In no particular order...

- how does a PC gain a Fortune Die associated with a specific characteristic (Str, Int, Wil, etc)?

- the armour defense values make no logical sense to me; why is a chain shirt worth 1 point but chainmail is worth 0? What is it supposed to represent?

- when an NPC/PC/monster dies, does it matter which initiative token you remove?

- do monsters/NPCs ever get skill dice?

My apologies if any of these are already addressed in the books -- I've looked, but can't find the answers.

You need to purchase a Fortune Advance in a career with at least 1 fortune in its career advances box (iirc that's all of them!)

Defence is roughly a chance of a blow glancing off or missing completely because of what you're wearing/defending yourself with. Whereas Soak is an amount of damage 'absorbed' by what you're wearing/carrying. So when examining armour you'd want to look at the Def and Soak stats together to get an idea of how effective the armour is.

Not really. Although it would make a difference to the actual conflict, of course.

Yes, (if you mean Expertise dice) they're under E in the A/C/E

Monkeylite,

Thanks for the answers! Just to clarify, my problem with the Defense values has to do with an apparent lack of logic behind them. If the defense value represents the 'glancing blow' potential, why does chainmail have a value of 0 but a chain shirt has a value of 1? It makes no sense to me. Likewise, why does a robe get a 1, but 'superior' armour might get a 0? I know WHFRP isn't about realism, but this makes no real sense to me.

Actually, as per the errata, you don't remove initiative trackers when combatants die.

Monkeylite is right about Expertise dice for monsters. A few also have a skill or two trained, which is listed in their description.

You don't remove initiative trackers when someone dies? Um, huh? Why?

I think it has to do with options. Most of the time, acting first is best. There are those rare occasions that acting later makes the difference. Keeping those tokens there keeps the options open.

Doc, the Weasel said:

Gotcha. But it doesn't allow someone to gain more actions per round simply because they lost a buddy, I assume?

No, everyone still gets to act only once a turn. Those extra spots get unused.

Lot of people seem to miss the FAQ:

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Cheers