Hi I didn't feel like taking 3 hours to find out how this works so

melee is ST+DR

range is AG+DR

in most cases yes. see the specific action card.

If you know, why is damage for range AG? it seam unbalenced such as my groupe has a priest (me) , range high elf, and a wizard. As the priest I have 5 ST, the high elf has 5 AG. So with me having a huge two handed maul I put out about 12 DR avarage, the high elf puts out 10 DR from long range. I like the fact that we kill every thing with ease but i feel a little under used with me doing a little more DR with my life at risk. And then we got to the necormance in gathering storm and she got one shotted with rapid fire from the high elf.

discipleofsilas said:

You also have more defense options, and don't track ammo. I play a crossbow user, and am constantly having to decide to stick with ranged, or switch to melee weapons so I can parry and block.

also note that rapid fire has been errataed, if you didn't already know. But shooting is deadly. not as deadly as a hammer to the face but luckily you may get one or two shots in before the enemy closes with you, wher you will be less efficient because of your (most likely) low strength. you can't be good at everything.

well it also like this, I'm a priest so i need FEL and WILL for my blessings so I have 5ST 2TO 2AG 2IN 3WI 4FEL I ware a chian mail because we just started and have no money. she has 2ST 3TO 5AG 2IN 3WI 2FEL with leather. so i soak 5DR and i soak 5DR, withh my action cards i can do a possable 19DR and a crit. she can possable do 36DR and 3 crit from medium range, I know i can get full plate and have 8 soak but for now me and the wizard look use less next to her.

discipleofsilas said:

Seems to me you picked the wrong Career (or approach, you're trying to compare d**k sizes) ... Do you want to be a kick ass fighter ? or do you want to be a Priest ? You cannot have it all.

If you focus solely on Combat, you'll be as good as an archer focusing solely on range combat (you both will have advantages over the other and weaknesses). If you are a Priest trying to be a fighter, you'll be more versatile but less of a fighter than a real warrior

The game I'm playing is the premade gathering storm, we have a first time gm on our hands. so with what given in the book not a whole lot of role playing is going on. Mostly in the game is fighting for us, but I'm looking at more in general of a fight vs a ranger. Say they had a fight and the fighter put 5 into ST and 5 to TO, and the ranger put 5 into AG/TO. The fighter uses a great weapon the ranger uses a long bow. The fight start the ranger goes first with high AG, so round one there at med range, the ranger uses rapid fire hits all three times does 12DR and a crit each hit. The fighter soaks 8DR each time so the fighter take 9 DR and 3 crit. then the ranger move away 4 time 1 free maneuver and three more form the action card. Then its the fighter turn after the major crit hoping they still get a free maneuver try to go after, if they want to catch up they need to move six time so that a min of 5 fatige almost adding BL dice to there every thing they need then swings hits a good 19 and a crit so the ranger soaks 7DR takes about the same 11DR and one crit. Next turn ranger moves back and pop off a shot and down goes fighter, 10DR so 2 goes through and that 14DR enough to the fighter.

That situations stacked in favour of the Archer though.

If I was playing the fighter there is no way I'd single handedly charge towards an archer at range... I'd either look for cover to advance in, or somewhere secure to hide so that the archer had to come to me...

In saying that I know you were just trying to illustrate a point.

But what if the whole thing is setup in favour of the fighter - the combat starts at close range, and the fighter goes first... Then it's the archer who is in a tight spot.

One is good at range, one in close, and each is going to hold an advantage in their 'area' and shouldn't really be compared.

What's to stop the archer using his one free maneuvre to fire and retreat? Any melee monsters could never catch up without burning fatigue.

discipleofsilas said:

Your math is wrong. Allow me to illustrate.

Lets say we do keep your example of a human priest of sigmar, and an elf ranger with 5STR/5TOU and 5AGI/5TOU. First off the human has the strength to wear plate. But if we're going with starting characters we can go a bit more realistic (say human went afluent): starts with default great weapon and spends 5g on breastplate and chain). But this is unrealistic as the elf won't have the 5 TOU. But even so. Bow and Leather puts him at 7 encumbrance, which is pushing his likely 10. So lets go with that (he also has ammo, and maybe a few other trinkets).

So human priest: 7DR/2CR with 5 TOU/1D/4SOAK - 14 wounds

Elf Ranger: 5DR/3CR 5TOU/0D/2SOAK - 13 wounds

They open in close range. Elf has higher Agi probably wins init. Round 1 he moves out of close range to medium, and uses Rapid fire in Reckless stance for the extra attack. Note I'm using the CORRECT version (errata'd) of Rapid fire.

Attack 1: 1 Red, 4 blue, 1 yellow, 1 purple, 1 black - Lets say he hits with 3 successes. 12 damage Piercing one - Priest takes: 4.

Priest wisely chooses to dodge the second attack as its the one that has so-so odds of hitting, as opposed to pushing the last one into a near-guaranteed miss (as its already unlikely).

Attack 2: 1 Red, 4 blue, 1 yellow, 2 purple, 3 black. Averages say elf might hit, might not. Its about even. Lets say he hits for 10. Priest takes 2.

Attack 3: 1 Red, 4 blue, 1 yellow, 3 purple, 1 black. Averages say the elf will miss. He will also likely get a chaos star (~38%) which means his bowstring breaks, or something else fails. But lets say he hits again for 10. Priest takes 2.

- END OF ELF TURN: Elf (unharmed) Priest at 8 damage.

Priest moves in. Uses Hammer of Sigmar. Elf dodges. Priest uses the human racial.

Hammer of Sigmar: 1 red, 4 blue, 1 yellow, 2 white, 1 purple, 1 black - Lets say he hit pretty handily (its likely) and he isn't using the obligatory priest buffs that increase his damage because magically he didn't see the fight coming. That's still 5+7+4+2 (if comet) looking at 18 damage, 3 criticals. The elf soaks 5 + 2: 11 wounds, 3 criticals.

END OF TURN ONE: Priest 8 wounds, elf 11 wounds 3 criticals.

Now that they're out of 'special cards' I know who I'm betting on to finish the fight with the basic card as his next shot.

Elf: Average 2-3 damage on sigmarite. Human: average 5-8 damage on an elf that already has multiple critical wounds.

Note that this is also using your own stacked example that favors the bowman. If I was cheating and knowing ahead of time that there would be archers, the priest might bring a tower shield (which he can use maneuvres to drop, draw his greathammer etc) which automatically gives 2 black dice on all attacks to the archer, and which said priest can then use to block with for EXTRA black dice giving him the edge.

Oh and not to mention the melee has a far better chance of surviving the fight in a room, tight quarter, ambush etc. Plus they can often land some great status effects, party buffs and so on.

Ultimately the balance is not so far swung as you think (without that 5 TO which is HIGHLY unlikely in an elf, the priest would 1-shot him. Not to mention combat monsters like the trollslayer). More often than not a lucky or an unlucky roll can make all the difference. Saw a player roll 5 dice against 1 purple and miss (all blanks on the good dice) last night. Not likely - but its possible.

Illustrious said:

Starting from close range, yes the melee guy would have to burn a fatigue to close, but just the once.

Starting from engaged, the archer has to use that maneuvre to disengage and ends up in close range, which means the melee guy just uses his maneuvre to engage again.

Illustrious said:

Except that normal NPCs don't burn fatigue, they burn up wounds instead. And if there's a pesky archer firing arrow after arrow at the monster you can bet it's going to get annoyed enough to burn some wounds to get to the archer (in meta terms, would the monster rather burn 2 wounds to get to the archer and get an attack off, or would he stand still and get a Rapid shot in his face without even getting an attack off). Actually this issue was raised as a problem for ranged combatants in a thread some time ago.

To the OP, I suggest trying to tone down the competition stuff you seem to have going in your group. Try and play your character as a person instead of a bot that tries to output "maximum dps". WHFRP3e is not designed at all to be balanced between careers and play styles, if that's important to you, you may be better off with another game system.

You don't even have to go that deep into details to compare. He does play an Initiate and even if it's Sigmar/Ulric/Myrmidia, he won't come close in damage to any heavy hitter. You also don't want an Initiate starting with 5 St and 5 Tou as you have 2 to start with, that would cost 24 of the 25 creation points.

In my group i have a Woody with Agi 5, Long Bow and Rapid Fire, he does well, but can't compete with the Troll Slayer (Str 5, Great Axe), whom can't take a beating like the Dwarf Solider does. The Elf soaks 5, Slayer 6, Soldier 9. Each have 1 Defence now. The soldier also has Imp. Parry & Block. The Slayer did hit 3 times for 20 damage in the 3 times we played (10+ hours sessions) and often enough around 15 damage (his base is 12 damage).

It's a group thing, the Initiate of Sigmar wish he could hit as well, but knows he can't (St 3, Tou 3, Great Hammer and Chain Mail). He also knows that he is the face of the group (Social interactions) and he still can hit well (base 10, sigmar's hammer did 14). The Solider wish he could hammer in the ground his targets (he still hits well with a base of 9), but he is the only one that cannot be 2-shot by a Wargor. The Elf got 1-shot once on a charge (soak 5, 11 Wounds)

I see it as it depends on the game your in the premade gathering storm realy is not much of a role playing game as more of you tell us we go and kill unless you want to be unruly and not go with the story then the gm is stuck, at least un till we get more exp. tjis is our fisrt game and im just seeing the advantages of a ranger in combact were the ranger killed the necormancer in 2 shot out of 3 from rapid shot. also this is our second session and she has 5 char dice 3 yellow 1 white. Im just thinking do it like other role playing games and use ST for damage insted of the DEX or AG. I mean I'm a big guy with a big hammer that killed 2 monster the wizard none and the ranger about 7-10. Granted that yes the monster will get bigger and badder but for now i lay back and watching the skiny girl one shot every thing. I do stay to my char and try to talk the sitchuation out and not fight but every thing we come across is undead or no going to back down on a fight so it kill kill kill. it is nice having a fisrt game go so well that we walk the whole game like a vaction with the ranger but at some point its like why do i do 12 avg and she dose 10 avg if i used a one handed weapon i would be being out damage from 30 yards away.

Sounds like your GM doesn't know how to use A/C/E pools correctly, or set up the encounters to challenge you guys.

Also - if this is your second session ... and you are at rank 1 (IE 2 xp or so) how is she rolling 3 yellow dice? Just asking.

There is an archer in the group that I GM for and he can be a real pain if they catch monsters out in the open.

I found though, that even with TGS I could manipulate the encounters so that they didn't start at medium to long range all the time, and when the monsters started in close, the Archer struggled...

To my mind (and the extra dice your archer seems to have aside) your still trying to compare apples to oranges. Can you archer handle social situations like you priest, will she be able to curry favour and cast spells later, could she even stand toe-to-toe in combat with the priest? But then on the other hand, your Priest can't compete with her at range, probably isn't as sneaky or skilled outdoors etc etc

Each and every character has their own strengths and weaknesses, and I think you can run into problems if you start trying to compare them to each other.

shinma said:

As Munchkin said above.

Also, no way the archer can roll 3 yellow (Expertise) dice. 1 is her max as a begining character (1 training per Rank).
Let's say the character is well "made" for archery : Agi 5, Longbow, Training in Ballistic, 1 Fortune in Agi (1 to 3 Exp from 2 play sessions) -> 5 Blue dice + 1 yellow + 1 White (then add the challenge die and extra difficulty mods from cards / situation, under heavy rain like the TGS i'd add 1 misfortune depending on the Storm level, etc)

she put two advances in to skill dice and both were balistic she had one from creation and specilization. I dont know what you mean by A/C/E she proboly dosent eathir

discipleofsilas said:

That means she has one rank of Training in Ballistic (1 yellow Expertise) and 1 Specialisation, most likely Bow, which would add a Fortune die on Ballistic skill checks while using a Bow -> 1 Yellow + 1 White.

It could become a 1 Yellow + 2 White dice if she has a Fortune Advance put on Agility.

ACE is for monsters (Aggressing / Cunning / Expertise), for your GM

Edit : if you meant she had 1 training + spec at creation (1 Yellow + 1 White) and then she trained and spec again with 2 advances, it is an error, she cannot. As a rank 1 character, she can only be trained once in each skill (beeing done at creation or after) and only have one "Bow" Specialisation (see specs page 17 for Ballistic : Bow, Crossbow, Thrown Weapons, Blackpowder Weapons).

When she'll reach Rank 2 (10 Experience), she'll be able to train Ballistic once more (a second Expertise die)

All monsters have a base stat line and A/C/E dice. These are special pools the GM can use to defend the NPCs (by adding black dice to a PCs attack pool) or as his own white/yellow dice on offense. This is just how the system works - and it allows some flexibility and gives the GM options to customize his monsters to challenge the party appropriately. If your party is heavy hitting, and ends combats in one round, then most of those dice should become black dice on the players attacks (IE defense). This would cap one-shots more often than not.

Also I think Cwell explained the yellow die problem well (if you read skill advancement in the core book on p.35 it states that you can only have a skill trained once per rank). Make sure you guys are using the errata, and the rules correctly. If something seems too powerful, chances are pretty good it might be. For the most part you can't roll 3 yellow dice as a PC until you're 30 games in (certain abilities and appropriate talents aside).

ok didn't know about one skill per rank but she still had about 5 succese over that what she needed each time she would have easly done it, and I didn't read the gm book only the gm did i know about a/c/e but not every thing you can do with it.

i don't have the books it with the gm, but my thinking is that if you take a 20lb hammer to the stomic or an arrow the hammer wins by a lot. I know that there is flexablity as with the rules it more to have fun than any thing else, maybe im tring to hard for the melee asspect but I would like to sugest that you might want to use st for bow damage insted. some games it may change a lot, maybe not because i figure if i made a human ranger i could get 4ST 4TO 4AG 4IN 2WI 2FEL and have 4 skills and 2 spec with 1 action card 1 talent and poor. It a pretty well rounded chatacter and youll be able to do some good dam with both ranger and melee if you use my segution as well. to each his own and ill as my gm see how she reacts.

Keep in mind also that ranged attacks are more prone to environmental conditions than melee attacks. Range, wind, darkness, rain, objects in the path, etc all can easily add a lot of misfortune dice (and perhaps even Challenge dice), that normally won't be applied (or at least be as significant) to a melee attack. All the suggestions are good, and if your group is finding ranged to be too powerful your GM is doing a few things to allow it to be so:

- Starting too many combats at Long (or greater) ranges

- Not having cover/obstacles between the archer and the target

- Not adding enough misfortune dice for conditions to ranged shots

- Not having NPCs use A/C/E pool dice to defend against ranged attacks (especially powerful ones like Rapid Shot)

- Not having NPCs use basic defensive Reaction actions. Keep in mind, NPCs have access to and can use Dodge & Block (if they have a shield) vs ranged attacks as well.

- Using the wrong (unerrata'd) Rapid Shot.

Based on your posted listing of stats, I'm very concerned over the choices for Stats. A 2 To? VERY dangerous. It's not uncommon to get 2 criticals in a single combat, and all it takes is 3+going unconscious to kill you (it also quite possible to take 3 criticals in a single hit, let alone an entire combat too). A 2 ST? You can't carry or wear much with that. The GM should make sure the archer has accounted for their weapon, their armor, their ammo, etc. *Everything* they are carrying is important when their ST is only 2.

Your GM could also fight fire with fire, and throw in their own NPC archer with Rapid Shot, and have them target the group's archer. A few times of that, and the group (and the ranger especially) should be less enthusiastic about open-field archery battles, and more receptive to taking cover when approaching battles. I'd suggest fixing the stuff above first, before doing something like this.

But anyway, using Ag for ranged damage works just fine.

well the sictuation is we were pretty much rushed by the gm, this how crazy it is. We made characters before any of us read the books. she got the game got the group together and said do you want to make characters. we all said it was crazy and there no book online like say decent. so when we made the character i didnt know that TO was soak, ST and AG was for damage so on and so forth. but what we read is if you take enoght wounds over you thresh hold and one crit more than your TO you die, at least that the way we are playing becuase i have enoght soak that pretty much only crits hits have enoght damage to go all the way through to hit me so i have 3 cirt and no wounds. soi i know that im doing this right when you hit with a crit it adds a new damage that is critical not just an old wound become critical right. also if i have enoght soak to not get hit by a crit i don't get hit right?