dvang said: People have already explained the cards. I'll also point out, though, that they also mentioned the fact that the cards makes it easier to add additional cards to the game. Instead of flipping through a half dozen books to find a talent (if you can't recall which book the talent came with), instead you sort through a single card deck for a copy of that talent card. You can then conveniently place it in front of you, rather than hogging the book and needing to refer to it later. Instead of the talents, I'll defend the cards by stating the careers. Every time after a session when xp was used to buy new skills, I had to pass several books around so people could see what advances they could take. Now they can just look at their card. No longer do you have to carry books around you won't use on your session, only because someone has a career that's listed in that book.

I don't get it. Nearly everyone complains that combat in WFRP 2 was slow, and now that it's sped up, people still complain? I'm sure combat will still be as deadly as ever, but will go a lot faster with this henchman system. We just need a combat example to show how the finer points work (hint hint).

Theoderek said: While this is true, it wouldn't find it's way into my game only because I worry to much about facts and reality (at least when it comes to the parts of the world that do equate to our own). Seeing how the players would usually have no experience driving, controlling, or even operating these, devices they would have a hard time being able to actually pull off such thing. People can't just jump into a tank and operate it without prior training. They would need to understand how all of it works then it would be a process of trail and error in order to learn how to properly steer it. While this is going on, the guards would be alerted to the attempted theft and move in to stop it (of course this is giving that your comment was right and they were dumb enough not to post a strong guard on one of the few existing Steam tanks when they have enemies all over). The same thing would be said for the gyrocopter, they would most likely have no knowledge on how to properly fly and thus they would crash it in the attempt. While I agree, to operate a Steam Tank or Gyrocopter, you need to have the Engineering Skill (if such a thing will still exist, if not, I doubt you'll be able to move it), it would be fun for when the adventurers decide to help a noble in a territorial dispute with another noble to have them... "interact" with a Steam Tank. Just think of the looks on their little faces when they see a Steam Tank ride up the battle field and they go "oh BLEEP! They have a Steam Tank! Time to get the BLEEP out of here!". Just remember the golden rule of WFRP, if the PC's can use it, so can the bad guys...

Why would they need a bicycle? If they want to go from point A to point B, either walk or go by horse. If you're a noble, get a coach. Making something small to transport one person seems a bit of overkill for a steam engine... Eh? No steam engine? Then what powers the gears? What? You move the gears yourself!? What on earth for? If I wanted to exert myself, I don't need this... "bikesicle", I'll just walk! And I don't want to exert myself, so I'll keep my coach, thank you!

Problem is, there's soft-cover and there's soft-cover. One is called soft-cover only because it's flexible nature deprives it of being called hard-cover, and the other is basicly a glorified page, deeply ashamed by the fact it's called a soft-cover, fully aware it's nothing more than two pages glued together, looking to become the target of a spilled drink, so it can desolve in embarrasment, hoping it's transgressions in coverage are soon forgotten. My money, however, is on the first kind.

Not really related to their... uhm... origin... but something that may help... speculate... I remember a bit of flavour text from the Ork expansion of Warhammer Quest. It was about the finding of a scholar who did research of Orks (he didn't find how they pop up either), and noticed how the bigger Orks were always in charge. He found out or speculated (it's been too long to clearly remember) that it wasn't the fact the Orks were bigger that they were in charge, but the other way around, that they became bigger BECAUSE they were in charge. If this is true, it would make sense that they're spores, since plants grow better if they're payed attention to (or in the case of weeds, if not payed attention to).

If they're spores it would be very interesting. An explorer brought a strange plant he found deep in a cave to the nobel he works for, but since he's only interested in exotic treasures and not exotic plants, he stores it in one of his many cellars. And suddenly a group of Orks pop out of nowhere and take over his large mansion! Enter Residence Evil (with Orks) or something similar.

Emirikol said: They're obviously a very successful race if they've managed to overpopulate the planet That's because they breed like rabbits. The Dwarfs and Elfs look away for a decade or such and suddenly a human settlement pops up. Success has nothing to do with it.

I think it's said in the seminar that you can move one space per turn, but I'm not 100% sure (been a bit too long since I've seen the video ).

Varnias Tybalt said: Necrozius said: Whining and bitching about how FFG raped your childhood is totally lame at this point (and we've heard it all before). That actually made me laugh out loud. "Raped your childhood", hehe. While I can't recall hearing many of the naysayers actually using that phrase, sometimes you certainly do get the feeling that it's what they mean, even if they don't say it. Seeing all these reports about WFRP 3 makes me feel like they're touching my childhood's no-no place!

theyoungmaster said: It sounds like a character has a special ability for his career that he can loose if he does'nt complete the career, only becoming permanent when the careers complete. I'm hoping I misunderstood this sentance, because it makes no sense for a character to be able to do something and then forget how because he changes careers. You make it sound like the special ability is shooting lasers out of their eyes or something. I think this "special ability" is more of a "routine". Something they've gotten used to during their career, they can do it without a problem. For example: Joe and Billy-Bob both start their career as Burger Flippers (basic career), After a few weeks, Joe decides it's not for him and changes career, while Billy-Bob sticks with it until the end. As a result, Billy-Bob still remembers how to look for the signs when the burger is just right and gets his extra die when cooking, but Joe hasn't because he didn't stick around long enough for it to become routine. Alan, on the other hand, is a Programmer (advanced career) who gets the Debugging special ability at the end of his career, because during his career, he learned where the troublespots usually are from his experience. Every one who's been something a long time, picks up stuff he remembers for the rest of their life because they became routine, while people who quit that career never picked up to that extent and thus forgets them. For me it makes sense, and I hope, with these examples, it does too for you.

NewTroski said: We've already seen how the dice pools work, which included an example skill use. We know (I think) that Weapon Skill is now a skill and not an attribute. I'd like to see more of how combat will work. Is it opposed rolls or vs. a target number? If the latter, what is that target number based on? Good point. If it's like other skill checks, you'll probably hit if you score a success. And if that's the case, I foresee a lot of hits... Which brings me to wounds, how will that be? One wound for every success? Yep, I'd like to see a combat example.

Let's turn this around. New scenario: FFG says the four starting races are Human, Dwarf, Wood Elf and Halfling, saying High Elf would come out later in the Tool Kit. Obvious response is "WTF? In WFRP 2 we could choose Elf and then tweak to make it a Wood Elf or High Elf, but now we are forced to play a Wood Elf, and if we want a High Elf we have to buy the Toolkit? I'm forced to buy a supplement to play an Elf that's not a treehugger! Why not switch with the Halfling? Who plays those anyway?" There's just no pleasing in some people...

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

Tang86 said: Is there an official release list of the core box careers? ...and is Highwayman a career at all in any WHFRP3 product that we know about to date? Thanks! No official list yet, that's why we have this unofficial list, consisting of "speculation" (the wizard and priest careers) and careers mentioned in the designer diaries and on the card previews. As for Highwayman, no news yet.

kristof65 said: My biggest problem with dice pools is the averaging issue. Like someone said previously, it becomes boring if the result can be predicted 90% of the time. Take many of the D&D spells in the various editions that use ever increasing numbers of dice as you gain in level. At 1-3rd levels, there is a lot of variety in the results - sometimes the spells do really well, other times they suck, because you're only rolling 1-3 dice. By the time you're up around 7-8the level, the spell results are pretty darn predictable, because you don't get as much variation out of 7-8 dice. By the time you're rolling 15-20 dice, you can pretty much predict exactly what your damage will be within a half dozen points. It get's boring after awhile. I'm not quite sure how the symbols combined with the dice pool will play out - maybe it will "fix" the averaging issue, maybe it will make it worse. Yes, you're right, those dice are indeed predictable. But that's because all the dice you roll are the same. The WFRP dicepools consist of d8's, d10's and d6's, each having a good or bad result. That's a bit harder to predict what the result will be. With numerical dice, you just have to predict the average, with these dice, you need to predict the result of each die. I'm sure there's a mathematical formula to calculate this, but I doubt someone will be able to do it on the fly during a game (as for your example, if it's d6's that are rolled, I'd say 4 is the average, so 4x20 is 80 damage, give or take). Still, in the end, no matter how much dice you roll, how good or how bad the odds are, it all comes down to a chance of 50%. Either you make it, or you don't...

Knight Panther said: Me neither! On a skilltest my result (in %) will always be a 96-100 Get with the times. Now it's "three blanks and two skulls".

Gnutten said: Yeah, we have nothing to be upset about... * Stances? Sounds like a cheap trick to simulate tactics in a RPG. Add one dice if you want, but know that one side of 8 has the "GM kick you in the nuts" symbol. * Card for careers? We take away the plethora of existing careers just do select some dozens of them and put them on cards. All this so the GM can let the players pull a career from a deck? Hey, now you c the troll slayer... and now you don't. Aha I watched The Sting seven hundred times just to be able to do funky tricks with the career deck WHOOZA!! To bad my dog chewed up the Templar card so you cant play Templar anymore... * Changing the time line? Not sure if this is official yet but it surely helps current players to include these new rules in their campaigns... oh btw... you know all the stuff we played though the last years... it didn't happen btw... Just some response about these three points: * I remember long discussions in the past of people saying that having more than one attack was bad for the creativity in battle, since people would always take the Swift Attack action, and not explore any other options to fight (why should they? they have two attacks!). With these stances, the players are reminded they have other options and this can prevent combat from becoming dull and unimaginative ("push him back so he's in sight of the archer again? But then I'd have to sacrifice my Swift Attack! Nah, he's good here.") * People seem to forget the one reason why the rulebook was always opened at a session (at least for my party), to see what Talents and Skills a career had when the players got their XP. Now everything is on the card, and they can decide faster what to get. For me, that's a good thing. * Yep, changing the time line. Oh btw... you know all the stuff we played through the last years... it just became official, because one of the MAJOR complaints about WFRP v2 (aside from the encumbrance ) was Storm of Chaos. I've seen too many threads saying "-bleep- this, for our campaign, we follow the events of the Enemy Within and not Storm of Chaos". For a lot of players the campaign was either set before SoC or it just didn't happen (or it did, but on a smaller scale, and hey, won't you believe it, none of the campaigns are situated in that small part of the Empire). Speaking of encumbrance, if FFG has fixed that, I'm positive everyone will say they perfected WFRP

GreyLord said: I think the point was actually that the forum for Ratcatcher's tale...and ALL posts in it...simply...vanished...gone with the wind... Which is actually standard FFG fare when they are done with a product or item. But RCT wasn't a product of FFG, but part of the marketing campaign for WFRP 3.

Ravenheart87 said: From the Description, it seems to be either not too long before the Storm of Chaos, or it's after the Storm, and some before something awful... I think it was mentioned somewhere that Jay said at GenCon that the general consensus during development was "Storm of Chaos? What's that?" so I think it's before SoC (which should make a lot of fans happy ).

A Ratcatcher's Tale was (an attempt at) a marketing campaign for WFRP v3. It got a lot of criticism (such as hoax) but it showed (or should have showed) what kind of world the new setting would be. It would have worked (better), if FFG had done something like this from the start (and thus not have published something for v2), since fans were already speculating a v3 since then (maybe the -bleep-storm would have been less).

Emirikol said: I'm a fairy-fan-boy-lobbiest-to-not-like-whatever-edition-I'm-arguing-against-troll (etc., etc.) heh, fairy...

I think you guys are going about this the wrong way. The way I see it, you roll a number of dice (in v2 a D100), with certain (mis)fortune dice added because of circumstances (in v2 a -10/+10 modifier), and you explain the result based on the outcome of the roll (meaning you don't just make stuff up (no pun intended) to say how you succeeded, since everything was there in the first place and was added to the roll). So, in the end, if you roleplayed the barely success of a test in v2 (a role that would have been a total failure if it hadn't been for that +20 modifier), I see no reason why you can't do it now. As for damage being greater with more hammers or eagles or whatever, no, that's not the narrative or RP aspect. That's LISTENING to the fans! Check the v2 board and you'll see lots of fans making up houserules that base damage on the degrees of success. They just made that official.

Foolishboy said: Normally adverts would do the selling, but WFRPv3 is in the strange position of having Runefang arguing on the forums and Jay Little giving seminars at GenCon both aimed at convincing people that the impression the official adverts have left them with is incorrect. I think a lot of people are still with the original press release in the back of their head when FFG took over the license. It also said it would produce board games for GW (of which Talisman was obvious) and also sparked "hope" for Warhammer Quest. And now we have a box set with cards and new dice, so obviously the old "fear" popped up that this would be a board game. I'll just wait for further information to make my final conclusion, but, as many, I'm still sceptical, yet hopeful.

Bruenor said: Everything sounds to me like "Lets make money! Have special dice (which are very ugly imo); split the rulebook in two, so the customers think they get more for their 100 $, and so on..." The price is much too high for a Roleplaying product. Isn't that what WotC did with their books? You have the Dungeon Master Manual, the Player Handbook, the Monster Manual and what not? Add that all together, and it's about the same price (minus the dice and cards, so we actually get more). For the moment, I'm saving my money, and if news keeps being positive, I'll buy it.