Hello everyone,

After more playing and more testing, here are the few houserules I'm using for my game, in a jumble.

But first, some things need be said about my goal in houseruling.

1- Increase unpredictability in combat (especially where damage and death are concerned)

2- Create explosive damage capacities (goes hand in hand with 1, I liked that in V1 and V2 a very lucky roll could kill anything)

3- Use a minimum number of houserules and a minimum of math and no tables. Keep it simple.

So here goes:

THE HOUSERULES

- Dice mechanic -

Chaos Star = As per RAW + roll another Challenge die, if another Chaos Star shows, keep the result and roll again, otherwise, ignore the extra die completely

(this gives each CS a 1 in 8 chance of aggravating)

Sigmar's Comet = As per RAW + rolle another Expertise die, if another SC shows, keep the result and roll again, otherwise, ignore the extra die completely

(this gives each SC a chance of getting better)

Tips on interpreting Chaos Stars and Banes. I use the general difficulty as a guideline (1 bane is like an Easy bad thing) and in general, Banes will cause delays, tactical problems, misfortune or whatnot while CS will cause breakage, wounds and even Criticals for severe multiple CS rolls (3 or 4 CS, for example).

- Combat -

Multiple Sigmar's Comets can trigger multiple Critical wounds.

Each time a character suffers Critical Wounds, compare the sum of the Severity Ratings of all the Criticals caused with ONE HIT with the target's Toughness. If Severity > Toughness, victim gains Overwhelmed condition for a number of turns = to the excess Severity. If Severity > 2*Toughness, the victim falls KO and will lose 1 Wound per round until KOed as per RAW. If Severity > 3* To, the bloke is dead.

(As roughly 90 % of Criticals are rated 3 or less, you will need a very lucky hit to kill anyone this way, but it makes the regular lucky hit, 2 Criticals in one go, really stand out, and with a 3 Criticals hit, you could down most rank and file villains. The idea here is that a well placed shot from anyone can ultimately be the end all of anyone.)

Each turn, you get EITHER one Action or one Manœuvre.

(You might think this will slow things down, sure, it will ! But I always hated that in RPGs people sling shields, swords and whatnot almost instantly. Makes the crossbow a bit more realistic too. But mostly, it really gives all the cards that have Free manœuvre results stand out. Also, it streamlines the Assist manœuvre and henchmen, now Henchen are just blokes that all Assist except one guy who takes his action. Lastly, actions that need be prepared are more differentiated, and people can't run around as easily without taking fatigue. The Wardancer and the Swordmaster will profit more from the mobility included in some of their Action cards.)

Higher lethality: as per RAW in the GM toolkit, but no limitation to maximum number of wounds delivered.

- Spellcasting -

Rank based casting as per GM toolkit, but I reduced the general difficulty showed on the table by one challenge die and this difficulty always ADDS to the difficulty on the Spell card. So for example, if you are 1 rank higher than the spell, the difficulty if Simple 0d + Card difficulty, and so on.

So there, that's it for now, I'd like to know if you like any of this. Thanks all !

Your rule regarding criticals is excellent! I thought that something about criticals was missing. They didn't have desired impact in RAW. I've tried other houserule variants like severity converted to extra wounds but that didn't work that well. Your ruling was just what I was looking for. I'm using it in my games now.

Thanks !

To make it i bit less deadly, you could use the WOUND THRESHOLD as limit for the insta-kill effect, instead of Toughness*3 (for big creatures it will make a difference). Additionally, you could let the target try to resist the effect by testing Resilience against a difficulty equal to the number by which To*3 (or WT) is exceeded with a maximum of 4d, of course.

Now to make it more deadly in an interesting way, you could use current Wounds as the limit for the insta-kill (KO and bleeding) ! That would make Wounds be more important regarding survivability and would make Crits the "felling blow" more often. It would make combatants more fragile as the battle lasts longer, very stressful, but also entertaining ! I hope.

My houserules are evolving. I don't want to tinker too much with the system and I want them easy to memorize.

I will edit out the Manœuvre OR an Action each round because it reacts strangely to certain card results or requirements.

I have to admit that the Manœuvre system is pretty good as is, BUT there aere two things that bug me:

The first being the Reload weapon quality which I find much too lenient regarding crossbows and handguns especially.

The second which bugs me most is the Assist Manœuvre.

Don't your players in melee use it every time ? Isn't it a hassle to remember ? Who gave a fortune die to whom ?

And why does the Manœuvre give one Fortune in combat, but a possibility of two otherwise ? (add one fortune for skill training)

As per RAW, I see no reason not to use Assist every round in combat, which makes it the ultimate spammable ability ! I hate spam. I like the action card system. I hate Assists...

Any suggestions on how to fix this without playing with the overall manœuvre/action balance ?

I have played the above house rules and the Critical and Comet rules work very well. Very very well. Crits are becoming important events in all combats and that is fine by me.

THE ASSIST AND RELOAD MANŒUVRES

Now regarding the Assist Manœuvre and the Reload Manœuvre, I will just make them worth 2 regular Manœuvres. It may not be elegant, but hey, it's the easiest way to make these work for me without breaking anything else.

What that means is that, used in conjunction with the "Trade an Action for a Manœuvre" rule from the GM toolkit, you will typically used a whole turn to use either Manœuvre. Unless you suffer fatigue, of course.

What I like about that is that it leaves open the opportunity to fire rapidly with a crossbow or assist AND attack in the same round, but with a cost.

RUNNING AWAY FROM COMBAT

Here is a nifty and very simple house rule for that.

When an opponent disengages from you, you may move to pursue him, using Movement Manœuvres to do so.

You will suffer one fatigue per Manœuvre, no free Manœuvre here.

Also, the character running away and the pursuer must roll a Competitive Coordination check.

If the pursuer succeeds, he will pursue and remain engaged (if he uses the same number of movement manœuvres as his quarry of course), if he fails, he will stay behind a number of Movement Manœuvres equal to the difference in Hammers between his roll and the pursued character's roll.

If there are other opponents in the way of the pursuit, the pursuer may have to avoid these or engage them, the GM must use common sense here, but in general, the pursuer will be forced to stop.

EX. 1

Friedrich the Agent is trying to evade the Orc warrior and retreat to the safety of a gatehouse 4 movement manœuvres away. He declares he will disengage and run 3 manœuvres (converting his Action for a manœuvre and suffering 2 fatigue) and close the door behind him (1 extra fatigue).

The Orc will pursue, of course. Both roll competitive Coordination and Friedrich wins by 2 successes ! The Orc, slow to react, only runs 2 Manœuvres, suffering 2 Fatigue before Friedrich's turn ends.

EX. 2

Same situation, but Friedrich fails his Coordination ! The Orc wins by an incredible 3 successes difference ! Friedrich runs as fast as he can, but the frenzied Orc stays behind him ! (suffering a whopping 4 fatigue !) And because he remains engaged, Friedrich cannot close the door and ends up engaged with the Orc, inside the gatehouse !

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Turn movement has always bugged me in RPGs, since people can run around almost at will without anyone reacting ever. Because running around implies a cost in WFRP, I think it not very unbalancing to allow "out of turn" movement in specific circumstances. Also, this house rule makes Tough creatures hard to outrun on the long run, but Agile ones effective on the short term.

If you are willing to spend the Fatigue, you can outrun most opponents, at least for the first round... Which makes the pursued at advantage, so it doesn't change much from the RAW (where basically you could run around as much as you wanted). But the house rule will make melees much more dynamic and free flowing. I'll let you know how things go...

@Thug

Does it work well for you ?

MANAGING A/C/E

I have taken some ideas here and there and have come up with this.

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Monsters get 1 FULL A/C/E POOL for each monster group equalling the PCs, rounded up.

EX.: 7 Goblins attack a 4 PC group. The Goblins receive 2 FULL A/C/E POOLS.

Any one creature cannot use more than its Creature A/C/E budget on any one roll.

Expertise can be used to add a Challenge dice to a enemy's roll.

The GM toolkit rules on A/C/E are in effect.