In the last session ot the game I'm running, Varn J. Varn, the dusk born guardsman PC in the group, ended up in a ritual trial by combat against a mutant whose stats were a variation of the Twist Hulk from the Pale Throng section DotDG. (Twist Hulk stats including all talents/traits such as unnatural strength x2 and swift attack. Template modified w/ +10 to its WS, two weapon melee and true grit talents, plus 4 natural armor added to most body areas and 7 extra wounds)

Varn is borderline between rank 4 and 5. With only grox hide equivalent armor and a huge mallet (primitive great weapon stats, but I instead of R). He proceeded to walk up and beat the mutant to death like he was playing whack-a-mole. It was an incredibly brutal and short lived combat, and he only failed to connect on one or two swings in the whole fight.

End score: Mutant - on the ground with a crushed left hand, smashed clean off right arm, broken left leg, and a sword Varn used after beating it senseless w/ the mallet driven through it's eye into the dirt beneath its head. Varn - down a total of 7 wounds.

I just don't understand those who suggest the game system renders character's ineffectual.

Shortened the title, it was a tad long.

-FFG Ross Watson

Hey Doc,

I think the main gripe is the first few levels. Once an acolyte gets 2-3k of expcerience, then they get to be pretty impressive. Especially a guardsman. I know when we first started, our 400 experience point characters were cery ineffectual. It was a struggle to accomplish anything. It's the difference between having only 3 or 4 skills and stats in the 20s and compared to having half a dozen or more skills with stats in the 30s. It makes a big difference in investigating and surviving combat. Expecially if characters specialize. But yeah, an acolyte at 4-5 level starts to become pretty conpetent. But surviving to get there without the GM being very careful can be a big problem.

And how much of that was pure luck of the dice?

It's possible to kill a greater daemon with one shot of a stub revolver if you just roll enough righteous fury. More interesting is how likely it is.

Rank 7 assassin is fleeing a collapsing mountaintop temple.

His only way out is across a 2.5 meter wide chasm over a 400 meter drop.

Assassin has:

• Acrobatics skill (Use Ag to leap)
• Agility 42 (Trained advance +15)
• SB 3 (so can leap 3 meters with a 4 meter run up, which is all he has)
• No fate points (the fall down the chasm will kill him)
• Test is challenging (+0) because of the shaking ground of the collapsing mountaintop temple.

Each degree of fail reduces the distance leaped by 50cm, so anything over 42 on the dice means he missed the leap and falls to his death...

How competent is this Rank 7 assassin feeling now?

Luddite said:

I beg your pan, but isn´t a degree of failure "failing by 10 or more"? (see p. 184; Core Rule book):

So, it should sound more like "he has to roll 52 or more in order to fail". 50% chance of success in a situation that is challenging. Sounds alright to me.

# Test is challenging (+0) because of the shaking ground of the collapsing mountaintop temple.

Strike that, Leaps always seem to be made at +0.

And seriously, a trained assassin having a chance of 50% of not making a 2.5 meter leap ?

Luddite said:

For a start, only being Trained in Acrobatics doesn't suggest a particularly competant character, especially as by that point Assassins have easy (100xp) access to Acrobatics +10.

Plus, you're misinterpreting degrees of failure, as already noted.

A more realistic version of that would be Ag 46 (the score you've listed above is below average for any character who's bought three characteristic advances, given that the averages starting roll is 31), +10 for skill mastery in Acrobatics (easy and cheap for any Assassin of Secluse (4) rank or higher).

SB 3 gives a 3m leap, any roll of 56 or less is a success. Any roll of 57-65 is a failure with 0 Degrees of Failure, and thus no distance is subtracted (essentially, the jump isn't failed sufficiently badly to cause a problem - the character might teeter for a moment, unsteady, but he or she has still reached the other side). A 66-75 is one Degree of Failure, so the jump is only 2.5m... which is the size of the gap, so the character is safe. 76-85 is 2 Degrees of Failure, a 2m jump... but the human arm is about a metre long, so a jump missed by such a small distance should reasonably allow the character to grab the ledge they've barely missed, and haul themselves up.

Which means that fatal problems only really occur on an 86 or higher.

How incompetent was that assassin meant to be? A 15% chance of irrevocable screw-up on a challenging test actually seems quite good.

The character you've hypothesised about is about 14% worse off, admittedly, but you presented what would be a frankly below-average example of such a character anyway.

Edit: And add a little more XP, and things go even further. 500xp extra for the final Agility advance, and if the character is the death-cultist type of assassin, Acrobatics +20 at Imperator-Mortis (Rank 8), and the chance of catastrophic screw-up has dropped to 0.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

And missing one other thing. If you add an additional 4m to the run before the leap (8m total), you just added +10 bonus to the roll (up to a +30 maximum bonus with 16m of run up to the leap).

It's good to hear that Varn is still managing to sate his bloodlust under the tenuous guise of "In the Emperor's name."

N0-1_H3r3 said:

So after the character has built itself to pass a leap test how will it do in other situations? Everything is give and take. I am sure the exp was spent to good effect elsewhere. Also you give a lie to your whole argument with your house rule, he only missed by a little (within arm length)so we will have him hanging on. Don't remember that one in the rules. If you are going to say that no it is not that hard you probably shouldn't bring up house rules that make it easier as part of your argument.

As to the original example of the guardsmen and the mutant. pure dumb luck does not really prove anything. You need to look at odds and percentages.

Perhaps we should look at the situation from another angle: under what circumstances should an acolyte be able to make that jump with which chance of success?

Now I'd say, given 16 metres space to run up, I'd have made the jump semi-regularly when I was 16. And I was generally receiving the worst marks in sport. Just guessing at my stats, I'd assume a strength of, say, 25 (rather lower, actually) and most definitely no training in acrobatics.

2 metres are automatic

I get 50 cm per DoS, thus I need 2 DoS

The test is at +30 for the extra 12 metres.

I thus make the jump when rolling a 35 or lower. I distinctly recall making it more than half the time in RL, which means I must have missed around 20 points somewhere in my guesstimation of my abilties. Since I have avoided sports whenever I could at that time (thus I definitely don't qualify for acrobatics training), that can only mean I actually had 30 str while being pretty much the weakest of my class hands-down. What does that say about the relative strength of real world people and 40k people?

llsoth said:

"Built itself to pass a leap test"?

To get Acrobatics +10 and an Agility of 46 (from an average starting agility of 31) costs a mere 1,050xp for an Assassin... on a character that will (if it's rank 7 as Luddite suggested) have a minimum of 8,000xp. That's not specialisation... that's buying the character's cheapest characteristic advances (Agility is one of the three cheap scores for Assassins) and a cheap skill (100xp per instance) that'll be useful in more than just that situation and is entirely appropriate to the broad concept represented by the Assassin career path.

More importantly, the difference between the stats I put up and those Luddite posted... is all of 100xp: the little matter of Acrobatics +10 (like I said, a cheap and easily available skill). It really isn't as big a difference as you're making out.

llsoth said:

I'm a GM first and foremost. Interpreting the rules to fit the situation is not only a personal preference, but part of the role of the GM.

Even then, that shifts the percentages up to 10% if you ignore that frankly common-sense notion of "you missed, but your arms are long enough to reach the ledge; make another agility test with X modifier to grab hold". If we're playing for cinematic effect or just going with plain common-sense (rather than the anal-retentive and nonsensical rules-lawyering that people turn to when trying to prove how a game system "doesn't work" - no game system works if the GM isn't willing to put in the effort), it's hardly an unreasonable assumption to make.

Cifer said:

That's actually not an issue. Training in acrobatics lets you substitute it for the normal test when jumping or leaping. The normal test is a Strength test otherwise.

As such, it's not an untrained Acrobatics test (which'd be half agility), but the somewhat higher basic (no skill) Strength test. Assuming an Agility of 30 and a Strength of 25, that's essentially an entire +10 there and then...

Since acrobatics is not a basic skill, it wouldn't be possible to test on half its value anyway - which I didn't do. But it would possibly let me use agility (which I consider a little higher) and grant a +10 or +20 bonus for the skill for skill mastery.

Great debate chaps

Looks like the defenders of the game system are winning!

Also, jumping a chasm, using the rules and examples herein does not base itself on merely the pass a test or fail a test function of competency w/in the rules. It also calls for the further functioning of the how jumping distance is calculated rules. As such, how far you can jump is a much poorer indicator of overall systemic strength or weakness than any situation merely involving the basic sucess for failure calculations built into the system.

By the by, in the example in the OP, the PC in question failed to get so much as a single Righteous Fury despite having 2 damage dice on each attack due to using a great-weapon.

The point being all the griping I've seen about "whiff" factor of the system has not been demonstrated throughout my games (3 separate campaigns).

Yes the system is deadlier than most RPG's (across the board) and yes people often miss in combat (on both sides) but I don't find this to be a flaw in the combat system.

If you compare the rounds expended vs. targets hit/killed in just about any study of any real war/combat situation from the 17th Century through the 21st, or even if you throw out realism and look at most action movies (excepting the most ridculously over the top) the amount of time many gamers seem to think is reasonable to hit and/or kill in combat is ridiculously high.

Due to the players I have, often even when I plan otherwise, my games end up being combat heavy. And yet I have only ever had one play complain about the so called "whiff" factor of the system/weakness of the characters, and the other players shut him down quickly.

As to characters being less powerful starting out than at higher levels, that's true in just about every progressional RPG. Even back to all versions of D&D before 4th edition, you couldn't expect to roll up a 1st lvl character and be more than a scrub.

The problem largely seems to be a video game birthed malady. It seems like some of these folks expect starting RPG characters to be the same as whatever character they play in their favorite FPS. Strangely no one ever seems to account for the fact that nearly all of those game engines allow the played character to 1) soak up more damage than nearly any non-"boss" enemy, and 2) have access to some form of instant healing (health packs, etc.) Neither of which makes narrative sense in other settings unless you're playing FPS the RPG.

Finally, since when does "trained professional killer" (i.e. assassin) automatically = track & field long jumper?

DocIII said:

I think FPS the RPG is what they ought to be making. Frankly, it is getting to be what people expect.

So yes, instant healing (actually the recharging health bar of almost any modern shooter) and being able to soak up bullets like a sponge should be in. Those are, like you say, what allow game characters to act like game characters. So anyone wanting to act like a game character needs them to.

Actually, mastery of the arcane power of the Quicksave is really the superpower of game characters. What we really need to do is eliminate permadeath - failure in combat leading only to losing the fight, not losing character status.

Dezmond said:

Ah, the wailings of the instant gratfication, gimme gimme, if I don't get what I want I'm gonna cry and go home generation.

If that's what you want to play, why bother w/ table-top RPG's? The video game has better graphics and you don't have to bother other people with your obsession w/ self-gratification.

Dezmond said:

Why don't you write it? It's definitely got an audience out there and could be a blast to run/play. The mechanics and approach, to my knowledge, haven't been really touched on or explored in an RPG as of yet so sooner or latter, someone will. You might as well be the fella to cash in on it. Heck, if you have the time after work and what not, you could probably have the system up and running for testing in less then a year and a nice PDF for download at Drivethrugh RPG in two.

As for the original topic, wasn't Varn the same guardsmen who went on a naked killing spree at one point? If so, I'd expect nothing less from him. ;-)

I've never really noticed much of a "whiff' factor in this game. So far, from running it for a year, I've only had two instances where the PC's felt like stooges. Once way early in the game to acolytes of 3rd rank with piss poor social skills were trying to infiltrate a cult by taking the place of a couple of potential cultists to be. Unfortunately, they had Fel's in the mid and low 20's and no deception. The cultists, however, didn't have scrutiny. What flawed was a grand comedy of errors that made for one hell of a night, even if the PC's were socially flopping about like fish out of water the cultists were just as stogie.

The other one came from a new player and his rank 2 scum who, unfortunately, seems to on some level believe that he must roll above a 90 and through some weird force of will manages to do that. Not much you can do with a 90+ no matter who your character is.

Cifer said:

Actually, you aren't missing anything. Remember that you were jumping under more ideal circumstances. No rumbling ground like in the example given. You are on a level, stable field. Probably on a long jump track. No pressure to make it because your life doesn't depend on it. So those things would give you a minimum of +10 and maybe +20 (not +30 for ideal circumstances, but still pretty favorable).

So if you have 25 Strength, +30 for 16m run, +20 for being on a long jump track, -20 because you need 2 degrees of success to make the 4m, and you have a 55% chance of making that leap.

But like I said before, if you are a starting character, there is where the problem is. You realistically only have that 25 Strength and no acrobatics. Now you are put in the situation where the ground is unstable so you have to make that jump on a 35% instead of a 55%. Now you have a problem. And that's where things become difficult.

Graver said:

Same campaign different character:

Actually Varn's the guardsman who fled across the rocky wastes of Coseflame, naked with a bolter in one hand and a combat shotgun in the other while a nuclear mushroom cloud bloomed in the background. (He didn't cause the explosion, but was fleeing the cause)

It was his associate Nihilus Eisen the group's "arbitrator" who killed 30 odd men including 5 powered armored troopers after starting naked w/ a knife. Of course he quickly looted armour and weapons off his first few kills. That particular session was about being a void born lucky enough to have started out w/ 4 or 5 (I don't remember which) Fate points and whose dice were on fire for a whole six hour session. That was raw mean luck (with a very small seasoning of knowing when to take cover). And though I am loathe to admit it, other than no insta-heal or save points that particular sequence did go somewhat like a FPS.

Back to the original post, those first few levels can be a beating on characters. Low attributes, low skills, low access to powerful weapons, and an unfamiliarity with the system and the game can all lead to very, very deadly battles. Once you get through a couple of them though it begins to even out.

Our biggest complaint right now are Fear tests and we're what tier 5 or 6 or so (or would be if we counted attribute picks towards tiers). Even at max willpower on my character, I have exactly a 53 WP, assuming I get no modifiers, and since the only modifiers to fear tests seem to be negative, that number goes down. Jaded helps, and the fact that I have Pure Faith helps alot but for the other characters it can be a pain.

Fearless would help a lot, except the whole roll willpower to disengange from combat thing and to back down from a fight thing kind of just revereses the issues. So where we can kill almost anything, and since we all have Jaded the normal run of the mill things are still meh... but daemons and such are a huge pain in the neck. Admittedly they should be, but its still what gets us now. I have the highest WP followed by our Sister. And we both have pure faith. The others have lower WP, and that negative to WP rolls that all daemons get, plus a possible negative to their fear check can literally put them down around having to roll a 20 or lower on fear checks, making them practically ineffective in most daemon battles.

Xathess Wolfe said:

Have the character that is the leader of the group take the Iron Discipline Talent. This gives everyone in the party an extra roll on that fear test (per the errata). But it has to be the character that is the "leader" of the team. It was a very nice and needed addition to the Iron Discipline Talent making it a must buy for whoever the lead acolyte is.

Redeucer said:

Yep we did that, but still a roll of a 20 twice is still a really bad chance for success. Plus defining the leader gets a bit crooked, and of course the question what if the leader is catatonic with fear, since in most battles our leader is actually the Guardsman whose WP I think sits in the high 20s right now. Can't really inspire your troops to great heights when you yourself is a mewling kittycat in the corner, rocking back and forth and hugging your lasrifle like a woobie.

So now we have a rolling "leadership" going on. In normal combat the Guardsman is in charge with the Sister as his XO, which works well. In Supernatural combat the Sister is in charge with me as the XO.

Still like I said the chances of being successful on a roll of 20 even twice is slim.

+++++the instant gratfication, gimme gimme, if I don't get what I want I'm gonna cry and go home generation+++++

Or as GW likes to call them, Customers.