My experience with WFRP 3rd ed.

By Gallows, in 2009 WFRP The Emperor's Decree Event

Just finished our first session with this new edition. A nice 6½ hours sessions and we really enjoyed ourselves. We did run into a few issues with the rules though. A few things were unclear etc. But after reading the FAQ and asking here I think everything has been cleared up.

It is the best fantasy rpg I have played to date and I've played for just over 20 years. The cards are great and the system is wonderful for groups who like to focus on the story and not so much simulating combat details. I am annoyed thought that only ONE of each advanced defensive card is in the core set and the card stated that it replaces the basic one. But the core set is impressive none the less. It has everything you need to play and the quality is grea. The core rules are great and the way the dice open up for role playing interpretation is fantastic.

The scenario in the ToA is pretty good as an introduction to the game. It had a great mood, setting and flow in our group.

But there is one issue that became painfully apparent even with the freshly created characters in our troupe. A decent fighter almost never misses against an equal opponent. We felt this was VERY wrong. Using reckless dice isn't that great since it's easier getting 3 successes with green dice. The warrior used 3 blue dice, 2 green dice, 1 yellow, 1 white, 2 black (op defence) and 1 purple. With this pool the chance for success is 87% and even if someone uses advanced parry it's still 73%

That really struck us as broken right away, considering it was freshly created characters. After a few sessions the players will miss so close to never that we might as well skip the rolling of all those dice. We had to make up some house rules, because otherwise the game simply too broken for us to play.

Instead we use these house rules: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=166&efcid=3&efidt=277452

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

  • Use melee against melee
  • Archery/atlethics/melee(with shield) against archery
  • Atheletics against melee if you use the dodge defence.
  • Melee(shield)/athletics against magic.

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.


Without those house rules I don't think we would really bother with rolling dice at all.

Thanks for views.

Haven't played it yet. reviewing the math issues, that's a 2nd round of combat (or stress paid) attack for 2 stance dice likely to produce success though averaging less than the impressive 3 successes if I have my math right. Given that "at least some success" is more interesting than failure in most RPG's (highly narrative ones make failure more interesting) this doesn't strike me as too bad. Do the monsters end up with notably less success (then not so grim and gritty)?

Rob

Hmm, edit button seems to have vanished.

Anyway, also occurs to me that a 1 challenge die test is stated in rules to be something that competent character in right stance usually passes.