I have realised that for my taste as a GM the characters in warhammer 3 start too heroic and they evolve too fast. I have been thinking a lot of house rules to change the change the game mechanics, but I got quite tired of it . Then I started to look how to implement small changes in the rules of character creation and evolution in order to create a feeling where characters start as adventurers (average people), and if they survive long enough they can (may be) become heroes. If it is not clear what I mean, create for example a human PC soldier and then compare it with the NPC soldier card.

I was thinking to start with to reduce the amount of creation points to 20 for humans and 15 for non humans and to change the training cost of skills to 1xp for the first training, 2xp (and 2 slots) for the second training and 3xp (and 3 slots) for the third training. To account for the extra needs of slots I would use Emirikol's idea of repeating over and over the same career if a PC wants.

Does any of you have similar concerns and have already tried something? I would like to know it.

Thanks

We just reduced the amount of XP handed out. As well as all the published stuff we have also done Lichemaster and Thousand Thrones. Reduce the XP to maybe ony 2 or 3 per adventure, not the 1 per session they recommend.

I don't hand out extra XP beyond the 1/session, using other ways of rewarding people more in-narrative, fortune dice etc.

I also don't allow a character to be considered "next rank" until they spend 4 non-career advances on something - this applies at every rank. This encourages broadening (maybe learn to read after all) and slows down advancing. Players really like the "every session a small marginal improvement or saving up" approach so I didn't want to tinker with the rate of 1/session.

I use the optional (not recommended) approach of saying you cannot move from basic to intermediate until you are Rank 2, etc., with the "rank traits" on careers thus having meaning.

Keeping that change in mind, I made Troll Slayer a rank 2 career.

This means a slower progression but no tinkering with the math in sessions etc.

Rob

Failing and dying doesn't sound grim and perillous to me.

Mutation, permanent wounds, diseases and miscasts do so.

valvorik said:

did that too.

willmanx said:

Thanks for the tips so far guys.

@willmanx: Indeed willmanx, you pop out a good point here, and I do agree totally with you.

Therefore, may be the title of the thread is not the most appropriate and it should be something like "PJ down from heroes to adventurers again". My concern is more the starting proficiency level of PCs (as compared to NPCs) and their meteoric evolution after a few game sessions. This two things combined together make them heroes nearly straight away after one or two adventures.

So what I would like to achieve in my wfrpg 3 campaigns is the nice feeling my players had in previous editions of the game where PCs started really as an "average" dweller of the Old World, and only through adventuring, sweat and blood they gained the proficiency level of heroes.

For that feel, I would make them start in more "common careers" - servant, boatman etc. - before they rise to greater heights. This is a bit tough for priest/wizard path where the "fluff" has years of study etc. but can be handled if players says they are angling for one of those and you put together backstory for it (nearly finished your training your College masters set you this bizarre task before becoming an acolyte….)

Ah, yes, I already tried the common careers. My first group started with a mystic, a gambler, a ratcatcher, a miner, a coachman a scout, a roadwarden and a courtier. Sadly this did not really helped, this did not gave them any feeling of not being heroes since they started with one or two stats at 4 (some non-humans even at 5) and the rest at 3. On top of this you add some yellow dice due to training and some fortunes due to talents or specializations.

Then these guys face a watchmen, or a human noble or a merchant, and my players are still better from moment zero. This places them from 0 xp points high above the average Old Worlder. The same if they have to face non opposed checks of average or hard difficulty, they will succeed pretty easely. It is not really a matter of the career they start with but more about the proficiency level of the starting PCs and the pace of their evolution.

But thx for these tips, I will be keeping note and look to them with my players.

Make the "standard npc" tougher.

As characters are created using points, there is always the danger of optimisation. If you would prefer more random, potentially weaker characters follow these rules.

1. PC's start with the starting characteristics for their race, all 2's for humans for instance. Then roll two fortune dice for each characteristic. The stat gets a +1 increase for each success thrown. That gives each characteristic a 1 in 3 chance of going up to 3 and a 1 in 9 chance of going up to 4. It also randomises the characteristics a bit.

2. Use the method in the book for picking career classes. Your starting characteristics are much more likely to influence your career choice this way. If you want much weaker characters, closer to NPC's, then do not even give them the characteristic bonuses fom the career's favoured characteristics.

3. Then humans have 13 points to spend on skills, talents, action cards, money and upping characteristics, non-humans only 8 points.

This will give much more variation in characters, who will likely be much less optimised.

The fortune dice rolling sounds nice. We are a very, how to say, old style group of gamers? The random rolling thing was always in rpgs. I can give it a try!

@stormofswords: Indeed, this is a really easy way. May be I only need to generate a couple of NPCs, like soldiers, knights, merchants, nobles, thieves and so on as if they would be PCs and that is all! I can even use the pre-gen characters of liberfanatica 7 for the basic careers and expand from there if I want to have a noble or a captain. Good point, thanks.

Don't forget all the ACE that NPCs have! I find that my NPCs can use cunning or aggression every round of an encounter without running out, which helps bring them up.

In a one-off game I ran one player played a waywatcher maxed out Ag to 5, trained BS, fortune in Ag, and several ranged actions (including the multi-shot action). So what is the answer to spamming like this? I just kept giving him fatigue until he passed out, and said, "I guess I need a more well rounded character."

The problem is that in DnD every character has only one function and spams one or two stats, taking turns being useful. In WFRP this is not the case, and you can force characters to round out their abilities by punishing them for spamming, "Well your fellowship is 2 so you couldn't find a place to stay in the village, now you're tired and despite having S 5 you get misfortune to all your physical checks." Stuff like that works nicely.

So what I'm saying is the way to make it grim and perilous is to be a brutal GM. Don't let them be heroes, make them feel like schmucks and the feel of the game will right itself.

I've argued that an average, AVERAGE, WFRP new character is the equivalent of a 4th level D&D character. If you don't believe me, break down the statistics using the WFRP dice probability calculator at the end of this page: gallery.rptools.net/v/contrib/emirikol7/

With an 86% chance to hit the average monster (or succeed at an average skill check) at CREATION, this doesn't leave much room for meaningful growth.

The problem lies in character creation. There is a 'slight' dis-incentive rules-wise to not train all skills at birth (because you don't then get the specialization bonus at career completion), but in general, that's it. Your chance to succeed at any given action is still incredibly high.

When your new WFRP character is tougher than a D&D character, there's an inherent flaw with the intent of the game being "grim and perilous."

A simple re-design of character creation and perhaps increasing the difficulty of all actions by two black dice will make a significant improvement (dropping the usual success about 10 percent ~ to a mere 75% (the equivalent of a +4 to succeed in D&D at first level as opposed to a +6..or thereabouts).

jh

Emirikol, thanks for the numbers and comparisons, and indeed I am exploring a bit as I commented at the first post to lower the starting creation points and to rise the xp cost of yellow dice.

Nonetheless, the proposition of stormofswords needs a bit more of initial work but less play testing and less rule tweaking, and I have Emirikol's created PCs to start with

In general, my concerns are not related to combat. Combat is very deadly even when characters are very good, but that is intrinsic to the game mechanics. I want to clarify that my concerns are more related to out of combat situations.

Instead of heavily house ruling core rules such as character creation (which can create it's own long list of headaches), try running your game differently. Describe the world your PCs are in as grim and perilous, and make the environment, culture, and societies in-game, reflect this mechanically. This means bad weather most of the time (rain, snow, mist, fog, Morrsleib's effects, etc) that inflicts fatigue, forcing the PCs to seek safety and shelter most of the time, as opposed to feeling that taking a stroll through the woods at night is perfectly normal…make them feel afraid for their lives under such circumstances.

If my Rank 3 PCs wish to travel from Ubersreik to Altdorf, by coach (which is relatively expensive, but they have a minor noble as a patron…something they had to earn…so it's paid for), that's a nearly week of travel on the very unsafe roads of the Empire. I have Roadwardens in short supply due to many fighting age men being called off to serve some selfish war in another part of the Empire (it IS Warhammer after all…so wars, and rumors of wars are a part of the mythos), so that leaves the PCs with no choice but to hope for the best. They ride in/with the coach by day, for 4-5 hours, stopping only briefly to feed the horses…hoping they don't have a breakdown miles from a town or coaching house just before dark. Then there's washed out roads, or forest/brush fires during the summer months, forcing the PCs to take less traveled roads, which means highwaymen/brigands, beastmen, wyverns, roving bands of mutant outcasts, the list of horrors goes on.

Also, limit the more mechanically powerful careers for 2nd or 3rd rank characters. Iron Breaker, Sword Dancer, Troll Slayer, and most spell casting careers could be set aside and offered as options, if the narrative allows for it, later on in a PCs career path. This means allowing careers such as Hunter, Peasant, Ratcatcher, Guard, Bailiff, Apothecary, Barber-Surgeon, Zealot, etc. as starting options. Make the players earn their prestigious careers by clawing, and surviving their way to the top. This makes the first couple of ranks feel difficult and dramatic. Finding a silver shilling is a big deal! Now the PC can eat and put shelter over his head for at least a week!

Starting with lower "powered" careers also means the PCs have access to less resources in the beginning, or at least different resources that aren't as useful for "Adventurers", but for common folk. So they'll start with more ranks in things like folklore, guile, and resilience, and less in fightin' and magik.

Anywho, my point is that if you embrace the "grim and perilous" aspects of the setting, you'll see it reflected in the game. So when you're Rank 3 PCs roll a dice pool with all of their white and yellow dice and some badass action card, you'll be on the other side of the table balancing it out with 4 purple dice and a small mountain of black dice due to the various factors conspiring against the PC….impressing upon him to fail.

Here's a quick example of two different ways to run the same encounter:

A Rank 3 PC (let's say a Waywatcher) is going toe to toe with a Chaos Warrior wielding a Profane Weapon. If you just assemble their dice pools and roll straight up….the Waywatcher with all of his bonuses from his Talent cards, Actions like Rapid Fire, and maybe a Bow of Athel Loren…has a **** good chance of killing the Chaos Warrior.

But if the same encounter is described differently. Say the Waywatcher and his party are lost on some back trail road to nowhere, trying to seek shelter from the gale force thunder storm that's beating them down (fatigue, and perhaps the Under the Weather Condition). The party stumbles into a small village (perhaps they're still nursing Wounds that haven't healed quite yet from their last encounter due to the rough conditions), but the settlment is a smoldering ruin, charred corpses of mean, women, and children lay everywhere (stress, and Fear 1 Checks), when suddenly the party is face to face with a Chaos Warrior and his retinue of Marauders that are responsible for the carnage. The already exhausted PCs square off with the baddies. The ground is slick with mud and gore, forcing additional misfortune dice on the party. The Chaos Warrior and his men are a tough lot and bolstered by dark magik and a brutal upbringing (these aren't bandits), meaning they ignore most effects due to bad weather, or at least have Characteristics that assist in their resistance (high Toughness and Willpower ratings).

That's my advice.

This is a comment from a very oldskool RPGer who has been away from the hobby for years.

EIGHT PCs seems very very hard to balance a typical campaign for. And you mentioned that's how many you have. No wonder they are blowing through your content.

Work hard on balancing the encounters.

Options

1) start adding misfortune dice for PCs above a certain number. This could represent them getting in each others way, or some other penalty for pure numbers

2) With such a large PC party, they should be making enough noise even when trying hard not to to give away any chance of surprise, and increase significantly the chances of being caught by surprise. Start having them do standard observation checks prior to an encounter and if failed, they don't see the incoming enemy and suffer a surprise attack in however you feel the best way is to do that.

3) Insert solid AI for your NPCs. Have them target an individual to try and even out the numbers. A priest, or a similarly "clothy" soft target would be quickly targeted while one of the opposing NPCs engages the tougher warrior type and then starts retreating (adding difficultly to any incoming attacks) … force your PCs to start dealing with a thinking enemy. To make the whole thing fair, make it so that the enemies often don't kill their targets once they fall unconscious. Post-combat nagging injuries can start to push down stats over time to make it so that PCs have to rebuy advances.

4) Unexpected, unscripted encounters which can "soften" up the team prior to a story-driven encounter. A gang of highwaymen try their luck robbing your team.

5) Add henchmen in groups the size of the PC party until encounters become challenging.

If you want the game grim and gritty, there are many ways to force this to happen. Make encounters happen at night and in the rain. Skaven even prefer it that way.

Always give your PCs a way to make the wrong decisions.

If a group can tell they aren't going to win against your PCs, have them run, look for higher ground, set up ambushes. Just because an encounter doesn't say anything doesn't mean you can't make your NPCs and enemy creatures smart and use the narrative elements of the setting to punish recklessness. Your PCs should never feel comfortable.

In terms of advancement -

Reward the PCs fairly. The last thing you want is for them to feel they aren't advancing enough for the work they are putting in.

While death should always be the ultimate penalty for this tough world, don't fear taking away advancements. I speak from experience when I say that severe injury to the elbow weakens your arm for a year. So, if they take a crushing blow to their character, that can impact endurance, strength or agility. If a specific creature gains the upper hand on them in combat, they can carry that loss in more than just a physical manner. They can now carry a permanent (if moderately minor) mental condition throughout the remainder of their careers (or until they have overcome that fear) … all creatures of that type now confer a Fear 1 or 2 to that character which means they will acquire stress much quicker during conflicts with that creature in the future. Rat Ogres seem pretty scary to me, so if one crushes me, I would likely remember that.

Oddly, your PCs won't resent you for taking things away as long as the penalty is not severe. Losing a strength but gaining a massive scar and a story is often a fair trade - especially if they managed to win the fight despite the injury.

These are indeed very nice tips guys! I shall for sure introduce in my combats more interaction with the environment and I can use different factors to make the orld world more dark.

Still, I am not talking about combat. Combat in wfrpg is super deadly, I am fine with it. The problem I have is that combat is the only way I can seriously challenge my PCs. Actually my group as I posted is made out of quite "low" career PCs. The problem is that most players start with two stats at 4 some training dice. After 5xp they start to have the most bad ass action cards (non combat ones I am talking about) and some fortune dice in characteristics. As result if they have to haggle, they always succeed. If they have to convince some one through charm or guile of doing something, they will succeed easily, if the have to open a lock, they will open it, if they have to spot the thief in between a crowd they will easily do it. And this only gets worse when they get 10xp and then can start rising their second yellow dice.

Then my players feel that they characters are just too good, and that the only real challenge that the game offers is combat. I am talking mechanically, since discovering the clues and plots of the scenario is challenging by itself, and is one of the reasons why I have always choose wfrpg. This is something I don't really like.

Since I have played games with the same group of people since 20 years I have detected where this problem arises from.

1) In previous editions of the game there were more skills to cover. In this edition there are really few skills and even less advanced skills. I realise this is a problem only arising from the large numbers of players I have 8, but it was not present in previous editions.

2) In previous editions PCs started at the same level as common folk and they had to cover a longer path before they started to be worth considered heroes. In this edition they start really above the average folk as presented in the published scenarios and they evolve fast, really fast.

May be its me that I do not find the way how to balance non-combat situations versus combat situations But while defeating a band of lets say 8 goblins is pretty hard, non-combat situations are far to easy to overcome.

I am not sure if I am able to explain myself properly guys, nonetheless, very much thanks for the tips and suggestions so far. I really like this fan community!

I think you stated the root of the problem clearly: They only think combat is challenging.

That means you need to hand out critical wounds when they start failing some of these skill checks:

Examples (and I totally intend to use these in my next game):

Failed badly or chaos star (random examples of all I could think of):

Failed nature lore check: Here' you go, have a critical wound from bad things happening (make something up)

Failed observation check: here's a stack of stress

Failed First aid check: How about a nice disease then

Failed social interaction (e.g. leadership): Here's a temporary insanity (can't be made permanent like regular ones)

Failed intimidate: either a temp insanity or crit from when the person being intimidated (or one of their friends gets a jump on you)

Failed Athletics check: Critical wound "pulled muscle"

Failed Skullduggery check: critical wound while escaping

etc.

They're going to start taking this VERY seriously after you start making those logical, but new-rule, additions. It's nothing game breaking, but will be annoying enough that when they fail, it wil

Emirikol said:

All nice additions, not really new rules, they are just dice pool interpretations by the GM.

To Yepesnopes, if you think they are too successful you also have the option of making things harder. Remember that all NPCs have access to the ACE budget. Take the example of Haggling. I would argue that if you have a situation where it is interesting enough to roll, the merchant should have a WP of at least 4, be trained (once) in Tradecraft or Discipline or whatever skill is used to oppose Haggling. You could also easily say that the merchant is having financial troubles and is very unlikely to want to lower his prices (1 misfortune), also his wife is having an affair with a bloody Reiklander and the PC reminds him of this (another misfortune). He also has Cunning 4, and spends all of them on resisting the Haggle attempt. Your player has 5 Fel, 2 ranks of training, and 2 fortune.

A dice pool of: 5 blue, 2 yellow, 2 white, 1 purple, and 7 black
This results in a success rate of 64% (one success), or 27% (3 successes)

I think that success rate is only fair given that the PC has really specialized into doing this kind of things. Furthermore, there is a 1/8 probability of a chaos star being rolled. That could mean anything from the PC taking stress to the item in question being of crap quality and breaking at a critical moment.

But I really think a lot of your issues are connected to the size of your group. Your ideas of using expertise dice for specialisations and fortune for training is probably a good solution in the case of large groups. Alternatively you make the list of skills a lot bigger. Put different weapon groups as skills. Look at skill lists from the old editions and just go with that. Specialisations can be made even narrower (e.g., specific weapon in a weapon group).

mmmm, I really like the examples of play you are giving me. I will try to think a bit more on those terms.

Probably it won't harm me to assist to one of your game sessions…as a kind of GM training session

• Also, be sure to hand out stress and fatigue often.
• Never let them rest and get rid of all their negative stuff (criticals, diseases, etc).
• Have them roll corruption and disease rolls relatively often (when it fits the game naturally).
• Plan your combat encounters on beforehand (more on that below).
• Use negative condition cards, try picking out a couple that fit before the session and use them. I often attach a condition to the party sheet, and rule that all the PCs are affected by it.
• See wounds as the most boring way to die, force other ailments on the characters.

You can also plan combat encounters to be more challenging and grim. Planning a combat encounter makes it a lot harder for the PCs and makes it easier for you to give your bad guys bonuses (higher ground, choke points, events that happen etc.). Last session my group had a fight, at the hay loft of a barn. The enemies were not badass, they used the regular "soldier" creature card, but the barn was on fire.

Just getting to the hay loft was a challenge, since they had to climb a set of stairs that would only support one of them at a time, and the enemies hurled barrels, hay and stuff down on the PCs while they were climbing. They also needed to save an NPC that was held hostage by the enemy.

Combats become more dangerous and rememberable if you put a little planning behind them. Have the PCs react to factors outside combat, maybe thera are hostages or maybe there are a couple of kids in danger and so on. This forces them to make decisions, split their attention etc. At the very least pick out a few interesting location cards and maybe a negative condition that will be part of the combat encounter.

Non-combat:

Again, mass numbers can be a negative…

During a haggling situation, is the dwarf REALLY going to sit still?? Nope, he won't. Add dice to the pool to represent interruptions and distractions based on the larger group.

I would use 5 as the base number for your group and add dice for each person above that number. I would really invest in creative ways to sandbag your group using the size of it.

I would also start making great use of the party stress mechanic. 8 people getting along? Everyone can claim to like each other, but… you can really impact social interactions by raising tension.

Heck, if you are dealing with an "antsy" NPC they may be completely immune to charm tests based on being outnumbered so significantly.