Been reading about the weapons in the rulebook...interesting stuff...but it seems to me that some of the parts were written by Tzeench himself!

On to the questions!

1. Range (p. 73)

First sentence hints that it is possible to fire a weapon beyond it's range with penalty, the second states that weapons are "ineffective" beyond their range ...meaning that they cannot be fired beyond their range?

2. Item quality Defensive (p. 74)

a) If a character wields a single defensive weapon does the defensive effect work? A player could argue that he is using the weapon in the off-hand and that his main weapon is unarmed.

b) If a character wields a defensive weapon in the off-hand and a shield in his main-hand does the defensive effect work?

c)What is a difference between wielding an object(weapon,shield) with an off-hand or a main-hand? Are there any penalties or bonuses?

3. Item quality Thrown (p. 74)

The first sentence refers to "fortune dice"...and it would mean that when making thrown attack you must always add Agility characteristic dice to dice pool, but you can choose between Strength or Agility fortune dice?

4. Weapon specializations

a) p.73 defines that weapon groups are used for specialization, p.19 lists options for Weapon skill and one of the options is hand weapons, but table on p. 74 shows that hand weapons are part of "Ordinary" group. Are "Ordinary" actually "Hand weapons" ?

b) Can a pc specialize in hand weapons and then in swords, and then finally in scimitar and all bonuses stack?

5. Spear (p.74, t. 9-5)

Perhaps my eyes are deceiving me, but looking at it's stats vs price, the spear looks like the best melee weapon of the game? At a first glance something seems wrong to me in the fact that Rapier has higher CR than Spear.....

6. Gauntlets (p.75)

Their description ends with a "....the count as light item." What does it mean, what effect "light item" has on gameplay?

7. Repeater Handgun(p.76, t. 9-6)

Shouldn't it be a Two-Handed weapon?

8. Blackpowder Weapons(p.76, t. 9-6)

I understand that they are rare and exotic weapons, but looking merely at their stats(especially unreliability) vs price they seem way to much expensive. For example take Long bow vs H. Long Rifle. Longbow is 37.5 times cheaper, it's ammo is 12 times cheaper. But comparing it's stats I se not that much difference. Am I missing something?

Feedback would be most appreciated.

xoxaxox said:

I'll just respond using the question numbers!

1. The rulebook is quite clear, weapons are ineffective beyond a certain range, unless a special action or ability states otherwise. In other words, assume they can't fire beyond that limit, but be aware that there are exceptions to that rule.
   
2. As long as the weapon is equipped I don't personally care much what hand it's in, just to avoid this kind of hassle. But per the RAW, it's only effective if used in the off-hand. However, there's really no strict distinction in most of the rulebook as to what is the main and off-hand weapon. Misfortune dice on the defensive side are quite insignificant, so I don't fret too much about them and let players use as many as seems reasonable.
   
3. No, first it says you can add Strength fortune dice to a thrown weapon. Ranged attacks use only Agility and Agility Fortune dice, hence this special quality makes it possible to add Strength Fortune dice to a Ranged Attack using a weapon with the Thrown special trait. In addition to that you can use Strength instead of Agility. In other words, you could roll:
   a. Agility + Agility Fortune dice
   b. Agility + Strength Fortune dice
   c. Strength + Agility Fortune dice
   d. Strength + Strength Fortune dice
   
4. The p. 19 specializations is not an exhaustive list, it's more like examples than the full list. A Hand Weapon is an Ordinary weapon, however a specialization in Hand Weapon would not apply to a Dagger. You'd have to specialize in Ordinary weapon to cover both Hand Weapon and Daggers and any other Ordinary weapon.
   
5. Spears are pretty great at killing opponents, as they are in real life. However, they're not all that great off the battle field. First, they're incredibly long, unwieldy and very conspicuous. You wouldn't get into an Inn with a Spear, but you would be able to walk in with a dagger or sword. It's a bit like an ak-47 is a great weapon, so why doesn't everyone carry around ak-47's then? Because there are trade-offs in terms of size and other benefits that cause people to choose other weapons. It's up to the GM to enforce these in the game, though. If your game will consist of being on a battlefield all the time the spear will be your friend through it all. Rappiers aren't that much deadlier than a spear unless used correctly, hence the higher boon requirement.
   
6. They probably meant to say "small item" instead of "light item" the guidelines for which are under Miscellaneous Items & Encumbrance on p.79. That seems to be what makes most sense.
   
7. Not necessarily, a handgun is by it's name something that can be held in one hand. Sure, it can also be extended to a repeater rifle or something more cumbersome, but generally it's primitive revolver design with revolving barrels instead of chambers. Like seen in this mini
   
   
8. That's exactly as it should be. If you were to compare a Ferrari on the stats alone you'd come across with various vehicles with better stats or similar stats at a much lower price point. Handguns are outside of the linear pricing curve you would expect based on their performance. There's a reason they're exotic, so before making price judgements on them look at other exotic goods in our world, like fancy super cars, hand made items or luxury watches as a comparison. Watches in particular are hundreds of times more expensive for less or same functionality.

Thanks for your reply!

I like your ideas about weapons having social effect, guess black powder weapons will give you bigger bonus to Intimidate check.

But I'm not still sure about thrown weapons. There are two sentences in the "Thrown" description, first sentence refers to dice pool and It mentions only fortune characteristic dice, second sentence refers to damage effect and states that you could choose between Strength and Agility. So it seems to me that it should work like this: "Dice pool"= Agility characteristic dice +(Agility fortune dice OR Strength fortune dice), "Damage" = Strength or Agility. I've sent a rules question about this to FFG, hopefully they will reply.

Okay for another take on your questions. Also I'd like to point out, the rule book is filled with, shall I say "Colorful" language, the folks who wrote the game took the time to write the rules with some flavor. Unfortunatley sometimes that flavor sometime is confusing.

1). The rule for range is, a weapon can fire with no penalty up to the range listed on the list. It cannot fire at all beyond that range. As with most/all games rules have exceptions, weapons like the longbow and slingstaff have a special quality listed saying that they can be used at upto extreme range if you add an additional purple die to the pool, this is an exception to the rule that they are usuable only upto long range. So the statements about range are 'colorfuly" explaining how range works and saying that there are exceptions.

2). My take on main hand vs off hand is whatever weapon/item you declare is in whatever hand you declare it to be in. Therefore if you decide to put a shield in your main hand and a defensive weapon in your off hand you would gain the benefit of both, however if you choose to make an attack, you have a shield in your main hand, and must use it to resolve the attack. Same goes for your other example of having a defensive weapon in your off hand and your main hand empty, thats fine, but all attacks you make are going to be unarmed attacks, unless the action card you use specifically states that you attack with your off hand. Now I tend to agree with Lex that an extra misfortue die or two, really isn't going to make too huge a difference so I'm not too picky about players trying to eek out an extra defense die or two.

3). I don't agree with Lex on this one.

Normal ranged attack = Agility stat dice + Agility fortune dice and Agility + weapon DR for damage.

A thrown weapon can use Strength fortune dice instead of Agi, also you can use Strength for damage instead of Agi, so a thrown attack looks like :

Agility stat dice + Agility OR Strength fortune dice, and Agility OR Strength + weapon DR for damage.

4). The specializations listed are guidelines, ideas, they should not be set in stone, or an exhaustive list. As a GM it is up to you to determine what a valid/resonable specialization is, and how it/they apply. It is up to the GM to determine if more than one speicialzation is allowed to apply, however the FAQ suggests that more than one speicialization is allowed to apply to a single check. To answer your question more directly, hand weapons is already a huge range of weapons, From Longswords, to a tree branch with a spike in it, all fall under the caveot of "Hand Weapon" so including handweapon in a larget subsect of weapons seems a bit generous, then again, dagger seems a bit small a grouping by iteself. So as a GM you have to decide if a character can have, Ordinary weapons, Hand Weapons, Swords, short sword, as speicialzations, and if he has all of them, when using a short sword, how many fortune dice does he get to add? One? Four?

5). Spears were a mainstay of battlefield weaponry for a very, very long time, infact the usage of bayonets in recent/modern day warfare are direct decentants of spear usage in battle. Spears are cheap, very effective, and quite easy to use, "pointy end goes into bad guy" and the long haft gave good leverage, and let the footman stay back as to not get so close to his enemies. They are also quite fast and allow for a rapid sucession of blows. The one thing I do not agree with in this games stats is, once a spear hit home, it was not all that easy to get it back out of said target, and then ceased to be a quick and easy weapon, the big technologic advantage that made most spears deadly was the "arrowhead" like design of the spearhead, this justifies the CR of 2, but they also were notorious for getting stuck in its vicitims. So I think the "Fast" quality should be removed from spears since it only comes into effect once you hit a target, and spears are only fast as long as you DON'T hit your target.

6). I again agree with Lex, since gauntlets fall under the encumberance of the armor they are a part of, they needed a speical exception if they were not part of a set of armor, and if they aren't they are a "light item" which, again agreeing with Lex I belive is supposed to be a "small item" as listed on page 79, and have an encumberance value of 1 or 2.

7). I actually agree with your concern on this one, the "Handgun" is a weapon which "... takes to two hands to wield." and has the two handed quality, the pistol is a one handed weapon. As such, the repeater handgun should have the same quality of two handed, and the repeater pistol one handed. The RAW currently say that the repeater handgun is not a two handed weapon, it is up to you and your group if you wish to go by the RAW or make the correction that seems to be needed.

8). Lex did a decent job of answering this one, firearms are more of a status symbol than effective weapon. typically a sword wound will flict more phyisical punishment than a bullet wound, but bullets have the advantage of being small and very fast, making them very hard to block. Also they are intimidating. Especially in a world were they are so rare, only those with massive resources to back them up posses them, and therefore carry a weight as a status symbol.

Hope these answers help.

I stand corrected on #3, BCA is completely right.

So you can roll one of these:
Agility + Agility Fortune Dice
Agility + Strength Fortune Dice

And for damage you can use one of these:
Agility + weapon DR
Strength + weapon DR

Regarding the Repeater Handgun, I see where the confusion arises. I was merely focusing on the Repeater handgun stats and description, without paying much attention to the Handgun stats and description. From a fluff perspective you can use it one-hand or two-hand, as shown in that WFB miniature, there are repeater handguns. Yet there's a Repeater Pistol, which seems to be the one-handed version. Most likely an oversight and both the description and the table need the two-handed trait added. Nice catch.

I've got a reply from FFG Jay Little regarding Thrown weapons:

" To answer your question regarding Thrown weapons: Unless a specific action card states otherwise, throwing a weapon uses Ballistic Skill, which is based on Agility.The player has the choice to use either fortune dice assigned to his Strength or fortune dice assigned to his Agility but he does not have the option to use Strength instead of Agility for the Ballistic Skill check.If the attack succeeds, the attacker can base the damage off either his Strength or Agility."

Finally I want thank everybody for their valuable insights...there are a few mysteries less now in the Old World...countless others remain but they are for players to solve.