Herr Arnulfe said:

This exact classification seems to be spot on. I was being a bit broad. The extent of my experience with narrativist systems is Heroquest 2, which while I found some of the ideas in the game incredible, on the whole it felt a bit too "hand-wavey" for me in terms of assigning difficulties and such.

WFRP3 has some of those principles that I really liked about HQ2, while not taking it too far for me, as well as having some of the elements of D&D4E that I find interesting. It's a great balance .... for me.

@LeBlanc13: Glad I could help .. sort of. It's unfortunate that the game may not be for you, but everyone has different tastes and that's great. I do suspect that we will not see the type of support you are looking for in a game. I'm skeptical whether or not the monster stats are actually based on any sort of advance system, for example, so I think it would be difficult for them to provide a set system to level up monsters. I could be wrong on that though. I do hope that the GM Toolkit will have more juicy suggestions on how to better tailor encounters, however.

MSpookshow said:

I hope the GM toolkit has more info as well. Unfortunately, I and a lot of other gamers like me no longer give gaming the priority in our lives that we used to. I really don't have 8-10 hours a week to prep a game. I basically game one night a week and maybe have an hour or two here or there throughout the week to prep. I don't think this system will accommodate that.

I'm glad that there are others out there able to utilize this system as intended.

It just appears this system was not intended for me.

As far as D&D, I've played all incarnations including the dreaded V2. My thoughts are that 3.5 was WAY too regimented and 4.0 was WAY too balanced. Wizards of the Coast likes it's extremes. That's probably one of the reasons I've went away from that game. I was hoping WFRP3 had something to offer, but I don't have the time to put into games like I used to.

I enjoy the discussions here on the board, so more than likely I'll continue to offer my two cents.

Thanks

I second MSpookshow about the GM Toolkit. I just hope WFRP stays as far as possible from the D&D4 strategy of printing hundreds of books and micromanaging everything from weapons to monster types and stats. I'm perfectly happy with the selection of monsters in the core book and I'm still modding stats since game 1 - not because I need to, it's because I want to. I'd hate it if I hat to use only cookie-cutter monsters. To me that is what would make the game predictable - not the relatively high success rate.

What's the chance you'll meet two trolls that are equally gifted in every aspect? That sounds unrealistic even for soldiers who received the same combat training and have the same experience in battles! So just give each monster a different boost or impairment, different quality weapon and armour, more or fewer A/C/E dice; then add some terrain-related fortune or misfortune dice; add an unexpected event in the middle of the battle... there's no need to plan this - just do it on the fly and see how that works for your group. If they don't like it just throw out all WFRP books and get a few boxes of Warhammer Fantasy Battles

I agree with you completely on D&D.

However, I am a bit perplexed on what you see as taking a lot of time as far as prep in this game. A lot of the areas where things are left to GM decision (lack of set modifiers for helpful and hindering terrain/weather, for example) are decisions that can be made on the fly in game and are as simple as handing the player an additional misfortune die.

With regards to the thread topic (and in interest of keeping it on topic), most of the ways to beef up monsters are only a little more complex than tossing an extra fortune/misfortune die into the mix, and can still be done at the table if they needed to be. For the example of the river troll, just giving him a higher soak value could be enough, and this can be as simple as looking at the different types of armor to give yourself a basis to make that choice. Skimming through my book I couldn't seem to find this, but a previous post said that monsters cannot have advanced actions? If this isn't the case, maybe Improved Block/Parry is the answer?

These don't seem to be difficult choices that are going to make me spend an hour recalculating stats and xp values. Maybe I'm not looking at this right, however?

Iffo said:

The only criticism I can find to level at the way the system is from a monster / encounter standpoint is that doing what you described in no way provides me with a way to tell if this is going to wipe the party or not. It does seem a bit haphazard, because there is no direct comparison of monster power vs PC power in the RAW. This is something that GMs will have to feel out, and sometimes mistakes will be made and things will need to be adjusted on the fly. Some people will be okay with this, others won't be.

Oddly enough, if this were about a year ago I would be firmly in the not okay camp. My opinion of that was changed, however, when I came to the sudden realization that I was spending about three times the amount of time prepping my Star Wars game than we were actually playing it, and that just seemed insane to me.

And yes, I too do not want to see the slow creep of stat micromanaging for the GM come into the game.

MSpookshow said:

It really depends on what the group at the table wants to get out of the game.

If the players are really into a gamist approach, they might be looking for a fixed challenge. Meaning that they put their characters on the table and the GM puts his NPC's on the table and once the battle begins things remain fixed. Tweaking on the GM's part is discouraged, as it's meant to be a battle with what you've brought to the table.

So if the group of players swings that way, then yes, you would have to spend hours recalculating stats, probabilities and what not. And the system won't really support you, because there are no fixed guidelines on challenges and difficulty. The game itself is very dynamic, both in what a character can have (race, career, action cards, talents & party sheet) and what the GM can bring to the table (modifiers, locations, challenge levels)

In the end, you won't be leveraging the strengths of the system, which as written encourage the GM to change things on the fly.

MSpookshow said:

With the time I put aside for prepping, generally, I have enough time to read through an adventure to ensure I'm prepared. That's about all the time I have. I don't really have time to take into account the players, compare them to the monsters and determine who gets what extra A/C/E or fortune/misfortune dice. It seems to nebulous a concept as well to me. If I add an extra dice, it's not the same as giving them a +1 bonus to an attribute (or is it.) Maybe I just don't feel the game explains it enough. Maybe I just need to read the rules a 3rd time through or see it in play with my group....

Who knows. I still intend to run the two short adventures provided by FFG with my group. Maybe all will be clear after doing that.

I'll keep you guys in the loop after I run my first go round with the system.

Lexicanum said:

Personally, I enjoy changing things on the fly occasionally, but I wouldn't want it to be a constant requirement. I'm definitely not Gamist, BTW. So the odd statline anomaly is fine with me, as long as it's the exception rather than the rule.

I think having a good amount of actual play experience will really help with the nuances of tweaking things. As to giving a monster an extra die and how that compares to a +1 to an charactistic, it depends on what type of die largely. +1 to an attribute would given an extra blue die, as well as possibly change damage or soak values. Giving a fortune die would not cause too much of an effect on success, though, and would not add to derived values. As I said before, it does seem a bit haphazard, and it's just something that has to be felt out I feel. I don't think it's intended to be over-thought. This will work for some groups and not for others.

The only person in any of my roleplaying groups that has ever see the game as a "what the players brought" vs "what the gm brought" strictly is me ... and I'm always the GM. I've gotten over that though, as I began to feel that rpgs are about having fun as a group and telling an interesting story. Strict us vs them let-the-dice-fall-where-they-may playstyle seems more appropriate for wargaming (that being said, our hobby did grow out of wargaming). That being said, I have every intention of letting the dice fall as they will during my WFRP3 games, but I don't see anything wrong with slightly adjusting monsters if they are playing out like unintentional punching bags.

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

Don't forget, unless he takes stress he's only moving 1 space per round into reckless stance. So, he won't be starting off using 4 reckless dice.

Also note, as a GM, you can rule that the Troll isn't technically wearing armor. That's his natural hide soak, just like the Trollslayer's career ability Soak. It's not actually armor. Note the Trollfeller Strike specifically says it ignores the target's armor Soak, not soak in general. So ... no ignoring the Troll's soak value, because it isn't derived from armor. It seems a bit counterproductive (and gamey), true, since the Trollfeller's Strike seems pretty specifically for use against Trolls, but hey, technically it's well within the rules. I'd only suggest this if it indeed seems your group is a bit overpowered. You could also try making melee against the Troll as an opposed check. Against the Troll's St7, the PCs are looking at <PPP> on their attack rolls.

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.

Actually, the point is that no two PC groups is the same. The GM always needs to tailor opponents for their specific group. As I said, my 12xp/Rank 2 group of 4 players would probably have a hard time fighting a single Troll, due to their minimal combat orientation. A single Troll would be a decent challenge for them. Your group, more combat oriented, might not have as much of a challenge with it. In that case you, as the GM, need to tailor the adventure and/or the opponents to match the strengths and weaknesses of your group to provide them a challenge. Soften them up with some snotlings or spider swarms before the Troll, inflicting some wounds and fatigue/stress on them before the Troll shows up. Or, beef up the Troll a bit to make it fearsome for *your* group. Give it a few more wounds, more soak, or more A/C/E, or even action cards beyond the basic. Heck, give the Troll Double Strike, allowing it to strike with both clawed hands. And so on. There really is no restriction to the GM for doing this, especially for unique solo monsters. The fact is, I'll say again, no two PC groups are the same. A GM needs to alter any and every adventure to suit their PCs. It's not the company's fault or responsibility. It is the GM's. This is not just for WFRP, but for *any* RPG. All the game company can do is give a rough guideline for foes.

Take D&D. A group of 4x Clerics will find some monsters easier to fight than, say, a group of 4x fighters, or 4x mages (as some extreme examples). A group consisting of a bard, non-combat focuses rogues, and a druid, etc would have a problem fighting a lot of enemies that more combat focused groups would shrug off as effortless. The GM needs to recognize the strength of his PC party, and adjust/tailor the adventure for the group.

What you're saying, is like a game company designing an adventure for 4 players and having a combat encounter with 4 orcs. When you run the game, though, you've got 8 players instead of 4. You still leave the encounter with just 4 orcs, though, and then complain that the encounter wasn't challenging enough and that the company didn't appropriately balance it. In fact, you as the GM had the responsibility to adjust the encounter to fit your PC group. In this case, perhaps adding 4 more orcs. Of course, if none of the 8 PCs are combat oriented, maybe 4 orcs are fine, or 5 instead of a full 8. If you only had 2 PCs, 4 orcs might be too challenging, and you might need to remove an orc or two (depending). And so on.

If you haven't been doing this with other RPGs, whether intentionally or subconsciously, and the adventures have been working out suitably challenging for the PCs, then you're extremely lucky. I've always need to tweak adventures somewhat (some more than others), in every RPG I've run, depending on the group playing and the characters being used.

Okay. But it seems in the case being discussed earlier about Trolls being underpowered is still and issue. How do you deal with a troll on the fly when he gets killed by the party in one round before his ridiculously slow initiative comes up?

Again, I'll revert to a wait and see I guess. I'm hoping the new campaign adventure provides monsters tailored to the player ranks necessary to play. My decision may be based solely on that product if not before it comes out after playing the intro scenarios in the support section of this site and in the core game system.

This conversation though has been very helpful MSpookshow.

Hopefully this has been helpful to everyone and I'm not highjacking this thread.

dvang said:

I'll definitely second this. The few times I've made the mistake of running store-bought adventures straight out of the box for my players have been hilariously bad. TPK 10 minutes into a Shadowrun game (where one of my players took about 8-10 hours just creating and tweaking his character, all for naught), D&D sessions where they actively aggro multiple rooms of a dungeon just because they can ... ect.

dvang said:

I think some balancing needs to be considered.

D&D bases their monster design off of challenging a party of X adventurers. That number of adventurers with a varied number of roles is the norm. You should have 1-2 defenders, 1 striker, 1 controller, 1 healer. If you have these things, the monsters are balanced for you. If you do have a party of four healers or 5 strikers, yes things will be out of balance.

The issue I'm finding with this game is there is no norm.... They don't account for a balanced party. There is no baseline that is being discussed. I heard earlier in this thread that monsters rankings and player rankings are not compatible. Without any sort of baseline for guidance to make modifications to monsters I'm just hanging out there in the wind.

I don't think your comparison to D&D is fair, because D&D provides that baseline.

Combat should never start at engaged range. This means it's not always of importance who's first in the round. Other than that I design all my NPCs myself complete with stats, action cards and special rules. A troll can be weak or a troll can be a very experienced and strong troll just like a PC can be weak or strong. I see the ToA as a guideline and nothing more... the troll is just an inexperienced troll - a basic troll. There is nothing wrong with an experienced troll having a strenght of 10 or more. I never use the NPCs as written scenarios. I have always tweaked them or completely remade them to better fit the scene, PCs or my view of the NPC.

I also design my encounters on what the point is to them. If it's to fight the baddies and overcome them only then I design them as a challenge the players can win. If it's something else (stop the ceremony, get through the area, rescue or recover X, whatever) the baddies are an obstacle like anything else (pit/lava/weather/etc) the PCs need to overcome. Whether it's through smarts/guile/stealth/combat/etc they need to figure out the best route vs. just wading in blades swinging.

Sometimes fighting is NOT the best course of action.

Gallows said:

So, you are saying the monsters provided in the bestiary section of the book are not usable, therefore you tweak them so they can provide a challenge to your group?

It's ludicrous for a game to do that!

Why even bother providing me with a bestiary then?

The best part is, what I said earlier in this thread is coming true. People are defending FFG and blaming me for being a bad or lucky GM just because I won't compensate for bad stats/rules. That's right, I said won't, not can't. I can absolutely do all of these things everyone's mentioned. But if I have a balanced party it shouldn't be necessary. Say we have a "Faceman", "Fighter", "Wizard" group. This could be a baseline that FFG makes their adventures geared towards. If we were told, our game is based on a party of X individuals of these types of roles we could better make decisions on how to modify our games as GMs. They could say something like, "If you deviate from this norm, you need to compensate. Here are some guidelines on how to deal with fighter heavy parties. Here are some guidelines on how to deal with combat light groups using our system...." Then provide some examples.

If they leave it up to us to balance the game, then they didn't create a game. They created guidelines disguised as a game.

I'm not saying every aspect of a game needs balance, but there does have to be a baseline to compare something to so I as the GM can make educated changes to the system and account for my individual parties deviation from the norm.

I guess I'm not going to congratulate a company for "Freeing me" to do all the work.

One thing about monsters, difficulty and components of the core set in general - you must have noticed that literally everything in the core box RAW is designed for Rank 1 and Rank 2 PC's. So I'm guessing we can expect the more powerful stuff a bit later. Although I'm a bit worried that it may be a longer wait than everybody would like.

Oh, and sorry for the double post, but LeBlank13, you're overreacting - you have the basic monsters in the book, all the "work" you have to do is tweak a few numbers and maybe pick a card or two ... that's about a minute's work for each encounter. If you don't want your party to fight the same clones over and over again it's either that or (in another system) picking a version of a monster from a predefined list.

Why don't you just try the game for a few sessions, try customizing monsters on the fly and see how that works for you and your group. Even if your monsters turn out to be too strong or too weak in the heat of a battle, you can always tweak their performance on the go by the way you use their A/C/E dice and by which actions they use.

Well the key issue is establishing that baseline, isn't it? The trick to that with this game is that careers (and as such, characters) are not strictly codified into defined roles. In a true class-based system, the type of balance you are talking about is easy to accomplish. This system, however, is not truly class-based, and falls closer to a classless system in terms of building characters. This is mostly because there is no set list of what action cards are available to what careers, and thus no restriction in building. This makes it pretty impossible to assume that all characters of X career will bring Y to the table.

That being said, it is probably true that FFG does have some sort of baseline that they will base their premade adventures around. For the demo game, it is easy to assume that the adventure is balanced around the pregen characters that are included. Maybe the answer is as simple as providing pregen characters for all premade adventures, then GMs will indeed be able to see the "baseline party" that the encounters are geared towards.

I'm not defending FFG or even placing blame on anyone, merely observing individual's design principles and how they may or may not mesh together with the ideas the game was based on. One person's opinion on bad / broken rules may be fine at another table, and I don't think it is at all unreasonable for a company to suggest that if something isn't working for your group the way YOU want it to, here are some ways you may be able to tweak it to work.

Iffo said:

Oh I will. I may be getting a bit too spirited, but this is interesting conversation.

I mean no offense and despite my apparent overreaction, I take none.

LeBlanc13 said:

LeBlanc13 said:

No that's your very black and white interpretation of my words.

I HATE... yes H-A-T-E the silly system of D&D where a goblin is a goblin. For me a troll is just an NPC race and the bestiary is guidelines for creating NPCs. I don't want a HUGE bestiary with 25 different trolls, 20 different orcs etc. I want a useable bestiary that gives me guidelines for how monsters of a particular type react, attack, any special abilities etc. But since the game system is so incredibly easy in terms of the few stats you need for NPCs it takes about a minute to create a fleshed out NPC for combat.

I am very sorry but I can in no way relate to your, in my opinion, square perspective on a RPG system - like it's a computer game with weak goblins, diseased goblins, young goblins, fierce goblins, hardened goblins etc.

Perhaps this system just isn't for you, but even with 500 pages a bestiary would never give me all the NPCs I need for my sessions and with 500 pages I would simply just not use it at all.

We're all different. I find D&D, old AD&D and all perversions of that system to be something of the most horrible ever concieved. But conversely WFRP 3rd ed. is the best RPG I have played in my 20 years of role playing games. Each to his own I guess.

I'm cuirous LeBlanc13 where are you actually basing your opinions from? Amrok's account of his 2nd tier combat machines accounting of having to easy a time with a Troll or have you actually played the game yet and run into similar situations? This thread if anything shows that there are a wide range of opinions on this subject. So are you basing your balance assumptions on this or actual play?

It's starting to look like Monster Threat Level is v3's version of the Low Skill Problem in v2. Critics insist that it's a problem with the system, meanwhile v3 defenders claim that the critics just aren't trying hard enough to make it work.

Herr Arnulfe said:

Several solutions have been proposed. Some of them from the RAW.

Create more danger with obstacles and hazards.

Make the location of the battle favor the monster over the heroes.

Give the monster more action cards.

Give the Troll plate armor and a great axe.

I dunno, double the **** troll's wound total or give it more A/C/E dice to work with.

SEND IN MORE TROLLS.

???

Necrozius said:

It can't be that easy can it?