Recently I got interested in what RPG had the most realistic combat system, which led me to investigate two games in particular - The "Riddle of Steel" and "Codex Martialis" (actually a d20 supplement). Having looked into these, I think some of the principles they embody could be applied to WFRP3e without too much trouble. Here are a few thoughts.

1. Weapon Damage

I remember a picture I saw on a forum somewhere discussing realistic damage, which showed a really big knife with the caption: "d4 damage - really?" This was obviously a reference to D&D but applies equally well to WFRP3e. A dagger or knife is a lethal weapon if thrust into a vital area. The difference between a dagger and a sword is not damage potential but the ability to hit a vital area. A sword-armed warrior should be able to fend off dagger attacks with relative ease due to the extra reach of his sword compared to the dagger - but if his dagger-armed opponent successfully ducked under one of his sword swings and got in close, that dagger would be very dangerous indeed. Which brings me to...

2. Weapon Reach

Longer weapons have an inherently greater defensive capability compared to shorter weapons. As described above, it is difficult for someone with a dagger to attack someone with a sword simply because they would have to duck under or evade the flailing sword to get close enough to stab their victim. However, if they can successfully get into dagger range the dagger-armed warrior can turn the tables on the swordsman. Now the sword-armed warrior will find it hard to hit effectively whilst the dagger-armed warrior is at his optimum range.

It therefore makes sense to me to use challenge and/or misfortune dice to simulate these effects. In melee combat, shorter weapons should have less change to hit, depending on the relative reach of each weapon. A man with a dagger attacking a man with a halberd for instance might have to add 2 challenge dice to his roll, or 2 misfortune dice if you prefer. A successful hit however would represent the man with the dagger closing the range. Now the man with the halberd would add 2 challenge/misfortune dice until he successfully hit, at which point he would be back in halberd range. Damage potential for the dagger should be pretty high once in range, so I would increase the DR rating of the dagger to compensate for the shorter reach.

Does anyone agree with the above or do you all think the WFRP3e combat system represents these things adequately already?

I think the game is just about right, although it feels a little less lethal than its predecessors and the resource management in combat is far more interesting.

I've played a LOT of games in the past 28 years and what I've found is that more realistic combat does not necessarily equate to more fun. In GURPS, for example, it's usually the case that when you get shot you will die or, at the very least, have a very bad week. It's realistic but not very fun. The balance between reality and game is tricky. Warhammer feels deadly and there is potential for long-term injury which, for me, is perfect in an rpg. Starting characters feel like average Joes who are a little luckier than most.

I want to be larger than life and it's way more fun for my players when they are as well.

SmokeGunner said:

Hmm... Interesting thoughts... I guess I would argue that as an 'attack' (roll) in WFRP represents a period of time that includes many attacks, dodges, etc. the low damage rating of a weapon reflects the difficulty of getting close enough to get a good hit in, compared with the greater liklihood of really hurting your opponent with a weapon like a sword.

Basically, the system is pretty abstract and a higher damage rating is one easy way to make swords more desirable weapons than daggers.

I do quite like your idea of modifying the difficulty of attacks according to the reach of the weapon, but having this change (once you've hit your opponent, for example) sounds quite complicated to me.

It's your game so do what feels right, but in my experience these kind of changes do nothing to help the game. Personally I would look for a game that has the "realistic" combat mechanics that you are looking for and then use that in the Warhammer setting. Heck, over the years I've used three different non-Warhammer game systems to play Warhammer fantasy (d20, Alternity, Savage Worlds). It's almost always easier to find a system you like and use it then to start cutting and pasteing a rule-set. That being said, I do understand gamers instictive need to "customize".

A while ago I started working on quite a large revamping of the damage system, to see if I could make a system that more accurately represented how weapons and armours evolved (inspired by a thread in this forum).

Essentially, it boiled down to blunt weapons bypassing armour, but dealing less damage, all the way to rapier weapons dealing tremendous damage, but having no capability to bypass armour. Similar thing with arrows - high damage, but no armour penetration, compared to bullets that had high penetration. Essentially, a greater variety and sense of "purpose" to different weapon types, and allowing further differentiation into playstyles. Blunt weapons were better against armoured opponents, rapier weapons being better against unarmoured opponents.

The problem with this, is to actually create an effective difference in how these weapons deal damage, I had to fiddle with weapon damage values, meaning I had to increase the general damage output of all weapons (so one class could have a significantly different damage output). That meant I had to then increase the maximum armour rating different armours could provide. This all also meant finding a way to globally adjust all monster stats.

I also wrote up a few other things, such as allowing spears, halberds, and their ilk to attack foes from close range, but lose certain qualities when engaged. Essentially, I modified stuff based on research I did - how different weapons worked, and so on. This generally resulted in me adding several weapons into the game

I'd still be interested to see how it works (I never made it believing it would be better - it was just an experiment), but I honestly never got around to testing it.

In the end of the day, WFRP is more lethal than your average rpg, and though I would prefer a more detailed inventory and more diversive weapon types/stats, the game functions fine as it is now.

That said, I'm always curious to see how people house rule these types of things.

I've played Riddle of Steel, it's no more realistic then any other game. What it does do is provide lots of details and options, but it's no more realistic. Unless you consider ruler of realisim to be simple that the most skilled, best equipped fighter will almost always win unless the other fighter some how gets a big advantage. In that sense most RPG's get realisim right. Where Riddle of Steel stands out is that there are lots of things you can do, lots of different swings, stances and defenses and dice pools to manage. So to me that doesn't make it more realistic just more granular.

In terms of letheality which is what most people are really thinking about when realisim comes up then WFRP handles it fairly well. Equally matched opponents are going to get hurt, skilled opponents are terrifying, equipment makes a difference but you can never rule out the lucky shot. Ways to tip that are entirely up to the GM. Adding more situational dice based on environmental effects can have a big impact on how 'realistic' your scenes are. But the biggest impact is on how you balance your enemies. If you use more henchmen then regular opponents then your game is going to have a more heroic flair to it. Not dissimilar to LoTR or David Gemmel's works, were one skilled person can fend off 5 lesser opponents, but is still at risk. If you lower or don't use henchmen at all then your game is going to be much more dangerous as often the deciding moment between two equally matched opponents can often come down to the simple fact of who strikes first.

One are that may rub some people is that in WFRP people are more likely to get KO'd from fights then killed. Personally I prefer this because ko'ing a PC gives me much more to work with as a GM then just killing them. Also having a pc wind up at the end of the fight with some none life threatening criticals is much more useful then the previous editions of WFRP where basically once you started taking critical damage you were as good as dead. So again perhaps this version plays a little more favorably to the heroic level then past editions.

So to sum up WFRP can be as realistic as you want it to be, it's just a question of how you use the tools. If you are looking for a more granular turn by turn combat system where different weapon/armour types and stances and swings are important then WFRP may not satisfy you. I also don't really think trying to tack that kind of system into WFRP would work or fit because the game as a whole is more story driven and abstract so suddenly going into a very detailed combat system would feel out of place, or at least it would to me.

Kharrak said:

I'd be interested to see the system you came up with, if you still have it available.

First off, I should say I have limited experience playing WFRP3e - really only a couple of sessions as a GM for my 12 year old son. I hope to play more now I've whetted his apetite!

I was a little disappointed that the combat system in WFRP3e was so abstract and that weapons had little real difference. Having a category of "Hand Weapon" that covers everything from swords to axes is a prime example of this. As you pointed out in your post, weapons and armours evolved considerably over the centuries, as each new development made some weapon or armour less effective or redundant.

It would have been nice if the system had a few different types of swords, each with unique characteristics, but I realise the game's pedigry is the Warhammer tabletop battle system, so I can see why this is the case.

SmokeGunner said:

Actually it's more about emulating heroic fiction. In most books and movies a hero's weapon defined them it was seldom about the practicality of the weapon or the technical specifics of it. The hero used a sword or an axe, because that was the object the hero chose to identify with (unless of course it was dramatically important). But it never maters if it's rapier against axe or knife vs great sword. It leaves it to the skill of the weilder. The knife fighter knows that to be effective he has to get inside the great swords range and the sword weilder has to use half-sword techniques to counter the knife fighter etc.... Action cards are used to simulate and highlight some of the various techniques that different weapons have and some highlighted weapons are a little differently mechanically. But I can certainly understand the culture shock if coming in from other systems where every weapon is different.

Personally I prefer the Warhammer approach if I want to use a sword because I like the looks of swords my character can use a sword without being penalized for it. WFRP is much better at supporting player style over weapon mechanics and in an RPG where so many things are just abstract rules and judgement calls then what's the point on getting more granular on weapons.

Funny that you'd give blunt weapons a "bypass armour" but low damage, and rapier "no armour penetration", yet high damage.
If I recall correctly, they work just the other way around, armour absorbs blunt damage better, which is why they wear it after all.
And a rapier was made to slip into slits and joints of encasing armour, but can only be used to gouge/stab, which compared to an axe is a lot less gruesome.

I guess you could take a look at Gary Gygax' Chainmail rules, if you can find them somewhere. He tried to set up a system that took into account which weapon was used against which type of armour.

Frankly, since we're taking a descriptive approach to most actions, including combat, I would simply go for extra fortune dice when a player correctly describes how to use his weapon in a certain scenario.

Nisses said:

One of the nice things about "The Riddle of Steel" is that it explains the evolution of weapons and armour. First of all heavy armour was the order of the day. Next, armour-defeating weapons evolved, such as longbow arrows with steel tips that could punch right through it, not to mention pick-axes and bastard swords. With heavy armour now outdated, it was swapped for lighter, cheaper armour that could do the job just as well as plate on the battlefield of its day. This in turn led to the demise of the heavier melee weapons in favour of lighter ones, as the heavier ones simply weren't needed anymore.

In other words, I would argue that a rapier would have a poor time defeating someone in a suit of full plate armour, but it wouldn't need to because this sort of armour had long since passed into history.

Different weapons and different armour have different uses and WFRP exists at a point in fashion (not always practicality) where Big Bad Heavy Armour is still the best way to generally protect yourself. But like reality guns and long bows have armour piercing qualities that negate some of the effectiveness of heavy armour. Also personally speaking if I knew I was going to be shot at regardless of the facts presented I'd feel a lot better in a full suit of armour then running around in my sneakers and a baseball suit.

Nisses said:

Hah, that's odd. I spent an entire evening researching weapons, so I based it all on that. As I saw, blunt weapons, such as warhammers, did not break armour, but the force behind the blow would still be able to affect the person inside the armour. A strong blow to the head with a warhammer would still hurt like hell, even if you wore a helmet

SmokeGunner said:

Sure, I don't mind. Again, it's not very fleshed out, and it's never been tested, and I can't claim any experience when it comes to balancing content for RPGs - so a lot of it may come accross as silly/stupid/bizarre

It also uses several terms which are homebrew rules regarding weapons (such as "Lodged", which means if you successfully hit, you add one additional recharge token to the attack, as you have to pull it out) which aren't explained.

Here ya go:

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Kharrak,

I agree, a good blow against your chest would still hurt you if you wore armour. However, what is more likely to leave lasting damage, a blow of a warhammer on your bare chest/head, or one plated in steel? plate armour helps to spread the blow over a larger surface, meaning less impact in a specific place, even if the resulting force still kills you.

You should remember that the armour is not made in a way that can give containment to the body for that kind of damage. Lets take an example: the brain and the skull. The skull serves as a "helmet", but if for example, you hit somebody with a bat, it can crack the bone, but the most important damage is the one to the brain that is inside, that blow can outright kill you or leave you unconcious. And take in account that the head is made in such a way that is prepared to that kind of damage, it has some liquid that serves as a contaiment to the brain, even then, cant stand that kind of blow. So much less the helmet or armour, also most warhammers and maces used to have spikes or pointy ends, so they can cleave the armour and kill the dude inside, with the force of the hit.

My $0.02

1) I presumed that Wounds are minor cuts left by the weapon. They are recovered very easily in this game. A dagger can be just as deadly as a sword, for certain. But I think that's where Critical Wounds come in. The CR for a sword and dagger are the same.

2) I like the idea of weapon length because it's both realistic AND visually dramatic. You could really see a hero with a dagger dart his way into the range of a spear and then stabby-stabby.

One thought is to create weapon lengths. Old sckool D&D actually did have this. But this is WH3. Keep it simple.

Spears and Halberds are Long. Hand Weapons are Medium. Daggers are Short.

All combat, by default when Engaged you would still be a a weapon distance equal to the longest weapon. Thus Spear vs. anything you are default at Long. If both had a Sword you would be at Medium.

You have two options for closing distances:

1) You need to spend an extra Maneuver to switch weapon distances. So Long to Medium would be 1 additional Maneuver. Long to Short would be 2 Maneuvers. This is simple and would keep both sides spending Maneuvers each round to adjust where they stood in a fight. (This is okay but to be honest, a spearman would have an easy enough time to keep a dagger fighter at bay...unless/until the dagger fighter managed to get close...then it's the opposite. The dagger fighter would do their best to stick to them like glue and making the stabby-stabby motion).

2) Make it controlled by Boons. Two Boons allows you to change the weapon distance one rank OR to whatever you want it to be.

Next you have to decide what the game effect of your ideal weapon distance is. Keeping it simple is ALWAYS better. So I would propose something like:

1) When at your ideal weapon distance you decrease the CR of your weapon by 1. That would make some weapons CRAZY deadly.

2) When not at your ideal weapon distance you increase the CR of your weapon by 1. Basically the opposite concept that you are not at your best, thus it'll be harder to score a deadly hit.

3) The other obvious idea is that you get a Challenge or Misfortune dice for each distance rank you have to try to fight against.

• Spear vs. Dagger (Long Weapon distance) - Dagger has 2 <P> or 2 <B>
• Spear vs. Sword (Long weapon distance) - Sword has 1 <P> or 1 <B>
• Spear vs. Dagger (Medium Weapon distance) - Both have 1 <P> or 1 <B>
• Spear vs Dagger (Short weapon distance) - Spear has 2 <P> or 2 <B>

Now this is all well and good until you encounter monsters with non standard weapons. What are they using, for example? It's not listed in their profile. And what is a dragon's weapon distance?

Anyway that's my thoughts.