so, can my 1st level character kill anything? and mcv, do you use the same quote identification number multiple times?

Alrdred:

Why in the world would you assume "powerful" = "tiring" in a game mechanic sense? I said "powerful" because it is a big-damage hit, which is what is needed to get through a lot of soak+To. The NPC would save the attack to use in the round that a more heavily armored, and possibly (probably) more dangerous, foe joined the engagement. If they used it against the unarmored wizard, and the IB joins the engagement, the NPC might not have another action that could get through the IB's armor, for example. When any other attack action they possess will get through the puny soak+To of the wizard, it is reasonable that the NPC could reserve the "powerful" (high-damage, not "tiring"!) action for a situation where it would be necessary to use it. As a PC, I would do the same thing. That has absolutely nothing to do with being a "tiring" attack, but the fact that there is a recharge so it cannot be used every round.

I was trying to be a bit lighthearted/joking (notice the smilies) when I said you were "wrong" in that post, but tone is difficult to convey on message boards. It was hardly a 'tantrum', and I am sorry if you took it that way. That's not really an excuse for you to make personal attacks, though. We should both let it be, as you've obviously had quite a bit of difficulty understanding most of what I have said in this thread, but I would suggest in general you should try to avoid making such personal attacks even if you think someone else was "throwing a tantrum". (and I'll try to be a bit clearer in my posts if I can)

@Bindlespin

Well, it depends on your PC and the enemy(ies) you face. A combat focused PC will fare pretty well 1v1 against most monsters. A non-combat focused PC will be fair to middling, depending on the enemy. For the most part, you'll be able to hit your enemy. The question is the amount of damage you can dish out and sustain/resist in return.

Bindlespin said:

If designed entirely around Strength, Toughness and heavy armour, then I'm afraid so. I think it's not hard to make a starting character that can go toe to toe with a Wargor or even a troll or rat ogre. Especially if you allow Ironbreakers.

Bindlespin said:

Yes. I manually write QUOTE efidm=326599 between square brackets everywhere. Capitals seem to be important, and be careful not to misspell efidm or the number. Also don't accidentally put an efidm in the closing tag. And make sure the closing tag starts with the slash. Pasting from a different window to quote from multiple posts simultaneously won't work. And if you make any error at all, the forum software won't let you fix it. It's vengeful and unforgiving.

I`ve been reading this last messages (well at least skimming through them)

Here is one undeniable fact: Recharge time cannot and shouldn`t be explained as a realistic view of the game. It is purely mechanic to limit powerul actions to be used too often. And that is good.

when having different levels of powers in a rpg like whfrp or D&D, there is basically only two ways of dealing with them or restrict them.
1) access restriction, you only get access to the more powerfull abilities when reaching a certain level or a requierment.
2) time restriction. You can use relatively powerful abilities right from the start, but there is a limit to how often you can use them, like once per encounter, once per day etc.

I like the warhammer approach to the solution, which is the same as how D&D deals with powers, only the FFG solution to time restricted powers works better.

I don`t know why you guys are so invested in this discussion or why someone try to reason that recharge time is realistic. Recharge simply is not realistic. why bother to discuss it?

And that recharge somehow prevent immersion when roleplaying, What about dice rolls? ordering pizza? discussing a rule or the many other things that happen around the game table. Immersion is fine, but if any of those things bothers you, I suggest you take some acting class and try hobby theatre, no dice rolls there, no recharge tokens either.

Good gaming

and to this thread : Rest in Peace

Mal Reynolds said:

They're not the same at all. In D&D, you go from abilities that you can use whenever you like, to abilities you can use only once per encounter, to abilities you can use only once per day. The encounters and dailies are a LOT more powerful than the at-wills, and there's just no plausible in-game explanation imaginable for why things would work that way. Even the abilities themselves make no sense whatsoever. It is only about balance. It is purely gamist, and nothing else.

WFRP has no dailies. The only thing that might be considered an "encounter" ability is First Aid. Everything else can be used whenever you like. Well, not entirely whenever you like. Some can be used only every other turn, or once every 4 turns or something like that. Their effect is (mostly) not implausible, nor overly powerful in comparison to basic abilities. There is a huge difference between how D&D deals with abilities and how WFRP deals with actions.

D&D does only gamist at the expense of everything else. WFRP does a very decent compromise between gamism and simulationism in this respect.

To mcv

Powers in D&D and whfrp are resolved basically the same. D&D uses per encounter, per day or at will, while WHFRP uses recharge time like 0,2,3,4 rounds. Basically the same, time restricted use of powers. And both rules are just mechanics that limit the use of powers, and has little to do with the simulationist approach. I like both systems but as mentioned the whfrp approach is better since its less restricted and that other rules can influence the recharge time.

And what you say about D&D and no plausible in-game explanations to why it is so, goes for WHFRP as well. That`s the real backdraw with such rules. But as you said whfrp made a better compromise than D&D. Still its hard to rationally explain why you can`t use shield bash each round, when I easily could have bashed a shield over your head again and again in the real world.

And honestly i don`t see the big difference in how D&D deals with in and how WHFRP does it. only REAL difference is recharge tokens I quess.

Good gaming

thanks mcv!

According to GMT's optional rules, players are able to use action cards as often as they want to, but this approach increases the difficulty of the test.

I'll put my oar in and say that I fully agree with Mal Reynolds. Recharge time is not realistic, players must accept that it is a mechanical aspect of the game. Unless someone can give an convincing in-game explaination, why a player doesn't put recharge tokens on a card when he misses (player made an attack and he missed), but put tokens when he hits the target (he made an successfull attack).

Cheers

Mal Reynolds said:

Not at all. You need to put your weight behind it. You put yourself off-balance, and need some time to recover before you can do the same thing.

But more importantly: who in the real world would fight by only bashing with his shield? And who could fight effectively that way? I think it'd be very unrealistic if you could fight effectively while only using the same shield bash over and over again. There are hundreds of factors that would make such an attack more effective in some situations, and less effective in others. Simulating all those factors would turn it into a spreadsheet game. Recharging is a shortcut around that. Not a perfect shortcut, but it does help to simulate a dynamic combat where people aren't constantly spamming their favourite attack.

And have you also noticed that the shield bash action puts recharge tokens on Block? Why would it do that, if not to simulate that by attacking with your shield, you're less able to defend with it? Sword and Board, on the other hand, removes recharge tokens from Block, representing making an attack that takes full advantage of your shield, enabling you to put your shield in a better position again. (From a realism perspective, I have more problems with Sword & Board not being usable every turn than Shield Bash.)

dvang said:

This appears to be the root of our misunderstanding and it does appear that I am at fault. My initial coments were based on that post which led to your comments about my 'nonsensical' views which in turn caused me to respond in kind. Apologies for the confusion.

It is significant to find out just what is going on here though as it was what prompted this debate.

dvang wrote:

Why would a monster use a powerful strike (like Trollfeller strike) against a lightly armored opponent? That action is designed to give/use a lot of power in the blow. Why waste it against someone in cloth, when there is a foe in heavy armor that it is needed against?...

For example, an Orc (with trollfeller strike) is fighting an elf wardancer in leather, but nearby there is an Ironbreaker. The Orc might not use his Trollfeller strike against the elf, because he knows he'll need to use the powerful blow against the ironbreaker (should the IB join the engagement). Since his normal melee strike (or one of his other racial attack actions) will do decent damage against the elf, he'll use those and save up the Trollfeller 'just in case'.
Perfectly reasonable and realistic. So, in essence, you're wrong. (j/k)

The only thing is that when explained like this:

I said "powerful" because it is a big-damage hit, which is what is needed to get through a lot of soak+To.

That has absolutely nothing to do with being a "tiring" attack, but the fact that there is a recharge so it cannot be used every round.

it isn't 'realistic' at all -it's entirely mechanistic. Your emphasis on the blow being 'powerful' in order to get through armour, combined wih the need to 'save' it, led me to presume that you were talking about it being tiring. In other words, as the blow requires 'power' you need to save your energy so that you won't be too tired when you need it. Without that or some other similar sort of explanation I don't see how you can say that what you describe as 'saving' a blow is 'realistic' at all. Anyway, please understand that this is why it appeared to me that you were being willfully obtuse when you denied any knowledge of the 'tiring' factor. Evidently I was mistaken as you simply didn't have any view to making the circumstances realistic at all, and that phrase was just poorly chosen.

My question therefore is, how do you justify what you described in realistic terms. Why does the monster choose to 'save' a blow for another opponent when it'd be just as, if not more, effective against its' current one? Why can't it use the blow against both?

Mal Reynolds wrote:
Here is one undeniable fact: Recharge time cannot and shouldn`t be explained as a realistic view of the game. It is purely mechanic to limit powerul actions to be used too often. And that is good.

Obviously I agree. As I've repeatedly said I am not suggesting that you cannot like this mechanism, merely that this is a feature of it. I personally do not like that feature. It is a trade off as to whether these drawbacks are outweighed by the benefits that using the action cards provide IMO. Evidently most of you think that it is worth it. I have no interest in convincing you otherwise. I am merely defending what I think is a valid observation about a particular feature. I brought it up because when the previews came out this issue was raised as it seemed to be an obvious side effect, yet some posters assured us that we were mistaken and it wouldn't work that way. I think that dvang's comments that I remarked upon initially and subsequent debate has shown that it does actually work that way after all.

And that recharge somehow prevent immersion when roleplaying, What about dice rolls? ordering pizza? discussing a rule or the many other things that happen around the game table. Immersion is fine, but if any of those things bothers you, I suggest you take some acting class and try hobby theatre, no dice rolls there, no recharge tokens either.

What you say is entirely true. There are plenty of factors that affect immersion and we certainly shouldn't be too precious about it. However, I would contend that there is a genuine difference between mechanics that rely on a level of abstraction and those that actively prevent your character from doing something that common sense dictates that they ought to be able to.

mcv wrote:

At the very least, every action comes with the cost of 1 XP to buy it. They're not free, just like increased Strength or WS aren't free.

That's not a relevant factor. It's just normal advancement as you'd expect. This has no effect on the idea of an 'arms race' or the possibility of that affecting choice of action. What I was talking about when I mentioned 'cost' was this comment of yours:

You seem to think that attack cards are super powerful, but most aren't. Some do extra damage (but often at a cost, and not all that much more damage either), others do less damage, but give you a useful tactical side effect.

If handled well then that idea that using the action has a drawback or penalty (or a risk factor), as well as its' positive effects, could prevent the action cards from becoming too dominant or like 'super powers' that discourage other options. I have to say that the action cards I've seen don't fit your description, but I suppose that those may have been unrepresentative. In any event this area is one where I'd agree that actually playing the game would give you a much better idea of how well balanced it is.

mcv wrote:

Did you know, for example, that you can always make an action card recharge faster than usual if you really want to use it again? It costs fortune (another mechanism that doesn't have a good detailed real-world justification behind it, but it works well).

Yes, I did know that; it was in the previews. Fortune Points were in the Second Edition too and many people objected to them there as well.

To Aldred Fellblade

he he, I`m not sure who I was commenting in my post. Maybe people in general who complained about rules vs immersion. In fact one of my players complained about recharge rules having a negative effect on immersion. So I understand that people can feel it that way. And a lot of what you say make sense. So my bad.

To MCV:

You make some sense. But I too have tried to defend the use of recharge from a in-game perspective, as one of my player`s had problems with it (see above for more info). And you know what? I did make as much sense as you do now, which is almost none.

Yet we as GMs (I suspect you MCV is a GM) must somehow integrate this into the story by describing it. And rationalize a mechanic or rule that is not rational at at all, is a...tough prospect. I made a compromise by avoiding the recharge part of it and just concetrating on the action used at the moment. Meaning I will not even try to explain how or why a action card is recharging. And for us that is working, by leaving out the recharge part, (recharge is still happening, we do not describe it.)

and sometimes ignoring works wonderfully.

Anyway I will not drag this out in a feeble attempt to convince people who happens so disagree with me. We all make discoveries in our own pace. Let`s leave it whit that and....

Good gaming

Aldred Fellblade said:

The same is true for every single RPG system. They are all mechanistic, and none of them are truly realistic. One of the most realistic systems I'm aware of (GURPS), allows you to fight at full effectiveness by repeating the same attack over and over and over again, every second. Nobody fights like that, but it's a workable mechanic.

Aldred Fellblade said:

So which of these two does the recharge mechanism belong two? It just relies on a level of abstraction, right? It doesn't prevent you from doing anything that common sense dictates you ought to be able to do. (Though it might prevent you from doing something that wishful thinking dictates you ought to be able to. That's not the same thing, though.)

Aldred Fellblade said:

So what exactly do you mean by this "arms race" that you keep talking about? Why would actions that increase your fighting ability be relevant, while other factors that increase your fighting ability aren't?

Aldred Fellblade said:

I don't know which action cards you've seen, but many actions increase the difficulty of the action. A few lower the damage in exchange for other interesting effects. Some carry extra risks. Some have specific requirements that need to be met before you can use them. And I'm sure there are also actions that really are superior to basic actions. But you pay for them, so you should get something, right?

Aldred Fellblade said:

As well? Do many people object to them in WFRP3? It's a very common mechanic in RPGs. Almost every RPG (other than GURPS, obviously) has something like this: karma, plot points, ass-save points. Even the Fate Points of WFRP1 are related (though much more powerful and much more limited). Personally I like the flexibility and low-powered nature of fortune points in WFRP 3.

mcv wrote:

I don't know which action cards you've seen, but many actions increase the difficulty of the action. A few lower the damage in exchange for other interesting effects. Some carry extra risks. Some have specific requirements that need to be met before you can use them. And I'm sure there are also actions that really are superior to basic actions. But you pay for them, so you should get something, right?

Yes the Difficulty Ratingand perhaps the conditions should affect this. As I said, what I've seen may not be representative. I would accept that there is a mechanism in place to keep this under control. Whilst it may be inaccurate my impression has been that the benefits of the specialised actions can turn the basic ones, and the 'perform a stunt' action, into poor choices. I'm not opposed to the characters 'getting somethng' for their XP but concerned about imaginative play being discouraged, and action being funneled into a small number of predictable options. I could easily be wrong though.

mcv said:

Okay then, explain the earlier example to me. In the first round of an encounter I use Accurate Shot to hit an opponent. For the next few rounds the rules dictate that I am unable to use it again (unless I expend some Fortune Points etc.). However, someone standing right next to me with the same ability can attack the same target using that action. In what way does common sense dictate that I am unable to use my 'Accurate Shot' ability in these circumstances? Why do I need to be 'lucky' in order to be able to shoot more accurately sooner than I otherwise would? You're beginning to sound like a Flat Earther.

Aldred, it feels like you're arguing against yourself.

On one hand you're saying that powerful actions discourage imaginative play and that players will be likely to only use those actions. Then you're saying that recharge creates problems for immersion, but if recharge were to be removed you would have even more problems with the same actions being repeated over and over again. Can't you see that recharge is the designers way of making sure that players will try to vary their combat tactics?

Granted, this is a pretty mechanical restriction. In any case, I think it seems like you would have major problems with using the 3e system. I think it's fairly clear that the actions cards are special actions (although very very different than the powers from DnD) and if you really dislike this, I don't think anyone can dissuade you. Still, you don't need any extra actions (the basic actions are enough), the game can be played perfectly well without them. Then just use Perform a stunt all the time to let PC's do cool moves. Do I understand you correctly in assuming that you would in principle have problems with any game system that uses the concept of special actions/powers?

Ok, I'll have another go at trying to make the recharge mechanism a bit less immersion breaking (well, I don't find it problematic at all for immersion, but maybe I can get you to see the light ). The reason that a certain action (e.g. Accurate shot) is available to be used depends on many different factors, player focus (internal circumstance), enemy awareness (external circumstance), environmental dependence (external circumstance) and even more factors that one can think of. All these factors are combined into giving a chance of getting the action off at a given time. Now, this is a probabilistic description where each factor can vary with time and circumstances. You would get something like (numbers are of course completely arbitrary, included just to illustrate):

Accurate shot, first round:
P= P(player focus) + P (enemy awareness) + P(environmental circumstances)+ P(whatever) ~ 30% + 50% + 50% >100% => 100%
thus you will always get off the shot the first time you try.

Second round
P = P(player focus) + P (enemy awareness) + P(environmental circumstances) + P (whatever) ~ 10% + 10% + 10% = 30%
on average you will be able to get a shot off every third round, due to the different circumstances (if they stay the same)

Recharge is then simply the average time between the opportunities you have to make such a special shot. Using fortune makes it possible to up the circumstantial probabilities and thus reduce recharge. Recharge is a gross simplification to the underlying mechanism, but perfectly reasonable to keep the system easy to use. And it can be used to give additional tactical complexity and variability in combat.

The alternative rule from the GM kit gives PC's the opportunity to ignore recharge at a price of getting added difficulty in performing the action, this is completely in line with my description above. Someone (maybe Sunatet, but I'm not sure) suggested another recharge house rule a couple of months ago, converting recharge ratings into dice which had to be rolled to see if the action was available. That would also match with my description. Of course, I'm not saying that this is how it is, this is merely my reasoning when rationalizing the recharge concept.

I have no problems with you discussing this issue despite not having tried the system, a somewhat "detached" observer status may sometimes be preferable when trying to review a system. I still think you should try out the system in a real session though, you may be positively surprised. Maybe try playing it without any extra actions as I described above.

gruntl said:

Yes, don't worry, I'm perfectly aware of that. The danger that concerns me is if it means that you only vary between a small number of set options. I accept that my impression about that could be wrong though. This was a side issue that came up in the course of discussion anyway, along with GNS, immersion, and all that other nonsense. My essential point was that comments dvang made showed that the recharge mechanism can prevent characters from doing things that they ought to be able to. As some have commented -surely that's obvious. Why we are still arguing about it several pages down the line is a bit of a mystery.

Aldred Fellblade said:

Accurate Shot requires great deal of concentration or preparation and thus is very sensitive to delicate circumstancial variations like wind, line of sight, shooting angles, target's movemets, etc. In the above example, your opportunity to use this action happened in the first round because maybe your target happened to move directly towards you or you saw perfect opening between the bushes or... [here your or GMs narrative justification]. However, in the next round it is propable that you dont have this opportunity again (maybe because buzzing fly just ruined you aim a little bit) unless you are lucky. The recharge and fortune mechanic just tries to simulate these propabilities and opportunities.

Thug said:

No, it doesn't. How come the guy right next to you can still use Accurate Shot? How come you can still use a normal missile attack without penalty? If you need preparation now, why didn't you need it the first time?

"You cannot use Accurate Shot because your line of sight is slightly obscured by falling leaves. This however will not penalize your basic Ranged Shot. Joe next to you is not interfered by those leaves and may use ..."

or

"Because you used Accurate Shot previously you only have time for one quick shot before your target reaches you (or hill blocking your sight). Joe next to you however has already aimed carefully enough to launch his Accurate Shot because his first shot was so quick one."

or

"You cannot use Accurate Shot now because your fingers are slightly numb for too much aiming and your touch is little bit off. This however will not penalize your basic Ranged Shot. Joe's fingers however are in perfect condfition and he may use ..."

or

...

A valiant effort, but all of them have obvious objections.

Thug said:

Falling leaves block your shot for six rounds? Why don't they affect your basic Ranged Shot? Also, it's more than a little convenient to repeatedly use something that's so dependent upon a combination of specific enviromental conditions and bad luck.

"Because you used Accurate Shot previously you only have time for one quick shot before your target reaches you (or hill blocking your sight). Joe next to you however has already aimed carefully enough to launch his Accurate Shot because his first shot was so quick one."

If it's based on time to aim how come you now have to spend another five rounds aiming?

"You cannot use Accurate Shot now because your fingers are slightly numb for too much aiming and your touch is little bit off. This however will not penalize your basic Ranged Shot. Joe's fingers however are in perfect condfition and he may use ..."

Surely numb fingers would affect your basic Ranged Shot too?

Aldred Fellblade said:

Basic Ranged Shot is not affected by minor nuisances because it is simple action and can be executed in various conditions (simulated by 0 recharge). Whereas Accurate Shot is so easily interfered (by falling leaves, slippery bowstring, flashing lights, sudden image of chaos moon, or any random temporary effect you can think of) or more difficult to control that you average time interval for doing such action is many times longer than basic Ranged Shot.

I must add that I think that recharge mechanic works really well because

1. it balances different actions
2. you can justify it to satisfactory degree (not perfectly as Alrded pointed out) by narration which usually fleshes out gameplay
3. it adds variation to gameplay

yup, let's just keep arguing about realism in a game world that involves magic. that makes sense. and realistic does not mean simulationist in any case, it's a mode not a set of game mechanics. none of the earlier editions of wfrp were realistic or simulationist, just gritty and heavily gamist. (when you say simulationist i think GURPS, HERO, and maybe Rolemaster). and even in so-called simulationist games (which don't really exist in my opinion, i think everything is gamist by necessity) every time you record "attributes" and roll dice to determine an outcome this is a gamist expedient. new wfrp is heavily narrativist. is recharge gamist? clearly. can it be explained narratively? i think so. do these narrative explanations match everyone's view of how things ought to happen if they were actually happening in the real world? how could they ever?

I think it's not realism.

It's consistency. Perhaps the recharge is simple a mechanic useful to the game itself, not to storytelling.

Aldred Fellblade said:

I'm not sure what a flat earth has to do with Accurate Shot. I guess you intend to make a feeble ad hominem, but it makes a too little sense for that to work.

However, it turns out the answer to your question is on the card "Accurate Shot". I had to look it up, as I don't have my cards with me, but there's a picture of Accurate Shot on www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp. Accurate Shot works basically exactly the same as a regular shot (as far as I can tell), except that it allows you to burn stress for an extra bonus. There's no magical way that it makes you extra accurate or something, it's just really stressful. Too stressful to do every turn, apparently. I don't know much about sniping, but my guess is a real life sniper doesn't fire a perfect shot every second either. He needs some time to breathe in, breathe out, relax, focus, and then he takes that next shot.

Alright, so WFRP allows you to just make regular shots while preparing for that next shot. I'm not sure how realistic that is. Considering the extra stress, it may still be a good idea to use some stress-relieving actions. Maybe the action would be better if it had the requirement that you have no stress when you use it.