Hey guys, since my last post and your responses helped me and my group out a lot !

Id like to ask about items of superior quality! For weapons its kind of clear, but how about armor? There was a thread back in 2010 were it was discussed briefly but there wasn’t an official response? Or any kind of consens so how do we handle superior armor?
Does it get +1 Def ? Does it get +1 Soak ? or neither of those qualities? A fortune dice to checks is rather useless concerning armor unless we go for social interactions, and in the last discussion there was the relevant comment that then "weapons shouldn’t get a dice for combat either"….

Please do help me out again!

I ruled… but keep in mind thid is house-rule… that with armor that is superior quality you get +1 soak when your opponent rolls a Chaos Star.

My problem is, which still stand to be tested as no one has any sup qual armor, the risk of players aiming for cheap armor/buckler. And what if you have both a sup qual shield AND armor?

One thing though, which might be of help, is to check runes for armor, and model your sup qual rewards around that.

Perhaps -1 Encumberance? For Str 2 and 3 characters, that's quite an issue!

For most armours, I think +1 Defence or +1 Soak is too much, so the suggestion of +1 Soak on a Chaos Star is quite a good one - offers 12.5% chance of a good benefit, which is small but worthwhile. Might also have a more narrative benefit, to make it less likely to get a "Damaged" condition on PC fumbles etc.

The official rule for superior items is somewhat abstract as are most rules in WFRP so if your looking for an exact mechanic you might say you picked the wrong system lol.. But the official rule is that a superior quality item adds +1 fortune die which I think it can be assumed can be a misfortune die to your opponent as it applies to armor (aka basicaly +1 defense). The rules are detailed out on p.96 of the players guide, not sure what page that is in the core set book but I do believe its in their somewhere in the economy section.

In as a whole most "rules" adaptations make use of fortune/misfortune as it applies to benefits or the lack there off in quality, effectivness or anything else. Fortune and Misfortune dice are exact oppossites of each other so they are easily interchangable.

As for soak, you should be really careful about adjusting soak or any statistics you don't see adjusted as part of a rule in the game. Its one of those fixed stats (many games have them) that are likely done this way because they are part of the balancing of the mechanic so I wouldn't recommend creating armor that is not magical that offers additional soak. Generally in the warhammer universe magic items are very rare and not available in stores, so players must find them (AKA GM Controlled mechanism). This allows the GM's to control what players gain access to beyond that of everyday equipment, but superior quality items will likely eventually be purchased outright by the players so you have to consider the extreme. Imagine your players all have full sets of everything of superior quality than ask yourself, how balanced will your adjustment to the rules be than? I think if your offering soak.. players are potentially earning 2-3 additional soak beyond that of what they might normally get and while that might not seem like a lot, I think it is sufficient to create some real balance issues for certain combative characters.

Be cautious on how much soak you make available to the players it can really throw the balance off.

Thanks for your thoughts!

We discussed your proportions in our group last night when we played and are doing a mix now.

First we introduced yesnopes house rules for armor, that is medium armor gives you one missF dice and heavy armor two missF dice to checks concerning Agility (Initiative and Ballisticskill are left out). On top of that SQ-Items weight 1 Enc less then the normal item would (cant weight less then 1 Enc total).

Then we took BigK´s idea, since we all agreed one soak would be too good to be true and gave one fortune dice to SQ items. Since they cancel each other out SQ-Heavy Armor would give you only one missF dice since one is canceled.
Medium armor gets no penalty if it’s SQ and light armor provides an extra fortune dice for Agility Checks (Initiative and Ballisticskill are left out again).

For Shields we felt that an additional misfortune dice for the attacker would be to strong, since Shields are connected to block and so many other beneficial cards and we didn’t give one “defense” to armor either. So we only go with the reduced encumbrance there. We don’t relay feel satisfied with that so if you got an idea for shields dish them out !

Superior quality armour and shields could provide fortune dice when using skills outside of combat. For example when using Leadership to gather up villagers for a militia, or on a charm check because the superior armour looks good.

Other, similar, bonuses could be invented and I encourage my players to decide in what manner the armour is superior. A suit of armour with spikes, skulls etc. adds fortune to intimidation. While an armour with gold details can be used to impress members the brass and silver tier. A night black armour might provide a bonus to stealth. A well crafted armour with pockets and easy -to-reach medical supplies/instruments can add a fortune die to first aid checks, while an armour set with warpstone-gems might add a fortune die on spellcraft checks (while forcing the player to do a lot of corruption rolls as well)

It's really up to the players to decide. This allow the players to define more things about their characters, while granting them a bonus on something relevant to them. And it makes them more unique.

Oh, and I also use the -1 encumberance rule on superiour armours and shields, as they are of a better make and fit.

I rule that it simply weigh's less (50%) and that in social checks regarding "how cool is your armor" that it will count.

For Poor quality armor, I rule that it has the Damaged condition, and to fix it is 50% of the value.

jh

k7e9 you are brilliant…and i dont know why i dident came up with that by myselve….gerat we will do it that way thanks a lot !

Nishra said:

No problem, glad to be of assistance.

I'd go with +1 defense, or +1 . Statistically this will cancel out the +1 [W] bonus when being attacked with a superior weapon.

As is, defense needs all the bonuses it can get, as later in the game attacks tend to connect… active defenses cap early on whereas the one using an action card to attack will use higher characteristics, more stance and fortune dice, specialisation and higher skills (also favoring the one using an action in opposed checks coz skills translate into a [Y] when attacking, a when defending against an action).

Adding soak - even just on a chaos star - in a game with static damage is a bad idea IMHO.

Officially, superior quality only provides +1 [W]. So, it is better when you make checks like swimming in armor, etc. Or for social circumstances.