I ran a basic combat between a pit fighter and a beastman and there were many areas of confusion.

1) Specialization. The Pit Fighter chose to max out on skills and had chosen two specializations

- 1 in Weapon Skill: Hand weapon; and

- 1 in Weapon Skill: Parry with hand weapon

I read the Specialization in Hand weapon as granting the pit fighter an additional fortune die, any time they attack with a hand weapon. So, training + specializing in hand weapons nets them an Expertise die and a Fortune die when they attack.

But Specializing in 'Parry with hand weapon' does nothing to the parry action. Right? A pit fighter trained in hand weapons would only add 2 misfortune to their opponent's dice pool with or without specialization? (1 for the basic action, and an additional die for being trained in hand weapon). So as a starting character, why would anyone choose to specialize in parry?

2) Initiative: Two scenarios made me wonder.

Let's assume the Pit fighter and a lone beastman begin combat and both roll no successes for initiative.

Rules say the PC goes first, so the Pit fighter drops into a conservative stance 1 rank, draws a sword and attacks. They roll a delay.

Now I think I have this one figured, but want to double check. The GM can move the pit fighter down on the initiative track, or add recharge tokens to one of his actions.

2a) Can the GM add delay tokens to an action card that has not been used or currently has no tokens?

2b) Can the GM move the pit fighter down in the initiative order, when he's already at the bottom?

I'm guessing the answer to both of these is 'yes' but here's the one that had me scratching my head.

Say the GM adds recharge tokens to the pit fighter's block action, and so the pit fighter is still at zero on the init chart, and the beastman is right after him.
The beastman takes their action, Savage Strike and succeeds with three boons, allowing him to move up on the initiative chart.

So now, the beastman is at 1 on the init chart, and the pit fighter is still at zero. Both have completed their turns, and the next round starts.

2c) Does this new order mean the beastman attacks first in this round - getting two strikes in a row?

3) Movement: Assuming you're willing to pay the fatigue, are there any other limits to how much movement you can do in a round?

Say the beastman takes a good chunk out of the pit fighter and he decides he wants to get out of dodge.

Can the pit fighter (Toughness: 5) declare a melee attack action, then use a free maneuver to disengage to close range, pay 1 fatigue to move to medium range, pay 2 more fatigue to move to long range, exhaust their Reputation: Strong Willed (to recover 1 stress and 1 fatigue), and then pay 3 fatigue to move to Extreme range?

If so, the beastman would now have to do 7 maneuvers to catch up (1 free and 6 that generate fatigue) - and I'm sensing there will be a lot of running around going on.

Thanks all

1) Parrying - specialization in parrying adds a misfortune dice to the enemies roll yes, having a specialization for attacking with the weapon adds nothing.

2) Yes to everything.

3) No limits to movement by the rules - however generating additional fatigue can distress your physical attributes adding misfortune dice to all checks for those attributes - exhausting yourself to the point where fighting back is a challenge may not be a good idea.

Lots of people like to limit the number of movement manuevers(house rule) in my experience however.

Your example seems correct.

CMtheGM said:

Unless I'm reading this wrong, the above info is incorrect. Specialization in a particular weapon group - in this case hand weapons - grants the character a free fortune die every time they attack with that particular weapon type.

Specialization in parrying does not give you an extra misfortune die when using the Parry basic action (or Improved Parry). Specializations don't grant misfortune dice, only fortune dice. Depending on your GM, it could give you a bonus fortune die when using the Riposte action, or in non-combat situations where you are making a Weapon Skill/Coordination check that involves blocking something with your hand weapon.

Rules for specializations are covered on page 21 of the Player's Guide.

murph said:

If you search on the forums, this argument crops up regularly. Yipe is mostly correct. Page 21 does state that parry and dodge specializations don't do anything by default. However, the same sidebar states that it is up to the GMs discretion, and if you look on pages 50 and 51 - it states explicitly that misfortune dice can be added as modifiers for training, skill etc. I currently know 4 groups locally that do use an extra black die on the cards because of these rules in the book, and the fact that otherwise those specializations are kind of stupid (waste of points, what have you). It is ultimately up to your GM to decide (remember the baddies might crop up with those abilities too).

murph said:

Yes.

murph said:

Yes. The progress tracker is just used to place people relative to each other. You're jockeying for 'order' not really going 'on initiative X' per se. So if you run out of spaces you can slap a few more pieces on the bottom end of it.

murph said:

You betcha. He hit hard, and got the initiative/momentum/jump on the pit fighter. The good guy's in trouble!

murph said:

There is no limit on movement, but your pit fighter would have 5 fatigue on him. His toughness might be five, but what is his dex/str? Chances are he's got black dice on all combat actions. You could then go to a chase scene (where his fatigue might be a detriment), or the Beastman might push himself being unwounded, to try and catch up, potentially spending agression (as per the optional rule in the GMs guide) to try and close.

The pit fighter's strategy (other than hauling away as described) could be to disengage and move one, and maybe set up a defensive position, or push a bit and try to 'reasess the situation' which again helps with defense. Sort of do a staged retreat.

murph said:

The beastman would need 6 (he doesn't have to disengage so 1 to medium, 2 to long, 3 to extreme - is six) or 5 wounds. Alternately he can move 1, and then make some 'tracking checks' with his keen bestial senses, after the pit fighter escapes, while bleeding a clear trail. It's of course up to the GM and the style of game to decide whether to pursue to the bitter end, or cut their losses, and let the pit fighter hide in the bushes. Running away is a legitimate strategy in Warhammer though...

murph said:

Keep em coming!

I never really understood the interpretation and clarification by FFG that specialization in parry (and the others) don't add misfortune dice. The opposed rules are very clear that they should add a misfortune dice. All relevant skills and Specializations add misfortune dice.

Is it just because combat is a weird offshoot of an opposed check that it doesn't behave the same?

It is because skill training (Yellow Dice) convert to black dice. Specialization (white dice) are weaker, and should not translate that way. I understand the logic, I can even quote probability numbers. I've even heard some excellent points by dvang on how this specialization "might" be used in different non-combat scenarios (albeit, his 'interpretation' of assembling those pools does not necessarily jive with the book examples, or how we run the game).

That said, attack scales alot faster than defense. Monsters gain bigger attack pools, higher damage values, more deadly cards, but while armor scales some in tier via money (you get better armor, IE more soak) defense values don't change much. Which means you're stuck with near logarithmic progression of offense and very few options on defense. Higher tier matchups are often over inside of 1-3 rounds. Is this dark, grim, gritty, realistic? Yea. I think so.

Should players who spend points to try and build defensively have a few more options here and there that can only be used every 2 recharge? I vote yes. There are even rules written that I can quote to support my argument.

That said the p 21 clarification is fairly succinct on the function of specializations. I understand it, and it is not how anyone I know in person chooses to play. Does this mean combat is 'easy' and metagamed so that threats are less? Our lethality level says no. Your mileage may vary.

Right, I realize that's how it works. Just wondering why it works that way when all other opposed checks are very clearly not treated that way. In all other opposed tests Specializations do impose misfortune dice against the opponents check. If you're trained in stealth and specialized in rural environments, and I try to find you in the woods....that's 2 black dice to my observation test. Why is combat treated differently I wonder?

I get the feeling this is a well beaten horse though so I'll poke around the forums a bit to see what's been discussed. I just haven't been paying much attention to the subject I guess.

Thanks, all. Very informative.

I was down for the count for a week there, so here are a few late additions:

4) The recharge tokens added to an action card. When do they first start coming off.

As in, the pit fighter uses The pit fighter uses some exotic attack action with recharge 4 on his initiative.

So, 4 recharge tokens go on the action card.

And then at the end of his turn I take one of them off?

Or do I wait until the end of his next action?

I'm guessing you do this on the first round, I'm just trying to reconcile the feeling of the recharge number being basically 1 less right off the bat.

5) What supplements exist with additional races - or where can I find rules for other races? Human/Elfx2/Dwarf just seems majorly limiting.

Thanks.

donbaloo said:

It's because combat is not an opposed check against a skill. Anything that is versus target defense has nothing to do with whether or not you are trained in weapon skill, coordination or resilience. The defense cards parry, dodge, and block specifically state the effects those skills have on the card, they don't make it an opposed check. If a card said "versus target resilience" or "versus target weapon skill" then you would add any relevant specialties.

murph said:

You guess right, the player resolves an action card and puts recharge tokens on that card if the action was successful. At the end of the player's turn he removes one recharge token from every recharging card. This does indeed effectively reduce the recharge of every card by 1 but that's catered for on the cards themselves (there are no recharge 1 cards for example)

murph said:

There aren't any yet, and officially there haven't been any supplements announced that will expand the playable races. There are plenty of house rules out there though if you want to broaden the scope of the party.

It has been officially stated that Halflings as a playable race will appear sometime. They just haven't announced which expansion.

Really, though, WFRP does not have many playable races.

Humans, High Elves, Wood Elves, Dwarfs, Halfings are about it for playable races. The old edition eventually had Ogres added as playable, and I wouldn't be surprised if FFG includes them in an expansion at some point. That's it, though. WFRP is Empire-centric game. So, all the PC races are those found in the Empire that can work FOR the Empire.

Skaven, Dark Elves, Lizardmen, Orcs, etc are all non-Empire races, and usually evil, and as such shouldn't be PC races. That's not to say it couldn't be done, or that it might not be done eventually (a long long time from now, possibly). It would be like in D&D having Dragons and Beholders and Minotaurs as playable races. It took a long time before a "Monster-as-PC" supplement came out.