Great Blog - Warhammer 3ed Opposed Checks

Sigmar out of the box
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kid_kraken
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I found this blog the other day. Might be old news for some but the author suggests some alternates to the opposed checks in 3ed. The way the rules handled these has always felt flawed to me. One of my players created a five fellowship Barber-Surgeon. Unless I throw someone with a five willpower at him, the PC is rolling one purple die. If I do place a five willpower NPC out there (and how many of those are in Bogenhafen?) he's still only rolling two purples.

The basic concept for the house rule is to halve the opposing characteristic and use that many purples plus one. If there is a remainder, add a black.

The blog entry has probability graphs and I think the author is a professional that uses stats and probability in his work. His logic seems very sound and his thoughts well presented.

Anyone else had work arounds to the opposed checks?

Blog Here: https://faustusnotes.com/2013/10/05/com ... rhammer-3/
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Karanthir
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Thanks for the link to the blog - it had completely passed me by.

I can't say I've had a problem with opposed checks (I think only the wizard in my group has a 5 stat, and that's Int), but I'm intrigued by this alternative system.
kid_kraken
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Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2020 12:25 pm

With the five fellowship, one expertise die, and Winning Smile one purple equaled a high 90% success rate on a basic purple. Anyone with a four willpower or less was at least likely to listen favourably.

I don't think I'll add the plus one purple he recommends as I use disposition modifiers and *do* want my player to generally succeed.
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Karanthir
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Yeah, the purple dice can be very harsh, so I'm wary of imposing too many on my players.

Interested in hearing your experiences if/when you get a chance to try this system. Statistical calculation is fine, but doesn't necessarily take into account the variety of possible results from the WFRP3 dice pool.
kid_kraken
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Well, we played last night. I'll post about musings in a separate post, but I'm inclined to agree with you, Karanthir. Last night there was nothing more difficult than average checks and a number of easy ones. The double challenges came up enough to shut down several easy tasks or have the players pass by just the fortune they had thrown in. Throwing in one more purple could have really shut them down and stalled the action.
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Karanthir
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Yeah, in my experience those double swords can be brutal. My players almost never pass Daunting checks unless they throw all their resources into it. But there might be something in making opposed tests more difficult for characters with high stats.
kid_kraken
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Ok, we're three sessions in and the three characteristic dice vs two challenge dice is proving pretty difficult, as is. They pass more often than fail, but still a single double swords can be enough to shut them down. These characters aren't as buffed in one stat, as well, so my experience may have been skewed as a GM.
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Karanthir
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Sounds similar to my experiences. A stat of 5 can skew things a bit, but you pretty much have to start with another stat of 2 to get it, so I suppose it balances out that way.

Fortunately I haven't yet had a playing willing to commit the advances needed to get to a stat of 6!
kid_kraken
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Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2020 12:25 pm

I think that was part of it. The five fellowship barber-surgeon (the charming Kislevite rapscallion) was saving hard for the six...
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