Hi guys.

Me and my players been enjoying the new edition of Warhammer fantasy, but there is one thing that have all put us in an kind of "this is sad" mood. I am talking about the over-importance of the attributes. It is really hard not to motivate a min/max set of mind when creating a character in the new edition since the attributes govern over so many vital elements on how good your character will become within his/her career. In short, you all know that if you want to be a really good fighter you aught to optimize your strenght, since it provides both the ability to hit and the amount of damage you do as a base. Same goes for all attributes. At first we just rolled with the flow, to get to know the system and you know, test builds. We soon felt that the overly-zealos focus on single attributes hindered freedom of choice and the overall availability of other careers. Once you create a melee character, it is hard to go into priesthood or even become a mage. We also felt that being skilled didnt really do that much. Sure they add the yellow, but you all know that it is the stance that really do the boosting in results.

So, here is what we came up with and perhaps it could be a guide if others out there feel like we did.

• Attributes

Attributes does not provide the basedice - no purple. Attribute provie the static bonus however. Strenght for melee damage, Toughness for wounds and so on. You can still specialize in your attribute, doing so provides a yellow dice to each coresponding skill (changed from white). You can take one specialization for each 2 in an attribute.

1 - 2: 1 Specialization

3 - 4: 2 Specializations

5 - 6: 3 Specializations

• Skill

Skills now add the purple dice. A character get to use 2 purple in each basic skill they have not trained and then boost that amount by training that skill. And advanced skill can not be used. We also maxed the amount of purples to 5, simply for gaming balance reasons to our liking. Specializations in skills provide white dice, just as normal.

Basic skill with 0 training: 2 Blue Dice

Basic skill with 1 training: 3 Blue Dice

Basic skill with 2 training: 4 Blue Dice

Basic skill with 3 training: 5 Blue Dice

Advanced skill with 1 training: 3 Blue Dice

Advanced skill with 2 training: 4 Blue Dice

Advanced skill with 3 training: 5 Blue Dice

• Feats/Talents/Reputation etc.

A character can never start with more then one feat, but all feats a character accumulates during play is permanent. We felt it was odd you one career knew a guy but in the second that fellah was nowhere to be found. We therefore restricted the amount of talents one may get to one per career, but instead let the character use that talent forever. It might sound a tad overpowered but it evens out since after two careers it will just mean a character got three talents. And since higher end careers allow up to five active talents it is not making the game unblanced. A player can of course still not buy a talent that does not correspond with his current career unless there is really good roleplaying behind it.

• Conclusion

Other then these changes nothing really changed when we play. It is still the same fun game, only we did this to open up a more versitile approach on character creation and development. Shifting the focus from one attribute to the skills. With our houserules we feel a player can take his character, start of as a soldier and eventually end up a wizard after a long hard campaign. I do not have to tell you that an venture like that would take a whole lot of exp and roleplaying. We just feel that with our houserule you get more diversity in characters, build and attributes. So that said soldier does not have to boost his strenght to a minimum of 4 to be an effective soldier before he persuit the mage-cloth.

Interesting idea. LEt us know how it works out.

When you say purple, you mean blue right? Purple is the challange (ie bad) dice. The Characteristic dice are Blue.

As far as skills vs characteristics: I am not so convinced. I have to say that I feel that adding that extra couple yellow dice made a big difference, much more than another blue dice. OK, maybe if it gets you extra stance dice, but I still haven't upgraded my stance meter as there is always something else I want instead, so I still have 2 either side. All my attributes are at least 2, so…

Yes - bad typo there - the purple is supposed to be the blue ones of course

We did this mainly to take focus from attributes and put it on the skills. That you can have a skilled character that will still be usefull compared to the high-end attribute character. Not everyone wants to play a beefcake just so that they can be a decent fighter.

We have been using it for some time and it works really well, it added a far more relaxed view on the stats as a whole since everyone knows they can actually be good in whatever field they choose to persuit more or less regardless if their attribute is maxed out or not. The ranged guys still prioritize agility for bonus damage, but they more often settle at a top at 4. Same goes for melee, mages, priests and our ratcatcher…

What we have seen so far in "inverting" the focus from attribute to skills is that the players are more in control and that changing careers is easier, more fluent and not a real hinderance.

And not upgrading ones stance meter is up to each own. I see my players get more stance, and focus on either green or red and never the both to further hone their skills.

Ruskendrul said:

The "anybody can do anything well" concept is not a bad one, but I prefer that my trollslayers are the opposite of helpful when trying to negotiate peace between two warring houses (Mainly, I feel that's only fair that the Scribes be as good at education, as the trollslayer is in combat..and his strength is going to be the fact that he's got a high intelligence..i.e. whatever field he chooses to pursue).

That said, smaller groups definitely need more well-rounded characters, whereas larger groups can become more specialized.

It looks like a solid system though for regular play and even in my games, I limit the maximum starting characteristic to 4 to de-emphasise people from min-maxing their blues and instead creating a more-well-rounded character as well.

jh

..

As a GM I love it when a person makes a min/maxed character since that just leaves them so open to whatever they mined. Fighter with high Str/Tou and low mental? Ill destroy your mind with madness, do it the other way around? Ill still get you with fatigue and stress and bring your mind down, or maybe with disease, or corruption, or perminate wounds. Only a balanced character will really live for any great lenth of time in my games.

Cabello said:

I do not GM that way and the OP was not about how to GM, it was simply how we use the system for diversity. I do not see roleplaying as a GM versus Players game at all. I got Battlefield for that…

Ruskendrul said:

a couple of comments:

1) Proficiency dice are VERY important - since they are the only ones which can provide SCs …and gives lots of successes (but maybe the importance we attribute to this is due to us having upped defence across the board)

2) The min/maxing of stats I do think IS a problem … I have been advocating a slight tweak instead of a major overhaul, my suggestion: Simply increase the incremental xp cost increase by 2 instead of 1 from 4 onwards ei. stats of 4/5/6 would thus cost 5/7/9 pts/xp to raise from the level below.

3) Instead of restricting stats perhaps just encourage more diversified stats - making sure to penalize people with very low stats - have the heroes end up in lots of situations where Athletic skills are important (climbing or being grabled etc) to discourage S2, Disease etc should be tough on T2 guys, rolling opposed Observation skills vs. stealthy guys should discourage Int 2, fear and insanity should hopefully discourage Wp2, and finally dont let players simply roleplay them through social encounters without backing it up with a charm or guile check …. often you see socially inept characters able to pull of stuff which isnt backed by their stats & skill set at all, since most masters arent too strict about forcing skill checks in rp situations …whereas social characters is seldom allowed the same leeway during combat.