Hello all,

I got the game on the weekend and read through the rules sections of all four books. I really like a lot of what I read, but one thing that has me concerned (especially for my play group) is vertical advancement. By this I mean, as your character ranks up, there is little in the way of increases in power of thier actions or abilities. To give an example, in D&D your powers do more damage or have longer durations. It seems to me that a rank 1 swordmaster will do roughly the same damage as a rank 5 swordmaster. Now I noticed some actions have a rank, which is a step in the right direction, although (without searching through the cards) I cannot say if they are much stronger. On top of this, monsters do not seem to scale by rank so you have the same monsters at each rank.

I guess me and my friends come from a D&D background where we like to see our power increasing, even if our challenges are increasing with us; effectively balancing it out.

I am hoping that anyone who has played the game could comment on how the leveling up process feels and what they like about the way it currently is.

Thanks,

Korvanus

While I agree that the high rank stuff is kind of missing from the current rules I think you might have missed some things.

The power of a character will go up immensely with rank since each rank allows you to train a skill further. You won't be able to buy more potent actions (well, at least not using the current ruleset with the exception being spells/blessings) for higher ranks, that is very different from DnD of course, but the game is very different from DnD in many respects. That the DnD rule system scales power using better and better actions doesnt't mean that WHFRP has to use the same mechanic.

A rank 5 swordmaster can possibly have a total of 5 expertise dice on every combat test he makes (if he has trained weapon skill at every rank). Most (well, all I think) actions when powered by 5 expertise dice are a great deal more powerful than when used with only one expertise die. Furthermore, a rank 5 character will have a lot more stance pieces so can possibly roll 4-5 conservative/reckless dice, compared with 1-2 for the starting character. The rank 5 character has a total of 50 advances, some of these will have been spent on increasing characteristics, and adding wounds. This makes the character a lot more powerful in many respects.

He will also probably be a lot more versatile than the rank 1 character. Perhaps the swordmaster has branched out and has been an Envoy for one career. I don't really play DnD so take it for what it's worth, but from what I've seen DnD seems much more class-based than WHFRP is. In DnD your class (possibly multiclassed/hybridized or whatever they call it nowadays ) determines everything your character can do. This is not at all the case in WHFRP 3ed. This makes it a lot easier to create complex characters that are very powerful in many ways (not just combat prowess).

Thanks for the reply gruntl,

I agree that warhammer is not the same as D&D and I embrace that, for the most part. The strengths of this system are flexibility (aka horizontal advancement). I find this to be a great thing as it opens up roleplaying and mechanics that mesh.

I am not sure how having more expertise dice will make a character more powerful per say, since you can still only choose one success line from an action. So if you get 3 successes or 10 sucesses, it makes no difference to the damage you deal (for example). While you may get more boons, these are likewise restricted.

I absolutely agree with Gruntl - the success rates rise significantly with training and characteristic upgrades. The damage output also increases over time but don't expect it to ever get more than twice of what you had in the beginning.

Yet if your group is looking for experience similar to D&D, you'll be very disappointed. Instead you may convince them to look into this game as something new and different - don't expect it to be in any way similar to D&D, don't compare it to D&D and don't try to emulate D&D. Just read and consider everything in the Tome of Adventure, and get in the game without any prejudice.

Thanks for the reply lffo,

Very sound advice. Perhaps I am underestimating my friends.

My plan is to run a campaign without modifying the rules and see how it goes. Ultimatly I love the core mechanics to the game and if the players are not enjoying the advancement system, I can always tweek here or there.

How do the core monsters stand up to players? Is it a difficult experience trying to balance encounters around the players? I looked at the basic monsters in the book and with only a threat rating to tell them apart, how do you know what will and wont kill (or maim) your party?

Thanks,

Korvanus

A few more words about the advancement system. If you look at the combat system realistically you'll see how it all makes sense. Say a young swordsman after his training can hit a target with certain strength... then 10 years later, with a lot of experience behind him, that same swordsman can hit that target with just slightly more strength, compared to 10 years ago. What would change with time and experience though is his ability to wield his weapon - 10 years later he will be able to hit easily and consistently targets that would have dodged and parried his strikes back when he was inexperienced.

Same for the wound threshold - no matter how much experience you have you will probably perish from almost the same amount and severity of wounds.

As for the core monsters - those are just examples which the GM should modify (can be done on the fly) to suit the party. Even if the monsters you put against your players prove to be too tough or too weak, you can always modify the difficulty by using or not using their A/C/E dice pool.

Korvanus said:

It's all about getting Sigmar's comets. Most cards have very powerful effects when you get a comet. With 5 expertise dice you have a probability of getting at least one comet of >~60% (not taking exploding dice into account). And if you get multiple comets you can get extra crits and boons.

When it comes to successes, you're correct. But only under the assumption that a rank 5 character gets to face the same opponents as a rank 1 does. A "rank 5" opponent very likely have some advanced active defense cards, and if it is some kind of boss mob I suggest you as GM give the monster a hefty ACE budget to play with.

When a rank 5 player is faced with a monster that is heavily armored (2 misfortune) using 2*improved defense cards and burning 2-3 aggression on adding misfortune dice to the player pool the chances of success are quite a bit worse (3 purple dice and at least 4-5 misfortune). Also, at higher rank talents that shift successes into boons (I think those exist if I remember correctly) will be more valuable since you will have a surplus of successes in many checks.

You are totally right, it's all about the expertise dice and the Sigmar's Comet.

The Comet might indicate a critical wound, may be used for special effects on the cards and as well as boon or success.

In the GM's toolkit you will also find a more lethal damage system, converting additional success symbols into bonus damage.

The vertical advancement is also given, by the different career options and characteristic advances. There are more options in the advancement system, as it seems on first sight.