When playing this weekend I had a fight involving skaven and the skaven had 11 total action cards. Different effects etc., but I started thinking about the sillyness of this. Actions are very cool for players, but for the GM I feel they are just in the way at times.

I am thinking about simply making one attack action that can be used with all NPCs. As a GM I would simply pick different special effects, conditions and such according to successes, boons, comets, banes and stars. You could also make a list with different effects or just be inspired from other action cards. Every NPC would have all the basic attacks, plus this one. The attack is used for every possible attack from melee and archery to spells. As a GM you could then simply pick effects that makes sense for that particular NPC. Beastmen doing a lot of criticals, skaven causing corruption etc. I'll give it a shot in my next session, but I'd like to hear some input. It can be used against a targets defense or as an opposed check or whatever is needed. For each extra challenge die put in it has extra damage, to simulate more powerful attacks/spells.

When making NPCs for scenarios you could list special effects as part of the NPC description.

Good idea. I've found myself simplifying attacks on the fly during gameplay; saving the "special" attacks for Named npcs or specialists. I play a lot of Savage Worlds, which does the same thing in simplifying the actions of extras (low-level npcs, mooks, etc.). This kind of thing allows for more fluid combats involving larger numbers of enemies. The trick is finding the happy medium between playability and keeping the lethality of Warhammer where it should be.

How did you end up with 11 actions ?

Because different types of Skaven were involved ?

I agree that too many actions just gets cluttered and ineffective behind the screen. I rather liked the Tome of Adventure standard of 4 actions per creature category. I would personally limit myself to that, even with the cards.

So Skaven would get basic actions + 4 skaven action cards, even if multiple types of Skaven are involved !

The Skaven leader or Nemesis might get 2 or 3 extra cards, more if he is a spellcaster.

Most creature cards add a little "melee attack" symbol or "spell action" symbol when the GM is encouraged to add options for the critter.

I just stick to that, mostly.

Yes, it does mean you need to choose and that decision isn't always easy... But see it this way : action cards for monsters are there to add flavour to encounters. If you use a different choice of Actions for your Skaven encounters, each encounter will feel satisfyingly different. With this narrative approach, I would encourage you to choose Actions that are bound to be useful in the situation at hand.

For example, a Skaven attack in a harbour would definitely be enhanced by the use of Nets and the corresponding Action card (forget the name here).

The same Skaven, if met later, would maybe have an Overrun action instead. It doesn't mean that they suddenly forgot how to use nets, it just means that they won't use nets in this encounter and will more likely try to swarm over or past the PCs, for some plot related reason.

The step where you choose your critter's actions is actually an opportunity to reflect on what this encounter needs to be in the story. You need the PCs to be taken prisoner by the Skaven ? Give them the Subdue Action.

Even unforseen encounters deserve a 5 min. reflection, ideally. Tell your players to go get a drink... with the cards, 5 minutes should be enough to zero in on ONE flavour action card that can be much more entertaining than 11 "all skaven should have this" cards.

I plan my sessions very well, but just found the whole setup of the creature vault to be completely worthless. It's ok for random encounters perhaps, where you draw a random card from the deck. But copying actions from the player/creature guide (pdf version) and making a sheet with actions for each encounter is much more efficient. I plan my sessions very well, so that when I am at the table I don't have to spend time organizing such stuff. I have tried using the creature cards and actions, but the old one page creature setup is superiour. Plus it annoys the hell out of me that I am limited to the cards the players don't use. I don't want my NPCs to be limited to the creature actions. I have thought about getting a players vault and adventurers kit, to have a set of cards for monsters as well... but I don't know.

I think limiting the number of cards may be fine, but with rank 4 characters there needs to be an added challenge and a variety of action cards add to that.

I would prefer the action cards and creature cards, I just haven't found a good way to organize it behind the screen yet.

EDIT: Just ordered a players vault and adventurers kit. Hopefully that will remove my frustration of this setup.

In addition to a master basic-action card that I use for every NPC group, I typically pull out 2-4 cards that I think fit the group thematically. I don't worry about the listed traits a whole lot; mostly I just look through the various type of attacks and pull out a card here or there I think will make sense, be fun, or deliver some drama to the combat.

I typically only have 4-6 action cards on the table for any significantly sized group.

Gallows said:

I think this is a fantastic idea. I'm definitely going to steal it. I've been very worried about how to do handle non-PC actions as I'm a fairly narrative GM (I can't handle many mechanics). I think the modification I will make though is not to merge every single action into a single 'NPC Attack', but make a single 'Skaven Attack', 'Goblin Attack' etc.

As you've done it, each will have a range of effects (and the trait section can perhaps reference the kind of things that will happen). So, the skaven effects could involve damage, corruption, entaglement etc... And the traits section would read 'backstabbing, nets, poison, horde'. With a range of options, and a range of 'actions' (i.e. traits) to choose from, I would have no problem in describing a variety of attacks by NPCs that reflect the character of the PCs' opponents.

I think the other thing I would do is probably keep magic separate. I think it's rare enough probably not to need to be merged. Anyone using magic is going to be a significant character, and I can probably afford the time and effort to manage the spells. If that turns out not to be the case, then I can merge the Skaven spells into a single 'Skaven spell card', but there'll be no need to combine it with the mundane skaven attacks.

Depending on how it goes, and how many actions there are to choose from, shooting attacks could be a separate card too, but there are probably few enough of them (and a small enough variety) that they can be safely merged.

Perhaps down the right of the 'master action' card, you could use the action card symbols to denote what kind of actions are most appropriate for triggering certain effects.

I'm buying some plastic card sheets with room for 9 cards. I think they will help me prepare for encounters. I'll try that out and see how it works. I just like having everything 100% ready before sessions so I have no preparation time when playing.