WFRP: How long are your encounters/rounds taking?

[Emirikol]

WFRP: How long are your encounters/rounds taking?

I'm fairly new to the system, but I'm finding that the rounds may not be taking long enough. How long are your rounds and encounters taking?

jh

 

[ruemere]

WFRP, at least in 1st edition, was snappy and fast. Not too many options, deadly weapons and surprise / high initiative providing great advantage to players allowed to have short encounters.

Besides, longer encounters increase deadliness of the system.

That's why it would be better to plan for multistage encounters (i.e. small groups of enemies arriving after a round or two) and give players some time to plan.

Also, make sure that your melee characters have high initiative.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[frankthedm]

WFRP: How long are your encounters/rounds taking?

I'm fairly new to the system, but I'm finding that the rounds may not be taking long enough. How long are your rounds and encounters taking?

jh

Combat takes longer than I like in 2eWFRP, but a one sided combat goes fairly fast. Numbers are really important in WFRP and unless you have enough foes who have parries and possibly Dodges, the combat savey characters will mow through them. IME most monsters get ground down pretty fast even when they have a bucket of wounds.

Also, I strongly recommend not allowing the "free attacked for leaving melee" against those who were Maneuvered out of melee by a foe.

 

[Treebore]

Wait until everyone has Parry and Dodge Blow, then the combats will take fffoooorrreeevvvvveeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

 

[ruemere]

Wait until everyone has Parry and Dodge Blow, then the combats will take fffoooorrreeevvvvveeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

That's why you need to gang up on an opponent. That's why 20 combat veterans spell doom to most parties (unless PCs have severe tactical advantage).

Oh, and that's what grenades are for... <insert evil GM's chuckle here>

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Kask]

WFRP: How long are your encounters/rounds taking?

I'm fairly new to the system, but I'm finding that the rounds may not be taking long enough. How long are your rounds and encounters taking?

jh

wrong thread. Oops.

 

[Treebore]

That's why you need to gang up on an opponent. That's why 20 combat veterans spell doom to most parties (unless PCs have severe tactical advantage).

Oh, and that's what grenades are for... <insert evil GM's chuckle here>

Regards,
Ruemere

We usually can't pile up on a opponent, we are usually outnumbered.

 

[Mephistopheles]

WFRP: How long are your encounters/rounds taking?

I'm fairly new to the system, but I'm finding that the rounds may not be taking long enough. How long are your rounds and encounters taking?

jh

I'm considering C&C or 2E WHFRPG for my next game so I'm curious about the part I bolded. You feel rounds are resolved too quickly?

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

Going by our group, combat seems to take roughly one round per opponent, give or take how badly our elf archer unleashes Ulric's Fury (seriously, this guy rolls 10's on damage so often that he cranks out over 15 damage per shot).

Part of how long a fight takes depends on how well the PCs are rolling and how good they are at combat. A bunch of 1st career PCs with a WS or BS in the low 30's is going to have a much rougher time of it than a bunch of 3rd careers with scores in the low 50's and up. If you've got a couple of PCs that are geared towards dishing out lots of damage (especially with Impact weapons) and hitting reliably*, then combats can seem brutally quick for the bad guys. We've had some fights that dragged out over a dozen rounds, due both to quantity of baddies (in this case, a town full of Khorne cultists whose existence we uncovered) as or against some exceptionally tough opponents (such as a Troll that was part of an Boss Orc's Warband; sadly for the GM the Boss Orc got TKO'd very quickly).

*It can be done in WFRP, as I've got a Knight of the Realm that's exceptionally good at melee fighting thanks to some very lucky character creation rolls, and we had a Dwarf Troll Slayer that was a friggin' murder machine with that great-axe of his. Also, see Elf Sniper of Doom above.

 

[Henry]

I just got back from a WFRP2 session, and one combat took about 7 rounds (involving about 12 combatants) and a second one took only three rounds (about 8 opponents).

For us, it's taking about the right amount of time, because no one gets bored, with as swingy as fortunes are.