I'd like to start a discussion on some of the more inane topics. Here's my first question: what are the 6 most powerful non-epic Combat Action Cards?

These, but what else?

2 weapons

reckless cleave

troll feller

rapid fire

[edit: I'd like to add one from Lure of Power: twist the knife: shame inflicts insanity instead]

The Zweihander cards… pretty much the whole set, but Ironclad and Unstoppable seems the most overpowered.

-Immobilising Shot (I specially hate this one. "Oh look a Bloodthirster!" "No problem I will just use Immobilising shot and we can take him down with arrows").

-Rapid Fire

-Reckless Cleave

-Troll Feller Strike

-Giant Feller Strike

This last three action cards are specially nasty if you have an armour soak value high enough so you don't need to care anymore for active defences.

Does utilizing the "traits" such as "slayer" as restrictions on careers that can use these action cards remedy this problem?

Gary

I +1 "Immobilizing Shot". I am planning on "disappearing" that from the card selection when campaign reboots.

There is some risk to having to be Close to use it but man-oh-man as written it can make a melee-threat monster into "fish in a barrel". If players hadn't been still new and making amateur mistakes tactically, my poor Izka in Gathering Storm would have been a complete "pfft". I'm so lucky the player that took it refocused what their character was about as they developed and moved away from ranged fighting entirely to being the "Sigmarite tank".

Karma Kollapse said:

i totally agree - Thunderous Blast or whatever it is called is a monster too

Immobilizing Shot, Arrow Storm and Rapid Fire have all been the bane of my GMing. However it makes a change form most RPGs where bows and arrows are next to pointless so I try not to complain. Sniper shot in conservative stance always does at least one critical, if you hit, which make it pretty handy.

I have had PCs with most of the 'bad' melee card mentioned above but rarely had problems. The one combo that did cause me difficulty was a dwarf with Wrath of Morgrim and High King Gotrek's Justice. He was routinely heavily wounded which meant he was doing huge amounts of damage.

Whilst individually they are not overpowered if you have a PC that picks up Riposte, Counterblow, Retribution and Hostile Re-direction they can quickly become a pain.

Fysh Bite is just strange. It allows a PC to attack any target they can see, regardless of range, when armed with a melee weapon. To be fair attacking someone at Extreme range is harder but not that much (total of 6 misfortune dice). The line "…and move to engaged with target, ignoring intervening obstacles or enemies" suggests a certain level of teleportation is going on. I will limit its use to appropriate swashbuckling moments when the environment can provide justification for the movement.

Lead from the Front is not one that has been used in my game but strikes me as pretty powerful. You need to be a rank 3 nobles to get the most out of it though.

Captain Fluffy said:

I rarely allowed PC to buy NPC action cards. Things could become very messy.

gmanjkd said:

Gary, this is only true if you house rule it and even then it still only applies to a couple of these. I think there were probably intentions of using them this way originally but this was probably dropped during playtest.

I have house ruled it. THat way if I get a TrollSlayer, at least I can predictably manage his character. NOw, if an ironbreaker had these..holeeeee' sh*t!

jh

I've crunched the numbers. Here they are. Here's the broken:

ASSUMED BASE DICE: 1P, 4Blue, 1Y: |||81% 1 success||,60% 2 successes||, 33% 3 successes||, 13% 3 boons (crit)|||
ASSUMED CONSERVATIVE DICE (ONE GREEN): 1p, 3B,1Y, 1G: ||86% 1 success, (65%- 2 successes), 38% 3 successes, (15% 3-boons/crit)|||
ASSUMED RECKLESS DICE (ONE RED)1p, 3b, 1Y, 1R: ||83% 1 sucess, (63% 2 successes), 39%-3 successes, (15% 3 boons/crit)

Trollfeller Strike (2 recharge, no difficulty, larger opponent ony)
-Reckless (only): 83% 1 success, 65%-1boon(ignore soak), 36%-2boons (+3 damage, +1 critical)
39%-3 successes (+3 damage)
Evaluation: This is only for large creatures and I feel is a fair sacrifice b/c it puts the trollslayer in harms way for all sacrifice
Fix: None recommended

Double Strike (+1blk)
-Reckless (recharge zero): 55%-2 successes (secondary weapon hit), 19%-1comet (3rd hit-another opponent in same engagement)
-Conservative (2 recharge): 31%-3 successes
Evaluation: Reckless is essentially an extra combatant EVERY round and also will be inflicting double damage on all opponents (soak for each weapon). Conservative is not worth your time.
Fix: GM has to put higher soak/WT monsters on this guy. Ordinary opponents will fall like matchstick houses.

Reckless Cleave (no difficulty, ==3G,2R recharge)
-Reckless: 19%-1comet (+2 critical), 36%-great weapon crit (2boons)==also may add 2 recharge to deal extra damage equal to strength (soak only applied once)==
-Conservative: 42%-2boons (bonus damage equal to weapon's DR)
Evaluation: Reckless is a ONE-HIT=ONE-KILL broken-bomb.
Fix: Either eliminate it or remove the option to add extra strength damage.

Rapid fire: 1st arrow: no penalty
-Reckless: 2nd arrow(+1 purple): 67% 1 success, 12%-3boons/crit
-Reckless: 3rd arrow (+2 purple): 51% 1 success, 9%-3boons/crit
-Green: 2nd arrow (+1 purple): 67% 1 success, 11%-3boons/crit
Evaluation: Essentially, you count as an extra attacker every other round.
Fix: GM has to plan ahead.

Zweihander cards: ironclad, unstoppable are reported the strongest (not evaluated statistically yet)

Immobilizing shot (multiple readers)
Difficulty evaluation (+2blk): Green 71%-1success ||Red 69%-1success
Evaluation: Target cannot move for recharge 4, can expend an action to reduce recharge by 1
Fix: Target pinned for each success (recharge 1 success means that he's not pinned; max 4 recharge)

Thunderous Blow (2 handed; recharge 4g,3r)
- Reckless: 63%-2successes (critical damage), 66%-1boon (+1critical), 19%-comet (bonus damage of DR), 36%-2boons (Critical with great weapon)
Evaluation: Just as bad as reckless cleave.
Fix: Certainly do not allow a character to have both Reckless Cleave AND Thunderous Blow at the same time!

Sniper Shot (recharge2):
Evaluation: sniper shot always does a crit conservative on ONE success, 2 successes is +1 critical, bonus DR damage on comet
Further evaluation: Every other round you're dealing with a crit.
Fix: It already balances well because the conservative doesn't bonus up with reckless rapid fire.

What else needs some eval?

…

So, I added two house rules (to minimize how much of this I need to do):

1 - Reckless Cleave and Thunderous Blow: RECHARGE IS NOW 5 (Green or Red) and a character cannot have both of these cards.

2. - Immobilizing shot: recharge is unchanged. The recharge for the number of rounds pinned equals the number of successes. The opponent may sacrifice YELLOW dice to reduce the recharge.

I'm still evaluating the zweihander cards.

jh

I have resorted to using "pick up and throw" against the Iron Breaker a few times… Handy.

Emirikol said:

Remember that it is also possible to use when outnumbered, i.e. 4 PCs versus 5 NPCs

But I agree it is somewhere below reckless cleave.

I will give a try of evaluate Giant Feller Strike, it does a lot of damage, but at least it has a long recharge rate.

Thanks Jay, great work and gives some things to ponder. I haven't had Reckless Cleave and many of these others come up in my game so haven't had to ponder them but will now as we approach rebooting after this current mega-adventure.

For Rapid Fire , I have often used the freefrom Chaos Star effect (becoming more likely as challenge dice added) of Damaged condition on bow. Reducing the bow's effectiveness for rest of that act and perhaps much longer depending on locations etc. Using you bow that hard logically risks damage to it in my view.

I also rule that all defences a target brings to bear against first shot are still active against any follow ups (if they were blocking they are still blocking etc.).

It doesn't quite make it "not a monster-killer" but it makes it a bit riskier/tougher.

I like designing around strengths of heroes to make them "showcased" and "necessary". With that in mind an uber damage effect does not bother me AS LONG as it has a long recharge on it. E.G., for Rapid Fire, there are 2 boss monsters in fight so you absolutely need a "monster killer" to just winnow it down to one only, for Arrowstorm - there are 5 regular foes and 4 henchmen gangs coming at you across the forest glade 0 you absolutely need to quickly take down a whack of them to avoid being swamped, having front line incapable of stopping foes swarming around to attack wizard and archer in melee. The card is not "nerfed" but also doesn't make scene a cakewalk.

Now I admit, I only realize how to do this etc. after I've seen a cakewalk or too, so the number crunching etc. very much appreciated.

** Oh, realized, I have given Reckless Cleave to monsters like gors etc. at times. Maybe I am a rat bastard GM after all…..

I looked at the zweihander bud didn't put them through the "dice roller" formula (here if you want to the html file eval for yourself. ). This version of the dice roller has all fo teh percentages broken down, not just a simple version.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/167876/WFRP3%20Full%20html%20Dice%20Roller%20All%20Probability%20Included.zip

I think Reckless Cleave and Immobilizing Shot are really the only two "broken" cards, though I haven't really tested Double Strike.

At least with Thunderous Blow the extra damage is a % to occur rather than an option to just stick on there like Reckless Cleave. Immobilizing Shot is also broken so I have house ruled that mobs can use manuevers to break out of it while the recharge stays the same and the Card can only be used once per encounter.

One of my players just took immobilizing shot. I let him know our house rule that it's dependent upon the # of successes he gets, not the actual recharge on the card. I'm sure it's probably equivalent, but essentially it upped the success requirement by one.

Of course people always get free…

jh

Houdini hit with immobilizing shot:

What about the following for Immobilising Shot?

If a player is RP'ing a Slayer properly, should he not have a nightmare of a time surviving (his lose purpose in life should be his brutal demise, no? Not treasure hunting…)? It's for this reason that I think they need ignorant battle maneuvers. A naked character can only take so many lumps before death finds him and if you are using the Grievous Wound cards smattered throughout your deck it will make your PC's a little more loath to use things that leave them helpless…

as for the whole multi-shot effect: have it possible to only kill one Henchmen per shot and it will force the archer into a more specialized role of as previously stated whittling down the health of Boss' or Monstrous Creatures.

I ran the Demo again last night with the Trollslayer, Straßewarden, and Envoy. I let the player use the double strike as written. Wasn't too broken right away, but as characters gain more and more special actions, these types of things get really powerful really fast.

jh

dyn gyda chlustiau pigfain

My concern here would be to seems most of the cards your are addressing are two handed weapon ones, not leaving a lot of specific actions for them.

WFRP3, like D&D has more damage for larger weapons (with no drawbacks).

Not to go too real-life on this, but anyone with a great weapon would get their ass handed to them by someone with a short sword (gladius anyone?) because the # of useful attacks would be 10:1. Instead of a DR5, a shortsword would have a DR50 against a slow weapon.

Then, considering that the more action cards a WFRP3 character has, he can essentially ignore any delays or "slowness" that would otherwise be there.

Thoughts? Solutions/

jh

In previous editions of the game, great weapons had an insane amount of encumbrance. If I am not wrong, something like 200 enc in W2 and 150, in W1. Halberds were of enc 150 in W2 (no idea right now of how much enc in W1). This ofcourse, limits a lot the amount of armou you can carry if you also wield a great weapon. For example, 200 enc would be something like enc 9 - 10 for W3, 150 would be something like 7 - 8 enc in W3.

I will think more.

Another thing could be the following. In warhammer 2 you did not get a free parry if wielding a great weapon, you need to spend a half action. You only got a free parry if you had the Lightning parry talent.

One could decide that parrying with a great weapon inccurs in puting one extra recharge token into the parry action card.

Cheers,

Yepes

You lose out on 1 defense, 1 soak and the Block/Improved Block defenses due to lack of a shield. This isn't an issue?