I just today recieved the creature Guide book which was awesome though I do not have the Vault as yet. Had a great read but I am totally confused about the system regarding creature actions available and assigning further actions.

In the tome of adventure this was easy as all actions were there right in front of you, but in the creature catalouge I have to flip to an entirely different section and scan through pages until I come across a usable action (This is not a good design Fant flight, actions avail to a certain race should be packaged with that race). Then I have to wonder what powers they have access to:-

Q1) If say I am running an encounter involving greenskins do they have free access to all actions that have the trait "Greenskin" in the coloured row and can freely pick one to use or only the actions that have "basic" as a trait or "Basic, Greenskin" only. What about actions that don't have "greenskin" as a trait but mention specific greenskins in the USED BY row, would my orcy dude have free access to them as well even though the action may just have "chaos" as a trait in the top row.

That covers my initial confusion which is basically what actions could my greenskins use without having any extra actions allocated to customise them at all, which brings me to my next question.

Q2) The rules in the Tome of adventure P44 state that i can add action cards to a creature equal to 1 plus it's expertise rating. Cool, so if I wanna add actions to my black orc antagonist with 2 expertise I can add 3 actions right?. So what the smeg is that melee action symbol on the black orc creature card all about on P 7 of the creature guide all about? The key states it represents the number and types of actions I could allocate, so melee thats easy enough but number??? where is the number informing me how many actions cards I could bestow upon my beefy black orc? And as a link back to Q1 WHAT ACTION's specifically could i allocate, any melee from wherever, or just any melee with the greenskin trait?

Considering that I do not have the creature vault none of the tables or appendices in the Guide include the details of this actions guide symbol informing me at a glance how many actions I could allocate. I guess I just have to stick to the general 1 plus expertise rating system. For those who have the vault does this match up with how the symbols are printed on the creature cards?

As it stands this is how I see the system works:

"Any given creature has access to all actions designated as " Basic " or " Basic, creature type " and can choose freely from these when it's turn is activated. For example Bogbrush the Black orc has access to the following basic Actions:

Assess the Situation, Block, Dodge, Guarded position, melee Attack, Parry, Perform a stunt, Ranged attack

Chop, savage strike, Stick em wif da pointy end, (These have Basic and greenskin as Traits)

Now if I wanted to allocate say 3 action cards to bogbrush then I can allocate any 3 that i feel are suitable and that he meets the reqs for. By scanning the traits in the appendices I can quickly pick out thematic powers that have "greenskin" that would suit him, or if was adventurous check out the USED BY row to select powers that would be also suitable for a black orc or even go way out there and select a totally non usual power that doesnt even mention the greenskins or black orc from say another races power or the available action deck that PC's would use.

As a suggestion fantasy flight if you ever redesign this book put all race actions together. generally an ace system but your explanations really do suck in places!!

Any insider info would be most welcome

Hi,

While I doubt you'll get an "insider" response to your question, the problems you bring up with creature actions are very, VERY relevant to playing the game as intended. Other regular posters on this forum are about to roll their eyes, since this problem has been a crusade of mine that I've written about a couple of times.

Essentially, there is no rules-verifiable connection between the action options you give a creature and the action symbols that appear on some creature cards. There is no definitive understanding of what cards should be realistically available to each creature you put into your game encounters.

As close as can be understood, any creature your players run into has access to all basic and racial/profession-trait cards (assuming you have the vault) that you can find for him. It is a mystery as to what additional action card options might be available due to the presence of special symbols on the creature card.

However, you should note as a game master that it is practically impossible to implement an "all-cards-available" solution during an actual game. There are too many options available to realistically run a smooth combat experience for players. That being the case, the game master is left to his own devices on how to proceed with developing good encounters for his players. It is likely everyone uses a different approach to this. Here's how I do it (likely wrong...but it works well when you're actually running a game):

1) Prepare any encounter beforehand.

2) Select enemy creature cards for the encounter and decide if any of them represent henchmen.

3) For each creature, 2 or 3 or at most 4 action cards that the creature will use during the encounter. These cards should have the basic or creature-type trait printed on them.

4) If the creature has a special "extra action" symbol(s) on it, then pick an additional action card to introduce more flavor or power to that encounter. The card may not have the correct creature-type trait printed on it...but what the heck, this is for flavor and uniqueness.

5) Quietly utter a curse to FFG under your breath for not making this system, which has excellent concepts and components behind it, more consistent and understandable.

Kevin.

Kevin, I see you as this question main specialist right now ;-)

Still, so many times and still no answer...