Get Ready To Pre-Order Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying Fourth Edition!

Cubicle 7 has announced that the pre-orders for the 4th Edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay will open tomorrow, Thursday 3rd May.

Here's the full announcement!

The Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Fourth Edition pre-order opens later this week! To whet your appetite, here are 4 things you can expect from the new edition of this beloved game.

Your Warhammer for You!
Something that is really core to our WFRP is that we’ve created tools for you to play your Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. We recognise and support that everyone plays their own version of the rules and the setting, and we fully embrace and encourage that. It’s your game! With 30 years of history under its belt, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay means a lot of things to a huge number of players.

Ideal starting point
Not much experience with RPGs? The Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set is designed to be the ideal introduction, with a structured adventure to help you learn how to play. Also containing a guide to Ubersreik, there’s loads of gaming material for more experienced GMs too!

System matters
WFRP4 uses ten-sided dice, and a tuned-up version of the familiar d100 system. You can tailor the rules to your preferences or different in-game situations, choosing from a menu of fast ‘roll under’ Simple Tests, Dramatic Tests giving success levels where you need more than a ‘yes or no’ result, and even barely rolling at all, if that’s your style.

Passion for Warhammer
Our creative team are lifelong players of the three previous editions of the game, and between us we’ve worked on all these editions too! We bloomin’ love Warhammer, and we think it shows.

We’ll be bringing you more on WFRP4 regularly, so watch this space! And, very excitingly, pre-orders go live on Thursday…

Keep an eye out for the pre-orders to open tomorrow at the Cubicle 7 store!
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[HorusZA]

So C7 has put up a system "preview" on their site.
I use finger-quotes because it doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know (or infer) from their pre-order blurb.
How about an actual example of how the different skill checks work?

Their run-up to 4th edition has really been weak sauce... very disappointed

 

[CapnZapp]

Still no real info?

 

[aramis erak]

Still no real info?

Essentially, no.

 

[CapnZapp]

http://cubicle7.co.uk/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay-preview-combat/

Reposting my quick analysis from rpg.net:

Bit about Initiative - old news, nothing worth mentioning

"Every combat round you get to move and do something" - this sounds cautiously optimistic (that they've removed the choice between a second attack and moving). OTOH, in the beginning this is exactly how 2E worked. The question "do characters gain multiple attacks and if so, do they still get to move and do their attacks?" remains unanswered.

Removing "whiff" - advantage sounds nice (if a bit fiddly) but how about increasing the starting characteristics? (No answer)

Advantage - great. 5E D&D advantage would probably have been faster and simpler but whatev.

Accumulating advantage - cautiously optimistic. It isn't clear if you actually spend your advantage. On one hand you do ("a combatant can whale on a bunch of lesser foes first, build up a pool of Advantage and then unleash that on the big baddie"), on the other they say "So, if you keep rolling well, you’ll get in your stride and do better and better." which only makes sense if you gain the bonuses AND accumulate the advantage.

"Adversaries have special abilities that are powered by Advantage" - sounds like monsters have been redesigned (or at least tweaked). Good.

"Critical hits are a staple of WFRP, and in Fourth Edition occur on especially successful blows, as indicated by the roll of a double." YES Finally a simple and straight-forward implementation of crits in WFRP that simply uses a proven existing system.

 

[pogre]

http://cubicle7.co.uk/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay-preview-combat/

Reposting my quick analysis from rpg.net:

Advantage sounds a little fiddly - we will see it could be a ton of fun. I agree with your assessment of "cautiously optimistic."

I'm a little disappointed in the release schedule - I wish the starter set was being released first.

Not that it really matters that much to me - since I pre-ordered the whole thing as soon as they offered.

 

[aramis erak]

Advantage was in 1E; it was a non-cumulative +10 modifier there.

Big takeaway: combat is all opposed rolls.

 

[CapnZapp]

Advantage was in 1E; it was a non-cumulative +10 modifier there.

"Winning and gaining" or somsuch, was it not...?

 

[pogre]

"Winning and gaining" or somsuch, was it not...?

Yep. Winning meant at the end of the round the side that caused the most damage was winning. The losing side was moved back two yards. The winning side then had the option to press the attack and gain a +10 WS bonus for the following round only.

Charging also provided a +10 bonus.

There were lots of ways to get combat bonuses in 2nd edition. I think the whiff factor is a little overplayed.

 

[aramis erak]

Yep. Winning meant at the end of the round the side that caused the most damage was winning. The losing side was moved back two yards. The winning side then had the option to press the attack and gain a +10 WS bonus for the following round only.

Charging also provided a +10 bonus.

There were lots of ways to get combat bonuses in 2nd edition. I think the whiff factor is a little overplayed.

The whiff factor was pretty strong with starting characters in 1E.
22-40 was the human stat range for WS. Some races were 10 higher.
Charging was +10
Advantage of ground/position +10
Winning +10
Certain weapons were +10, most ±0, others -10 or -20.
Obstacle -10
Off-handed -10
Unarmed -20

Experience could add up to 40 (in the right careers), swamping the +30 conditionals, and matching the +40 maximum with weapon.

 

[Ancalagon]

http://cubicle7.co.uk/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay-preview-combat/

Reposting my quick analysis from rpg.net:

The big news here is not advantage. It's that combat is an opposed roll!

That instantly removes the wiff factor and fundamentally changes the odds.