Hello guys,

I would like to hear what is your opinion regarding why the wounds of the bad guys have been re-escalated in that way from 1st and 2nd editions to the 3rd edition. Let me explain myself.

If you compare damage output and damage reduction between 2nd edition and 3rd edition, they are not so different.

As a consequence, you can see that most human sized creatures (like greenskins, beastmen, lesser deamons, chaos warriors, marauder, dark elves, skaven etc.) including PC have found their wound treshold unchanged from 2nd to 3rd edition.

But all of a sudden, you move to big sized creatures (and I believe the size plays no role here since it has been never a parameter in WFRP) and you see that they number of wounds have been dramatically changed. Just to give some examples:

Dragon 66 W 2nd ed -> 40 W in 3rd ed

Giant 48 W 2nd ed -> 22 W in 3rd ed

Manticore 48 W 2nd ed -> 18 W 3rd ed

Troll 30 W 2nd ed -> 18 W 3rd ed

Bloodthirster 60 W 2nd ed -> 36 W 3rd ed

It is true, that some of the big guys (not all) have found its To increased by 1 and hence its Damage reduction. But that has also happened to others "small guys" like Orcs and Beastmen, while their wounds have been not changed.

As a final remark, I will say that in 2nd ed there was a small chance where you could generate very high damage outputs through Ulric's Fury. To give some numbers, in the 2nd edition, the chances of generating a damage output between 15 - 24 where around 3% - 6%, while the chances of generating a damage output above 25 where only below 1%. These percentages are given per successful attack i.e. an attack that hits and is not blocked or dodged. Nonetheless, this does not change anything since "small guys" have found their wounds unchanged.

So, which is your opinion on that, why they have done this re-escaling on the number of wounds of big guys? and, why not on the small ones then?

1) IMO the intent by FFG is for combat to be faster and bloodier and more dangerous. Thus, average ability to hit has increased for everyone, and overall wounds have gone down. This is not just for faster playability, but also for the 'cinematic' feel.

2) You are correct that in the previous editions you also had a chance to cause extraordinary amounts of damage, beyond what a hit in WFRP3 can do. This could also play into the reduction of wounds. Earlier editions rewarded with more damage, while this edition rewards with critical effects.

However, you can only reduce wounds so far before the number of wounds would become immaterial. So, average enemies begin with low enough wounds that it really isn't feasible to reduce their wounds even more. Instead, GMs get the option to make these enemies "henchmen", which essentially has a similar effect.

I have found that monsters seem to have very low wounds when they are supposed to be tough. The big demon from Eye for an Eye only lasted 1/2 a round in my group, and none of them were from combat careers. Granted my group is large (6 players), so they can pile on some Damage even without being combat monsters.

Now though, they have rerolled, and three of them are complete combat monsters. I worry that monsters that are supposed to be scary (trolls etc) will be cut down in flashes due to the high consistent damage, and extremely low wounds (a Tough 5 Dwarf could have more wounds than a troll before rank 2 I believe [if in the right career]). I am thinking of using my Old World Bestiary from second edition to modify the wounds of monsters back to prior levels, but I will let RAW play out first for a few sessions.

Bobus X said:

I use the 2nd ed wound threshold for the big bad guys. So far so good.

Thank you for the feedbacks.

I will like to here more opinions regarding the topic of my post, thanks in advance guys!

I hadn't noticed that the Wound Threshold disparity was so big between 2nd and 3rd.

Thanks for the heads up. I've yet to play scenes with big monsters, but I'll definitely consider upping the Wounds slightly on some critters.

With my experience, as Bobus said, the main bad guys went down too fast. The demon in Eye for an Eye lasted 2 rounds and fled with 1 wound left.

Same with Wargor's faced early on.

The troll in Witches Song also went down in 2 rounds. I had to come up with another way for the Tentacled Beast to be introduced since the Troll died before I could have him sucked under.

For creatures you want to put up a good fight, I would suggest adding extra wounds. Either random numbers or, if you like house rules:

* Extra wounds equal to the highest Strength or weapon damage in the PC Party (this should get another round or two of life out of it.)

* Extra wounds equal to the number of PC characters x their rank

* Extra wounds equal to the creatures TO.

Or something like that.

The other thing to note is that it makes a big difference when the target is solo vs being in a group of enemies. If the PC party can focus fire one target, it is going down fast. So solo enemies need extra wounds just to cope with the onslaught, or have backup.

For Witche's Song Troll encounter, I suggest having 2 trolls instead of one, even if the party is small, but has one good damage dealer.

Hello guys,

I post here a comparison between 2nd and 3rd edition creatures. I have writen the To and wounds. It is difficult for me to understand the objective of the modifications they have done. Some creatures in edition 3 have found their wounds and To increased while others have their To increased but their wounds decreased. Others only found their To (Wounds) modified while the Wounds (To) has left unchanged. And there are still some cases wherethe changes are minor.

I think it is very difficult and extremly tricky to compare the absolute threat that the each individual monster posses in one and in the other edition. Nonetheless, looks pretty obvious than in the 3rd edition, creatures like orcs, beastman and lesser deamons pos clearly a greater threat to PC's than they did on the 2nd edition. Then, by comparing the relative characteristics between these creatures (orcs, beastmen etc.) and the rest, seems to me that creatures like Trolls, Giants, Griffons, Feanbeasts and others can be put down faster in the 3rd ed than in the 2nd ed. And finally, and a bit off-topic, Greater Deamons have been nerfed a great deal from 2nd ed to 3rd ed, but this can be another topic.

What are your thoughts?

Name To 3rd Wounds 3rd To 2nd Wounds 2nd

Gor 5 12 4 12
Minotaur 6 18 4 26
Ungor 4 8 3 10
Wargor 6 16 4 14
Boar 6 15 4 15
Dragon 8 40 6 55
Fenbeast 5 18 5 32
Giant Spider 4 12 4 25
Giant Wolf 4 13 3 12
Griffon 6 18 5 48
Harppy 3 13 4 12
Manticore 6 18 5 38
Wyvern 7 24 5 44
Chaos Warrior 6 18 4 14
Dragon Ogre 6 20 4 34
Marauder 4 10 3 11
Beast of Nurgle 6 22 5 15
Disc of Tzeentch 6 22 5 16
Flamers of Tzeenthc 5 16 4 11
Flesh Hound 5 16 3 14
Fury 4 12 3 12
Great Unclean One 10 40 6 69
Horrors of Tzeentch 4 14 3 12
Imp 3 7 3 5
Lord Of Change 8 36 6 32
Nurgling 3 7 2 7
Plaguebearer 5 18 4 12
Screamers of Tzeentch 6 20 4 18
Corsair 3 10 3 11
Dryad 5 13 4 16
Treeman 8 24 7 46
Giant 7 22 5 48
River Troll 6 19 4 29
Stone Troll 6 18 4 32
Black Ork 6 18 4 13
Goblin 3 9 3 8
Orc 5 14 4 12
Squig 4 15 3 10
Snolting 2 5 1 4
Bloodletter of Khorne 4 12 3 12
Bloodthirster 8 36 7 69
Juggernaut 5 12 5 24
Rat Ogre 6 18 4 28
Clanrat 3 9 3 9
Gutter Runner 3 10 3 9
Packmaster 4 10 3 10
Plague Monks 4 10 4 11
Zombie 4 10 3 12
Skeleton 2 8 3 10
Wraith 3 14 4 20
Banshee 4 12 3 18
Vampire 6 18 6 20
Ghoul 4 13 4 11

BEWARE

in 3rd édition you need Zéro wounds AND more critical than Toughness to kill PCs AND NPCs, except henchmen. That explain to me that différence.

(another point is that PCs are strongers in 3rd éd. Compared to 2nd édition)

willmanx said:

That's not exactly true, though you bring up a good point.

You don't count down for Wounds, you count up. In addition PCs and NPCs need to take more Wounds than their Wound Threshold.

If you count Wounds the old way (where they are taken away until you reach 0) then you should add 1 to all 3ed scores.

willmanx said:

Willmanx what you say is not correct

Tome of Adventure pg 46

"Each creature entry has a wound threshold listed, indicating the
maximum number of wounds a standard creature of that type can
withstand before being defeated. Enemies do not suffer stress or
fatigue the way player characters do. An effect that would force an
enemy to suffer stress or fatigue inflicts an equal number of wounds
instead."

It does not say anything about critical wounds, that is only for PC's not for monsters. Moreover, in 3rd ed, you have the minimum wound rule which ensures a minimum of one wound inflicted per successful attack.

But my point is not if PC' are stronger in 3rd ed or in 2nd, neither if the combats are harder or softer in the 3rd ed or in the 2nd. What I cannot understand , my point to discuss is, why some monsters where kept the same (i.e skaven) or even buffed up (i.e Orcs and beastmen), while large monsters were considerably nerfed (i.e griffons, giants).

In the second edition, the bulk enemy force for PC's where orcs, beastmen, goblins etc and there was a big step to cover between being able to defeat an orc and being able to defeat a troll or a Giant or a Manticore. In this third edition, there is nearly not such treshold. The difficulty difference between defeating an orc or a troll is minimum. The difficulty difference of defeating a Black orc or a giant or a manticore is basically unexistent. This lack of difficulty threshold makes the appearence of these monsters less dramatic.

I am not arguing the rules, I am just trying to understand why they made them like this.

Yepesnopes said:

I agree, one thing I loved about the Warhammer world was that so many of the monsters were downright scary, not just bigger, but actually badder. The seemingly excessively low wound threshold's of 3rd edition monsters means that many parties can mow trolls down like wheat once they are rank 2 or so, and even greater demons will be fodder around rank 3. The only real thing that remains, is that the big monsters are still very deadly, but they all have glass jaws.

As a Caveat though, I have not ran the game for long enough to confirm my gut feelings off of reading it yet, so I am still going with RAW at least till they are actually fighting trolls and such.

while not a proper addition to the discussion I just make up the wound threshold on most of my enemies. Sometimes they will come across clanrats with 9 wounds, sometimes 12 and if there is a clanrat leading the band that clanrat may have 15. I just make up a number that feels like it will suit my engagement.

On a whole I believe it is very easy to kill certain monsters in a short amount of time with the allocated wound total but nothing is stopping one from changing it.

Fenderstat said:

Lies, I heard that just the other day Fantasy Flight broke some GM's thumbs for changing creature stats. Now he can't roll dice properly...where does that leave him! EH! EH!

I'm noticing a pattern here... I too almost always upgrade the creatures given wound threshold. Sometimes even twice the given number.

We've been playing for over a year (characters are 4th rank) and almost since the beginning I noticed that combat was very easy. Especially since they have a Slayer (currently Dragon Slayer) -- even though the player is a chicken sh*t ;-) he deals huge amounts of damage. I mean, some character might get hurt - we even had two deaths - but the big baddies always go down in 1-2 rounds, no matter the damage they dealt to the group. Some fights were almost ridiculously easy - e.g. the giant in TGS - he was down in less than a round without being able to retaliate. I remember the disappointment of the than Giant Slayer that didn't even have a chance to strike the giant.

Regarding action cards - I also always give baddies extra neat action cards according to my liking.

I think I'll adopt the second edition wounds for big baddies just to give me a list to fall on so I don't have to wing it all the time.

Roy.

As I posted, I am using the 2nd ed wound threshold for the big bad guys and so far so good, but I would like to hear from those people who are doing similar what they think.

Cheers