I am getting ready to run an adventure this weekend and have been going over the stats of the creatures found within ToA, so I can get an idea of what type of equipment some of the NPCs may be wearing for protection. But I am a bit thrown off by some of it, so I thought I would ask for others to throw in what they think.

It says on page 46 of ToA: The number after the Toughness rating is the Soak value. The number after the Agility rating is the Defence value. These values serve the same function as they do for armour, as described in Chapter 9: Economy & Equipment of the main rulebook. (Left the weapon part out because I understand that)

I think I got this:

Townsfolk look like they have cloth on giving them To 3 (1) and Ag 3 (0);
Nobles look the same, so some type of cloth
Soldier looks like they could have on a mail shirt or Leather with a buckler or whatever, either way even with those two combos it comes out as To 3 (2) and Ag 3 (1);

I can even see were a cult follower could be wearing cloth, but what I don’t get is were does the cult leader get his T 4 (1) and Ag 3 (1), I first thought that it could be to cloth and robe combo, but nothing says you can stack armour, and you could give them brigandine, or cloth and a buckler. I don’t have a problem with that but it does seem to go against the flavor of the description given, and the adventure that I am running says to use given stats but only say he has a robe on. So give him a robe and you should get T 4 (0) and Ag 3 (1). I even thought of mutations but then again going over the description of cult leader does not really seem to support that.

I can even understand the boar having thick hide among many other creatures but that makes me wonder were does all the Ag Defence bones come from, not only for it but others?

Another thing that I had a question about is if a Chaos Warrior is fully enclosed in a suit of spiked plate mail, why is his To 6 (3) and Ag 3 (2) should it not be more on the line of To 6 (5) and Ag 3 (1)?

I am sure I could come up with more examples but I hope I have given the gist of it.
Just trying to figure out the rime and reason, would be nice to be able to tell my players what they can loot from the dead bodies as easy as it is for me to know what the NPCs can loot of theirs.

Both armor and defence can come from things like tough skin, scales, mutations etc. The normal values of toughness and no defence for an unarmored humanoid does not apply to many monsters that aren't entirely human/dwarf/elf.

I have a house rule for defence though that I like. You get a bonus defence equal to the relevant skill (resilience for attacks you can block, coordination for attacks you can dodge and weapon skill for attacks you can parry). This gives players (and NPCs) an extra defence of 0-3. You can only use one skill at a time of course, so no stacking.

I am trying to modify this rule to take into account the weight of armor to limit defence. I am thinking about modifying defence by the soak value of armor minus 1. That means full plate would get a defence penalty of 4. Any negative defence results in fortune dice added to the enemy. I haven't found a nice way to balance this yet though. Perhaps I should ask in the house rules forums... so many great minds here with a lot of good ideas.

Thanks for your reply, I guess I just got cot up on the soak, and was not really thinking what defence really represented, think I was getting defence mixed with a dodge like ability vs. tough hide foe example, being that its beside agility.

But what do you think on the Chaos Warrior? I don't really get that one, even by the rules if you get a character to Toughness 6, Not saying that would be easy, and slaped on full plate armour, you would get what the Chaos Warrior should have. Oh, I am going to look into your house rule and play around with it and see how it works, thank.

I'm at work and can't remember the chaos warrior soak/defence stats.

The most any PC can get though with regular equipment is 11 soak and 2 defence. But added to that you have many defence cards guarded position, dodge, parry, block, sagas etc. You can really get a lot of extra defence by using these cards in a clever way.

According to the fluff Chaos Warriors are fully enclosed in a suit of spiked plate mail, they even have full helms, it goes on to say that some even have huge shield besides, then the crunch turns around and gives them Toughness 6 (3) and Agility 3 (2) should it not be more on the line of To 6 (5) and Ag 3 (1), at the least, I know I could change it to the fluff with the crunch, but just wish I knew how they came up with the numbers, I have wanted to convert some things from 2nd ed. but it may not be as cut and dry as I thought it would be. It just don't make sense to me, not that I am knocking the system or anything, I have only ran a couple of sessions so far and have had lots of fun, but some of the things have taken me a little more time then I thought it would to get a grasp on it all. And when I come across something like this I just get to thinking what am I not getting here. Thank you very much for all your help thus far!

I personally distinguish between Chaos Warriors and Chaos Champions. The chaos warrior for me is the guy that appears in the cut outs, with some armor, but not fully encased in chaos armor. The Chaos Champion is the fully enclosed guy, basically an upgraded Chaos Warrior.

But from the text in the Tome of Adventure it seems FFG talks about the Chaos Warrior like they're a Chaos Champion, which I would agree is pretty weak with those stats.

Lexicanum said:

Also known as 'Chosen'

Thank you, so its not just me then, well its no big deal, guess I can over look the description running a muck with the crunch, more emportant to keep to the spirt of what it should be, but it is a bit bothersome when the fluff and the crunch don't agree.

I just thought I was some place in left field but you all have really helped me out on rethinking some things and not just taking the books wholesale. I really do like this game a lot and hope to see it get fleshed out in time, as long as it continues to emprove I will continue to support it. Have not been able to roleplay much the last few years and I know I' have gotten rusty as a GM, so any help is big help, thanks again everyone!

Ahh yes, chaos warriors can be anything... and don't have to wear heavy armor. But you can always substitute that armor of 3 with an armor of 5.

NPC stats are abstracted and they are what they are to make opponents varied. If you want to replace their default values with weapons and/or armor from the tables, you can and then you would use those values. Otherwise, you shouldn't try to map the parenthetical numbers to specific weapons and/or armor from the tables that PCs use. Cult Leaders are 3(4), 4(1), 3(1) because that is what the designers wanted them to be.

I agree with Mac40k. The numbers don't necessarily represent equipment, they represent a suggested difficulty / challenge level. Note the word "suggested ". Change them if you need to, take cues from them if you want to, but don't stress over them not quite matching up with armor or weapon stats. They're meant as an abstraction to make things easier on the GM. If they're not doing that for you, then ignore them and make up your own stats.

r_b_bergstrom said:

+1

It is also cleared up in the newest FAQ that it is 'standard' items for the NPC's and any equipment given to them you use the gear's stats! =) I will say - having done this - it makes some of the monsters MUCH tougher!