The Grim World Of Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play Second Edition

Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play portrays a grungy world being infiltrated by Chaos magic and cultists. Beneath the dirty streets of Renaissance cities are the tunnels of the Skaven, ratmen, while in the highest halls of power leaders and rulers corrupted by Chaos plot the downfall of the kingdoms of men.

View attachment 91787​

Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play (WFRP) has a fourth edition coming soon. This review covers the 255-page second edition of the game. Despite the high stakes, PCs start out as common men and women, many with simple jobs like grave robber or rate catcher. An entire party of adventurers may have no casters and consist entirely of day laborers and peasants. Despite their possible humble beginnings, the PCs are the ones who will ultimately determine if mankind defeats Chaos or if bloodshed, madness, and mutation overrun the land.

While I enjoy the first edition, the second features what I consider to be a more balanced method for character creation. Character creation is a combination of choice and randomness. Players choose to play dwarfs, elves, halflings, or humans but randomly roll their starting career and characteristics. That starting career provides skills and talents and options to improve starting characteristics when spending experience points. These improvements are called advances. A PC will work on finishing the advances for all the characteristics of his starting career. While the character may have traded being a peddler for being an adventurer, he continues to build on what he learned in his starting career until all advances are taken. He can then enter a new career from those listed as exits for his current one or for double the XP take any basic career provided it makes sense.

The Old World, the provided setting for WFRP, spatters muck and blood all over the PCs who dare to explore it. Disease, madness, Chaos, and monsters all threaten adventurers while behind city walls cultists worship foul gods and tunneling Skaven plot to overthrow mankind and spread their disease ridden society across the surface world. Combat is dangerous, but a well equipped fighter has several ways to protect himself. Armor greatly reduces the damage of most blows. A second weapon or shield also always for a parry which can completely turn aside an attack. Experienced warriors may be trained in Dodge Blow which provides another option for avoiding a strike. However a hit that scores maximum damage allows a roll to hit again for even more damage. And when Wounds fall to 0 and more damage is inflicted, a point of Insanity is gained, and a roll on the critical table is required. The results range from temporary impairment to permanent maiming and even death.

Despite the rigors of the world, the adventurers are a cut above the rest of humanity. They have a handful of Fate Points, which can be spent to save themselves from otherwise certain doom. And each adventure they replenish Fortune Points, which can provide more options in combat and possibility turn a bad die roll their way. Magic beckons in second edition with arcane, divine, and dark lore being three common examples. Priests have their own basic spell list and each god has his or her own list. Wizards cast from one of ten color colleges which are full of flavor ranging from the flames of the Lore of Fire to the transforming power of the Lore of Beasts. Miscast magic can cause accidents and invoke Chaos effects with a bad roll. Magic is cast with a handful of d10 rolls and the truly horrific mishaps only take place if you roll four of the same number. Many lower level spells can be cast with only one or two dice.

Existing adventures for WFRP are top notch, with the first edition Enemy Within campaign considered a classic by many GMs. I am nearly halfway through running Ashes of Middenheim and the campaign is a smashing success. My players, all D&D veterans, have not fought an orc or standard undead yet and it has been a wonderful change of pace for them to face cultists, mutated beastmen, and even a Chaos daemon while also working as detectives in the city.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay offers the Old World, a magical place of filth and fortune, madness and fate, and bold adventurers seizing the day or dying in the attempt. The game is fueled by an amazing rules engine that allows even the simplest peasant to defend themselves but truly equips the fighter for war. First edition was a delight and second edition is the modernized version. You cannot go wrong even if you perish in the sewers under Altdorf to the filthy blades and foul magic of the Skaven.

This article was contributed by Charles Dunwoody as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. Please note that Charles is a participant in the OneBookShelf Affiliate Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to DriveThruRPG. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!

 

[John R Davis]

There is much more to WHFRP, but you will likely fail even more at that than in combat. There is no gang up bonus for a skill check! The setting should be grim and perilous, and indeed does this very well. Unfortunately the 2nd ed system is just grim to play, to the point of dreading to roll the dice (maybe that was the point).
I recall a time playing death of the reik where players literally spent whole sessions on the boat doing nothing but trying to get healthier. Very realistic but bloody awful to play that way

I hope the new edition keeps the fantastic setting but just makes the mechanics are bit more player friednly

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

There is much more to WHFRP, but you will likely fail even more at that than in combat. There is no gang up bonus for a skill check! The setting should be grim and perilous, and indeed does this very well. Unfortunately the 2nd ed system is just grim to play, to the point of dreading to roll the dice (maybe that was the point).
I recall a time playing death of the reik where players literally spent whole sessions on the boat doing nothing but trying to get healthier. Very realistic but bloody awful to play that way

I hope the new edition keeps the fantastic setting but just makes the mechanics are bit more player friednly

There are all kinds of bonuses that can be added to a skill check from +10 to +30 %. From the rules:
'The GM can assign bonuses or penalties to Skill Tests depending on the circumstances. While published adventures will call out these modifiers for you, there will still be many instances when the GM has to determine them on the fly. Making judgments like this is a big part of being a Game Master.'

So if someone trained in a skill helps another person there certainly should be a bonus. And the sample adventure has many skills testing at +20 to +30%.

Also Fortune points:
'A character can spend a Fortune Point to re-roll one failed Characteristic or Skill Test.'

Between these two options many skills should end up succeeding. At the minimum, a human character with a skill will have an average chance of 31% before any Talents, any XP are spent that raise starting characteristics, or favorable circumstance bonuses applied. And before Fortune rerolls. That is not a bad chance if many rolls are made over an entire adventure.

 

[dco]

Inherited the actions from the D&D 3e, that was awful, you could not parry if you didn't have 2 weapons and got flat footed. 2 weapons (including shields) were a big advantage. We tweaked some things here.
Insanity charts were also unplayable, we reused the tables from the first edition.
We also weren't very happy with the magic system and with the professions outside the core rulebook but they work without problems.

For the rest of things the systems works very well, if the DM lets you some re-rolls for abilities you could have most abilities above 30, the average in any case is 31. You have a free raise, in 4-6 sessions you could have completed the first profession, that means lots of rolls between 40-50 with re-roll from luck points, the second profession have raises of +20, we are talking about dice rolls of 50-60% or more. That as a base, then there are modifiers, if you aim you have +10%, 2vs 1 is another +10%, a best craftmanship weaponi s +5%, etc. For RP it wil ldepend on the bonuses the DM gives you.

A new character can die easily if the fight is difficult, but the same happens with D&D and a lot of other games, 1 hit and you are dead, here you will probably need more than 1 hit (characters usually have more than 10 hit points) and if you die you can spend a fate point. You should be facing opponents with worse stats than you and without luck points.

 

[Henry]

Inherited the actions from the D&D 3e, that was awful, you could not parry if you didn't have 2 weapons and got flat footed. 2 weapons (including shields) were a big advantage.

For me, I saw that as a strength, because from a plausibility standpoint shields were extremely advantageous, it’s why the majority of pre-gunpowder armies (and modern police riot squads) are equipped with them. The majority of use of dual weapons historically was for parrying, too, so having mechanics that encourage you to behave similarly works for me. I agree with all your other points, though - consistent bad dice luck will end your character, but at least you do get a small buffer against it.

For the very few times I played it, in 2e WFRP I did offer the gang up bonus on some skill checks, both to encourage teamwork and to give a slightly better fighting chance.

 

[dco]

For me, I saw that as a strength, because from a plausibility standpoint shields were extremely advantageous, it’s why the majority of pre-gunpowder armies (and modern police riot squads) are equipped with them. The majority of use of dual weapons historically was for parrying, too, so having mechanics that encourage you to behave similarly works for me. I agree with all your other points, though - consistent bad dice luck will end your character, but at least you do get a small buffer against it.

For the very few times I played it, in 2e WFRP I did offer the gang up bonus on some skill checks, both to encourage teamwork and to give a slightly better fighting chance.

If you don't use a second weapon you can not parry if someone wins you the initiative in the first turn and attacks you, that's a flaw of the system, you need to take your action to parry. Defensive weapons also come with a 10% bonus to parry. Gamers could also consider the WS bonus of the second weapon adds to your overall WS.

So that's like 4 fundamental advantages, free parry, not flat-footed, bonus to parry and extra WS, too much. If we compare to reality someone should be able to parry with one weapon, there are other fighting styles like maintaining the distance, etc.

Then we have the problem with Charges, you can only attack once, in our games this evolved to all people waiting the enemies instead of charging, it's far better to receive one attack and counter attack with 2-3, more pronounced if the enemy has a lot of attacks (big enemies have lots of attacks like Flash instead of a sweep attack). The same problem happens with Frenzy, an awful choice...

Compared to the first edition I think this separation of activity via full rounds, half rounds, etc only brought more problems to the table.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

If you don't use a second weapon you can not parry if someone wins you the initiative in the first turn and attacks you, that's a flaw of the system, you need to take your action to parry. Defensive weapons also come with a 10% bonus to parry. Gamers could also consider the WS bonus of the second weapon adds to your overall WS.

So that's like 4 fundamental advantages, free parry, not flat-footed, bonus to parry and extra WS, too much. If we compare to reality someone should be able to parry with one weapon, there are other fighting styles like maintaining the distance, etc.

Then we have the problem with Charges, you can only attack once, in our games this evolved to all people waiting the enemies instead of charging, it's far better to receive one attack and counter attack with 2-3, more pronounced if the enemy has a lot of attacks (big enemies have lots of attacks like Flash instead of a sweep attack). The same problem happens with Frenzy, an awful choice...

Compared to the first edition I think this separation of activity via full rounds, half rounds, etc only brought more problems to the table.

The good news is you can still play 1st edition and in fact modules are being released in PDF form. And for me, 2nd edition works great and we have experienced none of the challenges you have faced. It is a good time to be a fan of WFRP whatever edition you like!