As a GM - a newbie GM - I have noticed that I am having a lot of difficulty running combat encounters effectively. Playing Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition as a player I believe that the difficulty stems from the abstract range system of WFRP 3rd. Hopefully it just means that I am still green as a GM and it is not because I have no imagination.

I was wondering if there are any examples of play you guys can redirect me too. I feel that the examples can be of great help to me.

Currently, I seem to put my players in face-to-face conflicts where there aren't a lot of ambushes etc, because I have problems tracking all the events during a combat encounter.

The abstract ranges allow for a lot of tactics. Generally NPCs just use one manoeuver to move (or more when using some actions). Just make a sketch of the combat and where everyone starts. The players could be ambushed by three bandits who engage them, four stay at range and shoot at them and 2 are moving in behind them. Some action cards alow extra movement and even moving opponents.

Actions like shield bash and then moving away can also be very effective.

But really it's not until you go through all the action cards and see the possibilities for tactics that you can really see what can be done

It's also nice to remember using a rally step or two in a combat to let players regroup and then mix up the situation again. A rally step could happend if the opponents (or characters) retreat, reinforcements arrive shortly, the players barricade themselves in a house etc.

Inform the players that they can use their imagination to make up and use the environment (sensibly of course). There might be a cart that the archer could jump on to get an advantage, the coach that the GM failed to mention could be used as cover etc.

I recommend playing out a sample scenario alone. Something like this:

Set up 3 player character stand ups in the centre of your table. Use a card, or make a note that they're 'on the barge'.

Set up 2 cultist stand ups close to the characters. They are in short range. ie. the PCs can see them, but they're not right next to them. Don't worry about the exact distance. They're on the barge, which is only about 15 meters long.

Set up 3 cultists on the river bank, armed with bows. They are at medium range.

Now think about what you would like to happen in the fight, or be able to happen. The fight starts when the PCs, who are asleep on the deck, are woken by the cultists at the other end of the boat starting a fire, which alerts the cultists on the bank.

The PCs will spend a few seconds working out what is going on, may or may not notice cultists on the bank, and will likely start heading towards the cultists on the end of the boat. Now think about what the cultists will do. Of the two on the boat, one will carry on setting fire to the boat, while the other stands in the way to block the PCs from reaching them. The archers on the bank won't fire immediately, as they were waiting for the fire to signal the attack, and it will take them a bit of time to pick out the PCs in the light from the flames.

Roll initiative, then go through each PC / NPC in turn, and try to do what you want to do with them. eg. First PCs jumps to his feet and runs towards the fire. He spends a manoevre to get up, another to run towards the cultists and another to engage. Then he uses an action to attack.

The second PC looks out into the darkness, suspecting a trap. He passes his test, and sees movement on the bank. No further action this round though.

Now one of the cultists can go. The one who intended to move to block the way is in combat. He fights against the PC he's engaged with.

The third PC now gets a turn. He also runs towards the fight, but can't attack as he can't get passed (or perhaps he can - what actions does he have?)

The cultists on the bank finally get their turn - perhaps they open fire with their bows, or perhaps you decide that all they can do is look for targets this turn.

Try doing something like this without the pressure of having other people there. As you go through each PC or NPC, and work out what they want to do, that's how you're realise how much freedom you've got with the range bands without worrying about exact distances. When one of the PCs decides to jump overboard and swim for the cultists on the bank, then they'll get to see how difficult it can be to cross distances. But you can always keep it dramatic. If you want the fight to move faster, there's no need to spend ages having reinforcements run across a huge distance. You have them arrive at medium range, and spend a few manoevres etc to get where you need them to be to make the story fun. Think about the end rather than the means. If you need the PCs or NPCs to be somewhere cool then just work out whether it'll take one manoevre or two to move into position. Don't worry about whether they can cross X meters of ground. Go with 'does it feel right'.

That's what I'd advise, anyway. Good luck!

My combat set up is pretty simple. A stand-up for each PC, NPC and group of henchmen. Terrain is represented by the cards provided in the core books, adventures and expansions.

Touching stand-ups are engaged in a single group. So if stand-up A is touching B and B is touching C, they're all in one engagement. The same goes for terrain. If a stand-up is touching the card then it is in that feature.

Not touching is close range. I've got some paper markers for medium, long, and extreme ranges. Range markers are used between engagements or general groups of units.

That's the mechanics, conceptually I explain the ranges to my players in terms they can quickly understand:

• Engaged is in the same room
• Close is in the same house or backyard
• Medium is across the street
• Long is a block away
• Extreme is farther away barely within visible range.

One thing to get rid of is the tendency and thought process of using a grid and being exact. WFRP3's combat is narrative with a few rules mechanics to keep it fair and balanced.

To get from Close to Engaged range, two PCs could do wildly different things:

PC A vaults over a bar (using 1 maneuver) to deck the bartender

PC B rushes across an open room (using 1 maneuver)

PC C slowly and quietly sneaks a few feet out of the shadows to stab his target (1 maneuver)

PC D climbs up the side of a coach to engage the foe on the roof (1 maneuver)

The story comes first, and you assign the maneuver/mechanics to what the player wants to accomplish.

Thank you for all the comments, I appreciate it. And your explanations do make things clearer for me.

One thing I have noticed is that there aren't - sometimes- enough location cards to have a cohesive area dotted out. I think there was a program that would let me make my own cards and stuff, so might have to dabble in their creation for a little bit.

Dvang, you hit it on the head. I am trying to be too precise in this system. Perhaps this is the case because I am a new GM coupled with inexperienced Roleplayers but I'll definitely change my approach for next session.

Do you guys have a sample how you handled the combat for the Gathering Storm? Let's say the beastmen encounter? (I am currently at the Goblin part)

Thanks again

I would recommend buying the newly released GM Vault, and that will give you 2 more copies (I believe) of each location card from the Core Set.

Again, though even location cards are somewhat abstract. Unless the two locations are far apart, as well as noticably different from each other, you should only need one of each location most of the time to represent that location/terrain.

As an example, there is a road through a forest. You need two location cards, one for the road and one for the forest.

Placing standups near or on the location card indicates whether they are in that location/affected by the terrain. So, take two PCs that on on different sides of the road in the forest. They still would get placed on/near the same forest location card to indicate they are in the forest, despite being on different sides of the road.

You could even say one of those is the default, and the card is just as a reminder for terrain effects. So, for example, anything that isn't on the road location card is considered in the forest location. This allows more visual positioning with the standups without needing multiple location cards.

That said, for a lot of people/groups used to less abstract representations (and more "accurate" positioning of standups relative to each other), I agree that more location cards will make things easier. Using my example, placing a road card in the middle of the table with a forest card on either side makes the layout of the terrain and positioning in it easier to see, and easier to remember who is on which side of the road.

So, yeah, get the GM vault for the additional location cards (as well as other additional goodies, like dice)

I'd need to check on my finances for that. I have a few products on my mind that I want in my hands shortly and those are:

- Winds Of Magic
- Edge of Night
- Creature Guide/Vault
- Pathfinder corebook
- Masks of Nyarlathotep (probably spelt wrong).

It wil make it hard for me to get the GM vault right away. On the other hand, do I need the Winds of Magic expansion? Do the new guides/vaults have all of the information presented in Winds of Magic? Or would I lack stand-ups and information?

It's becoming clear that my narrative skills are the issue here and I might need to prepare better for any of my sessions regarding combat encounters and more. Will morph into a drill-sergeant and push my players into the limitless boundaries of imagination.

After Edge of Night I will probably start with my own adventures and create cards accordingly. Does anyone know what that program was again and where I can find it? I believe Hammerzeit had it but it had an ip-address instead of a Domain Name.

If there is any more advice you fellows are willing to share, please keep them coming

Winds of Magic has a great adventure (actually, they all do).

If you have a wizard in your group, then I'd say it's a must to get, as it has Rank 3 careers, plus fluff on the colleges of magic and a bunch of new spells.

Otherwise, with no wizard, it can probably wait for a later purchase. It does have rules for corruption in it, and those are printed in the new GM Guide.

No, the new guides/vaults only have stuff from the Core Set (except the Creature Guide/Vault has some new creatures that arent in the core set).

Similarly, if you have a priest in the group, you would really want to get Signs of Faith, as that has rank 3 priest career, information on the various religions and orders for them, as well as additional blessings (including rank 3 blessings), etc. Plus rules for disease (although those are printed in the GM Guide too)

I suggest you completely take the pathfinder book off your list, as it won't help your WFRP game and thus is essentially useless. It won't even work to take notes in, as it already has writing on it, which would make the notes quite difficult to read.

Edge of Night is a good adventure, but that's pretty much all it is, unlike Winds of Magic and Signs of Faith that are more supplements that also come with adventures. You might consider prioritizing one of those instead, unless you're dying to specifically run the EoN adventure itself.

Masks is, well, I can't argue against it. I've got it myself and is probably one of the greatest all-time RPG campaigns ever. I think the real question is, why don't you already have it?!

I have thought a long time about converting Masks to Warhammer... it would be perfect, but would still require a complete rewrite.

Yes, it would make the basis for an excellent WFRP campaign, but would require quite a bit of conversion / re-writing to do so.

We initially had trouble too. We were all used to the 5'dance step

Try playing it without putting mini's on the board and just give people the range markers to put in front of them. That worked for us enough to break our mindset.

jh