Hi, I have a feeling that monsters are very weak by what grim and perilous world of WFRP suffers and I don't mean a high success rate.

If you don't get what I would like to say, just look at the stats of River Troll and compare them with the stats of typical Troll Slayer with 5 EXP (ST 5 + Fortune dice, TO 4, WOUNDS 14-15, 3-4 R, Weapon Skill trained, specialization in axes, and Double Strike action card). A Player playing this Troll Slayer is able to kill Troll easly. What's more, Troll Slayer isn't alone, he has friends to fight with enemies by his side. In which case, there is a high probability that Troll won't even be able to start a round. Why? Becouse a group of players will attack him, one of the strongest enemies in the bestiary, and kill within 1 or 2 rounds. Moreover, the same is true with most of monsters if not all in ToA.

Why River Trolls have got only 19 Wounds (a starting dwarf has got about 14 wounds)?

I know that Troll Slayer is a combat oriented character and I know that Troll Slayer can't wear armor, but still the low experienced Player is able to kill the strongest enemies within few rounds.

All in all, for me, monsters are too weak or Players are too strong which is an issue and I'll pobably increase opponent's stats or something.

I look forward to GM's Toolkit and Nemesis rules.

Don't forget creatures can use Dodge, Parry and Block like the PCs.

But I agree, the success level of PCs is a bit too high to my taste. See threads in the rules and houserules section on how to make things harder...

Well, it IS appropriate that a Troll Slayer should be able to slay trolls...

But in all seriousness, I agree. Even with the mix of A/C/E, killing a Chaos Spawn only took about one round.

I must admit that luck plays a huge part in it. I broke the rules and used up ALL of the Chaos Spawn's A/C/E dice on a single desperate attack and whiffed completely.

It seems that if you want to challenge your players in this game, a GM will have to be very creative. Straight one on one battles seem to be far more in the player's favor.

Necrozius said:

It's obvious that Troll Slayer should be able to defeat trolls, but shouldn't it be a more demanding task for him? I don't like the idea of Troll running away after the first successful attack of Troll Slayer.

It is disappointing that this kind of thing wasn't found during playtesting. Especially since presenting the PCs with a meaningful combat challenge can be so important to advancing a story.

Shadowspawn said:

It's also possible that playtesting aided the designers in achieving the threat level they wanted for v3.

Any ideas on how to fix it? I would love my giants and trolls to actually be a really dangerous threat.

Would simply increasing the critter's A/C/E be a solution? Or is the problem more with how easy it is for characters to take down critters? I haven't has much experience yet with v3.0.

Oh, and I realize that I can change some rules to make my games more grim and perilous, however I didn't buy 3 ed. to do this. I've read the Core Set's cover and I've said: "This must be a dark and dangerous game that I've been looking for" but Core Set doesn't provide very strong opponents to face heroes becouse they are stronger.

I don't want a second heroic D&D, I want grim WFRP!

Don't think that my Players only slay monsters, we use everything from what WFRP is famous for like investigations, Chaos, mutations, ect.

Herr Arnulfe said:

I had considered that as well. Often times in 2E we felt it took too long for characters to become effective, maybe that was the point in the first place. I don't agree with it at all though.

Leogun_91 said:

The answer would either be to make starting characters weaker (people have already been house ruling this) or make monsters tougher somehow. Either way its annoying that one has to do either.

Why would the troll back off from the fight after the first round? Given that the system is skewed towards the attacker, the Troll should be played to attack. It's also relevant to note that when the number of wounds is reached that merely means that the NPC has been defeated, not killed, as per the RAW (ToA p. 41) It might seem like a trivial distinction, but I believe it's an important distinction to make as it allows the GM to control how the creature is defeated (death, retreat, unconcious).

If the Troll is an important encounter I would wait until the 18-19 wounds limit has been breached before retreating it. The PC would have to go beyond that to get a kill, if that's what he wanted. It really depends on what the focus of the story is. Also the Troll has several cards that allow him to heal back wounds on boons. I'd use those with lots of Aggression dice to pump up the chance of success/boons.

Truth be told, at the end of the day the player is going to be more invested in his character than the GM is going to be in his troll. So play the troll hard, use the A/C/E dice heavily. 8 wounds on the Troll Slayer will have a greater impact than 8 wounds on the Troll. It all balances out in my opinion.

The one thing I will say with this system is that you can't expect creatures to be fearsome by virtue of their stats. You'll make them fearsome by how you play them and with how you leverage the rules available to you as GM.

Troll has got 7 soak, 19 Wounds and 2 AG (thus it's small probability that he'll act first). A character with a Double Strike action card can simply deal 15 damage, plus boons effect. Think about it. Usually there are 3 PCs, on average each Player can deal from 10 to 15 damage per hit with about 90% success rate.

Assuming that River Troll act last in the round he'll receive 3*(12-7) damage (12 is an average damage that Player can deal without boons effects) so when a Troll's round will come he'll has got only 5 wounds.

Armoks said:

Sounds like 2-3 Trolls might be a more apt challenge for starting v3 parties.

Lexicanum said:

Let your Players encouncer Troll and you'll realize the same thing that I've understood and even A/C/E won't help Troll. His action cards can as well kill him (suffer wounds, suffer stress or fatigue points which are converted into normal wounds). And if your players are more combat oriented that social oriented they will be able to fight a strongest enemies without any risk.

OK, let's assume that Troll has regenerated 2 wounds at the end of the round. IMO this is all for nothing becouse he won't be able to kill players with one blow. Futhermore, players will finish him next round.

I can use Troll to fear my Players, but when they'll start to fight, they'll realize that Troll can be easly defeated.

It's quite misleading to start with a Troll Slayer vs Troll match, then change it to a Troll Slayer (and 2 others) vs Troll match.

From the given example, in a straight up Troll Slayer vs Troll match you're looking at 5 wounds / round, plus the Troll's regeneration at the end of the round. So it would take 5 rounds to defeat the troll using those averages. (4 rounds * 5 dmg - 3 regeneration = 16, 5 rounds * 5 dmg - 4 regeneration = defeated troll), and in that time the Troll would have gotten a chance to destroy the character's armor or weapons (due to the corrosive acid) with the Vomit attack, and then followed through with several interesting attacks that could have extended the fight a round or two (due to regeneration). And that's assuming the slayer can still do 5 dmg / round on average if his axe is melting due to the acid (which should count as an improvised weapon after that)

At the end of it, the Troll Slayer would not be a happy camper or even might be unconscious or dead.

Armoks said:

Armoks said:

Wow! That's some party you've got there!! It's far better than the average. My party of 5 has got various characters and the average damage they can deal is between 6 and 8 minus soak, and success rate is more like 60-70% at best. They're scared shitless of a single Wargor and for a reason!

You're obviously talking about a rather strong fighter oriented party which at these stats will probably lack a lot of other non-combat skills ...so here's your balance. You can't expect the game to be dark and gritty by default if all your characters can easily deal 10 to 15, 90% of the time. If they build such strong characters you should just throw more and better equipped enemies at them (that's actually mentioned in the ToA).

The game is what you (and your players) make of it.

I do agree however that the Trolls are too weak as a "strongest" enemy in the core bestiary. However we'll surely get more powerful monsters later along with the third tier careers for wizards, priests, slayers and the rest.

Lexicanum said:

But still it is a theory, what about a practice? I tried to play only a Troll Slayer vs Troll match and it's turned to a good-luck-guy-winns game.

Troll has got a chance to throw out his weapon, allow player to do an extra attack, ect. on a Chaos Star.

Look at the basic level of dificulty of a Troll's action cards: additional <p>, 2 misfortune dice and so on while a Double Strike action card has got 1 . Next, as I said earlier Troll can suffer from stress and fatigue which means additional wounds. So if the player is playing wisely his character he can defeat Troll with no problems. Player must only look if his stress and fatigue level isn't too high.

But what about a 3 Players vs Troll match? IMO, this fight should also be dangerous and somehow lethal for players but it won't be.

I have got in my game Troll Slayer, Sigmar Initiate and a Wizard of Azyr Order. They all have got 6 EXP and can deal more than 20 damage on a good roll (Of course I mean Troll Slayer and Sigmar Priest), plus crits. They all have got gear like starting characters. Only Troll Slayer has got ST 5. And yes only wizard deal poor damage.

I think that everything is about action cards of my players which are much stronger than Troll's cards.

Please, tell me in your opinion is it right for a starting characters to be able to kill Troll? For me no, becouse it is one of the strongest monsters avaiable in a Core Set, and I'm not talking about my players right now.

Armoks, I'm not disbelieving what you say, but I'm on a business trip and so I don't have th action cards with me (just the PDF rule books). How do the players get as high as 20 damage, just out of curiosity?

As to your question, I don't really adhere to the whole Rank 1 characters should be stuck killing vermin and minions mentality. If they can pull it off, I'd let them kill a Dragon.

I also don't consider the Troll to be the most powerful character in the Core Set. It's an incredibly one-sided and dumb opponent for starters and it usually dwells by itself. The Chaos Warrior is a much better opponent with higher mental stats and more A/C/E points, high wounds, +1 soak, plus an R3 stance which can really translate into some dangerous moves. Additionally, the Chaos Warrior has an expertise dice from weapon skill training, and Expertise dice are quite powerful.

I just don't see how your characters manage to deal this amount of damage consistently. My players are at 5 exp and they're very far from your numbers. If you compare stats between a character and the troll it's pretty obvious that the troll has a significant advantage. If it happened a couple of times you can blame it on luck. Anybody can do unseccessful roll even with many characteristic+stance+fortune+expertise dice a few times in a row (or the other way around).

And to your question, yes I consider Trolls to be a very formidable threat. If a starting character can kill a Troll that's just pure luck and maths prove it. The troll needs two easy to achieve hits (they hit for 13) to kill even a tough starting level character (total soak of 5 and 14-15 wounds) but takes at least 6 very strong hits to defeat (each hit must do over 10-11 damage minus 7 soak). And we're talking about the weaker River Troll here. So how is that weak?

By the way they're not the strongest enemies in the core. The Giant is. Trolls are pretty close to Chaos Warriors, Wargors, Rat Ogres and Flesh Hounds.

p.s. sorry for the double-quote in my last post.

My group's one fighter (Mercenary->Thug) at Rank 2 (12xp), does anywhere from 10-18 damage. She has a 5 St and Reckless Cleave. She usually damages towards the 13 mark. Everyone else does less. The group includes a Priestess of Morr, a Wizard, and a Gambler->Ratcatcher. They're pretty heavy in the RP/social area. I think the group would have a hard time with a single Troll ... and they're all rank 2 PCs.

Edit: Note, personally, any 'main' NPCs that I have I give them fatigue and stress rather than wounds. Fodder take wounds, but "bosses" are more like PCs run by the GM. You could always 'mutate' the Troll to give it a higher T and/or soak and/or wounds.

Why not just add more soak or defense? That slows down things enough to get some troll-sized hits in on the party.

That, or just have the troll ambush them all.

Armoks said:

You should also consider that the reason for heroes to be powerful is because healing is very rare and on the occasion that the heroes get wounded it will take them a long time to heal especially critical wounds. They might not get wounded so often and might be able to take down a lot of monsters even powerful ones but once the heroes do get wounded its often pretty seroius business. And if they meet the same troll while wounded....

Armoks said:

Armoks said: