Hi all,

I’ve just picked up what seems to be the last copy of Grimm in the whole of Europe, bloody expensive, but I must say it’s worth every penny. I was born in the Grimms’ native country Germany and reading the fairy tales they collected was a major part of my early life. I have yet to play the game but I think the book is brilliantly put together. The rules mostly make sense, at least when reading them, and more than half of the book is filled with good background stuff. There is much to praise about Grimm.

The only thing I completely fail to understand are the rules about weapons, more precisely damage calculation, scaling of weapons, and combat moves, which seem utterly out of place in a game like Grimm. The section on weapons is easily the poorest in the whole rule book. There are examples for most rules but not for damage calculation and combat moves. Below I will only talk about hand weapons, I haven’t thought about ranged weapons yet.

I understand the following: Each creature deals out wounds equal to his/her/its stature, possibly more if the Scrap test is especially successful. On p. 63 there is a sidebar called Minor Character’s Weapons. Do the bonusses mentioned there also apply to the player characters or are they exclusively for minions, so not even for major foes? Also very weird: If a child (size 4) hits with a punch, he deals 4 wounds (regardless of his Muscle trait, that is). If he has a sword in one hand, he get +1 Scrap, fair enough, but deals 4+1 wounds. If the weapon bonusses only apply to minions, it gets even weirder, punch 4 wounds, sword 4 wounds. I hope I have overlooked something, because if not, this seems to be a severely broken mechanism that needs fixing.

Also, the scaling of weapons is confusing. Let’s assume most of the gear is made for adult humans. A kid finds a gnome sword, a medium weapon for a gnome (what are they? dog-sized?). In the hands of a kid this would count as a light hand weapon for the purpose of combat move costs, right? But when fighting adults, it shouldn’t count as a light hand weapon at all but rather as a large toothpick. And when fighting a gnome it would again count as a medium hand weapon in terms of damage against the gnome but as a light hand weapons in terms of combat moves?

In my opinion, the combat moves mechanic is ill-conceived and the combat move costs they give for weapons do not make sense to me. Why would you need to expend combat moves for flinging your weapon? After having thrown it, there is not a lot you’re going to be doing with it that turn. Also, thrust seems strange to me. Thrust is supposed to cause +1 wounds on a successful attack. Doesn’t this mean that in the end each successful attack is a thrust and causes +1 wound because you attack once per turn? Well, ok, if you’ve parried a blow before, you might not have enough combat moves for a thrust.

There was also a minor issue I had with progressive spells on p. 76. Under Learning Progressive Spells it says a character “must master each previous level of the spell before they can attempt to learn the next”. This makes sense but I find this to be a contradiction to what it says under Progressive Spells on the same page. How can you enhance such a spell by ascending to higher circles of magic? For example, if you know a second circle progressive spell, how can you ascend beyond the second circle to enhance the spell when doing so basically means that your spell is circle three of four or whatever, but definitely at a level that you haven’t learned yet. Conversely, if you know the fourth circle variant of a progressive spell, why would you want to cast a less powerful version and then enhance the effect of the spell after casting it.

Finally, it is my feeling that Nature Witchery (Witch magic 4th circle) is a more powerful spell than Weather Witchery (Witch magic 5th circle). I would swap them.

That’s it, folks. I’d be very glad if you had any opinions or ideas on these questions. Maybe I missed something and didn’t understand the combat moves stuff properly. Maybe someone can explain.

Euer Zwerg Nase

Well, first off, I'd like to start off by saying welcome to Grimm! Nice to see someone who's grown up in the stories approve of FFG's work! Now let's get started - mind you these are my interpretations of the rules and how I have implemented them.

For your question regarding the size of weapons and their wounds comparing to various statures, you bring up how a medium weapon to a gnome is a light weapon to a kid and a toothpick to an adult. I agree, but to countract that, or at least an attempt, is the increase in protection of the larger creature. So rather than condidering the weapons a size smaller against larger opponents, I keep it simple and scale the size in relation to the kids and leave it at that, letting the protection play out the size of the weapons.

The sidebar you mention on pg 63 refers only for minor characters. What that sidebar is for is to simplify combat for minor characters who are using weapons. Players and major characters will both play out and distribute the points as they see fit. The reason they let major characters distribute points as they choose is to make them feel significant to the players.

The way the combat moves works is that each category of weapons has a certain number of points to distribute in order to parry/thrust/fling (paying a number of points equal to the listed cost of each combat move). You bring of fling being a bit unnecessary and I thought so too, so I basically gave all hand weapons a throw range of a cricket's hop, but they didn't get the Throw bonus of a ranged weapon. The reason they limit the number of combat moves with the costs (so you might only be able to parry in a turn OR thrust and fling) is to simulate weight, heft, design, and several different elements of the weapon. Since the combat moves reset each round, I get the impression they were trying to give the feeling of concentrating on a certain move. So they may concentrate and spend their round really trying to parry and the idea of thrusting and dealing normal damage, but it is still possible to perform multiple combat moves per round.

For progressive spells - think of it as being able to stop at each circle and cast it, or continue ascending to the highest circle you know. For example, you know the 3rd circle of Nixie's Allure, you CANNOT ascend to the 4th circle unless you know it. BUT you can halt the spell at the 2nd circle and cast it then. The reason you might want to do this is because of time restraints; you may have only 2 rounds to enrapture the fairy and lure her to you so she doesn't escape. While you know the 3rd circle of Nixie's Allure, you can simple halt it once you get to the 2nd circle. The highest level circle you can ascend to with progressive spells is the highest circle you know of the spell, but you can always stop at lower circles and cast it for whatever reasons.

For the 2 witchery spells, while Nature Witchery may deal 2 wounds outright, enchanting creatures is nowhere near as powerful as altering weather. Weather Witchery opens up several powerful possibilities. For example, if you're being chased by a vampire - just turn it to day time...POOF. A werewolf on your tail? No problem, call a thunderstorm to cover the moon. Did you aggrevate a colony of giant ants? A short drizzle would surely send them in a panic, scittering off into a dry hiding spot. There's tons of possibilities with weather, although it might not deal direct wounds, it is still very powerful.

Again, these are just my interpretations and rules that I use. Don't feel limited to the book though, if you feel something is off and you want to make a small tweek, by all means go ahead...just don't go overboard ! During my first campaign the mechanics of Combat Moves completely eluded me, for some reason no matter how much I read it, it didn't make sense. Finally I just picked it up the other day and a big "OOOOOOOoooooh!" moment. I hope this helps!

You are definitely right in one respect: The Wound system is very, very confusing. How I see it is that, without a weapon, you won't do any damage to creatures your size or larger, because of protection. But...yeah, I don't get much of it. They clearly want to give the NPC guards and all a big advantage over the kids.

@Laughmask

Thanks for the welcome! I indeed think very highly of Grimm. FFG have done a terrific job. I have to say I was somewhat sceptical when I saw an American publisher tackling a topic that I find very Central European/German in nature. The US is not a country that strikes me as particularly fairy-tale like (no offense!), although there is the Wizard of Oz which I've always loved. FFG did it very well. OK, the archetypes are distinctly American and when I was in Grimm PC age in Germany in the early 80s the roles we had in school seemed (at least in hindsight) more fluid, but I don't mind the archetypes, it's a game and I guess in a way these types can be found the world over, or at least the Western world over. And I might cut out some of the (in my view) non-canonical stuff like Beauty and the Beast.

Now onto the rules! First off, thanks for clarifying the progressive spells. What you said makes sense. Also what you said about weapon scaling.

I'm still not so sure about the Nature and Weather Witchery. The former deals 2 wounds per round, the latter 1 per minute. That is a huge difference. I agree that Weather Witchery could be used in any of the ways you suggested to a great effect, although I wouldn't want to allow turning the vampire to dust by switching on the sun. In my view, that would be Time Witchery, another cool spell to have, maybe for witches or for wizards, but probably 6th circle. I guess one can do it this way or that way, in the end it doesn't really matter.

Also thank you very much for the explanations of combat moves. What I'm still dubious about are the actual combat moves cost numbers they've allocated to the various weapons. For example, why would a one-handed medium weapon have 2/1/2, and a two-handed one 1/1/1? These figures just seem kind of wrong and random to me.

@The Gremlin

Absolutely. It doesn't make a lot of sense. Well, the basic idea seems to be - as you said - that you need a weapon to hurt anyone your size or larger. Well, I can live with that but the bonusses that weapons add seem to be so paltry that they're hardly worth the trouble. I'm not saying that I want super detailed rules for weapons and damage, but the fact that Bullies and Nerds with or without weapons do the same amount of damage ... I find that very unintuitive. Well, the Bully will have a higher Scrap trait. It seems that the Bully has a better chance of inflicting +1 wound extra because he wins his Scrap test by three grades. But no, the Nerd can as easily win his Scrap test by three grades and cause +1 wound. Which makes Nerds and Bullies exactly the same in what they can achieve in combat. (I hope I'm still overlooking something!) Maybe one should bring Muscle into the damage equation.

Alles Gute,

Zwerg Nase

Wow, pretty cool to get a foreign point of view. I never would have thought the Archetypes to be "Western" (not that that's bad or anything). But how was the archetype system more fluid, like what was different (just out of curiosity)? As for the combat move costs question, I thought the medium hand weapon costs were backwards too, but I got to thinking maybe it was because you've got 2 hands you're able to fling it farther with ease or swing it harder (thrust) with more force, thus it takes less points. Because when you think about it, a medium weapon is a medium weapon, holding it one hand is going to take to more effort to throw than if you've got 2 hands behind it.

As for the witchery again, I agree, I think it could easily work either way and you're justification is more than valid. The only reason I would leave it the same is because, to me, altering the environment seems more powerful and would require more skill than simply taking control of stuff...but that's just me.

And I'm curious, are their any German stories or movies that aren't mentioned in the book that you think would be great for inspiration?

Let me see if my input helps...

***Each creature deals out wounds equal to his/her/its stature

Be careful - the kids deal out damage according to their current Grade. Their Stature will remain more or less the same throughout most of the game.

***Bullies and Nerds with or without weapons do the same amount of damage ... I find that very unintuitive. Well, the Bully will have a higher Scrap trait. It seems that the Bully has a better chance of inflicting +1 wound extra because he wins his Scrap test by three grades. But no, the Nerd can as easily win his Scrap test by three grades and cause +1 wound. Which makes Nerds and Bullies exactly the same in what they can achieve in combat

No. I think your misunderstanding stems from thinking that the kids only have to roll their own Scrap or Throw to hit. They actually have to roll their opponent's defense trait, which is either their Scrap or Scamper, whichever is appropriate to the situation. So the Bully having a higher Scrap is very significant. If both were trying to hit the Troll mentioned earlier, they would need to acheive a Scrap test of 7th level. Who will do that easier, a Nerd with a Scrap of 2 or a Bully with a Scrap of 6? Much less acheive 3 or more levels above that!

***Also very weird: If a child (size 4) hits with a punch, he deals 4 wounds (regardless of his Muscle trait, that is). If he has a sword in one hand, he get +1 Scrap, fair enough, but deals 4+1 wounds. If the weapon bonusses only apply to minions, it gets even weirder, punch 4 wounds, sword 4 wounds. I hope I have overlooked something, because if not, this seems to be a severely broken mechanism that needs fixing.

My group actually refers to the damage a character does as a "wound set." A 4th grade child does a wound set of 4. If he acheives 3 levels over his target on a Scrap test, then he does another wound set , for a total of 8 wounds. We chose this method over just adding +1 wound because, well the rules were kinda vague and becaue otherwise a kid would NEVER have a chance to wound anything.

Case in point.. A 4th grade Bully with a Scrap of 6 is pounding on a Troll. He would need to aceive a 7th Grade Scrap test (the Troll's Scrap of 7) to hit it, and then would only do 4 wounds which would easily be negated by the Troll's Protection (6). If +3 levels = +1 wound then the Bully needs to acheive a 16th level Scrap test (yeah, right!) to do 7 wounds to the Troll, which would then be reduced to 1! Ridiculous! Even if the Bully were 12th Grade this would be hard.

Now, if we accept wound sets then the Bully needs to acheive a 10th level Scrap test (still **** tough!) to do 8 wounds of damage, then reduced to 2.

***In my opinion, the combat moves mechanic is ill-conceived and the combat move costs they give for weapons do not make sense to me. Why would you need to expend combat moves for flinging your weapon? After having thrown it, there is not a lot you’re going to be doing with it that turn. Also, thrust seems strange to me. Thrust is supposed to cause +1 wounds on a successful attack. Doesn’t this mean that in the end each successful attack is a thrust and causes +1 wound because you attack once per turn? Well, ok, if you’ve parried a blow before, you might not have enough combat moves for a thrust.

This is part of the system that I actually never had a problem with. Each type of weapon is given so may combat points which can be spent on this, this or this! Easy. I think that Fling was mostly intended for thrown weapons to increase their range, but since there will be occasions when a hand-2-hand weapon could have a reach - like a polearm, staff or whip - they had to include it as an option for h2h weapons too. Generally someone using a h2h weapon will choose a combination of Parry and Thrust. BTW - Thrust gives an additional wound set in my game just like acheiving +3 levels does, not just +1 wound,. So you can see how a combination of good rolls and multiple Thrusts can actually do some damage!

Now, your confusion with the number of combat moves a medium weapon had vs a heavy one? I think you were actually looking at the stats for Improvised weapons, not heavy ones. A heavy 2-handed weapons gets 3 combat moves for 3/3/1. This may help

hope that helps some

@ Laughmask

Reading through the character section, for each archetype, I immediately had a fellow student from back then in mind. That's why I said they'd probably exist the world over. "Western" was just a qualification because I don't know a lot about growing up in a non-Western country. More fluid, well, one thing is that playing sports is not remotely as important for students in Germany as in the US, so the Jock archetype didn't really exist. I had pretty geeky class mates (role-players in fact) who actually were good athletes or gymnasts. Of course, there were Bullies and Popular kids who more or less match the descriptions and what I know about the US and what my American friends tell me about their country and growing up there. And you wouldn't want to say that you joined the chess club or that you're into RPGs ... very uncool in the eyes of some.

From what I saw they've included most of the standard Brothers Grimm fare. One that I think is missing is the one with the table that lays itself, the donkey that ***** gold and the club in the bag. Each being given to one of three sons. The first two are stupid and perform the tricks in front of an evil innkeeper and in the end lose table and donkey. The third son is clever (of course!). He tells the dodgy innkeeper he has valuable stuff in the bag and when he comes in the night to steal it, he gets a good bashing by the club. I don't know the English title but I could imagine it's great fun if the club is in some way possessed and sometimes acts according to the owner's wish, but sometimes has a will of its own...

Definitely worth checking out are the fairy tales by Wilhelm Hauff, a German writer from the early 19th century. I checked, there are English translations around. Especially, the following stories. Great:

"The Cold Heart"

"Caliph Stork"

"The Tale of the Ghost Ship"

"Little Longnose" (sounds terribly lame in English, but the German name of the story is Zwerg Nase [Dwarf Nose], which is my player name in this forum).

I seriously recommend checking these out. I guess one of the key ideas about Grimm is that the players recognize the stories, and are then surprised by the twist. I doubt many people in the US will know Hauff's stories, maybe that's a problem, but I think even today they remain very evocative and dark. The fact that they (to my knowledge) haven't been disneyfied definitely helps.

@ GameBearOR

Thanks, especially for the table you put in. It's very nice to have it all in one place.

I really didn't think about the opposition in combat. I also like the idea about wound sets. That way, the kids seem to have a remote at least against certain foes.

But I think you got health and damage mixed up. Health depends on grade (p. 21 under What grade are you?), the damage you deal depends on on stature (p. 59 under Wounds and protection). That was one of my problems. This means a kid will forever deal four wounds, unless shrunk, of course. In that area the rules simply need revision. So maybe one could go your way and make damage dependent on grade?

Thanks for the story suggestions! I know my players love everything I give them, familiar or not, so those should be great. But these comments got me thinking. I definitely think that a modification needs to be made to include muscle in determining rules. Although the Wild Swing talent implements muscle into wounds, so perhaps it was never meant to be. As for the wound sets, I like that idea. Although, personally, I would probably make it so the number of wounds decreases by 1 per additional set or something. I think stature works for protection, but the wounds really does need some revision. I'm going to make a few proposals here, see what you think:

• Stature determines your base damage, if your muscle is higher than the number of inflicted wounds, use muscle instead. (i.e. A bully with 6 muscle would inflict 6 wounds rather than 4, while a nerd with 2 muscle would inflict the default 4 for kid sized characters)
• Increase your inflicted wounds every time you graduate, so your damage should technically be 1 higher than health at all times. (3rd Grade = 3 hp, 4 wounds; 4th grade = 4 hp, 4 wounds; 5th grade = 5 hp, 5 wounds, etc...). At first I threw out this idea because it didn't seem to make sense, but when you think about it, even the typical scrawny nerd gets stronger and would pack a bigger punch as he gets older, I know I've sure beefed up since 3rd grade.
• You could simply make it so that for every scrap grade you did better than your opponent, you receive +1 wound. Rather than every 3 grades better.

Zwerg Nase said:

You are absolutely right! Its a good thing my players have only just made 5th grade ( i started at 4th) LOL - I agree that the +3 levels just adds a mathmetics complexity that is unnecessary in an already uneccesarily complex system (how was that for a complex sentence?). One of LM's suggestion may be best, or perhaps instead of using the opponent's Scrap or Scamper as the target, why not just use their Protection (which may need to be modified if they have a particularly high Scrap or Scamper, which would make sense) and then do +1 wound (not wound set) for every grade you test above that, without then subtracting the Protection afterward.

Bully w/Scrap 6 attacks Troll w/Protection 7. He rolls an 8th Grade result and does 5 total wounds ( Base wounds of 4 for stature, plus one for the additional grade tested).

As the kids graduate and spend points to beef-up their Scrap they have a better chance to do additional damage since they will naturally test higher.

This would probably require rethinking weapon damages, and maybe base healths - which is starting to make it sound like other game systems altogether...hmmmm

I think probably the simplest but most effective change you could do would be to simply have them deal +1 wound per scrap above, rather than per 3 scrap above. Don't forget later on around high school grades, kids should probably become adult stature. I'd also like to share that I worked in a natural +1 wound with light weapons, +2 for medium and +3 for heavy, along with the possible bonus from thrust and it worked fine. Fighting the Stone Goblins (page 144), the bully needed a total damage of 6 to get through their 5 protection and 1 hp. The medium weapon keepsake The Louisville Slugger, gave him a bonus +2 wounds to his 4, so it just took one good swing. I feel weapons need a boost most when it comes to inflicting damage. I mean let's face it, the amount of damage you do with fist won't increase much (I'm aware it definitely would change) but for a heavy scythe to do the same bonus damage (....none) as an improvised stick, and then thrust for the same bonus damage (...+1), I didn't like that.

I want to get your guys' opinion on one issue I had - do you think that receiving a -1 to ALL tests PER wound is really practical? Maybe at lower grades yeah, but I think by 5th/6th grade kids learn how to suck up a little pain.

Honestly I always forget about the -1 grade to tests per wound anyway and never do it. I mean, jeez, there are enough modifiers to everything already!

First off, I really appreciate that you guys are not hung up about rules but care more about the background and the story, as can be seen from several other threads in this forum, especially the relatively new one on favourite locations (the pictures are fantastic!).

Thank you very much for your suggestions and ideas! A lot of what you said makes sense to me. And I agree that we should not make too many changes to the rules. After all, Grimm's is not a tactical miniatures game.

Let me compile the ideas into a set of revised combat rules:

• For every scrap grade you did better than your opponent, you receive +1 wound.
• All weapons give +1 to Scrap tests.
• Light weapons do +1, medium weapons +2, and heavy weapons +3.

Optionally, the following (alternatively, just use stature for base damage):

• Stature determines your base damage, if your muscle is higher than that, use muscle instead.
• Increase your inflicted wounds every time you graduate (I can't say whether this mightn't make kids too powerful too quickly. I guess it needs to be tested).

I thought about the wretched combat moves again, and I must say I'm not happy with them. So I would suggest:

• Combat moves go out of the window.
• Only light and medium weapons can be thrown (up to a cricket's hop). You can do that instead of your attack.
• With light and medium weapons you can attack AND parry in your round, with a heavy weapon you can either attack OR parry.
• Weapon damage is slightly altered to make up for the differences in combat move costs: Light weapons +1, Medium weapons (one-handed) +2, Medium weapons (two-handed) +3, Heavy weapons +4.

This still does not include ranged weapons (for which the Fling combat move might be important.)
Please tell me what you think. You know the rules in play much better than me!

When reading the rules the -1 disadvantage per wound sounded pretty harsh and I can well imagine that these disadvantages might be annoying to keep track of. Maybe this should be handled at the GMs discretion, or maybe give a -1 disadvantage per injury (meaning per successful attack which has caused wounds) not per wound.

Ok, I know this is an old thread, but thank you all so much for this. I was really confused about the combat system and this cleared it all up for me.

Ok I haven't played yet so given my input on the matter of "kids doing wounds" isn't going to be perfect but I see the troll comparison where you're trying to show how impossible it is to beat the troll.

I think you're missing a pretty key point in scrap though (again I haven't played yet so I haven't been able to play test this). Now you note that the Troll is size 6 giving it 6 protection and has a 7th grad scrape. This means a kid with a scrap of 4 would need to score three grades up just to hit and then score 3 more grades up to even wound.

The problem seems to be that you're using a high level monster against, what a starting level bully or a slightly leveled up nerd that is unarmed against a 6th grade monster. The key point your missing here is how scrap works, if that kid scores 6th grade hit (something not difficult to do if he's leveled up a few times or even merely once as a bully/jock or at least armed) while he may not inflict a wound he does apply a -1 disadvantage to the monster making further hits easier and thus more likely to apply further disadvantages, and eventually, extra wounds.

This means that while that first kid is not likely to do much the next 3 probably will. I mean if even 2 people hit that means the monster now only has a 4th grade scrap making inflicting wounds quite a bit easier (and thus possibly a permanent -1 disadvantage until it heals). This suggests that such monsters are meant to encourage extra teamwork (perhaps a few moderate level hitters coming in first then your best waiting until he can get a good grade higher and inflict those extra wounds).

Point being a 6th grade bully (the level he should be when fighting a troll) is apt to have far about a level 7 scrap + a weapon and in fact probably has things like big kid giving him an extra size (more damage). This isn't to mention spells and other such things you could use to weaken the troll, I just don't think the wound sets thing is viable because it kind of undermines the need for teamwork when a kid can then (even if difficult) 2-3 shot the troll on their own.

I don't get much of it. They clearly want to give the NPC guards and all a big advantage over the kids.

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