One of the things I find anoying with the high degree of hit, despite throwing all your defences in, is that is degrades Riposte (and the block equiv) significantly.

So thought about... letting you riposte even if you don't parry it, if your opponent scores a Chaos Star...? You resolve the damage you take, and if you're still standing you can riposte.

Can make it every Star that can't be used on the action card etc...

And of course, you still have to have used Parry or Block as a reaction to the attack

Spivo said:

That's an annoying byproduct of the real problem. That defences become quite useless at rank 3+

I think it's better to house rule the defences instead

Thing is, doing that tampers with many other mechanics, and I actually like the high hit-rate, and so does my players. No wiff-waffing, fights lasts 2-4 rounds, then the ground is litered with corpses.

And defences are still not useless, it lowers amount of critical wounds/wounds.

My main anoyance is that the riposte and such, are basically useless.

So I thought of just saying:

+ Black dice per relevant skill trained when defending (so you add resilience when blocking etc...).

NPC's can add something as well (havn't worked out yet, expertice dice seems viable).

This boosts defences some, not much, but some.

And Chaos Star allows for Riposte.

Also Chaos Stars adds 1 challenge.

This will retain high hit-rate, but still make defences very meaningfull.

@Gallows, you already made that argument that beyond rank 3 the RAW don't give any use to defenses.

I don't understand what makes rank 3 and above special about this. I find defenses weak right from rank 1.

Is it the scalng of the opposition that makes PC defense more useless?

LordoftheMilk said:

Because before reaching rank 2 many fighters will have the improved defense cards. WHen they reach rank 3 they can have three expertise dice, while their defences remain static. It's because the ability to attack increases much more as you rank up than the ability to defend.

It's not just the player defences... it's also the NPC defences.

Spivo I really like your riposte and counter blow idea. That would mean if you use block and the opponent got a chaos star, you would be able to use counter blow even if he didn't miss. I like it.

If it's an issue of being able to spend advances in defense more, I still don't understand what your argument is against the following house rule:

Active defenses: When using an active defense, you may choose to make the opponent's roll an opposed check vs. your defensive skill instead of a normal attack. If you do, you may not use any other reaction against that action.

This rewards characters spending advances to add to their ability scores, fortune dice, and defensive skills.

More on-topic: Riposte and counterblow are sufficiently powerful as it is. It's normal that they would be very hard to use againjst skilled opponents. If you break that balance, you may find that characters choose to forgo attack actions altogether as they become too dangerous to use. This would make for very boring fights:

I use guard position

I also use guard position

I use guard position

etc. ad nauseam

LordoftheMilk said:

Opposed rolls don't do much good, because it just makes a strong attacker even more likely to score a hit and if the attacker is stronger than you, an opposed roll is pointless. I don't like adding more dice to the pools as it may mess with the boon/bane balance.

Instead I simply force attackers to subtract one success when the defender uses an active defence cards. That means an active defence card adds a challenge die to the pool as per RAW and an automatic challenge, removing one success from the result.

What I like about the increased threat at higher levels is that a) it makes higher level fights all the more dangerous. Yeah you may be bad ass and can wade through lower level creatures. But an equally skilled rank 3+ opponent - time to worry. It means characters need to think before they act use all the tools at their disposal from working as a team, using their environment and generally just playing it smart. D&D uses ever escalating hit points to really make higher level fights drag out. WFRP doesn't have that buffer. You simple escalate the impending threat of death at higher levels. That is awesome.

Gallows said:

I must disagree. A character with three levels of melee will add 3 BLACK to an attacker's hit roll on an opposed check when he parries, even if the attacker has a very high level of strength. That plus the parry specialisation die will always make a difference.

An opposed check only makes it easier for an attacker if he has more than double the opposed stat. And even those cases, the extra black dice makes it of even difficulty.

Opposed checks are only strictly better when the opposing character has boith no skill and no ability. And then he can always opt not to use the active defense opposed check special rule.

Considering the boon/bane balance, I don't seee the issue you seem to find.

LordoftheMilk said:

Parry specialization would be a house rule as well, because according to RAW it does not add to defence. But it's really the same thing we do... try to make it a bit harder to hit. I just don't want to add more dice to the pools, and I also don't see too many boons. The only issue I see is the number of successes, so in order to adress that specifically I came up with that house rule

I suppose one house rule vs. another is a matter of taste...

But parry specialization giving a misfortune on an opposed check isn't a house rule, it's in the rulebook on opposed checks. the house rule is that parry coul make the roll opposed instead of standard.

LordoftheMilk said:

Yeah it could be a natural part of your house rule. Just wanted to clarify that those specilazations never add to defence according to the core rules.

I don't know if FFG add more defensive options in the future for higher ranks, like they have added spells/blessings up to rank 3. It would be natural to include it in Omens of War.

Maybe I'm missing something. But you all seem to way over thinking things. As it sits a basic defensive actions can add 2 black dice each 1 for the action and 1 more if you are trained in the skill as noted on the card. So a rank 1 character using a shield with appropriate stats can theoretically use all three defensive actions to add 6 misfortune dice to an attacker. Throw in armor on top of that both soak/defense and that's possibly 8 black dice plus reduced damage. For someone who really - really doesn't want to get hit. Sure that makes him vulnerable for the next two rounds but. There are other options they can do as well, guarded attack, maneuvering out of range and even other defensive action cards like Dirty Trick.

Then they advance in ranks and add Improved Defensive action cards into the mix. That are better, but as per RAW they replace the basic defensive action cards. If however all these options aren't enough why not just allow characters to keep both Basic and Improved defensive cards. But ONLY allowing them to use one of the same defense types per attack (so couldn't both block and improved block on the same attack). This gives an advanced character 6 defense cards at their disposal.