I wanted to get everyone's take on designing encounters for WHFRP? I come from a long running D&D background, most recently with 4E since launch. Designing Encounters in 4E may be a bit tedious, but at least it was easy to tell with my XP budget how hard or easy an encounter might be.

• The ranking of each monster states in ToA that its not meant to be a measure against PCs but rather a pecking order for monsters which doesn't help me much. Has anyone come up with any formulas for X number of monster of level Y for every average rank of PCs?
• Similarly, how do Henchman factor in, in-terms of level, number, etc.
• Have people found a good balance that generates interesting encounters they'd be willing to share? For example, 4E emphasizes the use minions (henchman basically)+some bigger baddies that are perhaps melee based while also working in some ranged skirmishers or controllers... or does WHFRP work better when both sides close the gap and just wail on each other (also compelling in a way)

Any and all insight is greatly appreciated.

The reason there are no encounter building formulas in the game is because it is not balanced as 4e is. In this game it is very possible to have a group full of social-focused characters who would find a couple goblins challenging. On the reverse of that, you could have a party full of troll slayers that could probably take on a troll and win right out of the gate. D&D4e has very focused classes (and the powers are largely mechanically similar between said classes), and they right out of the gate pretty much assume 1 striker, defender, leader, and controller, and balance their encounters around that assumption. WFRP3 makes no such assumption, so we don't have any sort of hard laws in the system about encounter design.

Ultimately, it is going to depend on your group of characters. You will have to look at their stats and how they play, and try to find the appropriate challenge. It may take some time to find that balance, which is why the book includes suggestions on how to tinker with encounters on the fly. D&D4e has an amazing encounter building system, while WFRP3 (by virtue of it's very design) cannot have a similar system. This is one area where the game lacks, but it is justified in my opinion, because it allows the system to keep the careers intact that are not focused on combat.

Good answer, thanks. Its funny, my old school DMing style was nothing but abstract movement and on the fly encounter design... and 1.5 years of 4E has trained that outta me... gotta get back into my old fighting form. Time for some training montage music and some Rocky posters.

Thanks for your input.

I don't buy the "you can't balance it" argument (no offense).

The standard should be this:

Four Characters

Two Warrior-types (one may be a Ranger-type)

Two Social Types (One Wizard or Priest type)

Balance from there

jh

It's true that they could establish the idea of a "standard party" and provide some encounter building tools from there, but I just see it as a bit counterproductive. One of my gripes with D&D4e, for example, is that both my players and I feel that we aren't able to play it properly unless each role is filled. This probably isn't the case I do realize, but having the idea of a "standard party" can serve to lead people to want to have a standard party, regardless of what they may have rolled to begin with. Not to mention the random character creation system could cause issues here too.

This is an area where WFRP has always been vague, so in retrospect I don't necessarily see it as a shortcoming in this system. Really, IMO, 4e is the only game that has ever managed to make encounter design balanced, easy, and right. It is still possible that we may see WFRP3 try to move towards this (after all, we've yet to get a monster supplement, nor see if it's in the GM toolkit), but personally I hope they do not. That being said, given how fresh and interesting I think a lot of the ideas in WFRP3 are, their take on this could prove interesting. Time will tell.

Agreed regarding D&D. They have those specific roles where if one wants to "play properly" (IMO "powergamer it"..which is what it is designed for), then you've got to have each of those roles. Having each role allows one to not to have to think. The Fighter can stop all monsters in their tracks, while the rest mop up in their own rights..but that game is heavy into minatures wargaming and ruling-to-death-social-encounters so perhap's its appropriate..and perhaps why I abandoned that brand after 30 years of playing it.

I think what GM's here simply want is some kind of system where they can figure: "In a toe to toe fight, how many gruntlings can I throw at the party to make it 51% in the party's favor and not TPK them." I don't think that's too much to ask of FFG to create some kind of system for that. Along the lines of what youre getting at is that you don't want any of your players or groups forced into roles..correct..with a system where you can actually modify things on the fly, that works better.

Right now, I think players feel like they can't waste their time with a social character because they're GOING to get rendered limb from limb whenever a combat comes up because he knows dang well that the GM HAS NO IDEA what a "1% in the favor of the PC's" -type encounter even is. (Unless I missed that page in the GM's guide..and I'll admit I didn't read that book very well).

I hear you though. Nobody wants to be forced into D&D type roles. As long as it's understood that the GM actually has the tool to know how to reasonably modify it for a group of 2 warriors/2 social, then we're fine. If a GM runs a scenario (KARAK AZGAL for example) and doesn't have any idea how to modify it up or down by party, then we're stuck.

Personally, I liked the old 3.5E D&D CR/EL system. I thought it was smart.

jh

The CR/EL system worked because it matched the NPC and PC data up. Everything in 3.5 was identical on both sides of the screen. With 4e and WH3 there isn't parity in how the statlines are worked out. Monsters can't change their stances, they have a dice pool that's shared across multiple creatures, they don't recharge actions individually, they aren't given equipment, just damage/defense/soak values, and so forth. It's not balanceable the same way as 3.5 was.

That said, the streamlining of the NPCs should allow for some specificity in how they stack up against the players rather than the skull rating system.

But, I'm sticking with what I'd posted on this before, I'll write the adventure and let the players use their heads on whether or not they want to get stuck in with something they shouldn't be messing with or not. Unlike 3.5 and 4e WH3 isn't all about combat, so there are alternatives t fighting every monster you see, and there's always going and getting help.