This is a purely philosophical question. Do characters actually get any tougher as they advance?

If characters already have a high % chance to succeed at things (approaching 86%), does advancing actually make them any 'tougher' in a typical campaign?'

It seems to me that they only get more well-rounded (unless you're a spellcaster). Wound threshhold doesn't seem to do a lot unless you're heavily armored. More talents are just limited by socketing. Actions only seem to get tougher if you take the 4 broken ones: reckless cleave, thunderous blow, troll feller strike, and that other thing. It seems in the reality of gaming, GMs ramp challenges as characters rank up so difficulty is consistently already high.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

jh

The main thing I notice as character's advance is they get over criticals etc. faster as they improve To and train Resilience etc.

Yes, they do get tougher in my experience.

If we're talking combat they might not hit much more often, but they do hit harder by using enhancements, getting multiple successes, boons and comets, often on the same roll. I have two characters who have focused on wound threshold (taking most or all avaliable advances in Wound Threshold) and they seem to survive better in combat allthough all my players have roughly the same To+Soak. They also have better active defences through trainings, improved and advanced versions.

I guess it depends on how you define 'tougher' - and how teh characters are build from the get-go ?

Personally when I create a starting character I like to aquire 1 social, 1 combat, 1 support action (in addition to the basic actions / defences)… so as I gain 1 rank or 3 I definately do get more skilled at what Im doing both in terms of actual skill, but also interms of action cards - and might very well consider actually raising a T-score from 3 to 4. (I would rarely consider starting with a T of less than 3).

The increase in action cards and talens as you level up has a definate diminishing return as you can only a few at a time, and many are simply just superior making them the go-to ones … where as skill lvl, stats and wounds are something which is always usefull - and thus scales well.

my 2 cents

Boehm said:

I agree with this, my gaming group feels that there should be more improved and advanced versions of actions that replace previous actions and have other requirements (for example rank, skills, attribute scores). That way you could get better versions of your actions and talents.

Thera are some actions and talents, but there should be more so that you can improve your current actions/talents instead of getting new ones. That would also reduce the bloat where characters have huge piles of cards, where they often only use half (or even less).

We were discussing this the other night and came up with a very simple solution:

Skill Specializations specific to the special action

For example: Weapons Skill: Reckless Cleave.

That way you don't just have a bunch of special actions of the same value.

We've house ruled it that instead of taking a new action card, you can instead spend that point on additional skill specializations.

I don't know if I'll allow an additional bonus white for each or every other rank.

Thoughts on that?

jh

I really like the idea of using the specialization to improve the action cards. Very elegant solution that fits well into the system.

cparadis said:

I really must say I do NOT think this game needs even more dice …

If the goal is to reward "levelling up" and ensure there is an incentive to gain extra action cards etc. I would prefer a rule like:

A) Allow gaining +1 dam per exstra recharge counter added (max 1 per skill rank) to action (non ongoing only - and not compatible with swordmaster or judgement cards) --> will reward getting more action cards…leading to more diverse combats.

…In general I feel the game needs a reason to not just utalize the same actions all the time, would have loved to see certain actions with requirements such as min reckless 4 etc - so you wouldnt see the great (non-combo specific) actions utalized as the first swing in every combat.

B) In general rather than adding white dice through general stat boosts - or card specific boosts … I mean sure you are a smooth motherf thats why you have the Winning Smile action card in the first place - personally I would love to see stat "specializations" that would add to the descrption of the character my suggestion would be to allow for multiple specializations in the same skill - which all stack - but must be descriptive in nature.

Example:

Grumm the Dwarf, has the following specializations in his WS:

- Being originally a smith, his weapon of choice is the hammer (Hammers)

- Having fought Orcs on many occations he has learned how aggressive they fight and how to use it against them (fighting orcs)

- Being stronger than agile, grumm favors brute strenght in his attack - thus favoring the two handed smash style of personal combat (2-handed weapon)

- Having started out working as a coachdriver, Grumm among other things picked up the ability to fight on an unsteady surface.

Thus when Grumm fights orcs atop a moving coach or perhaps a rickety rope-bridge, using his mighty 2 handed warhamer - he would add 4 fortune dice to his attacks.

Alternate example - Cercai from GoT with the following specializations in Fel

- Knows how to manipulate men (Men)

- Doesnt really gives a rats ass about commoners (Nobilty)

- Knows how to make the best of her appearance (Dressed up)

- Knows what men really want … (Overt sexual innuendo)

If utalizing the above option - stat specializations would basically work as a kind of always on talents …

I don't mind the dice bloat at all, but I bought 4 extra dice packs and my players picked up 2 more so we've got plenty and it only takes a second to evaluate them now anyways. Adding another white or two doesn't bother me.

Good ideas for other use. I like the idea of pushing the stance. Could do that with many of them: if 3-4 into stance, gain… In any case, I think "how the advance is spent other than just adding another card" is the goal here.

There are thoughts on reducing recharge on ones that have numbers higher than 5. I could see that working as well, but making reckless cleave a 0 would be an absolutely game-breaking affair (as would some other spells).

Emirikol said:

Im actually more in the camp of INCREASING recharge - so you cannot just make do with the same 2-3 go-to attacks again and again - thats the reason Im advocating giving extra dam for willingly adding extra recharge tokens to your action

Emirikol said:

I definitely think so. Sure, your chance of scoring a one-hammer basic success was already 80%+ at character creation, but the overall quality of the roll really impacts the damage dealt. Success is not binary in this game. Even something as broken as Reckless Cleave isn't particularly great when your total results pool is a single success… you want 3 successes, 2 comets and at least 3 boons (assuming a weapon with CR:2) to trigger everything that attack can give you. High-end results like that don't happen very often at Rank 1, but become more reliable as you pile additional dice on top.

The answer to your question also depends a bit on whether or not your group has access to all the supplements. Hero's Call and Omens of War added some good stuff, such as Enhance cards and Epic talents. If you don't have those sets (or haven't looked closely at the cards they included) then you may be missing out on some really solid late-game options.

Also if PCs know what they are doing - AND are going for it ofcause(!), there are some pretty strong synergy effects between many of the actions & talents which only really come out around rank 3 ... ei. when players has been able to afford maybe non-basic 10 actions in total ... 1-2 support, 1-2 social actions, 1-2 advanced or additional defensives, 2-3 go-to attacks, 1-2 situational attacks....

small example:

Support actions/defences/talents allowing you to recharge Advanced Parry (which allows you to remove a recharge token from an attack ...ei. Riposte) - Riposte w/ fast weapon ... - Celerity which allows you to remove recharge tokens from active defences ei. Advanced Parry etc.

They definitely do!!

My players are all rank 5 now and they are heroic indeed. The yellow dice really make a difference, as do the improved defence cards and also, more actions means more combos with things like Riposte, coup de grace, Etc.

Mages have tones of high powered spells.

No really, I need to give them real opposition to make them sweat now. But this being Warhammer, it's not too hard.

What are you throwing at them, Jericho? For us to have a great image of the progress of your PCs, could you offer us the first (os so) opponent to make your players sweat, when they were beginners, and the last that manage to do it?