fluminor wrote: ↑Fri Jun 14, 2019 9:59 am
High level feedback: I like it quite a bit. Simpler, definitely, with a risk/reward twist. And if feels different.
Specific feedback: given how you updated the shield rules, I believe in your game a shield offers the same defensive benefit in melee as a main gauche does. If so, this is not great. I can see why a main gauche may give a chance to counter-attack, but it should remain the case that a shield is better at parrying - because it is, well, a lot bigger
. Anyway, this seems easy to fix. Overall, thumbs up from me!
Thank you.
The Shield doesn't (in my game) suffer from any off-hand penalties. Combined with how it is a Basic weapon while the main-gauche is a Parrying weapon I wouldn't say they offer the "same" benefits...
Yes, if you spend enough XP to bring up your Melee (Parrying) to the same level as your Melee (Basic), AND purchase both levels of Ambidextrous, then the main gauche becomes just as good as the Shield. But that's a lot of XP you could simply have spent on Melee (Basic)...
I quite like the idea that Shields are the best basic weapon (for defense), but that "expert" warriors can find specialist equipment to be better... for them. While a shield might ALWAYS be preferable in real life, a fantasy game should support all kinds of archetypal heroes, and so reality takes a back seat. Plus, in real life a shield is big and unwieldy, which explains why people didn't always lug around shields. (In a rpg, encumbrance is boring administrative work, so I vastly prefer rules that don't force you to calculate Encumbrance, just because that's the IRL drawback of using some otherwise superior equipment.)
Orin J. wrote: ↑Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:05 amthe whole thing with multiple attacks has always been an issue with WFRP (and i've learned a fairly controversial one!) and 4th ed sought to solve the issue by removing the attack stat and making the idea of "bonus" attacks an alternative.
Well, I don't think the Attacks characteristic was the problem. 4E seems to think so, since it removes the stat, but keeps the extra attacks. There are two issues:
1) Movement is fun. Don't have your rules force you to choose between moving and attacking. Extra attacks are so central and so powerful, so don't make the player choose between them and anything - that just ends in combats that are static and boring, since when your life is on the line, you always choose extra attacks. WFRP2 drew a lot of design inspiration from 3rd Edition D&D. It is telling how 5th Edition D&D allows you to move and attack freely during your round.
I'm telling this story because the problem with 2E wasn't the Attacks characteristic per se, but how the rules forced you to spend your entire round if you wanted to make more than attack, even when your Attacks was 2 or more. 4E has fixed this,
but C7 did not need to remove Attacks to do it, is my point.
(And yes, I am aware of the argument that the presence of an Attacks characteristics drives players into finding out how to raise it; while by "hiding" the extra attacks, you feel better when you don't have them)
2) The other issue is that Dual Wielding is, put simply, better off not granting an extra attack. Getting more than one attack is incredibly powerful since it essentially doubles your character's power. But okay, at some point warriors need a second attack to look forward to, that's just the perks of "leveling up". And so I consider Furious Assault basically fine. Getting an extra attack through the path of the Berserker is also fine, since it comes with heavy penalties. But Dual Wielding in my opinion is better off as something you can do earlier in your career, and thus shouldn't be quite as powerful.
fluminor wrote: ↑Fri Jun 14, 2019 12:29 pm
Cap: another complaint you may have with your version of the talent is the case of someone with dual wielding and a weapon in each hand attacking an enemy from behind and not being allowed to attack with both weapons. That is, the idea of using the off hand weapon for deflection is nice, except when you are not afraid that the enemy may attack you, in which case it would make sense for dual wielding to allow to use both weapons to attack.
Allow me to make a counter-argument:
That it does
not make sense for dual wielding to enable two attacks.
Why would you risk messing up your ambush by making two swings when all you need to do is make one powerful attack? Yes, in the context of roleplaying games the answer is "because one attack isn't enough to eat all his hit points", but I choose to use reality as pretext to avoid problematic rules design in this case!
Orin J. wrote: ↑Fri Jun 14, 2019 3:50 pm
Zapp's version is also a more complex riposte talent that doesn't require a fast weapon. Which is fine, but kind of redundant. that said, it is a bit hard to parse what the riposte talent does.
Well, thank you for bringing that up. Yes, they use the same idea. Still, I think there's space for both. (I haven't checked if access to the Talents overlap or if they are offered to different Careers)
I do not believe keeping DW different justifies the rulebook implementation.
If anything, I would question the balance of Riposte. A "riposte" is essentially a free attack. (There's a reason Champion is one of the best Monster Traits) But unlike Dual Wielding or Furious Assault or any other Talent, you gain one free attack
for each level of Riposte, making the Rapier absurdly good for top-tier characters. (I haven't seen any discussion on this, and the only reason why not that I can think of, is that it has seen very little play).
Change Riposte (page 143) from "You can Riposte a number of attacks per round equal to your Riposte level." to the following, and I believe my version of Dual Wielder can stand firm.
Riposte
Max: Agility Bonus
Tests: Melee when defending
Conforming to ‘the best defence is offence’, you respond to an
incoming attack with a lightning-fast counterstrike of your own.
If your weapon has the Fast quality, once per round you may cause Damage when
you are attacked, just as if it was your Action.