Zapp's house rules collection

The enemy lurks in shadows
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CapnZapp
Posts: 270
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:15 am
Location: Norsca

Crude Handweapons
A new weapon category containing simple clubs, short or dented swords, hand axes, ... add any less good handweapon to this category: unwieldy, unbalanced, poorly maintained or simply worthless handweapons.

Crude handweapon
Price: 1/-
Damage: +SB+3

(This allows you to equip riff-raff with handweapons without the party immediately getting rich for defeating them. Just lower the damage listing of any foe by 1 (or just don't bother, maybe riff-raff are slightly stronger than other folks...?) that doesn't appear rich enough to have a "proper" handweapon. This also cuts back on the nonsense where starting characters immediately raid the garden sheds or rob travellers for weapons when the players find out they can't afford to buy any.)

Cappin' Advantage
a) you can only gain one advantage per combat round (net as opposed to gross)
...meaning if you started the previous combat round with 3 Advantage, you can only begin this combat round with 3+1=4 Advantage, full stop. Whether you simply got one more... or lost all of them but then got four new ones doesn't matter (maybe you got hit by a stray arrow, and then successfully parried all three Snotlings attacking you, plus successfully attacking yourself)
b) the maximum is 6 advantage (so you can use a d6).

(The unrestricted Advantage rules simply overwhelmed all other considerations. We did not want our combats to change into the advantage-collecting tactical mini-game optimal play suggests)

Dexterity in Combat
I'm opening up the possibility of getting by with Dex if you can settle for small, quick, concealable weapons: daggers, throwing knives, darts, cudgels and short swords (the latter two counts as +3 "crude" hand weapons). Add any similar weapons the GM and player agrees should qualify.

That is:
a) you may use Dexterity in place of Weapon Skill for Melee (Basic) skill tests with certain weapons (such as the Knife)
b) you may use Dexterity in place of Ballistic Skill for Ranged (Throwing) skill tests with certain weapons (such as the Throwing Knife)

For any other weapon, you still need WS/BS as normal. For any other Melee or Ranged skill, you still need WS/BS as normal.

(When Agility was split into Ag, I and Dex, the latter Characteristic ended up simply worth less. Careers that depend on it (thieves, tradesmen, engineers...?) effectively have a "Characteristics tax" if they too want to partake in adventures - read combat - while everyone can safely dump Dex. Now you can play a Cat Burglar character that puts her XP into Dex and Agility instead of WS and BS! After all, a high skill is MUCH more important that high damage in this edition, so asking a character to get on by with "only" a dagger is much less of an ask than it would have been in v1/v2)

Falling Damage
Effective falling height is reduced by Agility Bonus.

Example: you have Agility 39. You fall four yards. You suffer 1d10 + (4-3)x3 Wounds. That is, 1d10+3 Wounds instead of 1d10+12 Wounds.

(Hint: if you want your game to encourage exciting roof-top chases don't make your heroes avoid heights in general.)

Bleeding
Bandages: A character unskilled in Heal can still attempt to use one (set of) Bandages to reduce Bleeding. Spend your action to make an Intelligence Test. Success means Bleeding is reduced by -1. The Bandages is used up. You cannot apply more than one Bandages per injury, meaning that you can staunch Bleeding 1, but not Bleeding 2 or more.

The difficulty is Average (+20) when bandaging someone else in relative safety. The difficulty is Challenging (+0) in combat and/or if you attempt to bandage yourself.

(The official rules for Bleeding were hastily patched during playtest, and C7 clumsily left all the characters traveling without armor or a skilled healer out in the cold.)
Last edited by CapnZapp on Tue Jan 08, 2019 4:06 am, edited 3 times in total.
CapnZapp
Posts: 270
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:15 am
Location: Norsca

There remains one big issue of contention: the way armour can negate critical hits.

This makes armour MUCH more beneficial than in any previous edition (I've played, that is).

We simply do not find it any fun to have a rule that makes it insanity to go without armor. In all our campaigns, going without armour has been a commonplace occurrence. Starting characters; "civilian" characters, regular peasantfolk, characters dressed up for parties, poor people, and so on.

Giving up one or three points of "extra Toughness" is of course a drawback, but it pales in comparison to how 4E armor essentially makes you immune to criticals :shock:

This is such an over-the-top change that it - if left standing - would utterly transform the entire society of the Old World. Never again would anyone go anywhere without armor.

Our problem is how to best change this without entirely removing the idea that armour (and shields) might deflect a critical. After all, criticals can happen at any time, even when you win the opposed test. So removing "crit negation" completely feels like going too far.

(update Jan 10th)
The current suggestion is this:

- Only the outermost layer can negate a crit (plate, then mail, then leather)
- Only undamaged armor can negate a crit

The general aim for this rule is to reduce the importance of armour. By the rulebook, heavy armour make you effectively immune to crits. (Reducing damage is nice but still secondary) This in turn makes you feel utterly stupid for not wearing heavy armor, which invalidates a lot of character concepts (both PCs and NPCs)

Armor still provides AP as normal. The rules and costs for armor damage aren't changed.

What this does is that even if you deck yourself out in full plate mail, you can potentially negate six criticals and not more: one for each body part. To negate more, you need (at minimum) to spend the time to dress down to mail, or (more reasonably) repare/replace damaged pieces (which is fine to do between adventures).

The notion that a character could negate 36(!) crits (6 APs in six locations) is plain ridiculous to us. We're not playing the game at Felix and Gotrek levels, where you might kill goblins in the hundreds, each day.

---

Shields.

Shields still provide their parry bonus, and they can still be used to negate a crit, but offer no armour points.

- Only undamaged shields can negate a crit
- You must always choose the shield first, before using armor to negate a crit

The general aim for this rule is to reduce the importance of shields. By the rulebook, shields are simply too good.

The rules and costs for shield damage aren't changed. That is, a regular shield still has 2 "hit points", even though it does not have any APs that reduce incoming damage.

The order of crit negation (shields before armor) is to prevent characters from using their shields to "patch up" a suit of armor where the armor is damaged. Otherwise you would always sacrifice armor first and keep the shield for those times you recieve a crit in a hit location that armor doesn't protect.

Let me note that bringing along a spare shield is much more reasonable than bringing a second suit of armor.

---

Our hope is that playtesting will allow crit negation to still happen.

Going without armor is still more stupid than we'd like. At least characters with money won't be able to make themselves effectively immune to the threat of criticals.

You take the first crit on your shield. Then the second on your armor. From this point on, there exists a risk of the crit being inflicted on an unprotected* hit location.

*) meaning that crits can't be negated. You might still have Armour Points.
Last edited by CapnZapp on Thu Jan 10, 2019 7:26 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Chuck
Power Behind the Throne
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Thanks Cap! Great stuff.

The armor question is a tough one. It solves the problem of armor never getting damaged or broken -- although I seem to remember some rules for that in a White Dwarf article or one of the Hogshead Apocrypha supplements -- but the solution might be worse than the problem. I'll have to give it some thought, but I'm leaning toward removing the rule entirely.
CapnZapp
Posts: 270
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:15 am
Location: Norsca

If there are many opinions on armour and criticals I think it is best to start a separate thread.

Other bits and pieces:

- I have scrapped the "ambitions" and whatnot of the rulebook. That is, you're supposed to continuously set up goals, and when you meet them, you gain bonus xp (and regain resolve points).

In our group, we find this cumbersome. When you're chiefly playing premade scenarios there is little opportunity of meeting personal goals. I mean: how is a player expected to anticipate what goals are even possible in a particular scenario - unless they're kept so generic as to be uninteresting?

Instead I'm using the following idea (in order to hand out the "bonus" XP the characters "deserve" according to the rulebook):
They get a big helping of Endeavour XP. That is, if they get 100 XP per session, they get something like 250 XP after each adventure. This ensures that characters have enough XP to pay for whatever endeavours they might want to perform.
CapnZapp
Posts: 270
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:15 am
Location: Norsca

As for Resolve points - actually it took five sessions before anyone used one, so it's only recently the issue of replenishing them came up!

At this rate I certainly won't replenish them every two or three sessions. After all you can't have more points than situations in which to spend them, or fear and terror becomes completely neutered.

That's the secret with Fate Points too, by the way. A group and a playstyle where they fly right and left needs more generosity. A group that plays it safe and almost never uses up Fate Points should not regain them much, if at all.

This is because these meta points are about only one thing: scarcity. If players start to feel they're easy to come by, spending them becomes a much smaller deal. If you actually need them that much, fine. Otherwise, don't - all you end up accomplishing is making players feel their characters are invulnerable.

The secret is to hand out enough for the players to keep risking their characters in fun adventure. But not give out more than that.

Since every group is different, and some campaign styles are much harder than others, there exists no single true answer to how many to hand out, or how often.
Jolly Roger
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Apr 24, 2019 3:21 pm

Just registered to let you know I read and loved your house rules and I'm implementing probably all of them :)
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Orin J.
Posts: 514
Joined: Wed Feb 06, 2019 10:39 pm

I keep going over the armor and i can't bring myself to decide if the issue is that the armor prevents crits or that the crits are such a vital part of the system this go-round. unfortunately i can't get a group to playtest so i defer to your experience on the matter.

i totally gotta agree with you on ambitions and stuff. (especially the group motives stuff) that's really more the kind of thing where it's the GM's judgement if they want to add to their games and most groups i've seen would probably suffer for having it. suggesting an XP bonus at the GM's whim when players resolve what feels appropriately like their character accomplishing something personally important would be best, not having the players decide ahead of time on things which could lead to players with specific aims feeling cheated because someone else is just picking vauge goals after sneaking a read at the adventure module...
CapnZapp
Posts: 270
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:15 am
Location: Norsca

At the current stage of our playtesting, we aren't quite ready to publish our rules. But since you flatter me, here's a peek preview! :)
- advantage is something you either have or don't have. If you have it you have +20. If you lose or spend any advantage, you no longer have advantage at all. Rationale: unlimited Advantage does not work at all. Limiting it still meant clutter and detail, that still unbalanced the game albeit slower and less often. Even our simplified rules still mean keeping track which NPCs have it, and the rules for when you gain it and lose it.
- rolling doubles result in special effects (such as "opponent drops weapon") and not criticals. And then only for the active participant (that is, rolling double on parry or dodge means nothing). Rationale: Resolving a critical is slow and cumbersome (with all the details and modifiers and extra die rolls that go with Conditions) and that's not the worst part. The worst part is that it makes armour utterly mandatory, which completely invalidates a lot of cool and fun WFRP character archetypes
- Since there no longer is random criticals (=criticals not from going to negative Wounds) armor is in a much better place. Shields are nerfed to basically only give +10% to parry and nothing else, to match their status as Basic weapons.
- Criticals are less random. If an attack takes you to -4 Wounds, you generate a random number from 01-40 for your Critical. If an attack instead takes you to -16 Wounds, the random number is 61-00. Only when you're taken to exactly -10 Wounds do you roll 01-100.
- The principle of not tracking negative Wounds still apply. Once you have resolved your critical, you are at 0 Wounds, never negative. However, once you're out of Wounds you are much more vulnerable: negative Wounds count twice! So if you take 4 Damage that counts as going to -8 (=a 01-80 critical). If you take 8 Damage that counts as going to -16 (=a 61-00 critical). This way we do away with the frustration of downing a foe but then not killing it because we keep rolling low on criticals. It also means there's little need to keep track of how many criticals you have suffered. In short, criticals become really lethal once you're out of Wounds.
- Conditions are overhauled and vastly simplified. My player even volunteered to create a "combat sheet" to keep track of which combatant suffers from what conditions. Every rule you need for a particular Condition is right on this sheet.
- Bleeding in particular is completely redone. Now Bleeding makes you lose Blood Points, not Wounds. (If you start out with 12 Wounds, you also have 12 Blood Points). Rationale: By RAW, the Bleeding condition was unplayable. In practice, everything revolved around Bleeding. That felt entirely wonky.

I've also introduced variable combat initiative, a use for Dexterity in combat, done away with the need to tell your players whether Tests are opposed or not, introduced Magic Points to spellcasting, mitigated the Falling rules... and more. Armor damage and upkeep costs are removed entirely. I don't use Encumbrance. These changes doesn't qualify as urgent rules patches though - they're proper "optional rules". (The items I list above I genuinely think address issues that make WFRP4 as written entirely unplayable. These latter rules are things I personally make for a better game, but the game still works without them)
Hell Hound
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:40 am

One of the things that really bothered me about 4e were the number of talents. At the top of the list are combat maneuver talents, which I hate, and then there are talents that are easily covered just through role playing and having a creative player and GM. And many I just find redundant.
Any plans to hack away at number of talents or are you okay with them?
Graak
Posts: 53
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:50 pm

CapnZapp wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 6:49 am
..... a peek preview! :)
- advantage is something you either have or don't have. If you have it you have +20. If you lose or spend any advantage, you no longer have advantage at all. Rationale: unlimited Advantage does not work at all. Limiting it still meant clutter and detail, that still unbalanced the game albeit slower and less often. Even our simplified rules still mean keeping track which NPCs have it, and the rules for when you gain it and lose it.
This!

This might work and fix the whole Advantage-centered gameplay of the 4th edition.
I don't speak for other proposed rules since I left reading 4th ed rules at the Advantage part.
However, without the snowballing effect given by the advantage mechanic I don't know how the player could even hope to kill anything with tons of hit points (as a griffin for example)... My personal sensation is the 4th Ed may need to be rewrited from the start if you touch Advantage, since it is so central in the ruleset. But as I said I am not so IN the rules to judge them properly, apart from Advantage mechanic..
CapnZapp
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Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:15 am
Location: Norsca

Graak wrote: Fri Apr 26, 2019 12:29 amMy personal sensation is the 4th Ed may need to be rewrited from the start if you touch Advantage, since it is so central in the ruleset.
Well, there are two main aspects to consider.

Changing or tweaking the fundamental core rules: This I don't think requires a "rewriting from the start". Even if you remove Advantage entirely, it still applies equally to everybody. The game simply becomes more 2E-like. You can still use monster stats. I'm certain such a change would benefit some monsters and characters over others, but I don't know which.

How certain abilities (Talents, Traits...) work: here you have much more of a point. Some (not many, but still plenty) talents mainly trigger off of advantage: gaining it, spending it and so on. I'm sure there is at least one talent that becomes entirely useless if Advantage is removed from the game (=you're considered to always have zero Advantage). But the thing is: as long as the players know this beforehand, that is of relatively minor concern. After all there are hundreds of Talents, and you're never forced to take any specific Talent. Just spend your XP elsewhere if you don't like a Talent!

(Obviously rewriting those Talents would be the best option. But this discussion assume none of us have unlimited time and energy... :) )

So all in all, I don't foresee this to be a particularly thorny issue. There are games where you can't remove a certain mechanic without losing much of the point of playing that game. I don't see Advantage in WFRP4 being one of them if I'm being honest*.

The reason we haven't excised Advantage entirely is simply because we obviously started out thinking the ruleset was thoroughly playtested and that Cubicle 7 wouldn't release something that didn't work. In other words, we're still trying to salvage as much of the rules as we can.

Currently, our progress vs. Advantage has brought us to a certain state:
1) First we realized unlimited Advantage was entirely braindead. It completely transforms the game experience, turning WFRP4 into a game we do not want to play.
2) So we naturally attempted to restrict Advantage so you could never gain more than one per round.
3) this however was very messy. You sometimes needed to remember that you already gained one Advantage in the beginning of the round (which in real playtime could be half an hour ago). The admin load was unwelcome.
4) Furthermore, Advantage was still hugely unbalanced. It just happened less often, and it took more time to happen. But it still dominated play.

Or distorted I should say - the fundamental idea that characters need to take meta action "stop that Bandit or he'll gain unstoppable Advantage" is alien to our way of playing Warhammer. That is - we're approaching WFRP4 as a game that is supposed to serve our needs and support the existing way of playing WFRP. We're entirely uninterested in being told WFRP is this new thing now.

5) So the next step was to reduce advantage to an either-or thing. This is where we are now.
The benefits are: no longer do you need to keep track of how many advantage you've got. You don't need to track whether you've gained or lost advantage either. Advantage is automatically capped, since you either get +20 or you don't. Most (but not all) Talents still work at least some of the time, since you still have Advantage to spend.
The drawbacks are: you still need to learn and use the rules for gaining and spending advantage. The jury is still out on that. Is advantage really bringing enough benefit to justify the complexified gameplay?

(Not coincidentally, this makes 4E Advantage work rather like 1E Winning and Gaining :) )

After all: there are many rules in WFRP4 but not enough rules that encourage options and choices.

*) WFRP4 may contain loads and LOADS of more rules detail than WFRP2, but it mostly hides the fact that the choices (in combat) are actually reduced compared to v2. Rules that allow you more choice of action is one thing. Rules you... mostly track for the sake of tracking them... is another. Sadly, the hallmark of the inexperienced designer is to confuse the latter for the former. To be brutally honest, many subsystems feel mostly tacked on. Inept attempts to make the v2 game richer and deeper but mostly achieving clutter and administration.

Anyway, should we conclude Advantage isn't worth the hassle, the next and final step would be to remove it entirely. But we're not there yet.
CapnZapp
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Location: Norsca

Hell Hound wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 8:51 am One of the things that really bothered me about 4e were the number of talents. At the top of the list are combat maneuver talents, which I hate, and then there are talents that are easily covered just through role playing and having a creative player and GM. And many I just find redundant.
Any plans to hack away at number of talents or are you okay with them?
I believe their idea for many combat talents was to gate more complex combat actions behind something, so that the newb player isn't immediately asked to choose between lots of different options.

Of course, WFRP4 is a horribly cluttered game so that newb is probably much better off playing something else (like WFRP2 or D&D 5E)...

That said, I understand your sentiment. I realize lots of players don't want loads of rules clutter when they just wish to bash something, and WFRP4 more or less foists that upon any player that chooses to play a character with a martial-minded Career. The talents is where the real combat power lies, so you can't very well just ignore them.

WFRP4 is an unapologetic throwback to simulationist details-heavy rulesets of days past. There's no way around that. I entirely understand if that turns lots of gamers away. I think it is unfortunate, because I don't think anyone looked at 2E and said "this game is okay but could need more rules detail, more little trings to track, and loads more special exceptions to keep in mind".

The devs have just let the project run away. As for out-of-combat talents, you have a point. If a talent gives you a huge advantage on doing something exploratory or social, or even lets you do something specific, that implicitly means you can't do that at all if you don't have the talent.

It all boils down to a complete collapse of project management. WFRP4 exhibits all the tell-tale signs of a project where too little time or manpower means nobody kept sight of the overall picture.

No, I don't have any good answers for you. Starting to reduce and generalize the painfully specific Talents is a fools' errand.

I'm getting the vibe you prefer simple rules that doesn't get in the way of your roleplaying. Therefore I honestly think it would be easier to start over with the 2E rules and just add the 4E things you do like. (Assuming you found 2E at all palatable, of course)

Essentially, embarking on the very task that I am sure the 4E team set out to do with the best intentions, but then not cocking it all up like they did... ;)

Sorry for not being of more help.
Hell Hound
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:40 am

Yeah, I'm sticking with 2e. I was hoping for something that streamlined combat a bit but kept it exciting. I like huge battles. I also wanted a game that cut down on prep time in regards to making npc's.
I'm open to new rules and trying new things. It didn't take me long to realize 4e did the opposite of what I wanted. I think there is too much overlap in the careers as well. However, there are a few things I liked about it - the corruption point system and social status.
I'll play it but not run it. And since I'm the only GM in my circle... : )
Veshkuul
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jan 12, 2023 7:38 am

My house rule forr the Dual Wielder talent:

Dual Wielder
Max: Agility Bonus
Tests: Melee or Ranged when attacking with two weapons
When armed with two weapons, you may attack with both for your
Action at the cost of 2 Advantage Points + the Enc. of your off-hand weapon.
For each point in the Dual Wielder talent reduce the Advantage Point cost
by 1 to a minimum of 1 Advantage Point.
Resolve each attack separately.
If you choose to attack with both weapons, all your defensive rolls
until the start of your next Turn suffer a penalty of –10. You do
not gain an Advantage when you successfully strike or Wound an
opponent when Dual Wielding unless both attacks hit.

As a side note I have capped Advantage as Initiative bonus + Willpower bonus
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