The probabilities are too much in favour of the active character in the game as written.

At least for what we have become acustomed to when playing Warhammer.

I've read many posts on houserules, and have finally found my mix.

1) Chaos Stars count as a CS effect, or two Banes. Also, it asks for an additionnal Challenge die to be rolled. (This makes CS more important, and reduces probability level somewhat)

2) Default difficulty for melee is an opposed test BUT

3) Opposed tests use the following mechanic. Divide defending characteristic by two; whole numbers become Challenge dice and any remaining 0.5 becomes a Misfortune die. Add Misfortune dice as per RAW for expertise and specialisation. (This brings equally skilled characters fighting each other closer to 50% chance of hitting with a standard attack)

4) Default difficulty for Magic is 1d.

5) When Sigmar's comet is used as a Boon, it counts for 2 Boons (to counteract the new CS rule).

6) I add the Sheer Folly (5d) difficulty level to top off the difficulty chart.

Coupled to this are my houserules on Criticals found in the thread Making Criticals count ! (Fate Points are back...)

I realize that I may be overdoing it since many action cards also add difficulty to rolls, but using the probabilities generator and two scenarios;

a) John Doe (3 blue dice)

b) Competent starting character (2 Blue, 2 Green, 1 Yellow, 1 White);

I get good results.

John Doe has 88% of succeeding a Simple task and a 9% chance at Sheer Folly.

Competent guy has 99% and 35% respectively. Which leaves some room for Misfortune...

I believe the difficulty gamut should go from almost automatic to almost impossible. Just add two Misfortune dice and the results become:

John Doe: 63% and 5%

Competent guy: 94% and 25%

In combat, John Doe fighting himself would have 49% chance of hitting with a standard attack; while Competent guy would have 65%. Add a 2 Misfortune Dodge and a Misfortune for Action card difficulty and you get: John Doe - 31% ; Competent guy - 45%.

No if Competent guy attacks John Doe (no dodges, no armour), we would get 86% to hit John Doe who would retaliate with a poor 24% chance of hitting...

Basically, with these rules, John Does are nerfed against superior combatants, but I will implement the following to alleviate that:

7) If outnumbered, add one Misfortune per times outnumbered, max 3 Misfortune dice. Do the opposite if outnumbering, ie, add Fortune dice. (Easy to remember and calculate)

8) The assist manœuvre becomes an Action Card (unprinted), that is coherent with the Henchman rules. Henchmen always use the Assist Action except one of them.

9) All-out attack, a character can decide to attack without any regard for defense to help his chances. Add one Expertise die to one attack Action Card in exchange for the Exposed condition (lasts a standard 3 rounds). (Mooks ounumbering PCs will tend to use this rule, ie. 3 John Does using assists and all and out would have a 52% chance of hitting a dodging Competent guy.)

10) Lastly, I will use my rules for weapon reach that I have in V2;

4 weapon reaches: unarmed/dagger - hand weapon - halberds and great weapons - pikes

To engage an opponent using a longer weapon, one must manœuvre past the pointy bit by winning a competitive weapon skill roll (counts as part of the manœuvre to engage).

If the test succeeds, you close in and make your attack, opponents weapon now considered improvised, since it is unwieldly at too close a range. If the test fails, you can remain at close range and make a new attempt (causing Fatigue), or forego your turn.

You can also throw yourself at the enemy suffering an attack to close in. If you are hit and wounded, you are kept at bay. If not, you close in and strike.

(This houserule has made our battles extremely interesting as suddenly the pike formation becomes what it should be, a human fortress.)

Wow.

Mate that's quite a number of house for your players Have you tried them or are you just starting?

My group haven't played yet (them working types - never enough time ), but I only considered one house rule: starting wealth of a character is also the social level he comes from.

And yes, I played 1 ed. a lot, and know the difference between tests in those two games

Instead of making game harder I'm looking forward to see the Corruption mechanics from the magic supplement, as those seem to look promising in the way of making players fail miserably when unexpected .

D.

I have started testing these and it does what is intended up to now.

The end result is that combat is less predictable, more tied to the tactical situation of the fight than to individual strength.

Without hardship there can be no true victory or glory !

The new opposed difficulty for combat works very well. A very competent fighter can survive without being in full armour.

I edited my original post, to go back to an earlier version of the modified Opposed roll houserule. Expertise is less important now, but it is more balanced.

If you find that too harsh, just use 2d as the standard difficulty for Combat instead.

With the RAW and the high chance to hit all the time, I thought it made armour absolutely mandatory in any combat. In V2, a character with a high WS and Ag can parry and dodge very effectively, giving him a chance to find his way in a melee. I was sad to lose that in V3. With my houserules, the swashbuckler is back ! And so is the grim spearman, the disciplined pikeman and the crazy naked dwarf ! (But not the syndrome... )

I like the 1d for melee as it is. For a non-combat PC with 3 St against 1d + 1 misfortune die it's little above 50% chance of hit. For a competent fighter it goes up to 75-80%. All for starting characters of course.

I always found it odd for a person to miss another person in melee, especially against opponent fully armored. And 35% chance to hit for a Soldier is not what I desire In reality combat between medieval/early renaissance was short and bloody, with most hits passing through defense.

Yet I would like to know how your house rules will come out after an adventure or too

D.

Dheran said:

Question of taste I guess. Having a 75% to 80% chance of hitting for a pretty high base damage rating isn't short and bloody, it's a bloodfest. IMO. Even with Improved Parry by the opposition, the hit will have a 65-70% chance of connecting. Feels like a hockey game boxing match. All offense, no defense.

I personnally prefer combats where the combatants don't connect each and every round, but when they do, the hit gives them an edge that often leads to a quick victory. It feels more like real life to me. And duels are much more fun this way too. (Maybe use Opposed rolls only for duels ?)

In the RAW, the parries and dodges are very weak, which means that combat will always be geared towards offense, offense, offense. How do you play out the halberdier defending the top of the stairwell ? His main objective is to resist assault while delvering some damage to the guys coming up. What is his stance ? Shouldn't he use his weapon to keep the enemy at bay more than to actually kill him outright ? Covering multiple opponents with a spear is also a similar situation. You want to attack, but you don't want to compromise your tactical advantage. It seems to me that the RAW will only hand out a Fortune die or two for height advantage and such, (or a misfortune or two to defense), but nothing that will really make that halberdier hard to dislodge.

The RAW will see that the combatants coming up the stairs will pretty easily overcome the halberdier if they outnumber him. It's barely harder than in the open. That is wrong, IMO. Castles could be defended by very small garrisons because all the vantage points in the castle would make any progress by the enemy very costly.

My houserule makes the Halberdier, if he is competent, a formidable opponent one on one. The stairs gives a height advantage and a forced one on one situation. In the open, the same halberdier would be much weaker because he'll be outnumbered, and using Assists and plain outnumbering advantage, he is bound to go down quickly (same as in the RAW).

More tactics, better duels, and melee as bloody as the RAW, that is what I was looking for.

I'll let you know how playtesting goes.

In regards to the Halbardier on the steps, if I were running that situation, here's what I'd do as GM:

The Halbardier is on higher ground. That'd give him a white die on his attacks, and give his foes a black die on their attacks.

They can't get behind him, he's only got one direction to worry about, that's probably a situational bonus worthy of another black die on their attacks.

He's got a long weapon, and using it to keep people at bay. If the foes are armed with shorter weapons, that'd be another black die added to their attacks.

Total, he's got a white die boost against them, and they're looking at 2 to 3 black dice against him. They're still likely to hit, but the odds of getting the 3-success line went down pretty well.

Then I'd take a cue from the City Gates and Narrow Bridge location cards. They both talk about a character blocking a choke point, so no one can get past. If a PC were trying to get past him, I'd tell the player they can't move past him until they kill him, they Perform A Stunt to get past him, or he rolls a chaos star. (And if the people attacking up the staircase rolled a chaos star, they'd be taking a fall instead.)

As far as ganging up on him, I'd probably follow the lead of the Secret Passageway location card, and impose a maximum number of people that can engage him. 1 to 3, depending on the width of the stairway.

I'd also be likely (depends on the size of the staircase) to rule the bottom of the staircase is at Medium, and/or that going up stairs takes an extra manuoevre. That way you have to suffer a little fatigue to get close enough to attack him.

It is a little odd though that none of the Action Cards produced so far include any sort of "holding them off" or "set to receive charge" actions. You can't hold your action till someone else does something, and your only way to interrupt is with the Fake Out card or the Riposte card. The only way to keep people from engaging you is that one Trick card for the Small But Vicious Dog. Hopefully some future product release will fill that gap.

I think I finally nailed it.

So simple...

To determine basic difficulty in combat:

Divide opponent's Ag by 2. Whole numbers are Challenge dice, any remaining 0.5 is an extra misfortune die.

ADD Armour and Shield defense values, AND any dice resulting from the use of Active Defence Actions as per the RAW.

That's it !

This will make combats less of slugfests, it will bring back the importance of Agility in combat and will give a chance of survival to creatures with low T but high Ag. I'm a happy camper !!

(I'm still using my Chaos Star and Comet houserules though, see top of post.)

That version of opposed check is interesting. That's less all or nothing than RAW.

We are playing melee combat as opposed ST vs AG check. It is imo more in spirit of system than dividing agility in two. It raises agility's worth in combat while maintaining spirit of game.

I prefer to keep it simple; Simple 1D check for basic melee, plus misfortune for armor. If you have weaponskill trained, you either subtract expertise dice from your enemy (if they also have it trained) or add additional misfortune for each rank of WS you've trained.

So if a PC with Weaponskill trained encounters a Black Orc with WS trained, neither will get their normal expertise dice in combat. If that Black Orc is trained in WS but is also Specialized in his weapon, then he will have one expertise dice and the PC will add an additional misfortune.

I do also play where Chaos Stars count as a Challenge and one Bane, in addition to other effects as listed on the card. which increases the difficulty.

Jericho said:

I am pretty out of it, but I will respond as much as I can.

I do see a lot of Chaos Star interpretation posts on the boards. Why I agree with a lot of them, I think it is in a way not necessary to set the rule into stone. For instance, if you want to know if someone is jumping over a cliff do you really need the chaos star do more than just a bane? If the player is trying to take down the big bad guy of the story do you need them then to add dramatic influence to the moment? A lot of 3e is designed for loose interpretation. A chaos star effect on a card is simply one of several possibilities when activated. The GM at any moment a Chaos Star is rolled add a narrative element to the fail ratio of the roll (for instance, count it as two fails, as two banes, etc). At other times it may be better if the Chaos Star give stress or fatigue (that is one of the many miscasts effects it can do), it could also cause a wound representing as you go in, you sprain something, twist your arm the wrong way, your opponent puts a weak blow across your shield. It does not need to be flat, just tell your players to notify you when a Chaos Star is rolled. It's what my players do and I tell them what the effect of the star is. This is actually true without altering the RAW which I believe states: "unless the action has a specific chaos star effect, it counts as a bane." It is the GM and player's decisions to interpret Chaos Stars, Boons, Banes, and Comets as they wish so the GM may interpret the star as they wish. It really does not need a flat rule, it simply needs to be treated by the GM as they wish it, based on the needs of the scene and the story.

The other thing it is very important to remember about the success rate is that a single "round" of combat has no time frame. The actual successful hit isn't the first blow, it is the result of an exchange of blows. Again this is in the RAW if you read the description of dice results presented in TOA (Tome of Adventure) in the core. The descriptions attached describe an exchange of blows between "guy protagonist" and an orc(s) I believe. Therefore, the high hit rate is alright because it generally assumes, as you pound away at a person, you eventually hit past their defense. Having opponents use dodge and multiple active defense certainly helps even the score, especially improved dodge, etc. Drop Improved Dodge, Parry, Block on a single action and there is no way anyone is hitting any time soon.

Now, with that said, I agree the success rate is too high. The game is new, it's wonderful, but has a few kinks. My group's opinion is the real flaw in the system is character's have way too high starting Characteristics. We set our scale at a base 2 - max 4 at rank 1 and we find it works way better...especially as we go up levels. The problem with the power curve is simply too many dice, period.

I like your idea of the spear. I once ran something similar in a home brew game we wrote. But, this simply could be expressed in the system as: gain black to hit on the turn you engage trying to get passed the spear. Spear gains white against unengaged, black against engaged because they are too close. Just a suggestion. I do really like your idea and I have a magical spear in my game, maybe I'll use it for that and real narrative moments when they are up against spears and I want to add to the dynamics of the scene in this way. I do like it.

Have fun gaming.

Commoner

PS I know these aren't official rules, but they aren't so much house rules, but house calls. Nothing about Warhammer in my opinion is a house rule unless you blatantly break the system. The great thing about the game is the flexibility, the ability to design components and elements directly into the game as you go, using the basic elements and mechanics of the system. Best game I have ever played for it too, because modification is simply so unbelievably easy and something that is typically boring in other games gets a whole lot of drama in this system. If that sounds snarky, I do not mean it to be at all. I honestly just wanted to point out this difference compared to other systems.

Sephirotth said:

My problem with that is that the opposed check rules are broken. The absolute difficulty is based on the relative strength difference, which means that it's easy for a strong guy to hit someone equally good, but it's hard for a weakling to hit someone equally good.

I guess that sort of imbalance might make some sort of sense in combat, which is terribly muddy anyway, but for a lot of opposed rolls it really doesn't make much sense.

Using half the opponent's characteristic as the number of challenge dice might be a very sensible way of handling opposed rolls in general, though. (I think 2/3 would be more accurate.)

I very much like Darrett's idea of negating expertise dice. It mitigates the problem that there's no negative expertise die.