Hello everyone.

Recently a player in my game was considering taking Threading the Needle, and he asked me "Why would I take this action card?"

It adds 2 misfortune dice (or one), while range shot has none, and there are no rules for firing into melee. Effect wise, using the action in a conservative stance has only a marginal payoff for the recharge 3 and 2 misfortune.

So how do I explain why it does pay to take this action? And of course, how should firing into melee be handled.

I think I've read somewhere that firing into melee should increase party tension. That's OK, and I'd not apply this for Threading the Needle. But shoould I also add misfortune dice? How many? Two?

Thanks for your input.

When two characters are engaged in a melee, they are generally moving in rapid and unpredictable ways.

I can't recall specific rules on this, but in every situation the challenge level is determined by the GM. Remember the default Simple (1d) attack level is simply a default (p58 WFRP3). This is a situation where the GM is well justified in declaring the shot Hard (3d). Now if a dwarf is fighting a giant I might make this Easy (2d). If a human is fighting a snotling I might make it Dauntling (4d).

You need to decide what Misfortune dice are added. Is the archer at Close, Medium, Long or Extreme range? The longer the range the more danger of hitting the wrong guy imo - more misfortune.

You also need to decide what the Banes and Chaos Stars mean. In this situation, if the attack misses, I would read Banes as successes and Chaos Star as Comets; apply this result to the 'friendly' combatant.

Using 'Threading the Needle' reduces all this down to two misfortune.

At minimum I would say that when firing into melee, a Chaos Star indicates you hit an ally.

And maybe a Double Boon on a failed roll indicates you hit another enemy in the same engagement ?

I would definitely add a few misfortune dice in there as well.

The advantage to this ability is that the larger the group of engaged enemies you are firing into the more effective the action is.

That way the benefit is easy to explain. It's a card for pumping up your allies, that doesn't cost you your attack in the process. On conservative, it lets you support your friends by giving them a manoeuvre instead of taking one yourself on double boons. In Reckless mode, the benefit is just the double-boons giving bonus dice to your allies. Think of it more as a support card than a huge attack, and you'll see it's useful.

Of course it also has the potential to be a big attack card, but only situationally. The conservative side, when firing into a large battle, will score higher average damage than a basic attack. It's not a huge boost, and it won't always be an option, but as icing on the support card cake it's pretty good.

There's one other bonus to the card that I can see. Normal ranged attack says "Not engaged with an enemy". Threading the Needle says "Not engaged with target." So you can't shoot a normal arrow attack if the enemy gets up next to you. But you can use Threading the Needle while an Orc is swinging at you, as long as you don't fire at that specific orc but instead target one in another engagement. That's a little weird conceptually, but it appears to be what the card actually does allow.

I'd say being able to boost your friends a little without loosing your attack, occasionally score some bonus damage in the process, and have an action that might work in situations where the enemy has rushed you and cut off your other attack card, is as a whole probably worth 1 xp.

If that's not good enough for you, the GM certainly has it in their power to make the card better, as well. I'm not even talking about changing the card, just about applying misfortune dice to other actions per the normal rules. I'd just make sure that I always add at least 2 misfortune dice to ranged attacks into a melee engagement, and then assume that Threading the Needle already has those two dice accounted for on the card. In other words, the situational difficulty modifier for firing into melee is already on the card, and you don't get "double whammied". In fact, if you take a prepare manoeuvre, you can actually come out ahead with this card. If you look at it that, the card's pretty good.