If it works for you, more power to ya', I still think it may be just a bit more limiting on your end than it needs to be. It also pigeon holes all dwarves to be strong, but not necessarily smart or frail. That is why I created the flexibility of 2 increases, so a player can tailor their own character. Another way you could give those racial bonuses and keep everyone at a flat two, with two choices of a three increase is: their racial bonus is the only way they can gain a white die in a characteristic and gain a white at creation in there racial characteristics. This gives them a racial edge, but does not give them a racial power. This also puts everyone in closer level to each other, which, makes a game more balanced. Then in my two advances to a 3, and I think you'll find that you will very much like the characters you get out of it.

Glad I could be of help. Have fun playing the game we love, wish I could, but won't be playing again for a week (hopefully sooner), but here's to hoping right?

gruntl said:

First, thank for sharing your point.

Using opposed checks doesn't make things impossibles and it's not houseruling, you may look at p.58 under combat difficulty. In your example it will be a 3 challenge dice roll with no misfortune dices (str 5 vs str 8, no relevant or specialization trained).

But you are right. It needs a LOT of advancement to become tougher than these adversaries.

A warhammer knowing-all friend told me also that being over a troll str is not a brutal muscle question only, as you say. But on his point, and I agree with him, some creature are tougher than human because of their race. You can't have more toughness than a dragon based on your only characteristic value. So we concluded that those fortune dices we can add to characteristics is a good way to overwhelm adversaries from the bestiary without feeling you unbalance the different races (yeah ! big frightening trolls !).

My 2 cents.

Sorry to post and then re-post...

I checked in the Old Bestiary from V2 to compare it to V3. V2's profile are in percent and V3's profiles from 1 to 10, so i compared them simply dividing by 10. THen I changed my point. Chaos warrior, trolls and other creatures are not so powerful on pure characteristics... Their capacities, actions and equipment make them stronger.

I guess my GM was really persuasive at the time

1) So I'm finally ok for 1 to 10 characteristics for PCs who decide to save so much advances on only one characteristic. Sorry if it might seem inconvenient for you, folks. However it seems I and my players are low-power gamer so I certainly will give less creation points. inspired by the higher power gamer suggestion p.33 (add 5 more creation points), I may give 5 less creation points .

2) I continue to use opposed check even in combat, as suggested p.58 because it's a so good way to put the target's power in the dice pool the authors created.

For me killing a troll single handedly should be a monumental feat, but since the players are heroes they should stand a greater chance than the average humanoid. I think with a max og 6 in characteristics it balances out very well with the NPCs from the ToA.

But willmanx there is one big difference from v2 in that 1-100 gives a range of 1-100% chance for something, whereas v3 statistics are vastly different because one extra point doesn't relate very well to 10%. Actually if you want stats comparable to v2 I think that values from 2 to 6 still relate the best to the old system, although tilted towards the players being more powerful.

And when characteristics get over 6 opposed rolls will no longer mimic the opponents power because the 2d difficulty for an equal opponent is a flat value and a few misfortune dice won't make a difference (neither will 2 extra challenge dice for that matter).

Gallows said:

You're right, Gallow, percent is different to number of dices to roll. I will try that next wednesday and see how this runs. This is a lot of head scratching, but my players aren't minmaxers, so I don't have to worry for them to increase one characteristic only to the top (probably).

My main concern is beginners are a bit too capable for my taste (knowing designers intended to create that effect) ; I think less creation points is a HUGE way to limit character advancement. What do you think about it ? Advancement later is the game is rare (1 per session) compared to 20-25 at character creation.

Gallows said:

I think we do agree to put some limit to a potential munchkinizm... Your way to say things is far better than mine. I don't really agree to accept 1 special extra characteristic to humans though... I also think 6-9 creation points is too much for talents, weath, actions and skills because you only need 12 to take all of them. That's why I stated it around 5-7.

by the way, we're on hammerzeit guys ... So here is now that houserule :

PC's Characteristic Maximum houserule (version 1.2)

• Characters can't use creation points on characteristics, but always start at their racial level +1 in each career's primary characteristic. No characteristic can be higher than your starting value plus your rank. However primary's characteristics checks still may be a bit higher than 6 by upgrading "fortune" in their careers.
• Humans start with 5 creation points and dwarves/elves start with 7 points which may be spent in wealth, skills, talents and actions cards.
• then add +1 for each primary characteristic from his career.You can never raise your characteristic more than 3 over your racial starting value.

Finally, in my game, I use opposed check to set difficulty up, even in combat, as proposed p.58 rulebook : compare active characteristic and opposed characteristic = take 0 to 4 challenge dices. Then add 1 misfortune per relevant skill and per relevant specialization... +A/C/E dices for NPCs.

In an other hand you may also change high hit success rate by simply lowering creation points :

LOW-POWER GAME rulebook option

Characters don't begin with 20 creation points (25 for humans), but only with 10 creation points (12 for humans).

commoner said:

Well, the armwresting example was perhaps a bad one, since armwrestling should be treated as a competetive test rather than an opposed. Using a competetive test would make the troll the winner most of the times. Also, unless you're playing the armwrestling as an encounter you will not be able to use any stance dice on the test (well one if your GM lets you, but why would you let people do that if you think things are too easy ).

Ok, I've read through your creation rules a bit more carefully Commoner, I think you have some good stuff in there if you want to scale down starting PC power. For my gaming group I don't think it is needed (my GM would not let me get away with buying 5+ ability scores anyway, he would use the 2s and 3s and lack of other advances to nail me all the time). And I don't see us reaching rank 3-4 any time soon (playing 1-2 times per month).

I think your ideas on the stance pieces are a bit too complicated however. Wouldn't it be easier to just say that all PC start with 0 stance pieces (the default stance pieces on the career cards only determine your dominant stance (if neutral, player should make a choice at creation as usual)? Then you buy all stance pieces for advances based on the stance advances available as career advancements. That would immediately scale down PC power by a fair bit.

@Gallows:
I think there are a lot of nuances and subtlieties to the dice system that is really hard to spot before playing for a while (and just so you know where I'm coming from, I also have about 20 years of RPG experience ). Sure, your maths do not lie, but you don't really consider the full spectrum of outcomes do you? I mean, you seem to look only at the success symbols and not taking things like chaos stars and banes into account. A "hard test" (3d) means that you have a 40% of getting at least one chaos star. No amount of "good" dice will help you versus those, they cannot be cancelled. They are a great tool for the GM to use to set constraints on the PC's. Yes perhaps he succeeds in stealthing past the alert guard, but those 2 chaos stars might mean that the PC stumbles into the path of an entire patrol instead...

gruntl said:

I know what you mean with the full spectrum of the die roll... boons, banes, chaos symbols etc. That is precisely the reason I had to abandon my first attempt at "fixing" the rules because when I just added those extra dice or removed successes it had other consequences as well and successes isn't the only outcome.

But looking at cards or talents I think you can seldom use more than 4-6 boons, 3-5 successes. So those rolls having that many boons/successes should be rare.

I have finalized my rules, satisfied with the math behind it all... but final judgement won't be passed until we have tested it for a good number of game sessions, because the nature of the dice add a lot besides simple success or failure.

I like your chaos star interpretation for the stealth attempt... that is precisely one of the reasons I like this system. When playing I can relate to the die roll in a way that inspires me to describe outcomes with more detail and spice than just success or failure. It's just that I can see 10 boons comming up once the players get esperienced and I'd like to keep that number with in reason in relation to the rest of the rules. We have our next session tomorrow, so I look forward to a good long session ending with a debate on these new rules. Math is just the truth, but role playing being an artform is more than just the numbers.

Gallows said:

What are the characteristic stats of your party, out of interest?

monkeylite said:

The dwarf soldier has 4 strenght and 4 toughness... the rest is 2. 1 point in weapon skill with specialization in hand weapons.

Gallows said:

I don't get that. A Dwarf soldier starts with 3,4,2,2,3,2, before spending any creation points.

monkeylite said:

Because starting characters are already very competent we decided that everyone starts at their racial stats and may then raise two characteristics one point. Less creation points too. The human apprentice started with only. In our campaign the characters start out a bit weaker than the core rules state.

Gallows said:

Because starting characters are already very competent we decided that everyone starts at their racial stats and may then raise two characteristics one point. Less creation points too. The human apprentice started with only. In our campaign the characters start out a bit weaker than the core rules state. No bonus from career.

well....I have read and thought about the issue of success rate in WFRPv3 and I can see the issue...Alot of the problem comes from the schools of though surrounding games in general and why we play them. Is it for the story? The stuff? the feeling of power? Could be all three. In earlier versions of the game the problem and complaint my players had was...I CAN'T HIT ANYTHING! When you are crafting a story where the heroes are saving the empire form destruction or fighting Chaos and they cannot hit in th climactic battle then the story suffers greatly...On the other end of the spectrum is, as a GM...I can't challenge my players because the Dwarf troll slayer is dominating the opposition (for example), so you add more adversaries and end up killing the rest of the party in the process. I personally like that the characters are competent in the early game...will this become unbalanced later on? Not sure...I'll have to see how it goes.

I have done some dice rolling with different types of options and here's what I've come up with:

Here are the rules I plan to implement with the start of my campaign:

I will have all combat tests be opposed, with the lowest you can have is 1d for having an ability that is higher than the opposing ability (minumum is a easy action)..equal to the ability and up to double is 2d, less than double the ability is 3d

I will also use the CHAOS STAR to create a miss and not a bane as an option...Like the comet can create a success

so let's say I have my Dwarf Troll Slayer PC against a WARGOR.

Dwarf STR 5 AG 3, trained & specialized using Troll Feller Strike & his Agent companion STR 2 AG 5, its raining . GOR has STR 5 AG 4

Dwarfs strike pool: 2 blue, 3 red, 1 yellow, 1 white, 1 black (rain) 1 black (def), 1 black for dodge), 1 purple (STR greater than AG): 1st ROLL: 1 sucess, 1 boon...2nd ROLL: 3 banes (so he takes a fatigue...3rd ROLL: 3 success, 2 boons, 1 fatigue

Agents's strike pool: 2 blue, 2 green, 1 white (fortune point), 1 black (rain), 1 black (def), 1 black (parry), 2 purple (2 STR vs 4 AG): 1st ROLL: 2 success 2 boons...2nd ROLL: 2 boons...3rd ROLL: 1 boon

Gor's stike pool vs Dwarf: 4 blue, 2 red, 1 yellow (expertise), 1 white (Aggression), 1 black (rain), 1 black (def on career card), 1 purple (5 STR vs 3 AG). 1st ROLL: 4 sucesses, bane, fatigue...2nd ROLL: 6 sucesses, 2 bane (fatigue), 3 sucesses, comet, chaos

Gor'sstrike pool vs. agent: 4 blue, 2 red, 1 yellow, 1 white (aggression), 1 black (rain), 1 black dodge, 2 purple (equal STR, AG)...1st ROLL: miss, 3 boons...2nd ROLL: 1 success...3rd ROLL: miss

Although this is one example...I din't see how this is unbalanced? Heroes hit but not out of the ordinary..and so dis the adversary....I feel this method will serve well those PC's that are more defense oriented. If the Agent really wants to be the "hard to hit guy" then he buys the "improved dodge" defense...then he has 3 purples to his advantage...

I think I will keep spells as is or make them easy (1d) instead of simple (0d)..for raged attacks a consistent system of adding 2 black for medium, 3 for long and 1d for extreme is on the table.

I think the pools will work, as long as the GM is adding A/C/E, making sure that the cards difficulty is added in, and the GM is using the black and white dice to aid in the story...don't forget...insanities, conditions, locations all effect the success rate of the characters....I have 3 pC's that have characters with the stance or 1 green and 3 red....don't know about you but they may hit a lot BUT they will be VERY prone to fatigue, stress, and becoming strained and insane...this is also a factor. So I say, let'em go reckless and burn themselves out...if they want to go conservative...then add those recharges to their defenses and see how long they last against a tough foe...

WFRP is not all about combat...it never was because it's deadly...and still is. Social encounters can be destroyed by the "friendly" Dwarf Troll Slayers invading your intense and subtle negotition with that politician. Find your own method and balance and I think this whole thing works out great.

Sinister said:

Exactly, the RAW keeps things as they should. I was commenting on the proposed houserule to scale up defense as ranks go up.

Presently the Rank system just makes certain cards or training levels costlier to "purchase" for inferior ranks. It's a rule there to encourage a gradual upgrade over a very fast very specialised upgrade of one skill, for example, to crazy levels of training in a very short amount of "time" (EP expenditure).

That has nothing to do with the D&D levels where HP improve so fast (as do damage and AC), that high level characters become invulnerable to lower level ones. Compare a 1st level fighter to a 10th level one. The damage output will probably double. Damage output, defense and Wounds don't increase that much from Rank to rank.

(This said, this version, by omitting maximum levels as V2 and V1 did, can create uber characters on the long run. A 35 Wounds Threshold uber Knight becomes possible... Dommage.)

But regarding the Scribe, the RAW separate the "to hit" roll from the "defense" roll. Basic difficulty for ALL melee attacks usually is 1d. Then the defender adds Defense and Active Defense. This basic difficulty of 1d should not change because the target is of Rank 2 or 3 ! That would be simply horrendously gamist and against the internal logic of the RAW.

Characters become harder because they buy better armour or learn to dodge and parry better. That's it. It's obvious, tangible and has always been in all iterations of WFRP. I've always greatly appreciated that, and that's why anything that brings an abstract "levelling up makes you better" mechanic will have me booing.

I left D&D because of AC and HP.

Gallows said:

What kind of monster is that ? 8 characteristic dice ? (4B+4R)

3 Yellow ? 2 White ?

I believe you got the RAW wrong... Stance dice do not ADD dice to the pool, they just transform Blue dice into Red or Green.

I guess you know that, but if so, why use such an extreme example to prove a point ? No one will play this game with this kind of character ! That's could be the stats of a fighter after years of gaming, at the closing of a major campaign !

27 EPs just to get to 8, plus EPs for fortune, skills, changing careers... You're probably into the 40s and you have completely specialised in combat (boring character to say the least). I know no player who would do that.

Also, because a fighter with 5 Str and let's say, 2 expertise dice is already a force to reckon with, players will tend to develop other aspects from then on instead of pushing further the combat specialisation. Unless the only thing you do when you play is fight, of course. An overly specialised character will have a low discipline, low resilience... low intimidate, low charm, low guile... low observation... That is bound to cause problems and make the player rethink his development scheme.

All I want to say is that your example is much too theoretical to be of any use.

willmanx said:

Can't find the rule... but PCs can't have characteristics over 5 at creation, I'm sure I read that somewhere.

I only read the first few posts, and then skimmed but ...

I am unsure why people feel the need to put artificial maximums on characteristics. The rules already have them in place. A stat can start at a maximum of 5. It costs 6xp to raise a stat from 5 to 6. So, halfway to rank 2, assuming the PC saves, they can up a stat from 5 to 6. The PC then cannot buy the next stat increase until he's rank 2, because he only has 4 advance slots left in the career and it would use 7 to raise it. So, rank 2 rolls around (and new career) then the PC needs to accumulate (and not spend) 7xp to raise his stat again. This leaves only 3 left in rank/career 2 and he needs 8 to raise the stat to 8. So, he must wait until rank 3 to raise his stat from 7 to 8, saving 8xp to raise it. Then wait until rank 4 to raise it to 9. 1xp left. Rank 5 he can't spend any xp at all, and must wait until he reaches rank 6 (10 full xp) to raise his stat to 10.

So, you've got a rank 6 PC with a 10 in a stat, who has, in total, bought a maximum of 10 non-stat advances (4+3+2+1) out of 60 possible. Except, if you add in the xp cost for switching careers (unless human and close affinity careers), not to mention the career completion bonus, they'll have fewer than that. The bonuses will use up 5 of the 10, and probably a few more for career changes. Which leaves little for more Wounds, training, specialization, talents, and action cards, not to mention shoring up any low-stats (ones that might be at a 2 or 3, for example), maybe 3 or 4 (at best) ...

This hardly seems unbalanced, as there is a heck of a lot missing and some serious weaknesses for such a narrowly focused character.

As for the initial topic ... I don't find the artificial challenge dice (for "ranks") very 'realistic'. A "rank 4" scribe with the same physical stats as a "rank 1" scribe should not be inherently more difficult to hit in combat. It *should* be easy for a combat PC to hit both of them. What I might recommend as a simple solution ... allow a monster's A/C/E pool to be used to add <P> to a roll to hit them (instead of the current ). Tougher monsters will get a bigger A/C/E pool, and thus can increase their defensive ability more and for longer ... but at a cost of using up points that could be added to their offensive ability.

I can absolutely see why, for people who only play once in a while, the system have the core abilities and advancements set as designed by the original game mechanics. So for those groups who only game once or twice a month, absolutely play the game as written. What I do not like about most games is they do not adjust for play frequency at the point of creation. My group is off and on (currently in a sort of off spell right now) but when we game, we do it with a fervor, at others a month or so will pass, then pick up again. That has really nothing to do with the topic, but my point is gaming frequency definitely matters toward the power curve and how to manage advancement in any game, period.

I also have to say that I am not one who believes a system is separate from the story and the story which is separate from the power curve. Actually, system very much dictates the development, growth, and specific elements of the story based on character success and fail ratio. Just the other day a player failed an intimidate check and got beat up by a gang I was sure he was (and had planned) for him to win. The banes did not help his cause in that failure either. The story has drastically changed based on that one failed roll. I adjusted easily to the change and I brought it up to highlight my point of how system dictates story and vice a versa (story demands the need of system to carry through actions). What I love about Warhammer is how the dice help facilitate an intermediary between the story and the system (with the boons and banes on the rolls).

Absolutely Dvang, leveling cost is an issue to get stats close to the numbers Gallows has presented, but as I have said before (in this post) this assumes your game will begin at rank one rather than a higher rank. I do see that inevitably, the system actually does not account at all for characters beyond rank 3 and even rank 3 is sketchy at best. Players will never fail after they have accrued the required amount of dice. It is a fault in the design that the success rate far surpasses what the difficulty can manage of the dice themselves. Sure, your GM can take your eight strength and always plan non-combat, non-strength based challenges simply to thwart your stat dump, but is that arm race actually good for play? Some say yes, others (like myself) say the player obviously wants to fight, be good at fighting, therefore by planning to punish him for leveling up what he deems important to "teach him a lesson" since all he did was what was perfectly in the system just because he has "broken" your game. It absolutely does not seem quite fair to me and again points to another flaw that allows these types of monstrosities to be created. When Neverwinter was out the best combo was 1 level of monk, the rest cleric. There were also tons of these kinds of situations in 3e. When the system (in both games were readdressed) they were fixed by the designers to prevent those characters from being created. Now, of course, a GM could punish a player for creating these monstrosities, or the designers could create a system that accounts for these problems already and prevents them from ever occurring. Warhammer has created a categorical monstrosity for those who want to simply play (starting out) at high levels or want to level up to those levels. So as members of the community (who do see this reality coming their way) we want to fix it before we have whole party of monk - clerics running around causing disasters to the games we have planned. Bad system writing has to be pointed out for what it is, rather than being placed on those who use it, because it ultimately stagnates gaming when these types of situation arise.

As how this relates to Warhammer, it has a system designed where you compare success. Not the actual roll, but the notion of, you succeeded and x happened, now I succeed and x happens, then you succeed and y happens, then I succeed....and so on and so forth. This is most apparent in the combat system where it plays, like a video game, you hit and do x amount of damage, not enough to kill me so I hit you back and you take x amount of damage, not enough to kill, so the only real test is the amount of DPT (damage per turn) dropped and that is all. Simply, Warhammer addresses high level by increasing the DPT (by a higher number of successes and those precious boons). Hitting and successes (even at low levels) are a given. By the end everyone is bloody and combat is over, but regenerate quick enough to get back to a good fight. For some, this system is perfectly reasonable, but for others, it is not. Honestly though, we are trying to dress it up to be something it really is not and we players who seek to do this is based on our love of the game and the potential it has overall, because it is a great game and has many, countless, great aspects, components and IP in its pages. I think ultimately, that is what this conversation is really all about.

Happy Gaming,

Commoner

I have fixed combat with my scalable difficulty and chaos star rules.

For rolls outside combat I use opposed rolls, allow no stance dice and often use competitive rolls. When limiting stats to 6 I can see the system work even at rank 3. Hopefully FFG will release supplements to balance the game after that. Getting to rank 3 isn't going to take us that long and I don't give out a lot of exp (one per session, which really is the minimum.)

With the risk of sounding just a little bit jealous, how often do you play Gallows? I mean, rank 3 is 30 advances, that means 50-80 weeks of play for our group. Of course, i you play 2+ sessions per week you will have a problem . I understand that the lack of content for higher ranks is a bit frustrating though, I hope the coming expansions will deal with that.

Also, when your PC's have 30 advances and have spent them solely on combat prowess (which is what they will have to do to become the combat monsters you've discussed above), I really don't see a problem with facing them with lethal non-combat challenges (fear checks, social encounters leading to death, pursuit challenges). If one of them die/goes insane (and is forced to start at rank 1 again), they will probably not do the same prioritization again. You should try and get your PCs to buy non-combat skills and actions (by requiring tests in those skills to be taken with severe consequences when they fail). And remind them again and again that it might pay off to advance those willpower/fellowship 2 scores to 3 rather than saving to get str 6...

@commoner, I agree on your last paragraph, it's all a matter of personal taste. The system works just fine if you accept that success is the norm (and the standard result for new characters), but that the degree of success (multiple successes/boons/comets) goes up when you become more and more experienced.

We play about once a week, but many times it's friday or saturday. Last saturday for instance we started at noon and finished up at three in the morning with only the most natural of breaks. That's about 13 hours of concentrated playing, which meant they went through almost the whole first chapter of Thousand Thrones as well as finishing the last act of Eye for an eye. That meant 2 experience point for that session and I didn't really feel I could award them just one. They will soon be rank 2. Getting to rank 3 (20 exp) is perhaps 15 sessions for us depending on the lenght of the sessions.

But the starting limit of characteristics is 4 in our group so that helps a bit. I also have rules to balance combat, no matter how high rank they achieve, because our characteristic limit is 6 until expansions make high rank more balanced. For general characteristic checks that isn't combat or use an action car I only allow blue dice.The players also only start with one of each stance pieces and the highest they can get is the career default. This means maximum 3 stance dice which in itself also balance things out nicely, because stance dice are much better than blue dice.

There is also a big emphasis on social skills and non-combat skills in Thousand Thrones, so that force the players not to focus only on combat. With our house rules in place I actually think we'll be fine even if they max out their skills and characteristics (to 6 that is).

I also use strange eons, so if the high rank expansions are late I'll simply create some better active defences cards etc. to balance high rank gaming better and allow NPCs to use them as well. I have my custom NPC sheet where each NPC has three action cards, tracking space for wounds, A/C/E and stats. Four NPCs on a sheet, so it's pretty nifty, since I have to convert all NPCs from TT and TEW(when we get to that) anyway. I also allow my NPCs to have the defence actions, which balance combat a lot. NPCs who don't have defence cards can use their expertise dice to add a challenge die to the players pool.

I have tried to keep the house rules to an absolute minimum, because I really like the system, so It's just tweaking rather than chaning the whole system.