Hello everyone,

I know this subject has been debated many times, but just in case it can be of use to someone, here is my take on making combat difficulty somewhat harder, without taking away the fast paced and deadly nature of WFRP3.

First, I'll consider two general types of combat: melee and duels.

Melees are general slugfests where multiple combatants go at each other in relative chaos. Say 5 or more combatants in a same engagement.

"Duels" would include formal one on one duels and any situation where the GM decides that the combatants involved can concentrate solely on their opponent or opponents (I'd limit that to one on one or one on two in certain circumstances). GM fiat is needed here.

For Melees, combat difficulty is generally 1d as per RAW. Melees are gruesome affairs ! Survival in melee depends on coordination of troops, ie: Guarded position, Improved guarded position and such support actions. A well trained unit can cause immense damage to untrained ones.

For "Duels", individual capacity is the main factor to win. Difficulty is WS opposed by WS. BUT I also have houseruled the Opposed rules.

The main problem with opposed tests in the RAW is that it doesn't scale up. The rules work well for stats of 3 or 4. After that, it breaks down since two Str 6 fighters will oppose at 6 dice vs 2 puny challenge dice... It's broken ! So here's my fix.

Opposed tests: Dice pool of defender is determined by adding Stat+Skill+Spec and dividing that by two. Whole numbers become Challenge dice, halves become Misfortune.

Ex.: A human Mercenary (Str4, WS2, Spec1) attacks a Goblin Diestro (whatever that is...). The Goblin is a nifty one and has Str3, WS3, Spec1, he's a Nemesis of course. The pool will be: 4 Blue, 2 Yellow, 1 White + 3 Purple, 1 Black. Using the probability calculator, that would give the Mercenary a 59% chance of hitting, assuming the Goblin doesn't dodge or parry.

For non-nemesis monsters, consider Expertise to be levels of skill for logical skills for the beast to have. Monsters do not have Spec, and rarely have more than one expertise, but they can use Aggression to tilt the balance in their favour.

Try this out with different scenarios and you will see that Opposed tests between equal level opponents will stay around 50% probability, whatever the proficiency level (beginner or experienced) you give them. It's a pretty sturdy houserule.

Lastly, I have to remind you that my houserules are aiming at a somewhat lower success rate than the RAW, and at giving Skill as much importance as stats, or more. Note that I also use the optional rule of extra damage for unused successes, but without rank limitation. I am also checking to make Crits slightly harder, probably by using Resilience tests and certain condition cards... Not sure yet.

What do you think ?

Anybody think this is good stuff ?

The problem with this - and most every other solution that I've seen that just keeps upping the number of purple dice in the mix is that while it does make it more challenging it's also making it more likely to generate chaos star results.

So it's not just a simple case of reducing success you are actually creating situations where your very skilled characters are more likely to fail, marginally succeed or suffer from chaos star results more frequently then the beginning characters.

It's similar to the problem that results in many dice pool systems like the original World of Darkness games. Where as you got better so did the odds of you rolling 1's and fumbling or canceling out successes.

Adding more purple dice isn't the way here.

I see you point Kryyst.

But my houserule adds Challenge dice only if the opponent is more skilled. So Chaos Stars are more likely to happen against such an opponent. I understand that that might be strange for location Chaos effects, but I guess I'll have to wing it. Maybe the combat is more furious ?

Anyhow, I've playtested and I can't apply my houseruled Opposed tests in combat since it adds up with Active defense, support and all those extra Challenge that fly in from everywhere.

I'm planning on going back to using Ag/2 to determine Combat Difficulty in combat. That will make AG a better stat and make agile characters better at dodging (since the Ag/2 will stack with the Dodge effect), which is good IMO. As people have Ag3 to 5 generally, that will give us a 1.5 to 2.5 Challenge range. Not over the top. ).5 will be treated as an extra Misfortune. Penalties for the use of armour could be introduced, I'll have to think about that.

Ex: AG5 gives 2 Challenge and 1 Misfortune. Add to that an Improved Dodge and you have some agile combatant !

A regular Soldier, trained and specialized with STR4 would have 53% chance of missing altogether, and the guy is in his undies ! (Thats in neutral stance.)

A poor peasant with STR4 2 Fortune but unskilled would have 42% chance of hitting. (As you can see, I'm not nerfing the hitting capability altogether) John Doe STR3 would have 19% chance of hitting.

I would like to know what your experience is in play, do players always hit using the RAW for you ? Did you change anything to the rules ? Are there some agile combatants that complain ?

My two house rules dealing with combat and the balance of dice pools:

• Reading the Challenge Die: Chaos star = chaos star + 2 challenges + roll one extra Challenge Die.

• In melee or ranged combat the attacker must add 1 misfortune die for each relevant skill advancement the defender has. Relevant skills are weapon skill (attacks that can be parried), resilience(attacks that can be blocked) or coordination(attacks that can be dodged). You can only use one skill as defense. Armor with a soak value over 1 decrease this defense by one for each soak over 1.

On top of that I have some house rules for A/C/E and one of the rules lets NPC add yellow dice with the Expertise pool, or defend by spending expertise on adding challenge dice to an attacker.

Our troupe with about 15 games behind us now and at least as many combats, have tested different rules, but the simple rules above have given us the perfect balance we want.

I have a few questions about this Gallows,

1) I'm not sure what you mean with the Chaos star. Do you roll another challenge die if a chaos star pops up in the throw?

2) So players have to choose beforehand what they use to oppose the check, isn't that what active defenses represent?

TimbiWan said:

1) It's simply a new rule for how the challenge die works in every situation. When you roll a chaos star on a challenge die, that chaos star counts as a chaos star, two challenges (removes two successes) and you reroll another challenge die (following the same rules). It doesn't influence the basic chances for success that much, but it does add a risk to miss entirely if you have + challenge dice and roll chaos stars and get rerolls.

2) The defence I am referring to is simply passive defence. Like the rules state you add misfortune dice to in opposed rolls based on the "defenders" relevant skills. Although combat rolls doesn't work like normal opposed rolls, it does make sense to allow this passive defence.

I'll say with these two simple rules our combat has become a lot more interresting and varied.