each kind of monster. I didn't mean to hijack your line of though gallows. I think I'll post this on it's own thread.

No worries Sinister... I was through those ideas as well. But I concluded it didn't scale so well, which is what I am really looking for, so the game can even be exciting in combat after 30+ sessions. We have played for over 20 years and we have played warhammer for a long time, so this edition is not just for a few sessions

But it's tough to find a solution without changing the core system too much. We all love this new edition except the hit ratio and the effects it has on all systems related to combat.

Gallows said:

Well just from a perception difference I'll offer this. My players didn't max the system, so a 3 stat is common to hit with, and no skill. With the use of cards that modify difficulty, etc... they have a hard time hitting at the success rate you describe. I mentioned uping the purple dice or going to the level system and they fought it.

I guess it's a matter of perception for each group. They don't want the odds changed and don't mind the monsters hitting them alot. I guess since they like the way things are and combat is going quick I'll leave it alone for now, but I do see that for groups that want to optimize this becomes an issue.

Straight up, opposed rolls will offer you the most variance from the core mechanics, if that's what you're looking for, a real give and take type of combat situation. The player rolls his total pool versus his opponent's pool. Whoever rolls the most number of successes (as opposed to standard opposed checks) hits the opponent. This way, successes don't necessarily increase damage (as you're player gripe), they actually increase hit chance. if the hit is successful, have the player's entire roll be used to determine the effect of the card. For instance, if rolled three successes and four boons to beat his opponent he can "spend" his roll in the normal way. In addition, boons and banes can be used for tie breakers...i.e. player rolled 3 successes, opponent rolls 3 successes and 1 Boon, NPC wins and blocks player's attack. Parry could modify in the usual way (add black to attacks made against you) or could add white to the defense check. Additionally, all difficulty modifiers on the action cards add to the difficulty of the attack or parry check. Make sense?

Just a thought, I have more, but I'll post them later.

Generally, I think in the end you'll be happier with this sort of approach. The other systems (with subtracting successes) as Gallows recommended revolves around a complete system redesign. This achieves the same result (testing skill level versus skill level) without having an additional subsystem. Also, it uses an already existing sub-system so players won't have to lurch several different ways during play, they can, organically maneuver the system through the 3 different rolling methods of the game: Standard, Contested, and opposed. I feel, in some ways the system needed to address combat better than it did. Why it is not contested or opposed I still can't figure out. The design principle of the combat (frequent hit and emphasis put on flat damage with very little variance) reminds me of a video game where I hit monster, monster hits me, chug healing potion, hit monster again. It reflects even more of the MMO feel than any other part (more than the recharge for me).

Opposed resolution is the way to go for the most dynamic system and works great. Fact is with the three systems existing, you can still use all in a combat, just have to figure out where and how they should be dictated. I'll get back to you guys later after I get some responses of what you think about all this

yes the opposed dice pools like in Vampire is a great system where both offence and defence naturally increase at the same time. It would in this system involve rolling two big dice pools for every attack and then comparing them. I like that only the attacker rolls and his pool is modified by the defender. But whatever system we and our players like, I think we can perhaps arrive at the conclusion that:

The game is lacking progression for the players defence. If this is a passive defence stat, becomming better at parry or opposing dice pools reflecking the relative skill of the two fighters... I believe that defence needs to be created in some logical and scalable way that does not change the game systems too much and at the same time offer equal challenge to beginners and veterans fighting equal opponnents.

I think I agree that adding purple dice instead of subtracting successes is to be preferred simply because it has a more varied result. So lets say I want to find a way of adding dice. It should be at least purple but to get the same balance as removing one success a single purple isn't enough. But any ideas of how this can be implemented. A new defence stat adding the dice? Derived from stats and/or skills?

I want to keep the current system intact though where only the attacker rolls for the attack, and the defender adds dice to his pool.

in this thread it seems that Emirikol adds AGI to the defence value put in bracket juste beside to determine total defence.... The same way you Add STR and (weapon damage) to get total damage, or TO and (Soak) to get total damage reduction.