Cubicle 7 has released a preview of the combat system for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay on their Facebook page. "The combat system for WFRP Fourth Edition has its roots in earlier editions of the game, but we’ve made significant changes. The design goals were to speed up fights and eliminate boring stalemates arising from repeated attack roll failure."
The preview discusses a new mechanic called Advantage, which they describe as "One of the new mechanics we introduced to help with this in combat is called Advantage. You can gain Advantage from sources including Surprise, Charging and winning an Attack Test. Each point of Advantage gives you +10 to your Attack Tests, and represents you pressing your foe back, gaining control of the space, gaining confidence, leaping onto the table, kicking sand in their face, or whatever you feel is appropriate to the battle at hand." The stated goal behind the mechanic of Advantage was to cut down on the "whiff factor" of d100 systems.
"You can win multiple points of Advantage, and you keep them until you lose an Attack Test, take a wound or the combat ends. So, if you keep rolling well, you’ll get in your stride and do better and better. But if you lose a Test you’ll lose all your Advantage. It’s a huge amount of fun, especially if you have the Talents or Spells that let you steal Advantage! You get a real sense of turning the tide of battle, or of getting unstoppable momentum and cleaving through your foes." This looks to mean that Advantages is a resource that ebbs and flows during play. Tying Advantage to things like taking a wound is interesting, because that would seem to hint that it has something to do with a character's concentration. However, there's really not enough mechanical meat in this Facebook post to really talk definitively about what the mechanic is or is not.
"When you attack your foe, you both make a Weapon Skill Test and compare your success levels. If the attacker wins they will have the chance to do damage and gain a point of Advantage. If the defender wins, they don’t inflict damage but do gain the Advantage as they dodge or parry and take the upper hand. There is always an outcome from a combat round – the least that can happen is someone gains Advantage."
It also looks like there will be a way to "combat" building up Advantage as well. "And if your foes are building their Advantage up to truly scary levels, Characters can use a point of Resilience (more on this in a later preview) to remove it." Which seems to mean that Advantage isn't just a mechanic for player characters. "But it’s certainly not all one-way traffic! Adversaries have special abilities that are powered by Advantage, so can become progressively more powerful. And there’s loads of fun times for the GM in deciding when to use monster abilities, or simply keep a bonus to hit."
This is a good kind of preview because it gives those of us online something to talk about, and give a bit of a spike in interest to the game. Warhammer is one of the big franchises of tabletop gaming and it is always good to see it getting chatter. I'm looking forward to seeing the next preview, and the game itself when it is released. We'll see what happens when the next preview comes out.
The preview discusses a new mechanic called Advantage, which they describe as "One of the new mechanics we introduced to help with this in combat is called Advantage. You can gain Advantage from sources including Surprise, Charging and winning an Attack Test. Each point of Advantage gives you +10 to your Attack Tests, and represents you pressing your foe back, gaining control of the space, gaining confidence, leaping onto the table, kicking sand in their face, or whatever you feel is appropriate to the battle at hand." The stated goal behind the mechanic of Advantage was to cut down on the "whiff factor" of d100 systems.
"You can win multiple points of Advantage, and you keep them until you lose an Attack Test, take a wound or the combat ends. So, if you keep rolling well, you’ll get in your stride and do better and better. But if you lose a Test you’ll lose all your Advantage. It’s a huge amount of fun, especially if you have the Talents or Spells that let you steal Advantage! You get a real sense of turning the tide of battle, or of getting unstoppable momentum and cleaving through your foes." This looks to mean that Advantages is a resource that ebbs and flows during play. Tying Advantage to things like taking a wound is interesting, because that would seem to hint that it has something to do with a character's concentration. However, there's really not enough mechanical meat in this Facebook post to really talk definitively about what the mechanic is or is not.
"When you attack your foe, you both make a Weapon Skill Test and compare your success levels. If the attacker wins they will have the chance to do damage and gain a point of Advantage. If the defender wins, they don’t inflict damage but do gain the Advantage as they dodge or parry and take the upper hand. There is always an outcome from a combat round – the least that can happen is someone gains Advantage."
It also looks like there will be a way to "combat" building up Advantage as well. "And if your foes are building their Advantage up to truly scary levels, Characters can use a point of Resilience (more on this in a later preview) to remove it." Which seems to mean that Advantage isn't just a mechanic for player characters. "But it’s certainly not all one-way traffic! Adversaries have special abilities that are powered by Advantage, so can become progressively more powerful. And there’s loads of fun times for the GM in deciding when to use monster abilities, or simply keep a bonus to hit."
This is a good kind of preview because it gives those of us online something to talk about, and give a bit of a spike in interest to the game. Warhammer is one of the big franchises of tabletop gaming and it is always good to see it getting chatter. I'm looking forward to seeing the next preview, and the game itself when it is released. We'll see what happens when the next preview comes out.
