Hello all,

The other day, while surfing the new blog of Crazy Aido I read this entry

"you can now swap Chaos stars for challanges, and four chaos stars is an auto fail."

Since I don't have yet Hero's Call (probably the onle one in EU) I wanted to ask you, how it is supposed to be use this new rule, specially regarding casting spells and the Warlock ability.

The warlock ability allows you to add one expertise die to the dice pool for each chaos star you add to the result of the dice roll. Before Hero's Call, as per RAW, this meant that you will produce more miscasts and since the miscast does not consume the chaos stars, you will also activate the chaos star effects of your action card (or other universal effects).

My point is, that if you can now convert a chaos star into a challenge, the gain of adding one expertise dice to your dice pool by adding one chaos star to your dice outcome is marginal, or at least less relevant than before. Should not the Warlock skill be revised then?

i believe the GM controls the allocation of "bad dice" just as the PC does good dice (for monters I reverse that and let players choose allocation of monster's bad outcomes as in which action gets delay tokens or is an inititative marker reduced). That means the GM decides if (assuming the quote from rules is right) they like 4 chaos stars auto fail, or if 2 converted to challenges creates a failure, one to bane triggers something and one chaos star left still good for an extra helping of bad something.

Interesting if Chaos Stars do now convert to failures. I houseruled that originally but then just when with generic chaos star effects "worthy of them".

Yepesnopes said:

First up woooooooooooooo! Attention! Second, wait what? Miscasts don't actually use the chaos star? Where is that? I think the miscast rules are pretty harsh(and rightly so) on wizards, so having to find another use for them after pulling the miscast seems a bit odd, as well as seeming like more work for the GM to think up on the sly.

Third, I don't think the warlock skill should be revised, because the new supplement is about adding epic challenge for the PC's and that means taking big, giant smelly risks like taking three chaos stars in the vain, mad hope that you pull enough exploding hammers and comets to even it out. Also, I don't see a lot of warlocks making it anywhere near fourth career. Casting careers are tough in wfrp, casting careers that use dark magic? I would be surprised if you made it to third career.

Crazy Aido said:

I don't have Hero's Call but I can confirm that miscasts do not 'use up' Chaos Stars...

Pg 113 of the Player's Guide

Chaos Stars that fuel miscast results remain available to trigger environmental or other Chaos Star effects - in effect, a Chaos Star that is used to fuel a Miscast is not "Spent" and may still be applied to other effects.

But Chaos Stars don't always trigger miscasts

(same page, paragraph above the last)

When an arcane spellcaster generates one or more Chaos Stars on a Spellcraft check to cast a spell, he risks severe miscast. If any Chaos Star effects can be triggered based on the spell attempted, those effects are resolved as with any other type of action.

Next, if there are any unassigned Chaos Star results in the dice pool after resolving any effects listed on the spell , the player draws a miscast card.

Emphasis mine

Crazy Aido said:

Players Guide pg 113

"Chaos stars that fuels a miscast results remain available to trigger enviromental or other Chaos Star effects - ineffect, a Chaos Star that is used to fuel a Miscast is not "spent" and it may still be applied to other effects"

Crazy Aido said:

I got an email from my provider that my copy of hero's call is arrived. I will see to this later

Cheers