You know what would sort out the difficulty level and the maths in all this?

Is simply to manufacture new dices. Change the symbols on them.
FFG is good in marketing they could simply call this something like "expert dices"
And this would solve everything simply without us trying to sort out solutions for the maths to work etc...

They could for example:
on blue dices take out one success or boon.
on green dices take out one success
on red dices take out the side where you have 2 boons and replace it by a success and an exertion
on black dices add a challenge
purple dices would stay as they are. (or simply removing on a face a 2 challenge so that would make sense to add more purple dices as challenge)

I did not check the maths here or anything. Its like a first sketchy idea.

voilà!

We may see new dice in the future because one of the previews sort of hinted at that. But I very much doubt they will redo the current dice.

If the core success rate is too much for you the most simple solution is to add challenges on a chaos star. For instance:

Chaos star = chaos star + 2 challenges + reroll another purple die

This gives a better (imo) success rate curve and the reroll adds a lot especially when more dice are added. With 4 purple dice the chance for a reroll is over 40%

It also gives a more varied result. On average a chaos star will give 3 challenges with this syetm, but it could just as well give 2 challenges and 2 banes or 4 challenges or another reroll.

You can change that without the need to change much else. It's a simple solution that works pretty well. I initially tried adding more dice to the pool to increase difficulty but that game a lot of other balance issues (with defence cards in particular).

But you could try that for a few sessions and see how it works out.

Gallows said:

Jebus that seems a little steep to me..?

I agree with you that it seems to be relatively easy to achieve a basic success but there is a 1 in 8 chance on most rolls that it all goes horribly, horribly wrong using this way. Unless your playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Roll six characters up, you'll need 'em Edition this seems real harsh

Perhaps count it as two challenges as well as a bane if there is no chaos star result on the card? This would reduce the chance of 'i succeeded really well, but still crippled myself in the process' rolls and adjust the difficulty curve upwards.

Zagor said:

It's not that bad. Did some math on it yesterday and someone with 6 in a characteristic, 3 skill, 3 fortune dice and 2 black added to the pool would still have just over 50% chance to succed at a 4d task (4 challenge dice).

But it's easily scalable. You can just let the star count for 1 challenge and a reroll or 1 and no reroll, 2 and no reroll or whatever you find gives the best success rate.

We played 2 sessions using even more harsh rules where every symbol on the challenge die counted as a challenge. The banes were both banes and challenges, the chaos star was one challenge and a reroll. It was a bit too much for our liking, but not so much because of the lower success rate, but because the banes counting as both challenges and banes wasn't as fun. But it worked pretty well (characters till only having 1 point in skills then).

This new rule we use is not nearly as harsh and leaves the banes just as banes.

But no matter what, the best way to influence the success rate is to change how the challenge die works. It's the solution that gives the least undesirable side effects.

wow. but who has 6 in a characteristic? one of my dwarf PC's has 5 which is really a bit over the top (thankfully it will take him a really long time to get to 6). when you have 6 in a stat you should be able to hit almost all of the time since it is the peak of your abilities. 50% hit chance is more fitting for someone with a 3 stat. if you keep running around and noone hits it quickly boils into a stalemate and players get bored as they are just waiting for the next time someone hits (which can be a long time if you are 4 players). In my experience...

Yesterday we had a lot of combat and I think the hit ratio was fine. it was probably around 65-75%. And the necromancer only got of two spells in about 7 or 8 rounds of combat due to bad rolling. and he was very skilled. 4 stat, fortune and expertise + ACE.

Lucas Adorn said:

Hey 50% hit chance against someone blowing ALL his improved defence card is a pretty good chance if you ask me! His chance to hit someone not using defence cards is 96%

Remember you can only use defence cards every second round, so next round he will have a sure 96% chance to hit.

In much the same way that I really like my players to feel awesome when they roll Sigmar's Comet, I like them to feel nervous whenever a Chaos Star comes up. Thus, I've taken the cue from the Comet result and applied it to how I use Chaos Stars as a GM.

For each Chaos Star that comes up that doesn't trigger a specific effect from a card or miscast, I choose whether to treat it as a Challenge, a Bane or something else appropriately grim. That way, the players never quite know what to expect...they just know that it's not going to be good. I also like the element of choice it provides, the same way a Comet gives the players a variety of options. I can tweak it to best fit the drama of the scene.

One example I've used is for weapon breakage. I had a dwarf soldier who hit really hard on an attack with his dual hammers but rolled a Chaos Star. He had too many Successes for an extra Challenge to matter and too many Boons for a Bane to do anything, so I left those results alone and instead described how he hit so hard (killing the armored target with a single blow) that the haft of one hammer splintered into tiny fragments. That changed the dynamic of the combat as he suddenly had to improvise to replace his lost weapon and it made it memorable for the player.

Chaos Stars can be used to add a little extra "flavor" to the game when used creatively. I tend to view them as a narrative cue more than a "it does this and this only" type result. Likewise, Sigmar's Comets are regarded similarly in my games.

YMMV.

Bloody Sun Boy said:

I couldn't agree more, it gives an opportunity to take advantage of the dice pool mechanic adding flavour to the rolls.

A simple fix involving narrative makes more sense in my gaming group as opposed to looking at the math. Numbers remind me to much of work. Symbols and narrative are fun!