Do you like Warhammer FRP 4th edition?

dco · Nov 21, 2018

I've read it and bff, I really hate the new career system with levels and colors, the way of leveling up and the variable costs associated, the combat, the magic, resilience...and I found the art is a bad match for the old world. Talked with my friends and people I know who have the same hobby and we all share the same opinion, my group will continue using the 2nd edition.

What do you think about this edition?

pming · Nov 21, 2018

Hiya!

This thread reminded me of it...so I grabbed the PDF minutes ago (10'ish). My first quick click-through of it...yeah, the art isn't "bad", but it definitely doesn't quite have the "scungy-dirty-gritty Warhammer" feel. It all looks so..."cleanly commercialized". Like the artist was told "Make it gritty, sad, painful....show all the dark emotions and really try to bring out the bleakness and hopelessness of the world. Oh, but don't show any gore, blood, rotting bodies, boobs, buts, evil chaos signs, filth, or anything else that might offend someone in today's societal norms".

To quote Henry Ford..."You can have any colour car you want...as long as it's black".

I don't like the "metal-advancement" stuff (Copper, Silver, Gold advancement), but I need to look more into it.

I haven't gotten to the magic part...and that will be a HUGE part. The biggest part? How they handle monsters and Chaos.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Jhaelen · Nov 22, 2018

I'd be more interested to know how it compares with 3rd edition. If I didn't dislike the setting so much, I might have bought it out of curiosity. Imho, it was a bold step by FFG.

orangefruitbat · Nov 22, 2018

Completely disagree. Admittedly, there is an increase in complexity from 1E/2E, but the rules changes solve many of the problems from past editions (career dead-ends, lack of things to spend experience on, endless wiffing in combat). The book is drop-dead gorgeous and a fantastic visualization of the Old World (just like Cubicle 7's AIME captures Tolkein's Middle Earth).

ninjayeti · Nov 23, 2018

I haven't played yet, but from from my initial read through the changes mostly look like improvements. For example, the lore of the previous editions made clear that social standing is important in the Old World, but from a rules perspective treated a rat catcher the same a noble. Previously, some careers had levels, some had kinda-sorta levels (outlaw to outlaw chief) and some were one and done, so unifying career advancement makes sense.

The art and production values are a huge improvement over the 2E rulebook. I enjoyed a lot about 2E but those beige pages with the horrible margin art were inexcusable.

And for what it is worth 4E has a purchaser rating of 4.7/5 on DriveThruRPG so it seems like most people are pretty happy with the new edition.

dco · Nov 24, 2018

We didn't have any problems with social classes with the previous editions, the GM chooses the difficulty of rolls depending on the situation.

I always read the same thing about losing less rounds in combat but you can have a player with 60% fighting an enemy with 60% and fail 50% of times, if you keep losing advantage things can get worse, so much for not wasting rounds... Advantage also makes things more difficult to the DM.
If you are a magic user and you want to cast a spell of CN>0 you could spend rounds channeling until you get the needed success levels to cast the spell and then fail in the following round. You have more chances to lose rounds in this edition.

The way to solve a career dead end is to repeat a career. Staying in a career up to level 4 sometimes it makes sense, other times no, for example I don't see how it makes sense that someone of high level and reputation would love to continue being a rat catcher. The new system also gives level restictions, you want to be a troll slayer with a 2 handed weapon, wait until giant slayer, then you can also improve your toughness. It's different but I'm not sure this is an improvement.

Experience is the same, you spend it on skills, characteristics or talents, but now you depend on the tier of your profession, the level of your characteristic, the level of your skill and you improve the last two by 1%. More difficult, slower and prone to errors to gain nothing.

The art I don't think it resembles very well a medieval world and what is warhammer and in this case Reikland, they only left trolls, orcs, etc of different genres and professions to make it more like world of warcraft.

Compared to 3rd edition you don't need to buy special dice, more books to play with more players, etc. The system in my opinion went back to be an rpg and not a mix of boardgame and rpg. The adventures we'll see, the third edition had some really good ones, we did two campaigns, the enemy within and another one using most of the other adventures in one area of the empire.

Retreater · Nov 24, 2018

My history with WHFRPG is largely with 1st and 2nd edition. One of my friend's dads was a Baptist minister and wouldn't let him play D&D because of its poor position in the religious community at the time. (Yet, Warhammer was perfectly fine? Haha.) We had a bit of fun with it, but it never became an RPG of choice for me.
I went all-in with FFG's 3rd edition. I read through it, made a few characters, played a few sample combats, and promptly traded it in. My problem wasn't necessarily all the chits, tokens, and "fiddly bits" - even though it was a lot to keep up with. And it also wasn't the weird dice - even though I'm still not a fan of non-numeric systems unless they're board games (they're hard for me to wrap around to create challenging encounters as GM). My main beef with 3rd was the lack of balance. I rolled up a crappy character at random - I think a ratcatcher. He got insta-killed by a goblin. Then I got a dwarven slayer, who was able to solo a dragon. Seeing this discrepancy told me my group wouldn't like it (remember this was during the era of 4e D&D, and character balance was an important goal.)
I bought Shadow of the Demon Lord (but haven't played it) because I heard it was similar to WHFRPG. My knee jerk reaction is that I'm not going to like this edition, but I'm trying to read reviews and get familiar with it.

sim-h · Nov 26, 2018

I love the feel of the Old World setting and I like the extra layer of detail over DnD 5e which we are currently playing. I'm considering using WFRP 4e for our next campaign after finishing Tomb of Annihilation. However, I fear the extra complexity will just be too much for my players. Particularly in combat, where there is quite a lot of calculation (SLs, wounds, critical injuries, do I defend with dodge or melee, what's the difference?, how do I mark advantage and remember to gain/apply it)

I'm interested in hearing people's play experience. What do you think? It looks good on paper but I just don't think it will survive at my table. Guess I can always try....

aramis erak · Nov 27, 2018

I've skimmed it.

I dislike the career changes. Combat looks workable.

The art's both a little clean and a little off what I expected.

Nebulous · May 19, 2019

sim-h said:
I love the feel of the Old World setting and I like the extra layer of detail over DnD 5e which we are currently playing. I'm considering using WFRP 4e for our next campaign after finishing Tomb of Annihilation. However, I fear the extra complexity will just be too much for my players. Particularly in combat, where there is quite a lot of calculation (SLs, wounds, critical injuries, do I defend with dodge or melee, what's the difference?, how do I mark advantage and remember to gain/apply it)

I'm interested in hearing people's play experience. What do you think? It looks good on paper but I just don't think it will survive at my table. Guess I can always try....

I too am running Tomb, but although I love it and I'm enjoying it, I'm getting tired of D&D and would like to do a different game next. I've never played Warhammer but I like the grim and gritty aspect and the darker magic. Less heroic stuff would be wonderful, and hopefully the skill system is more satisfying than what I have found in 5e so far.

But I don't know who to play with, our group seems pretty dedicated to D&D and learning a wholly new system (and more prone to horrific death) might not be their cup o tea.