Rules

[Clint]

Alright guys!

Been playing 4th a couple of times, and i see a great lot of potential in this edition!
Though, the rulebook is so crammed full of juicy info and bang for your buck, it has resulted a bit in some quite short descriptions of some of the rules, and i've got a few questions about some mechanics, i wanna hear your thoughts;

1) Strike to stun talent seems pretty good for a free chance of giving an opponent a Stunned condion + normal damage, AND ALSO have the chance to rack up double Advantage on your turn, AND forcing the enemy to spend their action doing an endurance test to recover, if they even succeed with their -10% per stunned condition. Then, the next turn, you StS again, gaining 2 Advantage becuase you already have 2 and the opponent has -10, PLUS and additional for attacking a stunned person, gaining 5 advantage on 2 turns, not counting in your defensive rolls. In 2ed, AP on your head would grant extra bonuses to resist the stun, but i cannot find any similar rules in 4th. Have i missed something, or are there no other drawbacks than having to use a Pummel weapon with StS?

2) About fighting larger opponents, it says that if your one step smaller than your oppenent, you get +10% to hit. When shooting a large opponent, you also get +20%. Does that mean, that a human would effectively always get at least +30% extra to hit large opponents? (and an additional +20% if point blank, racking it up to a crazy +50% BONUS).

3) Trappings: i know this system has been written for people who've already played Wfrp before. When advancing to a new level or tier or career, you had to have all the trappings of the new career in 2nd ed. And it seems like it too with the trappings listed in 4th, but i cannot find any rules describing trappings as a prerequisite for advancing. Have i missed something or did cubicle 7 overlook this one?

4) Do you gain advantage for every single opposed roll you win? Say you fight against 5 other people. They all attack you, but you took the defensive action gaining +20 to defend, and win the first two opposed attacks, and are already on +40, easily defeating the other opposes. In 1 round, you already raked up 5 Advantage, which could be enough to easily, singlehandedly deafeat all 5 opponents. Ofc, there is the outnumbering rule, but seems wild that the Advantage can rack up that fast when attacked by multiple enemies.

5) On Overcasting magic, it says that for every +2 SL you get, you may double an effect of the spell. But many spells already have a CN of 4, 6, 10 etc. So everytime you cast any of the real spells, you will always overcast it. Or does it have to be over the CN, in which case it seems pretty rare it will happen.
Can anyone who have had mages in their party or played one, tell if the mechanincs for casting spells and channeling was any fun? All my players rolled non magic users

Sorry for the wall of text!
The things lacking does no where near beat me down, as there were far more stuff that was missing in the 2ed. This version seems like so much fun.

[mormegil]

1) From the description of the Talent I do not see how it gives double advantage. The hit + condition should count as one or you will start having problems with Critical Hits also. In addition, most of the people from what I read limit advantage up to Initiative Bonus.

2) Shooting a large opponent should be fairly easy, although the first +10 I would count it only in melee. I might be mistaken though.

3) This system has changed a bit. In this edition trappings are linked with your status. So, you can advance without the trappings, but you need them in order to get the advantages of your status (you cannot earn the income relevant to your career, you do not get some social advantages etc.)

4) The answer to your opening question is yes. Personally since defensive action is an optional rule I do not use it. Apart from that some people in addition to the above limit the advantage gained per character per round to 1.

5) Overcasting starts counting after the CN. So, for a 4 CN spell you need to roll 6 SL in Language Magick skill.

[Clint]

Thanks for your reply Mormegil!

Strike to Stun could potentially give you double advantage (and triple), because you gain one advantage every time you win an opposed skill test. First you win the opposed weapon skill, and afterwards you must roll STR vs Endurance, potentially giving you another Advantage. Then it says under stunned that attacking a stunned opponent also grants one advantage before rolling to hit.

Somewhere in the beginning of the talent chapter it describes that if a talent is tied with a skill test, it will give you advantage for succeeding such a test (or something like that).

The rule about hitting larger opponents just state that you get +10 to hit. Guess we'll need C7 to clarify on that.

And with trappings, yes! That makes perfect sense
Also with overcharging

[mormegil]

Ok now I got exactly what you are saying about strike to stun.
For me it seems again to make sense. If you enter into a room and with a hit you stun a person it would give great advantage to you. On the other hand, the second roll is a characteristic vs a skill and there are many odds that you may lose it. So, it could strip you one.
If we assume you succeeded both rolls, then to hit the same opponent should give you one, cause the defender is almost helpless.

Advantage can be tricky, that is why most, myself included, seem to limit it; as suggested in the optional rule.

[Clint]

Alright cool. I might limit it too. I also thought about limiting the situational bonus from 20% increments to 10% increments.

Feels good to get to know the system