Warhammer RPG release schedule

[Jürgen Hubert]

Although WFRP works fine, in the game-design family I count it among the later systems in the category of games that first reacted to D&D with 'realistic' hit locations, percentile dice, etc. I think that branch of game design is a dead end, and that something simpler like Warhammer Fantasy Battle would suit the Warhammer World better.

I strongly disagree. First of all, there is nothing wrong with percentile dice - there are still tons of Call of Cthulhu players out there who are quite happy with a percentile system. Then there is also Unknown Armies, HARP, and probably a few others I forgot to mention.

Second, the hit location system enhances the flavor of WFRP. This isn't supposed to be a "heroic" world where you simply keep track of some abstract number of hit points, like in D&D. Here, your extremeties can get crippled, wounds can get infected, and you can bleed to death in a variety of interesting ways. This all reinforces that life is nasty, brutish, and short, and that combat is lethal, and PCs are less eager to charge into combat versus even weak enemies - which is as it should be.

 

[Aaron2]

I strongly disagree. First of all, there is nothing wrong with percentile dice - there are still tons of Call of Cthulhu players out there who are quite happy with a percentile system.

Since WFB and 40K and nearly every other GW game only uses d6s, it seems weird for the RPG to do otherwise.

This isn't supposed to be a "heroic" world where you simply keep track of some abstract number of hit points, like in D&D.

In the original WFRP, the character's Wounds score acted exactly like hit points. You couldn't take a critical hit until after all your wounds were expended.


Aaron

 

[Dr Simon]

WHFRP used two scales - some (most) attributes were scaled on a percentile score whilst a few (predominantly combat) were scaled 1-10.

Personally, I found that the 1-10 scale attributes tended to end up rather granular, with only a small step from "normal" levels to the character being able to deal and take ridiculous amounts of damage due to a high Strength or Toughness. Further, for all the exciting critical hit descriptions I found that things nearly always ended up at the 6+ end of the table, where your foe dies intstantly in a gory and spectacular fashion, or the 1 effect, with minor grazes or dropped weapons. There wasn't enough scope to get the more subtle results in between, and only once did I end up with a PC with a dislocated shoulder.

As for D20 = levels, it doesn't necessarily. I see "d20" purely as (at heart) the dice rolling mechanism of "roll d20, add modifiers, beat a DC". I'm not sure if anyone has done a "level-less d20" yet, but it could be done. However, WHFRP wasn't entirely without class and levels. There were still four basic Classes (Rogue, Warrior, Academic and Ranger) within which (and across which) you could change careers and buy skills (it cost more XPs to get cross-class skills - seem familiar). Further, if you were a magician of any kind you had four actual factual levels to progress through.

As for percentile systems in general, I play RuneQuest and for a long time I've considered % systems superior to the chaos of 1st and 2nd ed. D&D. However, d20 does a couple of things more elegantly than can be done with % systems - opposed rolls and accounting for difficulty. These *can* be done with RQ or similar systems, but they are harder.

 

[Aaron2]

Personally, I found that the 1-10 scale attributes tended to end up rather granular, with only a small step from "normal" levels to the character being able to deal and take ridiculous amounts of damage due to a high Strength or Toughness.

Yeah, there was the added problem that your character was limited in growth based on the original starting character stats. If you rolled a 2 for starting Toughness, you'd always be two points behind a character that rolled a 4.

The percentile stats only increased in +10 increments. You might as well have just make them 1-10 and rolled a d10.

As for percentile systems in general, I play RuneQuest and for a long time I've considered % systems superior to the chaos of 1st and 2nd ed.

I played tons of Runequest and even more Stormbringer. I soon got annoyed by the wierd effect of the danger level. Two characters with a 5% attack and a 5% parry will hit each other about 5% of the time. If both character increase their respective skills to 50%, they are now hitting each other 25% of the time (50% attack hit but 1/2 are parried). However, if they again increase their skills to 95% they start hitting each other at 5% again (most attack succeed but 95% are parried). It was a wierd bell curve that didn't really make sense.

That's why I prefer to two methods used in the mini games. Either a chart comparing the relative Weapon Skills or each rolling 1d6+WS and high roll wins. Both have smooth progressions. Equally skilled opponents will fight the same regardless of whether they are both WS 1 or both WS 10.


Aaron

 

[loki44]

OK, it's March. Anybody seen it yet? There are nice full-page ads in Dragon and Dungeon.

 

[Stone Dog]

There are currently four pdf samples (two pages each) on the official site.
www.blackindustries.com

Other than that it will be a couple more weeks till the book is actually released.

 

[Squirrel Nutkin]

Is anyone excited about this?

YES.

I am hardly a d20 shill or anything but at the same time I REALLY think this game would benefit from being d20.

Oh no. Keeper, I can't believe you would actually say that. I... I can't type through the tears in my eyes...

 

[loki44]

There are currently four pdf samples (two pages each) on the official site.
www.blackindustries.com

Other than that it will be a couple more weeks till the book is actually released.

Aha, thanks for that!

 

[Stone Dog]

Aha, thanks for that!

No problem. Actually there are five of the PDF previews. Part of the introduction, a few character classes, diseases, petty magics and some political tidbits. Oddly enough, the link for the political tidbits keeps vanishing and reappearing. Strange that.

I am pretty stoked about the new system. It seems to have cleared up a lot of the downsides to the first system and streamlined the rest of it. There are only D10s in the whole of the game now. Advances are taken in 5% incriments rather than 10. Skills can be bought multiple times and those skills in the old set like Very Strong are now talents. Yes, I know those are rather like feats, but calling Very Strong or Immune to Poison skills was a bit odd.

I am curious as to how the stat blocks work. For those of you who didn't know, Warhammer used to have a stat line with Movement, Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Toughness, Wounds, Initiative, Attacks, Dexterity, Leadership, Intelligence, Coolness, Willpower and Fellowship. Problems were that some of them (Cool and Will Power, Leadership and Fellowship) did double duty in many cases and in two of them (Strength and Toughness) there wasn't enough granularity. Most of the characteristics were percentile based, but in particular S and T were just 1-10. One being a weakling and 10 being a powerful dragon or so. It wouldn't be that hard for a robust human to be more than half as strong as a great big dragon or for a dwarf to be so tough that many weapons couldn't wound him (Naked Dwarf Syndrome).

Now we have the Main Profile of Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Toughness, Agility, Intelligence, Will Power and Fellowship all being percentile based. The secondary profile is where you keep your Attacks, Wounds, Strength Bonus, Toughness Bonus, Magic Rating, Insanity Points and Fortune Points.

I am hoping that 100% isn't the upper cap, just the usual limit of human ability. Take a dragon for example. In the old system Bard the Bowman (fairly robust chap, lets say a four St) would have been more than half as strong as your average dragon (usual St 7) Doesn't quite seem right, does it? Of course, Smaug wasn't your average dragon, but still Smaug the Golden couldn't be more than St 10 which would put Smaug at his prime only about twice as strong as a warhorse.

If a creatures St could possibly be higher than 100% (with perhaps an exponential increase in the assumed to be linked St Bonus) then you could have truely feasome beasts able to push over small towers with their 275-(difficulty)% St rolls. That is kinda what I am hoping for anyway.

 

[Acid_crash]

I vant to get dees book buts me nosa haav da $$$ toos aquires me dees boook.

I'm so bummed.