The Core Rulebook offers the worst example of combat ever, I think there are typos, because that check looks impossible to achieve. You know, the one with the elf and the beast man. I'm still confused about how combat works? I want to GM this game, but I'm hung up on two things. One, is melee combat. Perhaps its just me not being able to let go of D&D style of play. Can someone please provide an example of how a Melee Combat encounter takes place?

Two, Fortune Points and the concept of Refresh is eluding me. Each character has a max fortune points of 3 beginning each session? Also, say I have a party of 3 players, so their Party Sheet also starts with 3 fortune points in a reserve? But, they can't take those fortune points out of the reserve? Yet, when I give fortune points out, they go right to the party sheet and they take and extras out? This concept is very confusing to me. Please help me understand in simpler terms or example?

Thank you all for your help!

GalaxyUC said:

Each player starts each session with 3 Fortune Points. The party sheet normally starts empty (though you're free to put some there).

Whenever you award a Fortune Point, you don't hand it to a player but put it on the party sheet.

When the pool of Fortune Points on the party sheet equals the number of players, the Fortune Points distribute. Each player who has less than 3 Fortune Points takes one. Each player who has 3 Fortune Points but can spend the extra one immediately (such as on removing a refresh token) can take it and spend it. Then any that weren't taken go back to the party sheet pool.

GalaxyUC said:

Hmm. I thought the example was quite good. I am wondering what you mean by "that check looks impossible to achieve". Do you mean it seems impossible to figure out what dice go in the pool, or it seems impossible to pass the check?

Considering that there is only 1 Challenge Dice and 1 Misfortune Dice, how does that check come up with 3 Banes and a Challenge? I've looked at the dice and just don't see how this combination is possible. It's likely that I'm missing something here. Please enlighten me.

Is it me, being a D&D player, not being able to let go of the concept of hitting on a certain number that is rolled for?

GalaxyUC said:

Ah ha, I see what you're saying. I hadn't noticed that, but it seems to be a typo; you could end up with two banes and a challenge, which would net you a single bane in the end; not enough to activate the Accurate Shot card's penalty. Seems like they modified the results to show what bad things could happen, and forgot to add in an additional Misfortune die to the original dice pool.

As far as the concept of hitting on a certain number, it shouldn't be hard to let go of. The results in this game are very easy to get the hang of; provided you have more hammers than crossed swords, you hit. It's much easier than calculating a to-hit number and keeping in mind what that number is for each of the enemies you face... and it's far easier to take care of than THAC0.

The rulebook does outline how a combat generally runs though. Keep that one issue in mind (And now I'm looking for more typos) and you should get the hang of combat very quickly. I managed to get a group of three players who had never played RPGs of any kind before understanding the combat system pretty well within 15 minutes with some hands-on time. Get some sample enemies out and try a few dry runs, it'll start to make sense.

Darrett said:

They didn't forget. The fight happens just outside Stormdorf, so there's an extra misfortune die because it's raining. But it's always raining in Stormdorf, so they didn't think it was worth mentioning.

When I saw this thread, I thought, "surely one of the extremely clever and creative people on this forum will take the opportunity to post a good play-by-play as an instructive example." C'mon people!

djpeterso23662 said:

I actually started doing that, but I realized that a lot of what I was putting in was just another wording of what is in the rulebook. If I get a spare half hour or so I could whip something up, but I guess I just don't see how the rulebook could fail to show the example.

Well, the example, shows a player shooting an arrow at a Beastman. Ok, what I guess I'm looking for, is an engagement involving two or more using Swords/Weapon Skill/Strength. As a GM, what does an combat example look like from the other side? I want to see the Beastman hit that Elf and see what happens. I'm still getting used to the fact that there is not Target number the player needs to get in order to score a hit. It's not about how good the monster is at Defense, it seems its more about how good the player is at hitting.

Combat seems like it would move at a crawl compared to D&D 4E, what with assembling these Die Pools, then sifting for results instead of just adding, then referencing the card to see any other effects, then doing damage. Though I did read about henchmen and found that a great concept. I believe me, I really want to use this system, as I have abandoned D&D and love FFG products. Please let me see what combat looks like from the GM's perspective.

It moves pretty fast. What I'm finding is that as the GM I'm actually moving faster than the players.

I already have an idea of what needs to move next on Initiative, so that's a no-brainer.

Then I try to keep at least the highest stat in blue dice near me (less collecting). Grab the one challenge die and whatever difficulty dice I need and give the guys a chance to active defense. Throw the dice and rack up the results.

We all find in our group that pairing canceling dice and removing them from the roll makes things move faster. So say I had 3 successes, 2 faliures, a bane and two boons I'd simply yank out the 2 success/failure, and bane/boon and see what was left over.

The only time I slow down is deciding how much of my A/C/E pool to use (although the limitations on what can be used when makes it a bit easier).

GalaxyUC said:

The rulebook's poorly organized, and it comes off looking more complicated than it actually is. It plays much faster than it looks. Roll up some sample dice pools, and you'll get a feel for it. Once you get the hang of knowing what symbols cancel each other out, reading the dice becomes lightning fast.

My 4th Ed D&D experience is pretty limited, but I can tell you that the current edition of WFRP plays faster than 3.X D&D. It's also faster than most White Wolf games, Chaosium games, and things like 7th Sea. Taking nearly all the math out of rolls makes up for whatever time is lost in assembling dice pools. (And in the case of WOD, Scion, 7th Sea, etc, those games already require dice pools so you're only coming out ahead.)

WFRP 3rd is a bit more crunchy than most of the indy game titles (Wushu, Risus, PDQ#, etc) however, and thus runs slower mostly by virtue of having more options.

In my experience, the biggest thing slowing down WFRP 3rd Ed is analysis paralysis when it comes to choosing the right action for the job. The solution to that is probably to purchase as few actions at character creation as possible. That way you'll get comfortable reading and using the cards before you have to start learning to compare them and trying figure out which is better in specific situations.

Here's an example combat scenario that I devised to try and clarify the rules for combat:

The party consists of two players: a human bounty hunter and another human who is a mercenary.

The two characters are moving through some woods, attempting to locate an abandoned cottage somewhere therein. Along the way the GM has them roll an Observation check with an Average (2d) difficulty level. The bounty hunter player is trained in Observation and has an Intelligence of 3 and is deemed to be one point into a Conservative stance by the GM due to the fact that he has stated that he is being cautious as he moves through the woods. He therefore rolls 2 purple challenge dice, 2 blue characteristic dice, 1 green conservative die, and 1 yellow expertise die. He rolls a total of 1 bane, 1 challenge, 1 boon and 2 successes. After cancelling out the bane and the boon and one of the challenges with one of the successes he is left with 1 success remaining, meaning he passes the skill test. The GM informs him that he hears sounds from behind some trees a short distance ahead of them. Moving very cautiously the two players move towards the sound and, peeking from behind a large tree, they spot two goblins eating a deer rather noisily.

At this point initiative is rolled. The players will roll individually and the goblins will do so as well. This has been determined by the GM based on the fact that it is a small fight and the goblins are not henchmen. The players will roll Agility checks with no purple challenge dice and the number of successes that they roll determines their 'initiative roll'. The goblins will make Agility checks as well, but will add 2 purple dice to their roll as they are not aware of their attackers. This is how the system handles 'surprise'. Assuming total rolls of 4 successes for the mercenary, 1 for the bounty hunter, 1 for one of the goblins and 0 for the other goblin, the initiative order would go: player, player, goblin, goblin. Note that ties are always simply broken in the players favour. Also note that the order does not go: mercenary, bounty hunter, goblin 1, goblin 2. On any given turn either player could go first and either goblin could do the same when their initiatives come up.

The first token up on the initiative tracker belongs to the players so the bounty hunter decides to take his turn. First, he uses his free stance adjustment to move to a 2 point conservative stance (the GM has determined that both players started in a 1 point conservative stance due to the nature of their approach on the goblins). Loading his crossbow (the crossbow requires its user to use the 'Reload' manoeuvre or add one challenge die to attack rolls with it. This must be done even on the first turn of an encounter) and entering a crouched stance (fluff by the player, but the GM could award a fortune dice to his attack for a 'situational modifier' if he wished) he takes aim (fluff) and fires, using his 'Accurate Shot' action card. He chooses to suffer 1 point of stress to add an extra fortune die to his roll, as per the 'Special' line of the 'Accurate Shot' card. He rolls 1 fortune die for the stress he just suffered, 1 expertise die as he is trained in Ballistic Skill, 2 characteristic dice and 2 conservative dice (his Agility is 4) as well as 1 challenge die (because it is a standard difficulty attack) and no misfortune dice since goblins have a 0 defence value. The GM is nice and tosses in an extra fortune die due to the crouched position and the fact that he has the time to line up his shot. The bounty hunter rolls a grand total (after cancelling opposite effects) of 2 successes and 2 boons. He uses the 'Recover 1 stress' option of the 'Accurate Shot' card with his two boons, and can use the 1 success line of the card for the successes he rolled, thus hitting and doing standard damage. A crossbow does 6 damage and the bounty hunter adds his Agility, giving the attack a total of 10 potential damage. From this the goblins Toughness of 3 and his Soak value of 1 are subtracted, leaving 6 wounds taken by the goblin. This goblin now has 3 wounds remaining. The player puts 6 recharge tokens on his 'Accurate Shot' card since it was successfully used (action cards do not need to recharge if they are not successful). The bounty hunter player ends his turn and turns over his activation token on his stance meter, indicating that he has gone this round. In this end of turn phase he also removes a tracking token from any recharging cards, which at the moment is only the 'Accurate Shot' card he just used (yes, tokens are removed from cards that have been used the same turn).

The second token on the initiative is also a player token, and as the only remaining player to not have gone this round is the mercenary, he takes his turn now. He chooses to move his stance meter back to neutral with his free move (it is also starting at 1 Conservative) and suffers 1 stress to move it to 1 point into a Reckless stance. The mercenary uses his free manoeuvre to draw the greatsword slung across his back. He suffers one fatigue to use a manoeuvre to move from the tree he was hidden behind to engage the uninjured goblin. This is one manoeuvre as he was already considered to be in close range. Yelling a battle cry and leaping at the surprised and terrified goblin the mercenary attempts to strike a 'Thunderous Blow' (by, oddly enough, using his 'Thunderous Blow' action card). The mercenary is trained in Weapon Skill, has a specialization in Great Weapons and has a Strength of 4. He rolls 3 characteristic dice, 1 reckless die, 1 fortune die (for the specialization) and 1 expertise die (for the skill training). He wants this fight over quickly and so uses his career ability to add an additional expertise die to the roll. He also rolls 1 challenge die because it is a standard difficulty attack. His total roll (after cancellations) gives him 4 successes, 2 boons and a Sigmar's Comet. The successes allow him to use the 2 success line which does normal damage with 1 critical wound. He uses the 2 boons to remove 1 fatigue from himself (the universal use of boons) and the Sigmar's Comet to activate the special ability of the action card which does extra damage equal to the weapon's damage rating. The total potential damage to the goblin is 7 for the great weapon's damage rating + 4 for the character's Strength + 7 for the special effect of the Sigmar's Hammer, giving a grand total of 18, one of which is a critical wound (though mathematicians out there may realize that this will not really matter in a second). Subtracting the Toughness and Soak of the goblin (4 total points) leaves it with 14 wounds, which is more than the 9 it actually has, so he is cleaved in twain by the mercenary's greatsword. 3 recharge tokens are added to the 'Thunderous Blow' action card. The mercenary does not feel like allowing the second goblin a chance to escape so he suffers 1 fatigue to use a manoeuvre to move to engaged with the now injured, blood soaked and terrified goblin. The mercenary ends his turn here and removes 1 recharge token from his 'Thunderous Blow' action card and turns his activation token over.

The only person who hasn't gone yet is the poor goblin, so it is now his turn. Realistically, I believe a GM would say that the goblin would attempt to flee, and unless it had some trick up its sleeve the players could simply agree that he is chased down and killed as that would not really need to be played out; however, given that examples of enemies attacking were requested, here goes the turn of the bravest goblin in all of the Old World! The goblin summons up all of his courage and pulls a crude, rusted hatchet from his belt with his free manoeuvre. He screams something almost incomprehensibly at the mercenary about ruined deer meat and tries to 'Crush 'em Good!' with his weapon. The mercenary player declares that he will attempt to 'Dodge' and 'Parry' the incoming attack, adding 2 recharge tokens to each of his cards. The goblin uses his 2 Aggression dice and his 1 Expertise die, given that he will unlikely live much longer to use them later. The total dice rolled for the gobbo are: 2 characteristic dice and 1 reckless die for his Strength and stance (given the fact that the GM has decided that this particular gobbo is most certainly not a regular goblin and not in a conservative stance), 2 fortune die for the Aggression spent, 1 expertise die for the Expertise spent and finally 2 misfortune dice for the active defences of the mercenary and 1 challenge die because it is an attack. His total roll comes to 3 successes and 1 boon. This allows him to use the 3 success line which does +4 damage (and doesn't allow the 'attacker' to use active defences until its next turn, though I feel that should be 'target') as well as the one boon ability of the action to do an additional 2 points of damage, though the goblin also takes a point of damage from the exertion, leaving him with 2. His total damage is: 4 base + 4 for the 3 successes + 2 for the boon, giving a total of 10 potential damage. Pretty darn good for a riled up goblin! From this 10, 4 is subtracted for the mercenary's Toughness as well as 2 more for his leather armour, leaving a total of 4 wounds taken by the mercenary. The GM adds 4 recharge tokens to the 'Crush 'em Good' action. Note that this means that it is recharging for all greenskins that can use it, not just the one who did use it. I should note that I do not play with this rule and give individual enemies their own recharge pools, but this is not the rules as written and does make enemies a little more deadly. The goblin ends his turn by removing a recharge token from the ‘Crush ‘em Good!’ action, turning his activation token over and also by taunting the mercenary as a final act of defiance.

The combat should wrap up pretty quickly at this point (most likely with a crossbow bolt being fired into the goblin, though I should note that a misfortune die for firing into the engagement would not be uncalled for, as well as some interesting possibilities for a chaos star...), so I won't finish the details of it, but at the start of the new round everyone’s activation tokens are flipped back over and turn order starts from the beginning of the initiative tracker again.

I hope this was a decent example of combat for you and that you can get the hang of it quickly. It is quite an elegant system once you get comfortable with it.

Forgot to add 3 extra damage for the goblins strength in my combat example above. Total damage potential should be 13 and total damage after soak to the mercenary should be 7.

A very nice combat example Yupsate!

I found myself cheering for the "bravest goblin in all of the Old World" towards the end

Just a small comment, I know this is just an example, but one thing that I as GM would have done to ramp up the difficulty of the encounter slightly is to let the goblins use some active defenses. Also, the ACE budget can be used to make things harder for the PCs as well. It's pretty clear for both the GM and the goblins that they will not survive many hits from the PC's, thus it's tactically better for the goblins to use their aggression dice on the defense (adding misfortune to the PC attacks). I would probably also allow them to spend cunning dice to add misfortune on the Observation check in the beginning.