TheSword
Legend
Problem or feature
As was said earlier, not having to repeatedly change careers is a nice improvement. That had to come with a balance.
You could build monsters in 2e. I remember stone skinned slayers!
Warhammer frpg - 2e vs 4e
As was said earlier, not having to repeatedly change careers is a nice improvement. That had to come with a balance.
You could build monsters in 2e. I remember stone skinned slayers!
Crusadius
Adventurer
Its merely a different way of capping Characteristics (and Skills). 2E controls it by the Career Advance Scheme, 4E controls it by making Characteristic and Skill Advances cost more in blocks of 5, and also limits Characteristic/Skill Advances to those specified by Career Level - but otherwise does not cap what you can spend your XP on.
But 4E does allow higher Skill for the Tests because you use the Characteristic + Skill for the roll. Which helps mitigate the whiff from 1E/2E.
Ancalagon
Dusty Dragon
This was the case in 2e - save for weapons test.
What is the "attack sequence" in 4e? I'll explain what I mean by explaining the 2e one:
1: Roll a WS test (example: your WS is 43, roll 43 or less on a 1d100). If this succeed go to step 2
2: IF the enemy is able to, the enemy will do a parry (a weapon skill test) or a dodge skill test to avoid the attack. If this fails go to step 3
3: Roll damage (usually 1d10+ Strenght Bonus, which is usually in the 2-6 range, 3 being "normal")
4: Reduce damage by armor (if any) and toughness bonus (in many cases, toughness and strength cancel each other out)
5: Apply damage. If less than 0 wounds left, roll for a critical hit.
GreyLord
Legend
Personally, I prefer 2e to 4e.
The REAL problem is 4e is too dang complex in comparison. People talk about SL's...those are TRASH in my book. People complained about THAC0 in D&D 2e...that has NOTHING on SL's in 4e.
It's FAR too complicated for what I like to play overall.
I DO make it work though, as 4e books are a lot easier to get than 2e books. We use 2e's combat system rather than 4e's combat system.
Of course, the problem with this is 4e has unrestrained/unrestricted ability increases, which means getting something over 100% is a guarantee if you play a very long campaign. Only solution is to restrict maximum abilities to something around 90 (inclusive of magic) or play shorter campaigns.
These people have played all sorts of systems from the complex ICE games to palladium to D&D (every version, inclusive of 2e and 4e which people regularly complain about complexities) and many other games. When you look around the digital table via portal and see slack jawed looks of incomprehension...well...for me that tells me that WHFRP4e has too complex of a combat system in general. It may look good on paper, but explaining it to people really...the best solution for me was to use an older WHFRP system (1e or 2e...heck...even 3e is easier to understand...BY A LOT).
On the otherhand, magic is nicer in many ways under 4e both on players and the Game master. Other things work out nicely.
The one onus of 4e is how they rewrote the combat system though...at least for me.
The REAL problem is 4e is too dang complex in comparison. People talk about SL's...those are TRASH in my book. People complained about THAC0 in D&D 2e...that has NOTHING on SL's in 4e.
It's FAR too complicated for what I like to play overall.
I DO make it work though, as 4e books are a lot easier to get than 2e books. We use 2e's combat system rather than 4e's combat system.
Of course, the problem with this is 4e has unrestrained/unrestricted ability increases, which means getting something over 100% is a guarantee if you play a very long campaign. Only solution is to restrict maximum abilities to something around 90 (inclusive of magic) or play shorter campaigns.
These people have played all sorts of systems from the complex ICE games to palladium to D&D (every version, inclusive of 2e and 4e which people regularly complain about complexities) and many other games. When you look around the digital table via portal and see slack jawed looks of incomprehension...well...for me that tells me that WHFRP4e has too complex of a combat system in general. It may look good on paper, but explaining it to people really...the best solution for me was to use an older WHFRP system (1e or 2e...heck...even 3e is easier to understand...BY A LOT).
On the otherhand, magic is nicer in many ways under 4e both on players and the Game master. Other things work out nicely.
The one onus of 4e is how they rewrote the combat system though...at least for me.
GreyLord
Legend
We don't really use the SL in 4e anymore, but remembering now (still use the rulebook, but not the SL system)...nor only do you need to roll low, but also high. Lower than the score, but higher than the opposition score.
The bigger problem we ran into was that you have to constantly change the math up every single round, so it's a constantly shifting number sequence.
I don't think it's necessarily a downgrade, it just depends on how you like to play the game. If you use the SL's of 4e (which we don't), then yes, it can become a problem. If you play it as intended, it kind of just goes with the flow of the game itself.
The one advantage of it is that you never hit the peak. In otherwords, you never hit the top, so for extremely long campaigns where people never want to stop advancing their characters abilities, this is probably a bonus for them.
Crusadius
Adventurer
I have been thinking that perhaps 4E should have changed from roll under the Characteristic to roll >= 100% i.e. Characteristic/Skill + roll must be greater than or equal to 100% for success. Then who wins becomes who rolled highest, SL is just the difference in the tens of each roll. But this would also require changes to how Advantage works.
You could even remove the opposed roll by calculating a target % roll of 50% plus the Characteristic/Skill (instead of having 100%) but this might be more complicated for calculation of SL.
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Crusadius
Adventurer
Do you mean if characters bought a Skill multiple times in 2E?
In 4e:
1. Attacker rolls, trying to get under Melee skill (+/- relevant modifiers) and determines SL by comparing the tens dice to Melee skill (so roll 15 against Melee skill 42 = SL 3). If the attacker rolls a double he will inflict a crit (if under Melee skill) or suffer a fumble (if over), in addition to any other outcome of the attack.
2. Defender does the same, but can choose to roll against Dodge instead of Melee. If he rolls against Melee, then doubles can also cause crits or fumbles.
3. Compare SLs. If the attacker has higher, he hits and gains 1 advantage. If the defender has higher the attack misses and the defender gains 1 advantage. The loser loses all advantage.
So an example: Bob (melee 44) charges Tim (melee 35). Because he charged, Bob gains one advantage, so he’s rolling against 54. He rolls a 41, so he gets 1 SL. Tim rolls a 11, so he’ll inflict a crit and gets 2 SL. Bob loses the exchange, and now has no advantage, while Tim has 1.
Tim then strikes back. Because he has advantage he’s rolling against 45, but gets 55. That’s -1 SL, and a fumble. But Bob rolls a 80, which is -4 SL. Because Bob’s SL is worse than Tim’s, Tim still hits.
The exchange might be described like this: Bob charges forward, stabbing carefully at Tim, but Tim parries his thrust and deftly slices at his leg, cutting him deeply (the crit). As Bob stumbles, his momentum lost, Tim strikes back. It’s a clumsy blow, but it gets past Bob’s flailing parry - but not without cost, as Tim’s sword slips from his grip (the fumble). Bob is now badly hurt and off balance, but Tim is unarmed…
Right. There is a slight difference in probability at the ends, but otherwise it works out the same.
Under the normal rules, if my skill is 43, the chances of different SLs is as follows:
0: 4% (40-43)
1 through 3: 10% each (30-39, 20-29, 10-19)
4: 9% (01-09)
With fast SL, the ends reverse:
0: 9% (01-09)
1 through 3 (10-19, 20-29, 30-39)
4: 4% (40-43)
0: 4% (40-43)
1 through 3: 10% each (30-39, 20-29, 10-19)
4: 9% (01-09)
With fast SL, the ends reverse:
0: 9% (01-09)
1 through 3 (10-19, 20-29, 30-39)
4: 4% (40-43)
As for how it plays, I have only played it once. We thought the Advantage mechanic was a bit cumbersome but figured it would work itself out once we had more experience with the system.
The one thing I thought was weird was the economy, or rather how two parts of it both individually make sense but when combined it becomes nonsensical. The first is that after each adventure, you can spend any money you made on whatever you want. But in between adventures, you normally spend all your money on repairs, living expenses, bribes, donations, whatever. There are two ways around this: Banking or earning Income. Both take one downtime unit, of which you can't have more than three in between adventures. Banking lets you save money either by investing it (not available for the lowest social classes) or just stashing it. Investing is somewhat safer, and can earn you interest, but requires you to spend another downtime unit to get your money back. On one level, I like this idea, as it keeps PCs hungry for lucrative adventuring.
Each character has a social standing, primarily defined by what sort of currency they use: Gold (merchant lords, nobles, otherwise wealthy), Silver (respectable tradesmen, professionals, common merchants), or Brass (peasants, criminals, lower-class professions). Within each, there are 5 sub-tiers (so you have Brass 1-5, Silver 1-5, and Gold 1-5). This is primarily dependent on your career, and one of the perks of advancing in your career is that you improve your status (e.g. an Engineer goes from Brass 4 to Silver 2, Silver 4, and Gold 2). Earning income gets you money based on this social standing. This is also cool, because it brings home how socially stratified people of the Empire are. It also carries a fair bit of the "roughness" I like about Warhammer – you start out playing ratcatchers, pit fighters, coachmen, and the like. By my count, 42 of the 64 starting careers in the rule book are brass tier. So an Income endeavour will earn them 2-10 d10 brass pennies, of which there are 12 to a silver shilling and 240 to a gold crown.
The problem is that pretty much everything that's of interest to an adventurer has prices listed in Gold Coins. Even a basic Hand Weapon costs 1 GC. A Shield costs 2 GC. A bow is 4 GC. Being fully armored in mail will set you back 6 GCs. A pistol costs 8 GC, so good luck if you're a starting Engineer (Brass 4) who wants to get some use out of your Ranged (Blackpowder) skill....
Crusadius
Adventurer
Sell the Book (Engineer) and buy a Blunderbuss
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