I thought I understood how monsters used action cards, but I saw a collection of reference sheets that a player created and posted to a fansite that seemed to contradict how I interpreted the rule.

The rules state that monsters have access to the same set of basic action cards as do the players. Monsters also get some special shared actions from the bestiary. My questions are as follows:

+ Do monsters share the basic action cards in the same way that they share their special bestiary actions? IE, if a monster chooses to Dodge, is that card now on recharge for all of the other monsters, so that none of them can use it?

+ I had thought that the GM was supposed to remove a single recharge token from every currently-recharging monster action when the round came to an end, but I've seen elswhere (in that player reference doc) that a single charge counter is removed from every currently-recharging monster action at the end of every monster's turn. Which is correct?

"In addition to the standard Basic Actions available to all characters (assuming they meet the individual action's requirements), creatures and NPCs have access to some specific, thematic actions. These are represented in each spread in a similar manner to standard action cards. The information, icons, and terms used are identical to those used to describe Action Cards, as shown on page 49 of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Rulebook.

One special distinction is how these special actions recharge. When a creature or NPC action is recharging, no other creatures can use that action – it is unavailable until the action has fully recharged. Further, recharge tokens are not removed after an individual creature's activation. Rather, one recharge token is removed from every re- charging action at the end of each round."

You clearly only remove a recharge token from each of the special actions at the end of every round, not the end of each monster's turn. As this rule applies to the special actions only, basic actions would recharge normally at the end of each monster's turn and each monster (or henchmen group) would have their own "copy" of each basic action they were eligible for.

That said for the RAW, there are plenty of GMs who've posted on this who plan on using their own method of tracking individual creatures' actions so each can use them, or (which I might do in most cases to avoid the extra bookkeeping on my end) remove one recharge per action for a creature that could use the action. That way it delays ALL of them using it, but not when you have 4 beastmen waiting 3 turns to use the same 3 recharge action. At least if there's more of them one or maybe two would get to use it in a turn if it was the first thing used (this also assumes you're not grouping them into full blocks that activate at once (although in that case it'd get one use per turn vs. one use per 3 turns). yeah, I know this means one may use it every turn, but there's some slipperiness to the abstractions in WH3 each GM needs to decide on themselves.

Well of course people are free to houserule any change they want. I personally elect to have monsters share a single set of basic actions just like they share a single set of special actions, because that's just easier for me. However, I thought the OP was looking for the RAW not what I do, so that's the answer I gave.

Oh, indeed. Just sharing an alternate perspective on it (and suggesting some house rules) if he feels that's restrictive.

mac40k said:

I was trying to interpret the RAW, yeah. But I certainly appreciate the sharing of ideas and other ways of doings things. I'm completely new to this game, man - I'll take any advice that I can get