How do you interpret the Wood Elf initiative bonus?

By player266669, in WFRP Rules Questions

Posted at

pumpkin said:

All of the bonuses provided by a Wood Elf's Nature Bond ability – both the initiative modifier and the skill modifier – are dependent on the character being in woodland terrain.

It's good to know that this was their intent - thanks for getting us an answer on that, pumpkin.

I reiterate that this rule needs to be errata'd. Note that this is different from a FAQ. A FAQ provides clarification on an unclear rule, an errata is a correction (though both GW and FFG tend to muddle the two together). The rule as written is grammatically incorrect given the intent of the designers.

@Fnord: Yes, the English degree comes into play a lot when reading these things. It also doesn't help that I do this sort of thing as part of my job anyways. gran_risa.gif

@pumpkin: When there is an issue with a rule being ambiguously worded, then yes I agree that examining the intent is useful. But in this case the wording of the rule is incompatible with the rule the designers wanted in the game. I realize 95% of the people reading the rule will think "It's just a comma, what is Haggard being so OCD about it for?" But grammatically it's the equivalent of someone claiming the sky is yellow when they really meant to say blue.

Posted at

Haggard said:

@pumpkin: When there is an issue with a rule being ambiguously worded, then yes I agree that examining the intent is useful. But in this case the wording of the rule is incompatible with the rule the designers wanted in the game. I realize 95% of the people reading the rule will think "It's just a comma, what is Haggard being so OCD about it for?" But grammatically it's the equivalent of someone claiming the sky is yellow when they really meant to say blue.

Yer, I agree with you and understand completely the grammatic nuances. When I read the rule I simply decided that it was probably only applicable when in a woodland setting because if the initiative bonus had been permanent it would have been a seperate sentence rather than included within the same (grammatically incorrect) sentence as the observation and stealth bonuses, and also that as it was called Natures' bond that this further backed up the the idea of all bonuses only applying during a woodland setting, and I felt the intent of the rule was to show that while in the wilds Wood Elves had a clear advantage, but when placed in a middle of a city they felt uncomfortable and out of their depth.

It could (and has) been read completely differently by different people but the good thing is I don't think it would be a game breaker no matter how people read the rule.