Hi,

after gamemastering the first 4 sessions of our WFRPG 3rd campaign, I can finally start playing my thief. To say that my group is extremely combat oriented would be like saying that tigers are a bit dangerous or politicians a bit greedy ;-)

So my thief had to learn how to fight - no problem. I have looked at all the dexterity based action cards, and finally learned backstab dramatic strike and agile strike. But the options for dexterity based fight are very limited. Has anyone invented new dexterity based cards, or do i have to wait for the military supplement?

I thought there were 1 or 2 other melee attacks that were dex based, but I might just be thinking of Wardancer cards. Also keep in mind thrown and other ranged attacks are agility based so a few of them would be good additions for your character. You should also consider having a main goche as your off weapons as it's defensive quality is handy as it all stacks with the parry actions as well.

Think they're trying to keep agility based melee at a minimum, to avoid the "ninja" theme and make agility the "best" stat to have. As it is now, pretty much all stats are equally important.

As much as I enjoy playing light fighters/rogues (and hence being agility/dexterity based), I agree that you dont want to add too much in the way agility-based melee options due to balance issues with the stats.

That said, you could allow a character to maybe use Agility for Basic Melee attacks but it still could use Str for damage and I'd either throw in another black die and/or add a few recharge tokens the Action or somesuch. Basically, I think it's worth giving people an option here, but you dont want to make that option so good that they can choose to totally ignore Strength.

Spivo said:

I don't see that as a likely risk. At the moment, Strength is by far the best melee stat (except for Toughness, maybe). Allowing more Agility-based attacks would mean that agile people have a more realistic chance to hit (realistic combat is much more about coordination and training than about sheer strength), but they wouldn't do nearly as much damage as a Strength-based fighter. I'd consider that a perfectly fine trade-off.

Personally, I'm seriously considering introducing an Agility-based basic attack action. Exactly like Melee Strike, but uses Agility instead of Strength in order to hit. It would make existing Agility-based actions a lot less useless, because you also have a regular attack to fall back on. You still won't hurt anyone in real armour, but it's a lot better than nothing.

mcv said:

Not sure why I'm getting into this as I hate this debate but... Agility helps to not get hit and it'll help if you just want to tag your opponent. But fighting is about speed, strength and endurance and like it or not both speed and endurance are factors of strength and training. Having agility is never going to hurt but it's also never going to be the basis for a fight.

As someone already mentioned the wardancer has several coordination based attacks already, there is nimble strike and I'll bet that we will see more cards doing this in the future, especially since the SoF has the assassin career in it.

As a Thief, you probably also have a decent Fellowship rating. I seem to remember there being a couple of combat actions using Fellowship. Combinging these with the Agility-based attacks you'll probably get an unorthodox but still effective melee fighter.

Kryyst said:

Are we talking about system or about real life? A real life sword fight is at least as much about coordination and technique as it is about sheer speed and strength. And whether speed is more a function of strength than agility is highly debatable. A fast, powerful but clumsy attack may work against an untrained opponent, but not against someone who knows what he's doing. Strength is really more about the effect you cause once you hit, rather than whether you hit at all.

In my opinion, training should be by far the biggest factor, both in attack and defense, strength certainly has its place, but don't discount the relevance of agility, quickness and coordination on attack. Personally, I think an untrained agile fighter would have a better chance of scoring a hit than an untrained strong fighter. At least as long as he's using a light weapon (any kind of sword). For unbalanced weapons, especially one-handed weapons, I guess strength is more relevant to control your weapon.

I think as it is now with RAW its just a question of how fast a fighter can get hold of that full plate and tower shield. With high strenght you can carry that unencumbered, do more damage, have higher weapon skill and have improved parry.

Agility gives you Dodge and ranged damage, worse fighting skills in most cases, only light armours. Ranged damage is good yes. but if you don't want to be a ranged fighter...

I don't think the system represents that you dodge and move slower in heavy armours compared to unarmoured fighters.

-L

You could talk to your GM about adding a new weapon quality something like:

Precise: Melee Attacks with this weapon may substitute Agility in place of Strength or a Strength based skill for action rolls. Damage is still based on Strength, however.

This quality could then be added to appropriate(light) weapons, giving the user a choice of what characteristic to roll with. If a character has a higher agility those extra dice could help with damage(boons, etc.) as well as for hitting an opponent.

There may be some balance issues, but I don't forsee too many. A weak fighter cannot carry as much equipment/loot...

-Thorvid