OSR How Would You Convert WHFRPG to OSR?

[Retreater]

What is this 'death spiral'?

I could see Advantage working that way. An enemy that gets the upper hand keeps getting the upper hand. After 10 successful checks he can have +100% to his attacks.

 

[chuckdee]

I could see Advantage working that way. An enemy that gets the upper hand keeps getting the upper hand. After 10 successful checks he can have +100% to his attacks.

But that's in no way a given, which is why I was wondering.

 

[Retreater]

Not sure where you’re getting the reroll s from. That’s not how advantage works in 4e. It’s an accruing bonus you get in combat to represent the momentum of the fight and to speed things up.

I just realized I got this (as well as the wonky success levels math) from Zweihander. Apparently reading both books too closely together got me mixed up.
Reading through the 4e book again, and I'd absolutely have to remove too much to make it simple enough to want to run (advantage, 15 pages of talents, the XP system).
I guess maybe Ten Dead Rats would be a way to go.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I'm no expert, but last summer I bought Zweihander which, from my understanding, is a retroclone of an older Warhammer edition. It's a gorgeous book with plenty of content. Maybe that's your solution?

 

[chuckdee]

I'm no expert, but last summer I bought Zweihander which, from my understanding, is a retroclone of an older Warhammer edition. It's a gorgeous book with plenty of content. Maybe that's your solution?

My groups are moving more and more to OSR systems and away from trying out "new" systems.

No new systems- Zweihander is d100. I'd totally agree to use it- it's a great system has a great feel like WFRP, but that requirement kills it.

 

[TheSword]

It’s the impact where your PC becomes debilitated in some way because they aren’t sufficient (or just because of bad luck) that then makes it even harder to succeed leading to further debilitation... ineveitably leading to character death.

I think where WFRP breaks from the mould is in providing Fate Points, the opportunities to easily switch career, the multiple ways of breaking advantage and the general ‘combat is a last resort’ approach to WFRP.l adventures. The last is the reason critical injuries etc survive in that system. It is perfectly possible to have 1-2 fights in an two session adventure, whereas that would be very unusual in a d&d game.

 

[Retreater]

No new systems- Zweihander is d100. I'd totally agree to use it- it's a great system has a great feel like WFRP, but that requirement kills it.

If it were "simple," they would try it. Zweihander is a 600+ page rulebook, and from the reviews I've read (and my own impressions after reading it myself) it's considered over-written and needlessly fiddly. I can't expect players to read and study a 600+ page rulebook. That's larger than most college textbooks.
Like if it were just d100 like Call of Cthulhu, that would be fine. It's all these added noodly bits with charts, unusual subsystems, tracking a multitude of conditions, pages of redundant classes/occupations, pages of talents and feats, metacurrency, etc.
Then all that stuff needs to be put in a VTT.

 

[Mannahnin]

I think where WFRP breaks from the mould is in providing Fate Points, the opportunities to easily switch career, the multiple ways of breaking advantage and the general ‘combat is a last resort’ approach to WFRP.l adventures. The last is the reason critical injuries etc survive in that system. It is perfectly possible to have 1-2 fights in an two session adventure, whereas that would be very unusual in a d&d game.

Yup. Paul runs his Ten Dead Rats campaign very much in this mode, where fights are uncommon like in WFRP. I like the way he's incorporated those critical injuries too, as a buffer between 0 HP and death. It's simple but maintains the flavor from WFRP.

 

[Retreater]

Yup. Paul runs his Ten Dead Rats campaign very much in this mode, where fights are uncommon like in WFRP. I like the way he's incorporated those critical injuries too, as a buffer between 0 HP and death. It's simple but maintains the flavor from WFRP.

Yeah. I downloaded his PDF and it looks like a good basis for converting things to OSR D&D.

 

[Ancalagon]

What is this 'death spiral'?

In general, a "death spiral" is a situation where an initial setback in a battle makes losing more and more likely. Any system where being hit imposes a penalty on you has this characteristic, and makes landing the first blow extremely important.

I'm very familiar with 2nd edition of Warhammer frpg, having run several campaigns with it. I'm not as familiar with the 4th edition, but from my understanding of it, it has this feature because of the "momentum" design.

Say our hero is fighting a brigand, and they are both equally skilled with the blade. One attacks the other, the other tries to parry. In the old system, this could result in a battle with lots of misses and parries, because to land a hit, the hero has to make their weapon skill check to hit, and the brigand has to fail their parry.

In the new system, the "winner" gets momentum, so even a "miss" by the attacker (the parry was successful) is impactful because the person who parries now has a +10% momentum bonus. This is a good thing... but it sets up a death spiral. The very first blade exchange is very determinant on who will win.

So - let us say that it takes 3 hit to win this fight. On the first exchange, each person has a 50% chance of winning, because their skill level is equal. I'm going to ignore ties because 1% chance and the math is easier. Let us say that the brigand wins the exchange and now has 10% momentum. The brigand now has 59.5% chance of wining the next exchange (and land a hit). If they land a hit, not only did they inflict damage on the hero, they gained more momentum!

The hero attacks again, but the brigand now has 69.5% chance of winning the exchange. The brigand parries. No damage, but they have more momentum. Their attack now has 79.5% chance of landing!

Now, of course at any moment this sequence can be interrupted. But the odds are not in the favor of the person on the loosing side, at all, even though they are an equal match to their opponent!