I'm new to the game. (So don't jump down my throat!)

I've played 2 sessions so far, And we were technically using some house rules. Like allowing me to play a dark elf ( http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=166&efcid=3&efidt=260252 ) and playing a sorceress. Rather then having an order talent I took Dark Magic and selected a few dark magic spells (we have all of the suppliments with the exception of the adventurers vault and the guide books). Two of the other party members have troll feller strike, great weapons, and 5 strength. I know I'm already hard pressed to compete with that, but I'm lucky if I can get more then 1 damage on monsters. I've looked at some of the other spells in the game and aside from the different utility spells they seem mostly the same. I've nearly died in every encounter and the only reason I haven't is because of my use of Soul Drain on the weakest of the enemies ( my rough estimation of which ones have the worst soak). Am I doing something wrong? or is magic just not that good?

Keep in mind that we were going through the box set's adventure from the tome of adventure.

Oh also, The GM guide suggests making casting spells harder... I was like, "whoa."

For pure damage output the bright order spells are the best together with the Aqshy order card as that helps to add damage. Dark magic spells, to my mind, are not that super good, rather they are GM-spells or for players who have some other order and decides to go "dark side" as well. Only having access to dark magic would limit your options quite a lot.

In "The witches song" there are a Witch and a Warlock class, which can buy spells from multiple orders (and buy the order talents from multiple orders) and moving into those careers might be a good way for you to portray your dark elf spellcaster.

Then, magic has a wide range of uses in addition to dealing damage, depending on what order you use, and that has to be considered. A Slayer for example cannot use his/her weapon skill for much else than hitting enemies. Wizards can (if the propor actions are bought) use their channeling and spellcraft to perform well in both combant and outside combat.

Also, comparing with Troll Feller Strike might not allways be appropriate to compare with as it requires the opponent to be physically larger than the user, it has been debated on the forum what "physically larger" means, but most seem to agree that humans, elves, orcs etc. are not physically larger than a dwarf.

And about you almost beeing killed every encounter. Try a different strategy, use guarded position from time to time, don't forget to use active defences, if you have a staff (as many wizards have) don't forget that staffs are defencive weapons and thus adding extra misfortune dice when parrying. If you move into the witch career buy some defencive spells from some order (the bright order has shielding winds of aqshy for example).

@OP: It is not underpowered or overpowered, it might seem to you that way, that is all. Play the Cantrip card more often and draw your carrers at the start of the game. Play your role, that is the fun in a Roleplaying Game!!!

Really you don’t have doom bolt, a rank 1 dark magic spell that has the potential to do 8+int damage and soul drain can do a massive 7+int damage, so that should be at least 11/12 damage for the spells, admittedly the Dark magic spells are much more effective in general when cast in an aggressive stance, which might help.

Also the attacks are ranged and you should be able to get a few attacks off before they can get to you, as well as moving away from them yourself, improved dodge and improved parry are also good choices for casters as well, making them considerably harder to hit. Whereas the ones with troll feller should have the need to move into engage them

The main issue I’m seeing is that the troll feller strike can ignore the targets soak on a lucky roll, however if it’s making that much of a difference you must be fighting some real hard nuts, and I didn’t think there were that many in that adventure.

However Troll feller is not a win all card, as in general it isn’t usable against most opponents as unless they out number you they aren’t big enough, so at a certain point they can’t use it. But the big thing is that the GM needs to remember that while re-charging the character using troll feller can’t use active defences and at that point a smart opponent should be hitting them and not you.

Although I’m not seeing how 2 dwarves are working well with a dark elf.

I'm not openly a dark elf... And our party tension meter moves...

One is a human and the other a dwarf. Maybe they are just super stacked, But They seemed to be doing damage over 13 and the highest I've ever done was 12.

8 plus int (4) is good?The wargor, and even the ungors, didn't seem to think that dark bolt was that good... Our GM even dumbed down the encounter (According to him) he said that the encounter was suppose to have like 6 ungor henchmen or so in addition to the ones we fought.

Meeting the requirements for troll feller hasn't been a problem for them. But I do think they might not be taking the active defence penalty...

Everything I've fought so far was armoured up and what not. I'm just surprised to see armour defeat magic so easily.

Magic has lots of other things it is able to do. Low level magic is not meant to be the best damage dealer. Your best bet is to NOT think about a wizard or magic being equal in dealing damage to a combat oriented PC until about rank 3 or 4. Magic has a lot of utility that makes up for it in "power", such as healing, illusions, ways to influence others, etc. They can do damage, and depending on career and the spells you take, it can be respectable and close to what combat oriented careers can do. However, you should not expect that they can outdamage a combat career PC.

I'll repeat: Do not think of wizards/magic as damage dealers. They are NOT (to pull from MMO terminology) a DPS class in WFRP. Even Bright wizards have a lot of utility spells, and are not focused entirely on damage.

I would say you need to embrace your role as support in combat, contributing what you can more with support spells. Damage spells should go on the lighter armored foes, like archers, while your beefy fighter comrades wade in. Against tougher foes, use spells that disable or confuse opponents, rather than trying to maximze and equal damage output.

Well honestly although there is no rule against it seems odd that a non-slayer and a non-human have access to an action that is generally a Troll Slayer action (having said that in my games it’s a slayer only action. It’s also not hard for them to do lots of damage, with strength 5 the dwarf would have had to spend a quarter of his points on that aside from To, his other stats will be rubbish. They will do a minimum of 12 damage each if they hit, which is nasty however they should be getting hit a lot as well, I’d also check what their agilities are, as if they aren’t 3 they won’t be able to dodge and that will leave them with just parry as an active defence, which takes a few rounds before you get it back.

Ok, I would check with your GM if he’s getting the rules right as if something is a henchman it has less hit points than normal, as assuming you have and Int of 4, hitting with the doom bolt will Drop an Ungor henchman in one shot (soak of 5 [4 Toughness, 1 armour] and 4 wounds)

Also the GM has changed the encounter radically, as written the starting encounter has no Wargors in it, should be 2 Gors and Ungor Henchmen equal to twice the players (6) and they don’t fight to the death either. I would like to know the exact numbers of what he did throw at you.

Also he may have changed the armour ratings, as the a Wargor has an armour soak of 3, a Gor 2 and an Ungor 1, so it shouldn’t make that much difference between you and the others damage.

Well the doom bolt is a bolt, the armour gets in the way, have a look around there are spells that do damage straight to wounds completely by passing armour and toughness. Something that very few if any melee actions do. Also spells that Buff your allies and debuffs for the enemy are useful.
In fact against henchmen spells that do Fatigue and stress are fantastic as rather than fatigue and stress its converted straight to wounds on them, meaning a spell that does 4 fatigue (possible with the ones listed) you can drop a henchman Ungor.

Having said that a few things in what you are saying sound dodgy, I would definitely check if the GM is getting the rules right, if not then things will become very unbalanced.

The Dwarf is a slayer, but like you said, the rules don't say that the traits limit the selection of actions. (unless it has a rank).

I assume the normal schools of magic don't do fatigue and stress damage ever. How do you resolve spells against npcs that list effects that are dependent on how much fatigue they have?

The First encounter against the beastmen I don't really remember (it was a couple of weeks ago). It was the second one towards the end that had a wargor (Who barely got hurt), two gors (also really tough), and one normal ungor (But he said it should have had 6 henchmen ungors).

I know the Wargor must have had like 5 or 6 str, because the thug couldn't use his career ability. He hit me for like 11 damage, Even when I used Cat like reflexes and dodge. I got pwned.

I've read post where people B!tch about rules after a bad game. And honestly all my spells are working, and I'm not dead. My GM is the one concerned that magic is too weak. And he could very well be doing some of the rules wrong. (me too...) And the jist i'm getting is that magic isn't the end all be all of Damage dealing. Which, of course, is good to know.

Indeed the rules don’t, however I find it useful to do so as it gives people focus and stops overlap, I try to avoid people repeating actions as well, but that is just me.

Well some of the spells do, they are useful if you have them as there are very few things that stop Stress/fatigue, and NPC’s can suffer from that as much as anyone else.

Ah that one, I am assuming then that you had no help from any guards then, although I am a little confused as once one of the beastmen had gone down then the troll-feller strike wouldn’t have been usable (to this not I don’t believe any of the beastmen including the wargor are that much bigger that they satisfy the conditions, that’s my ruling, I am given to understand that some people may disagree with my call on this, specifically the wargor)

Having said that the Wargor isn’t that much tougher than the gors, more wounds yes, but only 1 or 2 more soak, although I would be worried that the Wargor actually got to you, as one of the others should have intercepted him, the thug maybe not but the slayer should have definitely got in the way. Unless of course the dwarf dislikes elves that much.

Well spells can, but you would need to look at some of the order spells, bright is definitely the most hurty, although death and celestial come a good second, I definitely like celestial, it has one of my favourite spells, the portents spells (save dice and swap them for later actions) then my favourite (the name slips my mind) but at the start of combat you cast the spell and your initiative is equal to the power put into the spell (max 5), casting that and then letting the slayer go on that action is something spectacular.

If it helps perhaps one of the others should consider getting one of the ancestor cards (again name slips mind) where if any ally is in the same engagement with them, only the one with the action can be targeted. I’ve seen this used to great effect where the wizard couldn’t be hit as the dwarf constantly had this up meaning that only he could be hit, giving the hilarious situation of it being safer for the wizard to get stuck into combat (was even more effective as the dwarf was an Iron breaker with gromril armour and could barely be scratched)

Bright wizards are really the only ones that can come close on damage, as their Order ability allows them to overchannel extra power into extra damage.

So yeah, I would just keep in mind, for all your players and your GM, that wizards have a lot of RP and utility besides damage, and that balances out the fact that at low ranks they don't do huge amounts of damage. Now, do keep in mind that there are spells that hit an entire engagement, for example, or multiple foes. In some cases, the total damage inflicted can be greater than what a combat-PC can do. Most low-rank spells, though, are going to be best on weak or lightly armored opponents. Let your warriors take on the Wargor, while your wizard zaps down the henchmen.

A wizard doing 14 damage vs a 3 To, 1 Soak enemy with 10 wounds (total of 14) is just as good as a combat PC doing 22 damage vs the same opponent. That additional damage is just wasted against the little opponent, for example.