I was looking through the rules and I couldnlt find any requirement to have the basic Block/Parry/Dodge before you gain the advanced version.

Is there a restriction and if so where would I find it?

Thanks

On the card itself.

Special: Improved Dodge replaces Dodge in your action deck and counts as Dodge for all effects that reference it

You can't replace something that you don't have... hmmm, I guess you can read that as only needing to replace it if you already have it (but I think the majority would agree that is not the intent).

If I were explaining it to a new player I would point out the Advanced keyword on the card and state that the special section was a restriction in the same vein as advanced careers have restrictions on who can enter them (e.g. Master Thief has the restriction "Must have completed the Thief career", Flagellant has the restriction "Must have completed Zealot or has 2 or more insanities").

If you're going to be playing the literal game then beware that it can be used against you too. Technically NO ONE can purchase Improved Counterspell

Players' Vault Page 116

A wizard may only ordinarily learn and cast spells with either the
Basic trait (which represents petty magics available to all wizards)
or with the trait of the order matching his Order talent card. Nonwizards
may not learn any magic spells at all

Improved Counterspell is neither Basic nor of an order, no purchasing for you!

Most players will have Block/Parry/Dodge from the beginning, as they are "free" basic actions if you start with Toughness/Strength/Agility of 3+. The advanced versions requires 4+ in their corresponding attributes.

I guess if you start create a character with for example a strength value of 2, hence not getting the Parry card for free at character creation, and then go on playing the character and purchasing strength 3 and after that strength 4. Then you would be in the situation of having to first purchase Parry and then improved Parry to upgrade it.

In my experience though, characters tend to buy the improved version of an active defence they got at character creation. The characters that start of with 2 in a physical attribute doesn't go on to purchase 3 and then 4 in that attribute (in my groups at least) since they are probably focused at something else.

Matchstickman said:

Yes indeed by basic english the statement implies neither that you must have the card so that it can be replaced or that you simply can't have both Block and Improved Block as defensive choices. Both are entirely reasonable readings. Remember that in most situations anyone with the stats required to use the Advanced skill probably got the basic skill for free.

I have no problem with your interpretation but was wondering if it was implicitly stated in the rules somewhere.

Matchstickman said:

Poor choice. Both your examples say "Must have" the Improved Actions donlt say "Must have x, replace x with this"

Matchstickman said:

Again poor choice. It specifically says "may only ordinarily learn" which means that there clearly are exceptions and the only question is what are those exceptions.

In the case of Blessings it say the same, and indeed goes further and say it's impossible, but it then specifys the exception "unless, of course, it is the will of the gods." which openly leaves it to the GM to allow such if they feel the actions that have occurred would make the relevant God's agree to such a thing.

StephenE said:

Poor choice. Every rule is subject to your GM (and other player's) views on the system/game world. You could change every single rule in the game and still be playing "WFRPG 3rd Ed", the same game being discussed on these boards, you'd just be playing a house ruled version.

You are obviously a Trading Card player , it takes a while to brake out of the "reading the card literarly" to find loopholes and using comon sence to make use of the card as intened.

You don't need to buy the basic dodge before getting the improved dodge, because it's not listed as a requirement. You just need to have agility 4+ and coordination trained as is the printed requirements for the card.

If you DO have the basic dodge, then it's replaced by the advanced one. They had to print this, so people wouldn't end up with two dodge cards.

That was why I assumed they had the replace rule in there. So that you didnlt gain a 4th, 5th or 6th reactive defensive skill.

After all from a cost view having someone save 1 or 2 advances after they spent 7-9 advances going from 2 to 4 in the stat isn't game breaking.

You don't need to buy the basic dodge before getting the improved dodge, because it's not listed as a requirement. You just need to have agility 4+ and coordination trained as is the printed requirements for the card.

Are you sure?

If you use that intrepretation of the wording then it is possible to have both Parry and Epic Parry (and presumably the other Epic cards too).

I'm anal enough that I wanted to get an official answer to this question so I used the contact page on this website

EDIT: I have no idea why it's so dark, nor any idea how to correct this, I just did a standard cut&paste from my email

Richard,

"Improved Dodge" and etc. are intended to replace an existing action card already in your action deck; in the case of "Improved Dodge" that card is "Dodge." If you don't already know "Dodge," you can't learn "Improved Dodge." The same is true for "Advanced Dodge" and its ilk, available in Hero's Call.

Still, since "Dodge" is a basic action, the odds of any character who's intending to learn "Improved Dodge" not having it should be quite low.

Enjoy the game!


~Dan Clark
Creative Content Developer
Fantasy Flight Games

Matchstickman said:

Thanks for doing this, it's great to have an official view of how it's supposed to be done.

Matchstickman said:

Cheers for that. It does work well that way too