With the way third edition handles abstract locations and larger battlefields how is the dungeon crawl affected? I haven't played yet and am following closely to this system because i would eventually like to get a groupi together.

Are dungeon crawls full uf mystery and suspense with good combats or are they more handled in story mode?

The game is not really based on dungeon crawls, although it could be done. The combats are more abstract. No maps are factored into the game, although I'm sure you could come up with something. I remember others talking about it on these boards that they were converting the game to a tactical map.

Based on how the game is written, maps could be used, but not for character placement or tactical strategy. It's geared more for point of reference only if you use a map.

I'd say RAW, this 3rd edition lends itself to story mode dungeon crawls if that is your fancy. Where Warhammer Fantasy excels in prior editions is in City based games and wilderness adventures. I don't think too many dungeon crawls were being written for it. Possibly that was also done to distance itself from D&D.

There was one exception in 2nd Edition of WFRP that I know of off of the top of my head. Karak Azgal for 2nd edition was a Dwarven City supplement with a series of mines below the city that could be adventured in, but the Dwarves took a hefty toll on any treasures that came up. Adventurers would lose a good deal of the stuff they hauled up since if it was in the mines, it had to be dwarven, right? Instead you were paid a finders fee for digging up their treasure. Not so appealing for an adventuring party. Also, if any of the items had a family crest or emblem on it, it went to that family straight away with no recompense to the adventurers but what kindness the family receiving the item showed towards your party. Good luck getting Gromril or Magic Items out of there too. If you wanted to keep anything of value, you had to smuggle it out.

There is a realism to this setting that doesn't exist in most. There were rules to actually cover how far the dwarves would go to search you as you returned from the mines and abandoned parts of the settlement as well as rules for trying to smuggle treasures out.

Pretty good stuff, but I digress.

Needless to say, RAW I'd say you're stuck in story mode for dungeon crawls.

Lure of the Lich Lord for 2nd ed is a stright and rather realistc dungeon crawl for 2nd ed. There is also a Dungeon Crawl at the end of the Thousand Thrones campaign.

1st ed had one or two crawls as well, most notably The Web of Eldaw, The Floating Gardens of Bahb-Elonn, Terror in the Dark and large segments of the Doomstones Campaign.

There are also a plethora of classic Warhammer Dungeon Crawls written for Advanced Heroquest and Warhammer Quest.

I dont really see any issue with running any of thouse in 3rd ed, indeed i suspect it might be something it is actually better at than prior editions.

jadrax said:

This begs the question - will it be viable to transfer your PCs to a Descent setting for running your dungeon crawls?

Surely the people at FF must have considered this at some stage.

The Expanding Man said:

Firstly, Arrggghhhhh ;o)

Secondly, I have never played Descent so I have no idea how similar the two games actually are.

Personally I've never liked dungeon crawls in any edition of WFRP - it's kind of missing the strengths of the setting, which are plot, atmosphere and realism (to a point, anyway). Damage in 2nd ed made more than one combat in a short space of time potentially really really deadly, and if you weren't at least a little skilled in disarming traps I wouldn't go near a tomb of a Lich Lord.

The Expanding Man said:

It does? I'm not getting that from the previous posting.

However, while I do like Descent, if that's what you're looking for then why not just play descent? There is a campaign system with that game in Road To Legend and in Sea of Blood. Overall, that's a great game too. If you had the game already and were using a 2nd Edition WFRP style combat system you could absolutely incorporate the mapping pieces in Descent for your game.

With the abstract range system in WFRP 3e, location in a dungeon really isn't a necessary visual anymore. You just place the appropriate location card down and put everyone it the relative starting range of the combat.

As I mentioned in an earlier thread about this same subject: I think that this can work EASILY. Just use more specific location cards (that you can come up with) for specific rooms and hallways. Like the "Hall of spear Traps", or the "Collonade", or the 'Evil Altar" or even the "rope bridge over a river of lava" etc...

Also, generating a Chaos Star creates a suitable hazard depending on the room: cave in, pit trap, poisonous mold, alarm sounds off etc...

Conversely, generating a Twin Tailed Comet generates treasure, secret doors, levers to disarm traps in the next room etc...

EDIT: Come to think of it, I think that I'm going to start a thread in the Game Master's sub-forum all about locations and traps that can be used in dungeon crawls. Like it or not, everyone likes a good ol' dungeon crawl once in a while...

I find that this edition is perfectly suited to dungeon crawls and the abstract movement is part of the reason why. The chaos stars offer great opportunities to inject environmental problems into your dungeon from random rock falls, sudden pit traps etc.... but it's the abstract movement that I like for it.

Picture this:

GM; You hear noises ahead of you from around the next bend

Players: We cautiously approach (skill checks whatever)

GM: You turn the corner and catch some Orcs off-gaurd playing bones.

GM: You are at close range.

Then go from there. No need to do the whole they are 10' ahead of you crap. You can still use measurements for mapping if you want. But when it comes to actually defining encounters the narrative movement is more realistic to how a character would perceive a situation anyway. Characters don't think oh he's 10' away they just know "Yeah I can hurl a dagger at him from here".

Just as an aside: I assume the Orcs playing "Bones" are beating each other over the head with bones. That's a Warhammer Orc game.

Darrett said:

Pretty much. Picture a game of bloody knuckles only with clubs.

As much as I bash D&D, I'm really of the opinion that for dungeon crawls, it's typically the preferable system (after all, the system is largely designed around dungeon crawls, for better or worse, so it's fairly specialized towards this end). WH3e is fairly abstracted and story driven, which for a traditional dungeon crawl may not be ideal. This isn't to say that dungeon crawls can't exist in WH3e, but it will certainly have a different feel than what many would consider the typical experience.

Not that this is a bad thing, but you have to balance out what your group wants, and take into account that in WH the system is much more lethal. A player wouldn't have much fun if they rushed into a room with a chest only to be gutted by a band of orcs, and his companions opened the chest to find it was filled with routine supplies the orcs had raided from a caravan. The lack of constant magic items etc. gives a less of a carrot, so really players will only go into a dungeon if there's a specific reason to (some D&D games work like this as well). But like anything else RPG related, it's completely subjective and each GM will have their own opinion on the matter.

Honestly, I still like the occasional dungeon romp, but I prefer Descent over either of these systems for it

The point being that if you want to run dungeon crawls you can, there is nothing in WFRP 3 that prevents it. You just have to keep in mind the type of game, letheality, magic, etc.... and run your romps accordingly. You can't take a D&D style dungeon romp and it directly into WFRP 3 or any other system for that matter. The same way that taking The Enemy Within Campaign from 1e and dropping it directly into D&D would make any sense. It's all about understanding the game and the players and building things accordingly.

Ultimately if you are sending players into a dungeon there should be a reason why. If you want to keep your world more magic lean then D&D then gold is still a great motivator but so is the hing of the 1 magic item at the bottom or perhaps some stash of master craftsman material or some other MacGuffin. If it's just to give them a place to kill things then you don't need a dungeon to do that. If you create the dungeon with some reason behind it other then just a holding cell for monsters to kill with no ecology behind it. WFRP is more grounded then D&D so your settings should be too.