Kryyst said:

No experience at all with this system running or playing it. I've read through it twice and have been basing my questions and thoughts mainly on that. If you read my previous postings, I've relied heavily on what's already been written in this thread. I claim no expertise. My observations and opinions on this game are based strictly from this thread and reading through the rules.

Besides, my opinions are just opinions. I'm about as right as anyone wants to give me credit for. If you disagree with me, fine.

Like I had stated previously. I will gather my group together and play through the intro scenarios. Once I've had first hand experience, I'll be able discuss what my own experiences are.

At no time have I declared myself an expert in the rules or playing of this system.

I am still entitled to my opinion...theory based or built off of others impressions, it's still my opinion?

Necrozius said:

I agree, that's why it's similar to the v2 Low Skills argument. The default solution there was to "just add modifiers", which is also relatively simple and follows RAW, but it still generated circular arguments where neither side could quite relate to the other.

Darnit. Meant to snip most of the text above, sorry.

The PAGE IS BROKEN!

WHAT DID YOU DOOOO!??!?

I think some of the initial issue was that a combat-oriented party would kill a troll really fast because of his low Agility rating, he'd almost always go last. I can see taking issue with that, but that is what the Aggression pool is for. If a troll is grouped with another two or three of his kind, he is probably going to spread that aggression around during the fight, but if he is by himself fighting a tough party, I can see the DM spending all of his Aggression on his Initiative test to make sure he gets to attack.

The tools are definitely there to use.

I agree Keltheos. If FFG shares their baseline intended party make-up, and provides a few guidelines on how to modify monsters for different types of parties, I'd better be able to judge how to make mods to monsters. I just need more guidance than we've been given. Really, that's I'll I'm trying to say.

With the limited guidance we've been provided I'd need to spend more time than I can allocate to my gaming time to compensate. I do understand that modification is necessary, but FFG should give some guidance on how to make it work, so I don't have to go through the trial and error myself.

If FFG leave's it to the GM and we have no idea how they intended or designed the system to work, We flounder and possibly ruin the gaming experience of our players while we go through the trial and error process.

All of my other replies outside of the core statements above are in regards to other things said in prior posts by others.

Monster balance and design is definitely something that FFG should be addressing using this website. They have a tool to communicate with us and help the game along, but all we get are previews and cheerleading of new products...

If they offered a fraction of online support that WotC does for D&D, we'd be in good shape.

Shadowspawn said:

Shadowspawn said:

Are you new to FFG? It's frustrating sometimes, but it's how they roll.

I'm going to hold out for the GM's Toolkit and see if it gives some detail on creature balance.

keltheos said:

I admit that I'm eager to check out the new Nemesis rules.

...No not THAT Nemesis.

"STAAAAARRRRRSSSS"

Oh crap that S.O.B. scared the piss out of me.

keltheos said:

Nah, been here since Midnight, where they actually did give quite a bit of support. In my opinion they need to change how they roll if they are going to produce a major RPG like WFRP. Some non-preview game-related articles would be fantastic

LeBlanc13 said:

LeBlanc13 said:

I'm not begrudging you of your opinion. But you seem to be taking Amrok's opinion that the game is unbalanced and ignoring all other opinions suggesting that it isn't, either based on the RAW and/or extremely easy ways to modify encounters to suite your - as yet - untested group. I'm just cautioning you to perhaps relax your assumptions based on one persons ideas until you have tried it yourself. Before this thread came out there were several threads posting that the game was to challenging for starting level characters based on the results from the game day events and initial run-throughs.

LeBlanc13 said:

LeBlanc13 said:

See, this is great statment! It is much better than saying that the game is unbalanced. You just need it to provide more guidance for a GM, which I can understand.

Monsters in 3e are compared to each other, since they have a predictable baseline of stats and abilities. Hence, FFG made a threat rating for it. As someone else said, PC careers in 3e are actually pretty classless. You *could* make a fighting scribe, heavy on combat action cards with a beefed up St and To. So, yes, in answer to part of your question ... quite a bit of this will be GM-dependent and, unfortunately, by "feel" until you get the hang of things.

One thing you can do, is test out a few weaker threat opponents and see how your group does against them. Since the monsters have a rating compared to others, you *can* do a (albeit minimal) comparison to PC power. For example, if you put the group up against a solo 2-skull opponent and they defeat it easily, it's likely that another single 2-skull opponent won't provide much of a challenge either. So, next time throw a pair of 2-skulls and see how the group does.

It will still be a little bit of trial and error on the GM's part, though, until they get a feel for how powerful their group is, and the relative powers of the various opponents in the Beastiary.

So, your group, with combat focused actions and combat cohesion, might need to fight a pair of Trolls instead of a single one. Or, as suggested, use a few minor changes to make a single Troll more dangerous and unique.

I will also point out that as a GM you can assign misfortune dice for circumstances. Claim that the Troll has a foul odor, and wears decaying pelts on its belt. Add a misfortune die to any melee attack against it. And so on. I probably could come up with a few things (darkness penalty of [bB] for everyone except the dwarf, muddy conditions, rain, etc) that would add to the PCs roll, but might not affect the Troll (who is used to and lives in these conditions).

There's no such thing as a balanced party. There's no such thing as a balanced encounter. There's no extra prep time involved. The answer is "wing it." Seriously, the ToA even provides guidelines on this. Adjust on the fly. In addition to the numerous suggestions already provided, if the encounter is turning out to be too easy, have reinforcements arrive (after a Rally Step). If the PCs are having a harder time of it, perhaps the foes fail a morale check and flee rather than fighting to the death. I know there is a school of thought that thinks that the GM should play by the rules and if they adjust things on the fly or fudge rolls it's some kind of "cheating." I'm not one of those people. Whatever it takes to make the game more entertaining. That's my job. I also prefer that the rules are guidelines. I don't want to be bound by a system that defines everything down to such a degree that you don't really need a GM, you just need someone to roll for the PC's opponents. Give me the tools to help the players tell an interesting story and then trust me to use them wisely and well. But that's just my opinion.

mac40k said:

Well, then they better get a GM screen out there quickly. My players will pick up quickly if I'm winging it with no screen.

Kryyst said:

Thanks for the cautioning. Consider me cautioned.

I am still interested in trying this game out with my group. Currently, we're playing DH every week. When we have a chance for break in play, I'm going to start running the intro adventures already provided. Personally, I have see no support forthcoming from FFG on how to better run/customize your games. It's fairly disappointing.

LeBlanc13 said:

What kind of support would you like to see. There are suggestions in the ToA on how to already customize your encounters. You're familiar with DH the opponent list in that game isn't handled any differently, there are just slews of opponents with an approximated threat level. They don't go to any lengths on how to tailor your encounters to fit your games. WFRP 3 is no different or maybe that's the problem for you.

Kryyst said:

Actually, I don't consider DH and WFRP3 similar. In WFRP3 the dice are different. In DH, you can mod the monster by giving it a slight increase in strength, WS or BS and it can make a big difference. DH deals with straight up percentages and that is tangible to me. On another note, skill cards are similar to granting skills and talents, so I'll concede that similarity.

WFRP3 utilizes dice that don't clearly indicate how effective they are when you add them into a dice pool. Is it better to increase a monsters toughness by 1 or give it an extra fortune dice or two. It seems too nebulous to me. Maybe I'm too used to percentile systems now and this add/remove fortune/misfortune dice thing is getting to me. With multiple dice in the mix, you take a range of 01-100 and really bend the laws of percentage. When rolling 10-12 dice, what difference really can one dice make?

More guidelines on what adding a dice here or there actually does for me would help.

You know what though, don't bother answering these things for me any further. I'll give the game a go and if I'm still having issues, I'll come back and start my own thread about it.

Thanks

Keep in mind that WFRP 3 , and the dice pool, is not mainly about the percentages. It is about the story. If you want your antagonist Troll to be tougher, add a To. If you want it to be an older, more experienced Troll add to the A/C/E pool. If you want it's skin to be slick, add to its defense rating. If it's hide is tougher, add to its soak. etc. I wouldn't worry about trying to wrap your mind around what/how much percentage chance adding a misfortune die changes the possibility of a roll. There are far too many permutations, depending on the rest of the dice rolled at the time.

dvang said:

Thanks for the information Dvang. These are some helpful suggestions.

On your last comment, that's my problem with the dice pool and modifying it. Too many permutations to really change anything just by adding a dice here or there.

Example:

I start with a roll based on toughness 5. I'm currently in Reckless stance 2

I start out by having to replace two of my 5 dice with red reckless dice. Now I have 3 blue dice and 2 red dice. Say the challenge is easy, that means I've got 1 challenge die in there as well. If my GM gives me 1 fortune die for being "In the right place at the right time" that gives me 1 white dice.

Now I'm at 7 dice (3 blue, 2 red, 1 purple and 1 white). I can also add my own fortune dice to the roll as well (from possible attribute fortune dice or from my pool and I may gain expertise dice.) Say, I've got a fortune dice associated with Toughness, but don't want to contribute from my pool.

This takes my total up to 8 dice (3 blue, 2 red, 1 purple and 2 white). My GM determines that further challenge comes into play and adds a misfortune die to my pool.

What effect does adding 1 misfortune die really do when I've already got 8 other dice rolling that most likely will negate it anyway?

This is clearly not as straight forward as adding a +10% or -10% modifier in DH.

I think it effects it more than you think, and not just in a pass fail situation. An extra boon could mean your character gaining one stress or fatigue, or you could miss getting that Three Hammer line by a success canceled by that on dice that was added. The dice pool definitely requires a different way of thinking.

Shadowspawn said:

It does seem you'll have more successes than failures, but what appears to be changed is the degree of successes achieved.

There are some pretty good GM screen pages on hammerzeit.

LeBlanc13 said:

That may well be, I haven't tested it enough to for sure though.

LeBlanc13 said:

LeBlanc13 said:

My exeprience tells me that adding one dice is more about degree of success and failure as well as the potential risk to create other non-success based results like banes. The dice mean a lot acting recklessly may increase your chances of a big success but also increase the chance of gaining stress or down right missing. We've seen many situations where a player rolls their 8 dice and net results 0 successes. The dice can be a cruel mistress in this game and you shouldn't discount the impact adding 1 more Misfortune or Challenge die can have.

The fun thing about it is that it's not a definite impact unlike say in DH increasing the difficulty by 10% - you know that has a direct effect. Throwing in another misfortune die adds one more variable into the mix.

I think my favorite think about the dice pool system from the GM point of view is the freeing feeling of adding in misfortune dice, I owe that an explanation. In DH I know very well that my players have a 35% BS so I also know how dramatic an effect increasing the difficulty by 10% or even more has. Often for starting level characters increasing the difficulty was tantamount to saying "you fail" even before the roll. It's nice to set the stage and describe various terrain or other monster details but to turn them into mechanical effects was often pretty painful on the players.

In WFRP 3 I don't feel that restriction. I know that adding in a misfortune die or two isn't necessarily going to remove 2 successes. Yeah there's a chance that it will, but it's only a chance. I find that for me as a GM it allows me to create far more dynamic situations and actually give them mechanical effects. It also means that the players are less hesitant to go for something odd because it's not a guaranteed penalty.

Without getting all soap boxy. This is one of the first commercial RPG's that I've played that allows me to very closely match what I'm doing mechanically to what I'm describing in the story. It also opens up a bit of an element of surprise for me as the GM because I don't always know how those dice are going to come up and what those results are going to me.

Really this is a game that you have to play to really get a grasp of what you can do with it. Reading through the rules only gives you a hint of what you can do. It's once you start to understand how all the elements fall together that the game really shines and fortunately we found that that learning curve is pretty minimal.