Question about success lines

By hawxarn, in WFRP Rules Questions

My question is pretty simple but i want some kind of official ruling so I can go back to my mates and shove it in their faces, it's about succes lines.

Say that my character wants to use "Reckless Cleave" (in reckless stance), on a one hammer success it does +1 damage and on a three hammer success it does +3. We just bought the game and when i first used the ability i scored four hammers, the GM says " well then you get both the +1 and the 3+" resulting in one attack with +4 damage, and to me that made kind of sense in a way, but as we progressed further and came upon the action "***** in the Armour" we got a bit confused.

You see, "***** in the Armour" (in conservative stance) with a one hammer success does your normal damage -1 and the two hammer success does your normal damage +1, so in that case if you score a three hammer success it has no immediate effect unless it means that you get two separate attacks, one with -1 damage and one with +1, this possibility however seemed both illogical and overpowered to us so therefore we scrapped the whole " get three successes = get both the first and the second success line bonuses" rule.

But last night when we were playing we came upon a card called Dramatic Flourish wich only has one success line (in conservative stance) but instead has two lines of "boon bonuses" which are the same. The first one says that you cause your opponent one point of stress even if you miss and the second one says exactly the same thing! Which of course got us wondering if this was just a typing error or if it was intentional, which leads us to the question at hand: Can you stack hammer success lines with eachother on those actions like Reckless Cleave where it actually makes sense (in opposite of ***** in the Armour) or not, and can you stack up on "boon bonuses" or is it just a typo made on Dramatic Flourish?

You only get the effect of one sucess line when using an action card, period.

Boons and banes ae different in that you can 'purchase' as many available effects as you have boons/banes for. However, each different effect can only be activated once, so if you end up with three boons on a roll, you can't invoke the same '1 boon' effect 3 times, but you could invoke any a one boon effect and a two boon effect, etc.

El Hefe said:

Boons and banes ae different in that you can 'purchase' as many available effects as you have boons/banes for. However, each different effect can only be activated once, so if you end up with three boons on a roll, you can't invoke the same '1 boon' effect 3 times, but you could invoke any a one boon effect and a two boon effect, etc.

Just to expand on this, since it is so easy to overlook: you always have the option (given on page 45 of the rulebook) of getting rid of a fatigue or stress token in exchange for two boons (fatigue for physical checks, stress for mental checks).

So you have the following options for boon investment:

  • get rid of stress/fatigue
  • activate line of action card
  • activate critical

You can add these, but you have to pay separately for every effect.

The short answer (just to be completely clear) is:

You can use only a single success (hammer) line at a time. They don't stack or add up or anything.

You can use as many boon/bane effects as you can afford to, but each individual effect only once.

So your group was playing successes wrong, and the duplicate boon line is not a typo; it's an effect that you can trigger twice.

Page 51 of the rulebook:

"Success & Failure
When attempting to use an action card, the task succeeds if one or
more success symbols remain after challenge symbols have
cancelled out an equal number of success symbols. If more than
one success symbol remains, the player may be able to select
from among several different options. If an action card has more
than one success line, the player may choose to trigger any one
success line requiring a number of success symbols equal to or less
than the number generated by the dice pool."

Emphasis mine.

This is further clarified on page 2 of the FAQ:

"Actions: Succ ess Line Selection
A player may choose one success line from among all the lines his
character is eligible for, based on the number of success symbols
generated. For example, on an action with both a {single} and a {3} success
line, the player may choose either success line to activate if his
action pool generates at least three successes."

As for banes & boons, page 45 o the rulebook has your answer:

"Each individual effect can only be triggered once during any single
task. Even if enough banes or boons are available to potentially fuel
the effect multiple times, each effect can only be triggered once.
After the task resolves, any excess banes or boons – meaning there
are no more effects for these symbols to fuel – are lost. Banes and
boons do not carry over from task to task.
Even though a single effect can only be triggered once per task, it is
possible (if enough banes or boons are generated by the dice pool)
to fuel several different effects in the same task."

Just like Mac40k said - see rulebook pages 45 and 51. It's all there - just choose one succes line. It's really simple - You will see and have fun. :)

I get the idea now :P Thank you all for your help! ^^