The RAW proposes the use of a progress tracker to play out a Chase. Using Athletics mainly, but maybe Coordination or any skill that can be presented as logical (Intimidate when pursuing through a crowd, for example).

All that is fine and good, but what of Fatigue ? How will pursuer and quarry become fatigued ? One point per round ? Universal effect of the rolls ?

And how does it tie in with combat ? Very often, opponents will at some point break and flee. How does that suddenly become a progress tracker ?

I'm toying with the following house rules but I would greatly appreciate the input of the community on that subject.

Here are the house rules I think I might try out next game :

1) When an enemy disengages from you and you are no longer engaged with an enemy, you may take 1 Fatigue to use 1 Move Manoeuvre to follow.

(This house rule is to help keep the battle flowing and make disengaging less easy. If an enemy retreats, he can't be immediatly replaced by another, the oppononent gets to move forward first.)

2) When an character wants to flee and is pursued, create a 9 space progress tracker. A quarry token (or more than one if needed) will be placed on the space corresponding to the initial head start in move manoeuvre increments. Each round, the pursuer decides how many move manoeuvres he wants to use, the quarry then does the same.

Then the quarry and pursuer roll a competitive athletics check (or other logical skill, Intimidate in a crowd, for example). Difficulty will be determined by terrain conditions etc. Compare successes and move quarry token forward or back a number of spaces = to the difference between the quarry's successes and the pursuers' + any difference between the number of manœuvres of quarry and pursuer as determined before. When the quarry token reaches the end of the tracker, the quarry shakes off pursuit. If the quarry token moves back to the first space, roll initiative and and start a combat round with both characters engaged.

Ex.: Ernst the agitator is trying to escape the watch. He is at medium range and flees. (The quarry token is on space 3) The watchmen decide to use 4 manœuvres to make up the gap (they know that Ernst will keep moving), Ernst chooses to use 6 ! (That's 4 Fatigue...) The Watchmen roll athletics and gain 1 success only. Ernst rolls... and fails ! Ernst stays at Medium range this round (the token doesn't move)... but on the next, he will suffer a Misfortune to Athletics due to Fatigue...

So, what do you think ?

I like it! Your house-rule is very similar to the chase rules I had come up with, only yours are a bit more elegant and realistic.

I originally required a series of checks (Athletics if it were straight up running, coordination to avoid obstacles, etc) which when successful will move the PC or NPC's token forward along a track. When the trailing token catches up with the lead token, the chase ends.

However I prefer the idea of having the difference in the number of successes determine how far the chase token moves, but I do have a couple of questions.

Firstly, how do you handle multiple PCs chasing one or multiple NPCs?

Also, do you limit the amount of fatigue that can be spent to use additional maneuvers in your game? I generally allow a maximum of three movement maneuvers per turn...be that two free and one extra paid for with fatigue, or one Action, one regular maneuver (pulling something from a pack, etc), and three extra movement maneuvers paid for with fatigue...etc.

GoblynKing said:

Thanks for the comment !

I try to keep my houseruling as simple as possible and with the less math as possible.

To answer your first question, to handle a chase with multiple pursuers and quarry, I would probably add 4 spaces before the start of my nine space track. So I'd have : 4 spaces, event space, 7 spaces, event space. You could add more, but 4 spaces is equal to Long range so should be enough.

The two event spaces would be where the quarry gets caught or flees. Initial headstart is counted from the first space after the first event space as normal. So if the quarry starts off at medium range from the closest pursuer, then you put that quarry token on the second space after the first event.

To handle multiple characters in pursuit (say 2 thieves and 3 watchmen), you use my houserule as normal but you first have the lead pursuer roll and declare his move manoeuvres. The pursuer closest to the quarry is the lead pursuer and is reprensented by the first event space on the tracker. (because when the quarry token is on it, the quarry is engaged by the pursuer)

The lead pursuer is effectively the reference point for all the relative distances between all participants in the chase.

Once the lead pursuer has rolled and come with a result (successes+move manœuvres), all the other participants roll and compare results, then they move their tokens on the tracker.

If a pursuer doubles the lead pursuer (his token goes further then the first event), you should slide back all tokens a number of spaces that will have the new lead pursuer on the first event space. Remove his token but add one to the tracker to represent the previous lead, that is now some spaces behind the first event space.

I know it sounds really complicated, but it isn't once you get the hang of it. It has the advantage to potentially follow a very long pursuit without needing a new tracker or any new management of resources.

Example: 2 thieves and 3 watchmen, the thieves start at medium range (space no2 after the first event), 2 of the watchmen are the lead pursuers (2 tokens on the first event), the last watchman is at medium range behind the first two (second space before the first event).

One of the 2 watchmen in the lead is chosen to be the LEAD PURSUER. He declares that he will use 4 move manoeuvres. The other watchman with him chooses 4 manoeuves. The lagging watchman chooses 5 manoeuvres ! The thieves decide to use 3 manoeuvres.

The lead watchman rolls 2 successes on an Average Athletics, his result is 6 (4 manoeuvres+2 successes).

Second watchman rolls 1 success, and obtains a 5 total, he moves his token back one space.

Third watchman rolls 2 successes ! Total 7 ! He moves his token forward one space. His catches up on watchman no2.

Thief number one rolls 2 successes, he's at Close range from the lead pursuer...

Thief number two fails his roll ! He also gets 2 banes for which the GM decides that he will lose one move manœuvre ! He moves his token back two spaces, to the event ! Roll initiative between watchman no1 and thief no2 !

Depending on their actions in the combat round, you could keep the pursuit going anyways. The thief n2 and the watchman no1 can keep running, even though they will also get to use actions against one another.

Lastly, if a pursuer token is pushed beyond the three extra spaces before the first event, he's out of the race.

Oh, and to answer your second question, I don't limit Move Manœuvres per round. I like to have PCs get fatigued. It can sometimes get whacky, but I'll discourage them from using too many by other means, like misfortune dice on any action done the same round, for example.

Regular athletic adventurers will have a To4 and their lowest physical characteristic will probably be 3. I let them trade their action for a manoeuvre if they want. So they can move from engaged to medium without being fatigued at all by forfeiting their action. Medium is around 30 yards I would think. Makes sense to me.

In V3, rounds are not defined, but they are pretty long, IMO.

So if they want to get fatigued, they could run for 7 moves and suffer 5 fatigue. That would put their lowest characteristic at 2 misfortune penalty right there. And would make them cover Extreme to engaged in one round ! Pretty whacky, I know, the thing is, they don't do it. So I never had to houserule. Long looks like 100 yards, Extreme around 200 yards.

If you want to houserule anything, make Extreme special in that you can only from extreme to long maximum in one round. But for the rest, it's up for grabs !

Also, I think even though they can trade a manoeuvre for an action, I would rule that multiple move manoeuvres will always cost fatigue, even if you don't use your action.

I wrote down your notes on chases before a session tonight. And what do you know, I had to use them. They worked well with no problems! Thanks for the help.

Jericho said:

I'm still thinking about this... I don't want to overcomplicate combat, but I do find disengaging a bit too easy for my taste. Also, following up on a retreating enemy is one of the basic aspects of warfare... it seems pretty weird that it's not possible to do so using the RAW.

So here is where I'm getting to I guess:

When you disengage from an enemy, this enemy has the possibility to pursue you. If he decides to attempt to do so, he must roll an opposed Coordination with you. If he succeeds, he may use as many Move Manoeuvres as he has success symbols, but he must suffer 1 Fatigue for each manoeuvre he chooses to use.

EXAMPLE: Robin the thief is assailed by the watch. 2 brave watchmen are trying to grapple him. Robin decides to flee. He uses 4 move manoeuvres to get away as quickly as possible ! (He moves to Long range) The watchmen obviously decide to pursue. Each watchman rolls an opposed Coordination against Robin. They add 1 Fortune die to their pool since they outnumber Robin. Luckily for the Thief, he has Ag 4 and Coordination trained while the watchmen have Ag3 only.

The first Watchman rolls 1 success and advances one move and suffers 1 fatigue. He is now at 3 move manoeuvres from Robin (still Long range).

The second Watchman gets lucky and rolls 3 successes ! He suffers 3 Fatigue and runs to Close range. He throws his Halberd to try to trip Robin... but that is another story.

You might find that letting characters move out of turn will be unbalancing, but that's the beauty of WFRP v3, Fatigue is the great equalizer ! What this houserule does do, however, is remove the strange situations where your enemies can completely reorganize their ranks while you just stare and gawp...

You may wanna check out these as well. I got them especially for my upcoming game as well as their Plot Twist cards. They are built for the Pathfinder RPG but it's a simple matter to bring the skill checks across into WFRP3.

http://paizo.com/products/btpy8g7o?GameMastery-Chase-Cards-Deck

When running a chase, I've found that the most "natural" way for me to do it without a bunch of house rules, is to simply determine how many successes ahead the running guy is.

I make a tracker with the length of the pursuit and place the pursuers marker at the start, the pursued mark a number of steps ahead.

Then the pursuer and pursued make Normal Athletics(Agility) checks. Each success moves them one step forward on the tracker. They move the markers AT THE SAME TIME.

If the pursuer marker manages to overtake the pursued marker (after both have moved for the turn) he catches the pursued. If the pursued reaches the end of the tracker, he gets away (Skaven diving into a sewer, goblin dissappearing into some thick bushes, thief getting lost in a large market crowd or similar).

Notice that this is an Athletics(Agility) check, not an Athletics(Strength) check. This is to make a sort of middleground between well-trained people and naturally quick and agile people, while not giving a big fat brute an advantage in a sprinting contest.

Ralzar said:

I like this ...

Boehm said:

Thanks The games system really opened up for me when I stopped looking at the "Skill(Attribute)" listing as a rule and instead more of a guideline.

A lot of Action Cards work like this. For example insulting blow, which is a Weapon Skill(Fellowship) vs Defense check, which lets a social caharacter have a decent attack action.

Here's some examples:

Ballistick Skill(Strength) You're throwing somthing big and heavy, like a table in a bar fight.. Accuracy isn't as important as having the strnegth to throw it.

Stealth (Will Power) You're hidden in an uncomfertable position for a prolonged amount of time. The difficulty is in not moving allthough your entire body is telling you to.

Weapon Skill (agility) Fencing and similar fighting that concentrates on speed and dexterity more than brute force.

Charm (Strength) You're trying to show off your buff body for the ladies.

Not all combinations work of cource, but it's a way to make for interesting deviations from the standard tests and let characters use the skills and stats they have in the way they feel their characters would use them. They can typically be a reward for good roleplay. The Charm(Strength) for example, could be from a big warrior who tries to impress some ladies and describes how his character just casually stretches and flexes his muscles with feinged carelessness. Then the GM could rule that he makes a Charm test, but can use his Strength instead of Fellowship. The GM could have just given him a bunch of Fortune Dice, but, to me, this method just feels better.

Ralzar said:

This is definatly in my top reasons of what I like in 3rd edition

Here's a cool chart . We use it whenever a chase ensues. It was very handy in a recent chase scene in Altdorf we had in A Question of Breeding

jh

Hi,

I use the Athletics (Agility) too, but in our games it is dependent on the situation. A chase in forests and dense undergrowth, or through a crowded market place would give my players the option to replace strength with agility on the test to dodge through the obstacles, or stick with strength and simply plough through. Depending on fine details i may add fortune/misfortune dice to one over the other but still leave the players the choice of which style to attempt it.

However a race over open ground for me is purely strength based. A fat bloke, or anyone in heavy armour, will get misfortune dice added to their pool, but the initial stages of a race over easy terrain for me should be based on raw strength vs bodyweight, not agility. Likewise a chase scene through something requiring extensive control and balance, like along scaffolding planks and across collapsing rooftops, I'd probably ask that agility be used with Athletics. Just my thoughts though...

I agree this system is great for mixing skills with differing stats. Animal Training and Tradecraft skills almost demand stat flexible approach.

No:12 said:

Wrote a bit for an adventure yesterday where the characters have the oppertunity to get more supplies by ice fishing, which is done with a Nature Lore (Will Power) check. Nature Lore for knowing how to fish and Will Power for managing to sit out on the ice for a day.