On p183 of the Players Guide it suddenly says that Guarded Position requires an AG of 3+ and not encumbered. This is a typo right? There's no such stricture anywhere else this basic action is mentioned, and all characters are supposed to begin the game with this basic action.

And another thing, you automatically get the basic actions when you become eligible for them, correct? (ie you don't have to spend an advance). So if you become Discipline trained, you'd automatically get Improved Guarded Position ?

Thanks for the help!

The Player's Guide is wrong. I'm guessing they copy/pasted the requirements from Dodge.

You do not get the basic actions when you qualify for them. If you didn't get dodge for free at char-gen, then you have to buy it like every other card (this is addressed in the FAQ, IIRC).

The advanced defenses (Improved Dodge, Improved Parry, etc) aren't considered basic actions – as they lack the basic trait – so you wouldn't get those free anyway.

Let me use this post for a related question regarding guarded position.

I play with a large party (8 players), as a side comment you should see how difficult is to scale many of the rules of this game to large parties. I have sometimes the feeling that it was thought for parties of 3 to 4 players, but that is another discussion.

My point is, guarded position from different players (and NPC too) add up. So if 3 players use guarded position npc's get in between 3 to 6 misfortune die to the attack rolls.

Do you have the need to limit this? Because I have If I throw a party of 8 orcs and a black orc to my players and for example every turn 4 orcs do guarded postion, I will just slaugther the PC's, unless of course they do the same, which I think then will turn combats in extremely long and boring things.

Any idea?

Cheers

With that large a party - I imagine engagements tend to grow pretty big, which has all sort of weird side-effects ie. blundebuss hitting 10+ opponents, Guarded Position stacking up in the extreme etc.

If I was you I would either consider using Gallows battlemap houserules: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

or atleast limiting engagement sizes or effects ie. by either limiting engagement sizes by automatically splitting engagement of 5+ into 2 seperate engagments both within close range of each other .... or stating that effects targeting a whole engagement can never effect more than yourself +3 other characters (or 4 enemies) - since IMO this seems to be the scale wfrp is build to run on ...

Boehm said:

I think this is the easiest answer.

Re large parties or large groups of foes, there is a mention in GM hardback or softback (can't recall) that "engagements, everyone in close" etc. effects are written assuming everyone is probably 4-5 targets or so and a GM should feel free set limits on "everyone being any entire company of soldiers etc."

In my view the game is balanced for 4, so it's fine to tell a group of 8 - essentially you're two groups, any "group" effects you want, you better double up on who can do those.

One way to prevent Guarded Position from becoming is abused/misused is to think of a real battlefield.

When in melee it would be extremely hard to help others out when trying to dodge an axe coming for your head.

Have the person wanting to enter into Guarded Position make an Average (2d) Discipline roll. Add a difficulty dice if they are in melee, and probably another if it is foggy (or other visibility reductions like darkness or heavy rain). Maybe add one misfortune for every 2 or 3 combatants. The number of success equals the number of people they can assist.

This allows the PC to still use guarded position and get some good advantages from it, without it being overpowered. Obviously PCs who stand back and yell orders or warnings would use it more effectively than those stuck in combat (thus no extra difficulty dice for those not in melee).

That's one of the reason I love WFRP more than any other RPG I've ever played. It is so much easier to just add/subtract dice to figure out bonuses and penalties, versus trying to lookup +3 for this, -2 for that, +5% for this, etc. When in doubt just grab a bunch of dice blindly and add them to the pool . Hehe. Kidding! Well, mostly.