ejacobs said:

I like this interpretation. I prefer it to limiting the caster artificially by having "spell levels". I liked the 2nd edition Magic system because even a newbie wizard could try to cast a powerful spell, though with a lot of risk.

When I saw the first diary entries, I thought that in the new Magic system, to cast a spell, you would need to obtain a certain number of successes and that Banes obtained in the dice would bring with them Tzeentch's curses.

Maybe the "3 power" means the number of successes you need to cast a spell, I would prefer it to your Wizard having x power points per day and "spending" them to cast spells. I always thought of such systems as being extremely artificial and not fun at all (that's also the reason why D&D never was my favourite game).

Anyway, one other thing I would like is if they can provide variant rules. The game could come with 2-3 mechanics to interpret the results for combat and magic specially.

cogollo said:

Surely Tzeentch's Curse would be universally triggered by rolling a Chaos Star when attempting to cast a spell...

cogollo said:

I thought that the 3 power had something to do with the ingredient because it was right next to it. I have a feeling that the "recharge tokens" mean that when you use them all you have to cast the spell again to benifit from it's effect. So I guess they are just for the spell duration.

lordsneek said:

This is also a very interesting interpretation... So the number of successes you rolled could determine the duration of the spell or how powerful its effects... That would make a lot of sense! You could still cast the spell as many times as you want, each time risking the dreaded Bane or Chaos Star appearing!

Now I'm really itching for the next developer's diary entry! The more I read about the game, the more I like it (I have already agreed with some friends to start a campaign after Christmas).

ynnen said:

ynnen said:

Hi Ynnen,
I would interpret the results very slowly indeed. Maybe I'm a bit stupid, or my heads wired up the wrong way, but I find this pictorial display more of a riddle than an aid. Sure, with practice I can get familiar with their meaning but I'm still looking at a time consuming process. For every task resolution one must take into account stance and all manner of effects to construct a dice pool unique to any given situation, from there the dice are rolled and in some cases extra dice are rolled again, then comes the task of giving these symbols meaning by consulting all manner of charts depicted on bits of card that may cause other effects that may result in the to-ing and fro-ing of tokens on said bits of card then the GM must finally make up a story that he thinks the dice represent (and as we are now dealing with interpretation rather than absolutes the player may see things very differently.).
The sheer unwieldiness of this task resolution system will destroy the flow of the narrative, the building of tension, take up a lot more time and probably test the patience and goodwill of the players involved. Previous editions of WHRP presented a quick and easy way of task resolution (although combat can be clunky) with elaboration being the Provence of GM and Player as befitting the context and mood at that time. From Call of Cthulhu to 4thEd D&D it’s all about rules that resolve quickly and keep the pace, whether it’s slow burning terror or high-octane God-bashing. This new edition boldly eschews these tried and tested methods which makes it quite a gamble for the $100 price tag.
Maybe I've been too harsh, maybe playtesting tells a different story, but I feel that there are enough facts now to form a concern that there is too much emphasis on the dice and the cardboard tools and charts that come with them. So sorry Ynnen but when it comes to my custom.... No dice.

Gruuber said:

Right on.

In addition, what is occur to me, is that in the end we have: success of failure. As always.

Gruuber said:

You say this as if it is a universal certainty, when it is in fact far from certain. I have played a lot of RPGs in the nearly 30 years I've been playing games, and this was no more time consuming than adding up a series of dice. No, it is not as fast as a simple percentage under/over roll, but neither did the percentages give the players or GM hooks into the story.  As always, you can take them or leave them; you can ignore or use the cards relying on the symbols and merely focus on the successes versus the failures.

Maybe this new iteration is not your thing; maybe it doesn't work for a lot of people, but I absolutely dispute the claim that this dice mechanic destroys the narrative. I read through the symbol sheet once, and it took me a handful of seconds to read that result, but the dice gave me several very quick ideas on how to add narrative to the interpretation beyond a mere success.

Gruuber said:

1. You've got to be kidding saying interpreting this result is slow...

There are 3 hammers (successes) and 1 crossed swords (failures)... 3-1=2 successes, so the action is a success... you don't need to be Einstein to interpret the basics of that pool of dice...

WFRP 2nd edition and/or D&D have a lot of bonuses/penalties you have to take into account, so at the end you end up spending more time than what you think deciding whether the action was a success or not...

plus you got a lot of extra details you can decide to use or not (these details were not in WFRP 2nd edition, so adding them to the maths is comparing pears and apples).

2.You also say "...then the GM must finally make up a story that he thinks the dice represent... the player may see things very differently"...

I thought we were talking about roleplaying here, not about algebrae or Tide of Iron. I thought the GM interpreted a lot of things in RPGs but maybe my gaming club is full of even freakier people than I thought.

Gruuber said:

"The sheer unwieldiness...."!!!!

Have you ever really played D&D 3.5 or 4th edition? How much time do you need to calculate all your bonuses/penalties when the heroes are 5th level or more?... the Wizard casts Haste, the Priest Bless, the Druid casts Barkskin on your Fighter and you decide to give yourself a -2 to your attacks for a +2 to your Damage... then you charge the Hobgoblin and roll 1d20 +7 (Str+basic attack + weapon focus) +1(charging)+1(haste)+1(bless)-2(Power Attack) against the AC 18 of the Hobgoblin... wait, your Rogue colleague is flanking the Hobgoblin, so you get an extra +2 to the attack...

and that's only to decide whether you have hit or not! And WFRP 2nd edition was not so messy only because the combat system was simple and, sorry to say, a bit clunky (though I liked it and only created a couple of house rules for my campaign).

Anybody who has played Descent can tell you that interpreting the results of a pool of dice takes a few seconds at maximum...

now, the time wasting part of pools of dice is indeed grabbing the correct dice, so that's why I bought 3 extra sets of dice for my Descent game, then I let the players have only the dice they need to roll 90% of the time... so you can do the same with WFRP 3rd edition...

"sacrilege!!" - say some people in this forum- "FFG wants to get rich selling us weird-looking dice"... exactly what my grandpa said when he saw me opening the D&D Basic Red box 20 years ago... the irony.

cogollo said:

And thats why some of us wont touch DnD with a 10 foot pole ;)

cogollo said:

Or to visualise this: www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0034.html

 As GM, I'm interested in the system because I find adding and substarcting modifiers in my head a wee bit hard to do over a long nights play. Even the simple numbers of V2... If these could become dice, it will lighten the load somewhat.

I like numbers, really, but I'm diffrent (maybe it's because numbers always liked me ).

Anyway, I've decided to try this one. Not because I'm fully convinced (I'm not, and I will be not, until I see some videoa of actual gameplay, and at least short fight example). I will try this one, because I'm starting a new group of beginning players (they are new to the game and fantasy business, and right now on the tabletop and card games stage, moving to the RPG in the near future I hope). They will be my testing animals .

Without really knowing (since I've not read the rules per se), I'm still wondering what happens if  player is deeper into a Stance than he has Atribute... (Let's say I'm at wreckless 3 but only have 2 Strength for my Strength check.)

In the Gen Con video I got the impression Stance Dice were "added" to the pool. Now it's pretty clear they replace Atribute DIce.

1) Could that happen?

2) How would that be handled?

/wolf