The easiest fix is to double or triple a monster's wound threshold. Then you don't have a ginormous game re-design and that will allow them to hang on long enough to be a bother. Here's what I'd do:

Mook: Normal WT

Tough: Double WT

Elite: Triple WT

Jay H

I feel that WFRP3 assumes a lot of general tinkering with things within the system. The game seems to actively encourage dynamic and interesting adjustments from the GM. XP rewards are not determined by monster strength, for example, so there is nothing stopping you from making the river troll a bit more daunting if he needs to be. Tailor the game to your players. Maybe give him a nastier weapon, or better armor. Remember that the numbers provided are just assuming a basic, default level of gear. Maybe this troll has a particularly nasty club fashioned from a small tree and some spear heads. Maybe it has some disease that has caused its skin to mottle and become more rough (extra soak).

The thing about the game, is that isn't a fight of the RAW monster stats vs the character. The rules actually tell you to freely adjust these things to your liking. If your players have combat twinked themselves, adjust accordingly ... or make the encounters about more than just "killin' da monstaz".

Also, remember that you can give the monsters action cards IN ADDITION to the abilities they have. Give him Double Strike and watch the tears.

The main complaint though seemed to be wounds, or rather his lack thereof. Personally, I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. If you can accomplish a complex social goal with some description / roleplay and a few successful rolls, which should combat then have to take 30 minutes to an hour to defeat a river troll? Of course YMMV on that, it's just a thought I'm throwing out there.

I recall during the 3e and 4e evolution of D&D GM's were rallying for the ability to have their BBEG's last longer. They didn't need wipe out parties, but when they die in one round, it's pretty anti-climactic.

With 1e to 2e evolution of WFRP (and with the companion), there was a very weak attempt to try to have some kind of "challenge level." I think the lack of this was always a reason why GMing has been tougher than it really needs to be. The current system doesn't, imho, do any better job helping GM's than prior editions.

On a related note, I always wonder if playtests actually accomplish anything..or if it's just whiny players and overworked GMs with no true evaluation. My experience with Mongoose, was pretty bad. Although they wanted us to test a few elements, we were essentially told there was "no room for improvement"..which of course later came back to bite them in the ass. After seeing that fiasco, I'm generally impressed at most of how WFRP3 has played out.

jh

..

First and foremost I don't think a Troll is to weak of an opponent. They are (traditionally) the target of many young Dwarvess that wish to seek their demise to atone for some sin. Those that survive the ordeal are Troll Slayers, those that don't.....

However there are context that you should also be taking into account. The monsters in the ToA are not a checklist of things to kill under ideal circumstances. First the ToA encounters are baseline 'typical' examples of their race. They are just trolls. They are not Ugrermesh Spleen Ripper that has been terrorising the Reinhalf Marshes going on 5 years now.

If you just want your characters to walk through the Trollmarshes and have a random encounter with a troll then the ToA troll is fitting. It likely won't defeat your characters but it'll probably hurt them a bit, then the next troll may hurt them a little more and the next, then suddenly they are far from a safe point in the Trollmarshes and running out of resources. That's what the stock ToA troll is, it's not the ubber opponent no more then the ToA Orc is an uber opponent it's just a monster.

When you want them to come across Ugrermesh that's when you take the ToA Troll and run them like a character. You use Fatigue and Stress on them in the same way a character does, not just as more damage. You can give them more action cards. You can even give them more wounds. Perhaps Ugrermesh is really strong and has an Expert dice for Strength and Toughness...

So to sum up ToA = baseline encounters. They are not your Big Bad Evil guys. Most people don't think twice about making a higher level Human opponent to be the big bad evil, but yet they find it a strange concept to do the same to a monster.

Kryyst said:

That sounds like a lot of work!

LeBlanc13 said:

Just for the players - for the GM it just requires you to say "You crest the hill and clear a thicket and run into - another troll - initiative!

Kryyst said:

Another favorite of mine is: "As you land the killing blow the Troll falls dead letting out a piercing scream of agony that echoes through the forest. Only to be interrupted by an angry roar that catches you by surprise. It seems you've killed a young troll, and his mother is none too pleased. She's meaner, bigger and armed with the axle of a coach as a weapon. You get a Rally step, do one free action. I'd suggest running..."

One of my friends would run his game pretty similarly, but he'd bait the party in with weaker monsters to give them a boost of self confidence only to have them completely over-matched when they fought the real thing. Funny, but not very nice. I'm sure they learned a lesson though. Get a new GM.

LeBlanc13 said:

I tend to agree, the GM's job is not to win the game. It takes no skill at all as a GM to beat up characters. That's just pettiness at that point. That doesn't mean though that you have to make it easy for them and always let them shine through. You just have to guage the level of game to what your players want which is something no rule book can teach you.

LeBlanc13 said:

And yet this whole thread is about finding the right challenge level for PC's and if they kill the fearsome Troll in one round of combat, it's incredibly anti-climatic. So scaling it up by following it with a tougher monster is now an example of GM dickery?

So any attempt on the GM's part to scale combat to the appropriate level is "not very nice"? It's quite ludicrous to expect the GM to hit the right challenge level with a new monster right off the bat, and changing the circumstances to provide an appropriate level of challenge is just what the GM is supposed to do. If the players are left with a "Wait, that was it?" feeling after combat, then you know you need to do something, bring something else to the table.

If the players are cheering over their accomplishment and not feeling diminished over it, then no need to scale up things. It bears to keep in mind the whole context of the situation where we're talking of a group of characters basically one-shotting a Troll.

You have cheered me up guys! Now I've started to think that I should run more encounters to be 100% sure to say that monsters are overall pretty weak.. And if it will be needed I'll increase the dificulty of encountered opponents or simply make fights more demanding.

Tell you what I've found with this game. It's deep and has more levels to it than the Temple of Elemental Evil.

What initially seems like a broken rule/system, always turns out to be a shallow understanding on my behalf of what the system is really all about.

As for a creature being too weak, simply buff his stats. This is a recommendation of most rpgs. It doesn't mean the rules are broken, it just emphasises that rules are merely guidelines, and you should feel free to remove or change them until your heart's content.

Necrozius said:

Actually it's not obvious that a troll slayer is able to kill a troll single handedly. In fact the requirement for becomming a giant slayer is to slay a troll by yourself in the lore. This meand that slaying a troll by yourself is a monumental feat that earns you a lot of renown and glory.

Besides a troll isn't that easy.

Stone troll for instance:

A/C/E: 5/0/2 - 5 fortune dice and two expertise dice. That can hurt if used correctly.

Strenght: 7+<f>(5) - That's a lot of damage and a lot of dice.

Soak: 9 - they need to do 11+ damage to inflict more than one wound. PLUS they regenerate one wound each round! So if the dwarf if not inflicting more than one wound the troll will remain unhurt. On top of that two of the troll attacks allow the troll to regenerate even more wounds on boons and comets.

Wounds: 18 - not that much, but with regeneration and soak it's more than enough.

If you freshly created characters can kill a stone troll in your group then you're doing something wrong. We have a VERY tough dwarf with good armor in our group, but a stone troll would wipe the floor with him still. Also remember that a stone troll can use parry because of strenght and I'd give it the improved parry. Other than that I'd give it the improved block because of it's hard skin and toughness.

Armoks, I think it would be useful if you posted exactly how your characters are doing so much damage. Lots of people seem to think it's too high. Perhaps you are calculating something wrong.

Or, if you are running a power game with minmaxed characters, of course you would need to beef up the critters. (Not suggesting there is anything wrong with power gaming, just saying that if you run that way you can't assume the standard monsters will be up to it).

Grashnak said:

Yeah I'd say the same. Forgetting TOTAL soak of the monster? Adding something twice for double strike?

After many tests, I find that the success level of the game as per RAW is too high generally. This, coupled with a damage system that outputs more or less the same number of damage round after round, makes monsters like trolls much too vulnerable. Why ?

Because the strength of a troll is its offense (unless of course you give it improved parry and block, as mentioned before, but that would be beyond what the rules recommend, ie basic actions only). What happens now is that very average fighter PCs will hit the troll almost every round and inflict some wounds, 1 or 2 per hit, with the occasionnal 5 or 6. This will kill the troll in 3 or 4 rounds. In which time the troll will probably wound and maim a few PCs, but won't kill anyone, predictably.

Predictably ! The most hated words of RPGs. When combats become predictable, they become boring, but also, they don't scare players anymore. They'll think "hm, we can take this troll out in 3 or 4 rounds, let's do it." The fear that UF instilled is no longer there.

A lot of this problem comes with the high success ratio of the game. This means predictable damage output.

I'm thinking to give an extra purple die to all difficulty levels. This would make the troll harder to hit and slant the odds in its favour, since with 7 Str, it will most likely hit every round.

So my new difficulty ratings go from Simple: 1d to Daunting 5d.

Jericho said:

I like this idea. I've thought to myself that if something is so simple that it is 0d, then maybe you shouldn't be rolling at all.

OK, to start with I would like to write down Troll Slayer's stats:

ST 5 + fortune dice, TO 4, AG 3, INT 3, WP 3, FEL 2;

Weapon Skill and Resilience trained, Specialisation with one- and two-handed axes, 4 th reckless stance pice puchased, 15 Wounds.

He has got action cards like: Double Stike, Troll-Feller Strike, Shrug it Off, Improved Parry and Wrath of Morgrim which are used mostly.

As you can see Troll Slayer hasn't got any talent cards and he's a combat oriented character like most of Troll Slayers.

On a quite good roll using Troll-Feller Strike action card and two-handed axe he is able to deal 19 damage, ignore target's armor soak value, and inflict 2 critical wounds and then inflict normal wounds equal to the one critical wound severity (from 1 to 5 damage). Not that bad. I excluded Chaos Star'sand Bane's effects

He has got ~67% chance of 3 successes and ~20% chance of 3 boons with 4 reckless stance pices.

With the Wrath of Morgrim card he can deal more or less the same amount of damage like above, but he have to be deeply wounded.

With Double Strike he is able to deal 17 damage, plus crits from boons or Sigmar's Comet.

Sigmar Initiate stats:

ST 4, TO 4, AG 3, INT 3, WP 3, FEL 4.

Weapon Skill and Invocation trained, 2 specialisations but none is combat oriented. No talent cards.

He usally uses a Sigmar's Hammer action card to deal damage and Blessing of Health to get rid of fatigue and stress.

Wizard can deal max of 9 damage, but he usually casts a Curse spell upon enemies. No talent cards.

All my Players have got 5 EXP and they all miss Ulrick's Fury from previous editions!

Firstly, I would like to say that I try to run grim and perilous sessions. I really like Low Fantasy with flashes of heroic's deeds. I try to keep Old World dirty and dangerous place where it's always a bad weather. I've been GMing 2 ed., and playing 1 ed. I know well how my Old World should look like, but sometimes I have a feeling that WFRP doesn't support Warhammer mood contained in the fluff.

Secondly, I truly like this game, but I needed to make some changes

In the previous edition, fights could last for ages, but in 3 ed. everything can end up very fast, sometimes too fast, IMO.

Rat Catcher said:

"As for a creature being too weak, simply buff his stats. This is a recommendation of most rpgs. It doesn't mean the rules are broken, it just emphasises that rules are merely guidelines, and you should feel free to remove or change them until your heart's content."

My thoughts:

This, to me, sounds like the cop-out a game company would take when they have a bad system and can't balance their own game ruleset. What they are really saying is... "We can't balance our game to work within the ruleset that we've developed, so let's tell the player base that we're empowering them to house rule and modify the ruleset to work for them. Having an unbalanced game is not bad... If you can'd compensate as a GM, then you must be doing something wrong."

To me, the core ruleset of a game system needs to work appropriately out of the box. While I am capable of adding a semblance of balance to a game system when I find holes, isn't this supposed to be the job of the company that designed the game? I can see and even allow for disparity between straight out of the book monsters and rank 5 hero players, but a rank 1 PC versus a goblin right out of the rulebook should be balanced. A troll right out of the book should be a challenge. If the game company didn't take metagame and min/maxing into consideration when creating the ruleset shame on them.

My players are clever, they are going to try and tweak their characters within the ruleset of the game. They aren't cheating. So the monsters need to be designed to compensate. If that means the game company has to put in weak and strong versions of their monsters or perhaps give advancement schemes so a GM can buff them up, then that's fine.

I don't want it thrown out there that someone is a bad GM if they can't run a game right out of the box balanced though. It almost sounds like that's what people are saying. If that's the case, then this ruleset isn't balanced and it's broken.

"Oh no, I've got 3 fighters in my party, they struck first and destroyed the troll before it even got an attack off. I must be a bad GM."

..... Puh-lease!!!

If they design a troll to be a big bad evil guy, give him a low initiative and then don't account for 4-5 other party members to beat his initiative and crush him in the first round of combat.... that is a poor design. Plain and simple.

GMs will have to be more creative when they write up combat events. Tossing in a pile of complications from terrain, obstacles, environment (weather) and traps could make all the difference.

Fighting a Troll in an open field is easy. Fighting one in a pitch dark cave (at least one PC needs to give up a free hand to hold a torch or lantern) in knee deep water (movement maneuvers are harder and take more effort) while avoiding hazards like sharp stalagmites and stalactites or even cave-ins (any PC who generates a Chaos star on any test will take environmental damage and/or stress and fatigue) is another matter.

Plus the Troll might have a handful of Fortune dice because he's fighting on his own turf. Boo yah.

Necrozius said:

This is one of the things I didn't like about D&D 4e and I guess this game may have the same issue.

If the monster isn't a challenge by itself, then why is it a solo monster? I don't think I should have to add anything to a monster to make it a challenge. In this case we're talking about a TROLL, which in the Warhammer Fantasy Battles game can provide a challenge to a Character model (which is probably rank 5 career or higher.)

Customizing monsters for higher level characters, I can understand. In this case, I think the company making the game should provide me with sufficient tools and guidelines on how to increase the threat level of this monster though. It's their system and they should have the greatest knowledge on how to do this.

Having a company go... here's a ruleset and a background, now modify it to your liking is not right. If the rule set doesn't work RAW, then it's broken.

If there are balance issues and disparity based on higher ranked characters versus out of the book monsters, then give me tools to compensate. Show me examples of how to do something. Give me some guidelines. That, I can live with. Maybe put out some content on your website showing ways to scale up the threat of existing monsters to make them tougher for higher level characters.

Putting everything in the hands of the GM is asking a lot. We have lives, we have jobs, we go to school and have homework and children that come first. This is a GAME. These things need to be worked out ahead of time so we can enjoy it. If I have to spend hours rewriting a published adventure or upgrading monsters to account for my players min/maxing strategies, I'm moving on to a game that takes this into account.

simple as that.

@LeBlanc13:

I understand where you are coming from. In the case of an average, run-of-the-mill rpg, I agree with you. Dungeons & Dragons 4E does everything you stated, and does it well. Unfortunately, I also find it insanely stagnant and boring. I never would have thought this before 4E, but over-balancing a system can be an issue. I digress.

It seems to me from my initial reading of the WFRP3 books, that the choice was made to truly encourage a much more freeform experience with the game from a rulings standpoint. This is not a new idea in gaming. There are many narrative-based systems on the market today, and some of them are quite popular. These games are the polar opposite of systems like D&D, where everything is ruled, stat'd out, and codified. I like to think that WFRP3 sits comfortably somewhere between these two styles. Personally, I find it insanely liberating as a GM.

As the ToA states, the enemy threat levels provided in the book are a comparison between monsters, and in absolutely no way include any sort of thought on what may be challenging to a group of players. This is very telling of a key choice in monster and encounter design in the game, the GM is meant to tailor the monsters to the player group. The book even provides suggestions on how to do this. I suspect the nemesis rules will take this further.

My point is that from the ground up, the system is not designed to be perfectly balanced and tuned for combat. This can be seen in the fact that not all of the character classes are built towards combat. If they were, that would mean Rat Catcher would have to be on par with Ironbreaker in terms of combat viability, and that clearly doesn't make sense in the lore.

Monsters couldn't possibly be built on any sort of "rank vs threat level" scale in this system because they cannot possibly know what you are going to have at the table. You could have a party of all combat fiends with huge damage output, or that could swing the total opposite direction with a group of traders and diplomats. They could have _assumed_ that parties have a mix of the two and attempted to balance around this, but that wouldn't have avoided this situation at all. There is nothing wrong with suggesting and even encouraging GMs to honestly think about their party and how to properly challenge them BEFORE putting the monster standups in front of the players. The way this system has been designed from the very foundation ensures that simple challenge ratings or a tier of rats < goblins < bandits < trolls < dragons simply would never work.

MSpookshow said:

Thanks, MSpookshow.

Based on your commentary, you've done what I haven't been able to figure out on my own. I now know this game isn't for me. I am glad that I have all of my WFRP V2 stuff. While I still intend to play the initial adventures in this game with my gaming group, I think I'll find this lacking in support of my needs as a GM. Your summary does a good job making this very clear to me.

While I appreciate that you and others may find this liberating, I see it as a cop-out from the game company. True or not, those are my thoughts.

I'm not looking for complete balance and parity in the game, but I am looking for support. It's apparent that based on the way this system was written, FFG has no intention of providing it.

I'll take what I like from the system and import it into WFRP V2 and possibly port over some of the tools to DH. I find myself far more comfortable operating within those systems.

MSpookshow said:

I would point out the difference between rules-light and Narrativist. Some Narrativist games are also quite rules-heavy (e.g. Burning Wheel). D&D4 is probably rules-heavy and Gamist, whereas WFRP v3 is rules-medium and also Gamist, but with Narrativist aspirations.