Hellow, guys. I enjoy WFRP 3 ed as a GM, but I find it quite disbalanced.

The two main sources of my hurt are:

1) Ironbreaker. He is given a set of Gromril armour when he starts his career (which is basic). What is more, he has Toughness as his career characteristic. The Ironbreaker who is in my party has maxed his To up to 5 at char creation and increased it to 6 for six career advances before comleting his first career. He has already purchased a tower shield. Now his To + Soak = 12, and his defence is 4. He is able to rise his soak by 1 using Improved Block ability card when an enemy is going to strike him, and party Sigmarite flagellant can buff all parly for +1 To and Wp. So, after blocking he has To+Soak=14.

Now the parly is at the middle of the second rank, and most opponents can't deal more than one normal wound to the Ironbreaker. Only Wargors, giants and a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch were able to penetrate his defences and deal a crit wound or two.

What is more, he has a Str of 5 and three ranks in Weapon Skill trained, and he deals a lot of damage in combat using even Melee Strike (not to mention Wrath of Morgrim and Troll-Feller Strike he also has).

The only two disadvantages of the Ironbreaker are:

a) Most of the opponents quickly understand that their attacks against him are ineffective. They switch to other party members, which results in many normal and crit wounds on everybudy but the Ironbreaker.

b) There are some ability cards which allow to deal damage or wounds ignoring target's Soak (or even To and Soak), most of them being spells. But spellcasters are rather rare in the Warhammer world, and most of them die quickly because of... (here he comes)...

2) The Bright Wizard. In Core set, his order (Aquishy it writes?) talent card read: "spend 2 additional power for +1 dmg". It was okay, but then a "fixed" card came. "Spend 1 power for 1 dmg" it said. That's why the Bright Wizard in my party bacame a sort of a nuclear rocket launcher. He is able to accumulate a lot of power during 1-3 turns while hiding behind a corner or something, suffering some stress (and removing it with a talent card). Then he usually cast a single-target Bright Order spell against a single powerfull foe or the Great Fire of U... (don't remember the correct name, a spell that strikes everybody in an engagement with the target if the comet is rolled) against engaged groups of enemies. He uses all his power, making a 30 dmg attack with some crits which annihilates anything it hits (or seriosly wounds daemon princes and other tough foes).

And he can repeat this process again and again.

So I'm going to tell the player that he should use the old card from the core set - it can solve the problem.

Uhhh... What can you say? Have you found other disbalanced things in the game? Maybe you know what to do with them?

Aranei said:

Ironbreaker gets discussed a lot. It's best to nerf the armor a little. Sure, you can throw massive numbers of monsters against him, but this just punishes the other players and looks blatantly ridiculous and overly contrived as a KILLER GM OUT TO KILL THE IRONBREAKER. Heavy armor get's broken quickly. See my solution. Start fatiguing the heck out of this character by making him climb stuff and charge up hills (tell non-heavy armor people that this doesn't apply, even though he has a munchkin/twink strength and toughness, sorry, this is just the way it goes..it's the drawback of heavy armor regardless of strength/toughness..fatigue sets in). Also, start putting combats near water and with climbing ropes. Lastly, KILL THIS CHARACTER OFF WITH INSANITY (and corruption converts to insanity, so use it up!!!). Once it's done, you'll already have your house rulebook updated to nerf this crap for future characters.

As for the Bright Wizard, I'm interested to know the card names and combos so I can pre-emptively nerf those too Spending a couple rounds powering up and then blasting the group will not get better a rank 2 when his comets come more often either..again, then you're stuck throwing armies against your group. It may be that you've mis-read the card and are allowing +1 damage PER additional power, whereas "technically" only ONE line of each ability is allowable (and maybe make this clear throughout the characters.

Lastly, dump your combat scenarios. If you're throwing monsters at them perpetually when you should be having them do 80% of the rest of the game doing NON-combat checks, you will reap what you sew. Even when there is combat, start presenting ideas to them for non-combat solutions. Also, stop giving them so much rest time. Charge them a night's rent for their rooms and start go nickel and dime them to death for resting!

jh

..

one thing you can immediately do is remove 1 expertise dice from the iron breaker. if he is rank 2 he should only have weapon training checked twice.

is everyone having fun playing? (yourself included). if so i wouldn't sweat it. i would rather have imbalance and fun than balance and no fun. if people (yourself included) aren't having fun have a chat with the group and say that the build while adhering to the rules is sucking the fun out of the game and see what you can all do to reduce the impact.

personally i wouldn't change the rules to nerf something the player has chosen to do that the rules allow. jay has good suggestions about varying the combat environment and stressing the iron breaker out. use chaos stars and banes when the player is acting, or sigmars comets and boons when the enemy is acting to apply condition cards to the players. (damaged armour will make a dwarf weep). blind him by having his helmet smashed down onto his head, the next enemy attacks and he can't use block. he can adjust the helmet as a maneuver but will need to use another maneuver to get his weapon and shield organised.

similarly throw recharge tokens on his block card.

make him move, keep adding fatigue to him, have it slowly build up from encounter to encounter.

oh and shoot that yellow bellied wizard in the gut a few times with a crossbow

I'm in the "unbalanced and fun" camp.

My party has an Ironbreaker/Mercenary, Pit Fighter/Swordmaster, Hunter/Assassin and Initiate/Thug. As a team, these guys absorb and dish out tons of damage and can mitigate stress and fatigue like crazy. It doesn't matter. We have a blast. And when the Ironbreaker needs a little down-to-earth reality check, I load him up with disease. Of course, they all have a tough time with incorporeal undead...but who cares. The fun is there.

I never understood why a roleplaying game should be "balanced". There are different situations, where different characters shine. And in the end the group is, what counts, not the individual. Everyone should have fun as a group. And the group should use tactics in fights, that make the most out of their particular collection of characters.

So, yes: opponents would try to concentrate their attacks on other members and maybe try to defeat the "rock" with other means. And the group would have to try to use the "rock" as the obstacle that soaks damage.

In 2nd Ed. we had a group, where a Slayer did most of the combat damage. But everyone had fun. And he was also a hothead, who wanted to fight all the time and the group constantly had to make corpses disappear, argue with the watch, etc.

In every rpg, I played in the last 20+ years, there was a class or a race-class-combo, that was "overpowered" combat-wise. And certain people chose those kinds of characters, while others try to play the more challenging classes. If the group accepts this and everyone is having fun, so be it. If someone is nagging about the ironbreaker, well, take one, too. Why not play a group of ironbreakers? If the group enjoys it...

Well, I hope you get my point...

ive been on both sides of the iron breaker, and frankly i have no problem with them. they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do, take a beating and then dish out a bit. the bright wiz then kills everything. however those miscasts should deffinately be piling up. as should the corruption, and the temptation to fall to chaos. in any case they likely wont be any good at anything that requires tact, or stealth, or people skills. every character will be awesome at something and terrible at something. honestly almost any char can be just about as good as an iron breaker, they just need some plate armor. send the same at them. give them guys with heavy armor, lots of training, and nifty abilities. set traps, generally have them play smart. if these guys are walking through things they should also be making enemies.

in short they are plenty of ways to deal with a combat heavy group.

Emirikol said:

Here is the talent card in question.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/wfrp/support/WHF01_Errata_Card_AqshyTalent.pdf

Emirikol said:

Here is the talent card in question.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/wfrp/support/WHF01_Errata_Card_AqshyTalent.pdf

New Zombie said:

Thanks, you are right. I re-read the errata and now everything will become a bit better)))

As I wrote, I don't have much fun because the party is grinding through the story, ignoring (usually even leaving unnoticed) secondary quests, killing anything hostile and failing most social encounters.

Example:

When they came to Grunwald Lodge in the "Eue for an Eye" adventure, they totally failed the investigation. The only things they found were the fermentating cans in doctor's room, and they had now idea what to do with it. They were poisoned with schlaf during dinner, but three of four party members passed Toughness test. The cultists successfully summoned the daemon. Party didn't even realized what the hell is going on until they saw the daemon... Two members of the party destroyed it in two turns, while others were doing nothing. Then the party defeated yhe beastmen horde that attacked the manor.

Results: brainless killing. I was dissapointed. Like we were playing WoW instead of WFRP.

And now, at the middle of the second rank, nothing has changed.

It demotivates me as GM to make an interesting story - anyway they will grind through it without trying to enjoy the atmosphere.

New Zombie said:

Thanks, you are right. I re-read the errata and now everything will become a bit better)))

As I wrote, I don't have much fun because the party is grinding through the story, ignoring (usually even leaving unnoticed) secondary quests, killing anything hostile and failing most social encounters.

Example:

When they came to Grunwald Lodge in the "Eue for an Eye" adventure, they totally failed the investigation. The only things they found were the fermentating cans in doctor's room, and they had now idea what to do with it. They were poisoned with schlaf during dinner, but three of four party members passed Toughness test. The cultists successfully summoned the daemon. Party didn't even realized what the hell is going on until they saw the daemon... Two members of the party destroyed it in two turns, while others were doing nothing. Then the party defeated yhe beastmen horde that attacked the manor.

Results: brainless killing. I was dissapointed. Like we were playing WoW instead of WFRP.

And now, at the middle of the second rank, nothing has changed.

It demotivates me as GM to make an interesting story - anyway they will grind through it without trying to enjoy the atmosphere.

Sorry, for some reason my posts are doubled.

Thank you all for answering. Sure, I will make use of your advises.

Holy hell. That's a lot broken (even with whatever the errata 'fixed.') I'm going to have to see how broken it was BEFORE they made it slightly less broken. No other career card is this broken. It makes gromril plate look like childs play.

When you perform a Bright Order Spell
action that deals damage, for each 1
additional power you spend you may
increase the damage caused by that
Spell action by 1.

You need to cap that at bonus of +3 per rank.

jh

Aranei:

RE: IB
Feel free to look through the forums. There are plenty of threads talking about Ironbreakers. They do make things difficult for the GM at times, but they are not impossible to handle. There are many ways to threaten them.
1) Many little oppponents. Each hit does 1 wound. eg. 12 snotlings attacking an ironbreaker, if each hits, that's 12 wounds.
2) Use action cards. Have opponents use action cards that can ignore soak, specifically vs the IB.
3) Inflict Stress/Fatigue. Oftentimes this is easier to do than wounds.
4) Inflict disease/insanity
5) Ignore the IB
6) Attack from range
7) Use more social encounters than physical combat
and so on...

They aren't overpowered.

RE: BW

Again, there are ways to overcome this. Don't let him hide behind a corner in peace. Inflict stress/fatigue. Add misfortune dice to his attempts to hold power. Etc. I find it interesting that your BW attempts to hold that much power, and can do so successfully for multiple turns. Just add additional challenge/misfortune for him to successfully hold onto the power. Of course, he is forfeiting those 1-3 turns just gathering power too. <shrug>

Hi Aranei

As others have given you some good advice on dealing with the mechanical issues I'll leave that alone, but I gotta ask...

Are your players enjoying this play style??? I totally get how you would feel gutted at that kind of approach to EfaE. I thought it was a lovely short scenario, and while my players may be both amazingly creative and amazingly stupid at times they do always go for characterful intaraction with the NPCs and setting. So I am happy. I salute you for putting up with this approach till rank 2! Have you discussed this issue with them? Are they aware of all the fun they may be missing (I realise fun is a matter of personal taste also)?

I think that a discussion might be a mature and respectful way for you and your players to resolve this, and possibly some of the broken characters?

Alternatively you could just kill them all in a never ending combat scene, listen to their complaints, shrug and tell them "All you wanna do is kill stuff so why should I bother crafting an interesting story"

I found out how to kick Ironbreakers in the nuts.

The basic spell list, and if you need it, player actions rather than monster actions. Magic dart kills iron breakers. Three power, basic spell craft roll, two boons to ignore armour. Aha... Ahahahahaha...AHAHAHAHAAHA!

And it's not that lethal against less heavily armoured players. Feeling like a complete jerk? Now add shroud of invisibility and possibly chuck in a few other vs. discipline spells. In short: Grey wizards pwn ironbreakers. Have a look through the actions for players you'll find things that just aren't fair against REEEEEEAAAALLY heavily armoured characters, but are actually just slightly nasty against everyone else.

And OF COURSE THE IRONBREAKER IS GOING TO GET TARGETED WITH EVERYTHING BECAUSE THE GIT ALWAYS PULLS SAGA OF GRUNGNI.

So there's nooooo problem making him the pain soak and using lots of nasty stuff against him, he brought it on himself...

I'll throw my two cents into this discussion.

First of all there is a little imbalance in every RPG I've ever played, especially if your players are number crunchers and power gamers. WFRP has always been a unique setting and premise: normal folk thrust into adventure! It is through the career system that they become legends.

I started this game when it first came out and am still loving it and campaigning with it. I have two characters that are going to be rank 4 soon. I had a similar issue at the start...finding the balance. I tried house rules, but they upset the rules as written and I realized that the more I house ruled, the more I disrupted the game. So I have very few house rules.

We started with a bright wizard and troll slayer, along with a dilettante, agent, and Zealot. Only the Zealot and agent are alive. The Troll slayer is insane thanks to his incredible mismanagement of his stress and fatigue, the bright wizard, although did his damage, he never seemed to abuse the extra damage because I had him so scared to receive miscasts (which he did, as well as I made him make corruption roles if the situation called for it) and if I got him isolated as I did with the skaven assassin I sent after them he was a pin cushion).

Yes your players will screw up every adventure...its there job. You should challenge them with all of the tools of the game. This game is so great that it has many ways to lose a character...use them. My group of veteran gamers are terrified of everything, disease, corruption, wounds...its so wonderful!

Use the environment, complicate the encounters so its not just a fight (ie: in a burning building, on a sinking ship, etc...)

my simple house rules:

1. no ironbreakers--its an advanced career only (they have to really earn it through roleplay

2. same as above for swordmasters and wardancers-- infact I'm of the old school mind that I rarely allow Elves as characters as I feel they are hard to use in a group, especially with a dwarf), although I don't ban them just use them sparingly.

3. I still socket talents because I like the mechanic with the disease rules...but they are universal. sO a character buys the ones in that career on the card but if they have 2 slots then they can socket any talent they have.

4. I use chaos stars as challenges or banes...and I use them sometimes even if there is an effect of a card. I like to make sure they feel the chaos

5. a specialization in block, parry, dodge will yield an additional misfortune die to enemies role

thats it...happy gaming