NOT USED: Active Defense Recharge – Your highest eligible defense die is now constant and you only gain the bonus black if you specialize. Examples: Parry – one black die with bonus black only if parry specialization. Improved Parry – one purple die plus bonus black only if parry specialization. No other effects on the Improved cards are used.

jh

Like it. Reduces some book-keeping and has some impact on mitigating the "always hits" effect at higher ranks.

Other active defences can be dropped in as before?

Given that specailisations can theoretically be used across any skill (IIRC), does specialisation need to be in the skill that the active defence originally referenced (i.e. Resilience - Block), any equivalent skill (Weapon Skill - Block) or any skill (Nature Lore - Block).

Emirikol said:

I strongly disagree with this house rule, if only because if you are a fighter with several attackers all on you, you are somehow managing to parry/block/dodge all their attacks at once, every turn. If my dwarf is standing there with three orcs beating him and three goblins shooting at him (… I'm basing this on a real situation here ), then I should only be able to block one, and dodge another, and parry a third. Letting me block all of them means I have the fastest shield in all of the Black Fire Pass.

Also if you only care about one type of defense, then that means you'll end up focusing on just one of the physical traits, and not the others, in order to improve it. Why bother getting 3 agility if you don't need dodge?

But then I don't really see anything broken here to warrant the house rule; I'd be much more concerned about how Guarded Position is so easy to abuse.

I want to disagree and disagree again

I am in line with Emirikol, active defences must be house ruled. I haven't done any numbers on what he proposes…yet! but it can be an option. It is nothing else than what you have in D&D or in Rolemaster, passive defenses.

Wfrpg 3, as it is, arises some interesting situations like, why a character cannot parry every round but can attack every round? (note that the only way to parry once per round is having some extra action cards that allow you to remove recharge tokens).

It has as much sense as if the game mechanics would not allow you to attack every round but would allow you to parry every round.

You make valid points, but I look at it this way: This is an abstract combat system. I'm more concerned by the excessive accounting of pitiful little die modifiers every other round for one attacker, than I am about "realism." I don't really worry that a sword really does 5 wounds compared to a great weapon, but they can both move just as fast as each other either (but that doesnt' concern me..neither does the abstract movement system, which is very unrealistic when considering all the maneuvers that could possibly be performed by a stunty-legged dwarf with absolutely no agility or quickness-relation whatsoever). Also, I've been hit by a sword in the real world, and I can tell you that it would do more than 5 wounds and would not give you "wrenched back" critical

Valid points though in the context of game ruling the real world though.

We've been using the non-accounting method for many sessions now, and my players all agree that it is a vast improvement over the RAW. This is especially in consideration that getting hit every round in combat 86% of the time anyways doesn't really justify the point of additional accounting for pitiful changes in that difficulty percentage.

jh

Emirikol, how you deal with all the cards that remove /add recharge tokens to active defences, or action cards in general?

Cheers,

Yepes

I don't bother with them. When they arise, we'll probably have to have a house rule.

Are you thinking of any ones in particular?

jh

Most action cards with the Bulwark trait for example, they remove recharge tokens from active defences or recharge them completely.

I am interested if you get to this point and think of a solution.

Cheers,

Yepes

I'll check those Bulwark cards out. I don't currently have any players who volunteer to be the meat shield in WFRP games though - because they know better now

jh

So, I looked at the Bulwark and other actions. It looks like a simple fix: Any effect that's modified by the house rules simply becomes a universal effect instead (gain/lose fatigue).

Thanks for bringing this up. Problem solved

jh

One last thing (sorry for the annoyance but I am also trying to figure out a way to remove recharge tokens completely from the game), will you balance action cards such as reckless cleave and troll feller strike which are very potent but cut down characters defense capability?

Cheers,

Yepes

That might be a good idea. You could grant two white dice to attackers until your next turn.

jh