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r_b_bergstrom

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Posts posted by r_b_bergstrom


  1. I agree that being knocked prone isn't a big deal, but it's not like that's the only thing that Shield Slam has to offer.

    Shield Slam lets you roll Resilience to attack, which could be good if your career doesn't have Weapon Skill but does have Resilience (such as Bailiff, Boatman, Coachman, Commoner, Dockhand, Ratcatcher, Watchman and Zealot). It can set-up your next attack by giving you an extra Expertise die. And it can work if some situation or action has stolen or broken your main weapon. Knocking them prone is just one small factor in making the card work.

    I mean, if there were a "Trip" card that only knocked people prone, then we might need prone to matter more. But there's a number of flavorful and minor mechanical reasons to use a card like Shield Slam, and it's not just in hope of getting the boons that will knock someone prone.


  2. Yeah, in general I think they should be comparable, if not exactly the same. Blind could even be a little worse than pitch black darkness, to account for the psychological aspect of being blinded.

    But the Gathering Storm don't seem to follow that logic. A challenge die is worth right around 3 misfortune dice, depending on how harsh you get with the chaos stars. Just slightly nastier than 3 misfortune dice if your GM is particularly creative with the chaos stars, and just slightly less nasty if the GM tends to convert them into banes instead of having it trigger something dire.

    For those folks who've upped the difficulties by adding failure symbol effects onto the chaos stars, then the purple die might be worth about the same as 4 black. I haven't analyzed the math on that. But for the rest of us, it would seem pitch black is worse than blind, and that doesn't make much sense at all.

    I may go add an extra misfortune die onto my copies of the blind condition. A purple and a black are worth about the same as 4 black. It seemed a little weak, anyway - a top-notch starting PC archer is still likely to hit most targets while blinded.


  3. Here's another one that doesn't look great at first blush, but could be good for the right character, party or situation:

    Threading the Needle - as an attack card, it's kind of lackluster (only giving bonus damage on conservative, and only with the best success line). But it has double boon lines that can help your allies, and that boost doesn't cost you your attack. It's a good card for parties that work well together to set it up, but not so great if your group is very independant. It also has the phrasing of "not engaged with target" instead of the "not engaged with an enemy" line of the basic ranged attack, so you can use it to keep firing your bow at nearby enemies even if one enemy has split off from the main engagement to swing at you. This is a card that derives its power from lots of little elements, instead of a single big effect.


  4. That way the benefit is easy to explain. It's a card for pumping up your allies, that doesn't cost you your attack in the process. On conservative,  it lets you support your friends by giving them a manoeuvre instead of taking one yourself on double boons. In Reckless mode, the benefit is just the double-boons giving bonus dice to your allies. Think of it more as a support card than a huge attack, and you'll see it's useful.

    Of course it also has the potential to be a big attack card, but only situationally. The conservative side, when firing into a large battle, will score higher average damage than a basic attack. It's not a huge boost, and it won't always be an option, but as icing on the support card cake it's pretty good.

    There's one other bonus to the card that I can see. Normal ranged attack says "Not engaged with an enemy". Threading the Needle says "Not engaged with target." So you can't shoot a normal arrow attack if the enemy gets up next to you. But you can use Threading the Needle while an Orc is swinging at you, as long as you don't fire at that specific orc but instead target one in another engagement. That's a little weird conceptually, but it appears to be what the card actually does allow.

    I'd say being able to boost your friends a little without loosing your attack, occasionally score some bonus damage in the process, and have an action that might work in situations where the enemy has rushed you and cut off your other attack card, is as a whole probably worth 1 xp. 

     

    If that's not good enough for you, the GM certainly has it in their power to make the card better, as well. I'm not even talking about changing the card, just about applying misfortune dice to other actions per the normal rules. I'd just make sure that I always add at least 2 misfortune dice to ranged attacks into a melee engagement, and then assume that Threading the Needle already has those two dice accounted for on the card. In other words, the situational difficulty modifier for firing into melee is already on the card, and you don't get "double whammied". In fact, if you take a prepare manoeuvre, you can actually come out ahead with this card. If you look at it that, the card's pretty good.


  5. 1) Yes, it requires one person to be the DM / GM (Game Master). You can play it with two (one player, one GM), but it's probably easiest/best with 3 or 4.

    2) There's really not a lot of help in this area, in this game. Warhammer uses a much more abstract combat system than most RPGs, so no grids and maps at all. While it does have a bestiary section, it's not really broken out by location and there aren't any random monster charts. The game is more about telling a collaborative story, and the GM chooses whatever monsters, characters, and challenges the GM feels would make for an entertaining story.

    3) It's really not set up for Dungeon Crawling at all. Yes, there's monsters and combat and adventure, but there's also conspiracy, social encounters, haughty noblemen, treacherous cultists, paranoid witchhunters, etc. With RPGs, the GM dreams up a story (generally) for the players to get involved in. So you could use it for a dungeon crawl, but that's not really what this particular RPG is about. If a dungeon crawl is what you're looking for, this might not be the best game.

    4) There aren't any good demo videos, at least not that I've seen.

     

    Honestly, judging from your questions, you might be better off with a game like Descent. It's a miniatures-based dungeon-crawling board game with strong RPG elements. It's also published by FFG, so there's more info about it somewhere on this same website. I've never played Descent, but I've heard lots of good things about it. I don't know if Descent works for two, but otherwise it pretty well matches the things you're asking for/about. Descent, I've been told, is a good straight-up dungeon romp, is probably the best of that sort of game currently on the market. There's plenty of older games of that sort that you might find at ebay or a game store with a good used game collection: Mage Knight Dungeons, Warhammer Quest, Hero Quest, Dragon Strike, etc.

    Warhammer FRP is much more abstract than the sort of things you seem to be asking for. As I indicated, it's much more about story and character, and not so much about tactical combat. If you don't have previous RPG experience (and no one else you'll be gaming with does either) , it might not be a good place to start, either. It's not the most clearly-written rulebook, and may be hard to figure out if you don't really know the basics of RPGing. The game doesn't "play itself", someone has to come up with a scenario to run for the other players. If you've got the time, interest, and storytelling inclinations to do so, then this game is really good. But if you're mostly just looking for a skirmish against monsters and badguys, there's other games (some of which are mentioned above) that will scratch that itch a little better.

    Hope that helps clear things up for you.


  6. I actually think sluggish is really good. Especially in large complicated fights with multiple location cards or some other reason where you'd want to move around. It's one fatigue per manoeuvre, including their free manouevre, and that fatigue = wounds for NPCs. That seems pretty buff, especially when combined with forced disengagement per the conservative side of Beat Back. Only problem I see with Beat Back is that it takes a comet to make them sluggish. But, honestly, the sluggish will probably impact the enemies performance more than 50% of possible criticals, so it's still pretty good. Could maybe use "comet: +1 damage, and target gets sluggish" or something to that effect. But overall, it's not a bad card in my opinion. Great for keeping enemies away from weaker party members, holding a choke point, preventing someone's escape, etc.


  7. Jericho said:

     

     Ok, no responses ?

     

    Actually, there was a ninja response. Snuck right in while you were typing up yours, or vice-versa.

    Jericho said:

    According to the FAQ, all of these actions would have a Simple (0d) difficulty.

     

    Do you agree with that ?

    Doesn't it make the roll superfluous ? Too easy ?

     

     

     

    The game is based on the concept that success is more fun than wasted actions. One could argue that this isn't the best setting for that paradigm, as the "dregs of the empire" theme of previous editions is sometimes at conflict with the high success rate of the current edition. Honestly, though, I'd rather have a fight (or social encounter, etc) that takes half as long with half as many failed rolls. It's just more fun that way, IMHO.

    As to making the rolls superfluous, if the dice system didn't have those lovely side-effects I'd say yes. But given the banes, fatigue, and delay symbols, you can still have things go wrong on a roll you "can't fail". The degrees of success allowed in the game from comets, boons, and triple-hammer lines also makes these rolls interesting where a simple binary success/fail roll wouldn't.

    A lot of the cards that have no difficulty feature a success line that just gives dice to future rolls. Succeeding at a Big City Bravado roll is trading an entire action for one white die on your next couple actions. If I had to seriously worry about whether or not I'd succeed at the Big City Bravado, I'd never take that card. Honestly, even with 90% chance of success, I still wouldn't rush to take the card, because the one bonus die is rarely worth taking a whole extra round to get the real job done. Adding a purple die would be a nail in that card's coffin.


  8. I just use whatever difficulty symbols appear in the upper right corner, and that's it unless there's other modifiers (like if the action would require sight and it's dark out or raining, etc.) I assume that if the game doesn't list a "vs something", then it's a simple test with 0 difficulty.

    Yes, this means you succeed at these types of action 85% of the time, but the RAW assumes that you succeed at attacks 70% of the time, so it's not a big deal to me. Off the top of my head, none of the cards you're talking about have effects so awesome that they'll break the game even if they work 95% of the time. You are giving up an attack to do them, after all.


  9. commoner said:

    @ r_b_bergstrom: 

    You are absolutely correct.  The confusion in my reply comes from the fact we have our weapon cards printed on cards and we have since the beginning (we put them on Arkham style cards before the set came out as it was a complaint to us they weren't on cards.).  So what I meant by an action card was a weapon's CR rating.  Our interpretation of the CR rule:  "a weapon's critical rating indicates the number of boons required to convert a wound inflicted by this weapon into a critical wound." means it can be done multiple times.  I know this seems like a contradiction to the only one Boon effect may be triggered, but that is implicitly stated in the Boon effect on Action Cards section and not repeated in the weapon section, nor is the CR rating measured as a Boon effect, it is an effect onto itself in its own category the CR rating.  Feel free though, to correct me if I'm wrong, it's just our interpretation.  Ultimately, in a way this comes down to the fact we don't interpret CR to be a success line, but an entity onto itself.   

     

    I see what you're saying, and from reading just the rulebook, it would look like you're right.  However, the FAQ clarifies that it doesn't work that way. From page 8 of the FAQ:

    A weapon’s critical effect can only be triggered one per attack using
    Sigmar’s Comet results. A weapon’s critical rating can only be
    triggered once per attack using boons . Other sources of critical
    damage effects (such as an action card, talent, or magic effect) can
    each contribute their own critical damage results if the triggering
    requirements are satisfied.


  10. LukeZZ said:

    r_b_bergstrom said:

    I doubt that's really what you were looking for though, sounded like you wanted a list of actions and talents that might help a lightly armoured character survive a fight that had already broken out.

     

    Exactly.

    In that case, the list I furnished should be reasonably thorough. Hope there's something there that fits your needs.


  11. There are some location cards that already handle this to a certain extent. You mentioned the "Secret Passageway", which I think is the worst of that category (in that the mechanics of it are weird and hard to visualize). "Narrow Bridge" and "City Gates" do it much better. But sometimes you won't have a location card prepared that matches the site or situation. What to do then?

    "Guarded Position" (and the Improved version) seems to be a good way to represent this, other than that it costs someone their whole action. The "My Life For Yours" action is better in that it only eats up one action out of every 5.

    There may however be times where someone isn't willing to spend a whole action. Since combat is so abstract, they should still be able to interpose themselves to some extent. Rather than making it impossible to attack someone, I'd just apply situational dice modifiers. If the PCs take position behind someone or something, that gives a misfortune die or two to any attacks against them. I'd also let the person in front spend a manouevre to add a misfortune die to attacks against someone behind them, in parallel to the normal assist rule. May even give the person in front an extra fortune die on attacking the enemy who just tried to muscle or reach past them.

    On top of that, as others have said, the GM should roleplay and narrate as makes sense. If the Soldier is standing out front waving a sword and shouting, the orcs should probably consider them more of a threat and react accordingly. Meanwhile, the Student standing behind the soldier is relatively safe until and unless they do something that draws attention. (Or unless the Orcs outnumber them by such a margin that some can afford to completely ignore the angry guy with the sword.)


  12. commoner said:

    5.  I don't know what Advanced options you are looking for.  The cards advance themselves.  The more dice you have, the more boons generated so therefore a card that generates one critical on 2 boons can be activated now when the player rolls 4, 6, 8.  So instead of dropping just one critical they can up to four criticals or more in a single hit.  That is an "advanced" option because low character's simply can't do that and generate enough successes to succeed at an action. 

    Just to clarify - What you're proposing might make a good house rule, but it kinda sounded like you were saying it's the way the main rules work.

    Per the rules, each boon line can only be used once. If you disregard that rule, you'll definitely change the relative power level of certain cards. Some actions have their best effects in the success lines, others in the boons, and still others in the comets. All of them, however, assume you can only use any given line just once (and only use one of the success lines). If you roll three or more comets, one can be a critical, one can access the comet line of the action card (if it has one), and the rest get turned into success or boons.


  13. Armoks said:

    "Are the conservative dice worse than the reckless ones?" I have asked myself after few sessions. I don't speak about probability of rolling successes or boons, but about effects of a delay symbol. My Players belive that two recharge counters are much worse that a fatigue or stress point (they are able to get rid of stress or fatigue by using talent cards or action cards), thus they don't use or don't like to use a conservative stance.

    The relative powerlevel of the delay symbol is entirely in the GMs hand. The tokens don't have to go on the card that's being used, you could put it on any action you can justify/explain. There are times when the initiative effect is stronger or weaker than the recharge effect. If your players are feeling that the delay symbol is too nasty, then it's possible that you as GM are being too aggressive with it. When they get rolled at my table, I tend to look for the second or third worst thing I could do with it. I identify the nastiest thing I could do, and then choose not to do it.

    Couple quick rules points/questions related to this. Missing either of these rules will make Conservative dice less attractive and Delay symbols much more nasty:

    • Regardless of how many delay symbols come up, there's just one delay. Per the rules (see the back cover of the main book), even 3 or 4 delay symbols only adds just 2 tokens to just 1 action. There have been a few posts on these forums by people who missed that at first. (Same thing with fatigue/stress from Reckless dice, by the way.)
    • Players can spend a fortune point to remove a recharge token from an action. If they've missed that option (it's mentioned on page 14 of the rulebook), delay will be much harder to overcome. Not that they'll use that option very often, but it does allow for the occassional instant access to an action they desperately need.

  14. LukeZZ said:

     

    Someone knows if there are options (talents and actions) specific for a characeter who wants to use a "light" armor or no armor?

     

     

    There really aren't any specific to lightly armored or unarmored.

    There are however, several cards that can make you harder to hit, or harder to wound. A character going light in the armor department would benefit from the following:

    • Robust Talent (you heal criticals easier)
    • Catlike Reflexes talent (adds 2 misfortune dice to a dodge)
    • Roll With It talent (+2 soak)
    • Untouchable talent (allows you to use Parry vs ranged attacks)
    • Improved Dodge action
    • Improved Parry action
    • Improved Guarded Position action
    • Dirty Tricks action (functions sort of like an extra dodge, but for characters with guile and skullduggery)
    • Man's Best Friend action and talent (Ratcatchers only, Action: your Pet intervenes to soak a crit; Talent: your Pet gives you +1 Defence)
    • Saga of Valaya action (adds an extra misfortune die to all your other active defences)
    • The Viper's Dance action (the conservative side gives +1 defence for every recharging reckless Ritual Dance card)
    • Shrug It Off action (increases Soak by 2 as a reaction)
    • A couple of careers (Troll Slayer, Flagellant) have  abiliities that can help.

    Of course, any of the things on my list (except the Troll Slayer ability) can be taken by a character in armor as well, so there's no mechanical reason to skip armor (beyond encumbrance).

     And of course, there are several Social Actions that can prevent fights from breaking out, or keep someone from attacking you for a short amount of time. I doubt that's really what you were looking for though, sounded like you wanted a list of actions and talents that might help a lightly armoured character survive a fight that had already broken out.


  15.  

    I agree with Mac40k. The numbers don't necessarily represent equipment, they represent a suggested difficulty / challenge level. Note the word "suggested". Change them if you need to, take cues from them if you want to, but don't stress over them not quite matching up with armor or weapon stats. They're meant as an abstraction to make things easier on the GM. If they're not doing that for you, then ignore them and make up your own stats.


  16. Kryyst said:

     

    First and foremost are the other players complaining?  If not, don't worry about it.

     

    I agree with most of what Kryyst says, especially with the point about using variety of play experience and situations to balance out the combat-heavy PCs.

    However,  I definitely disagree with the first two sentences, at least as a blanket statement. It really depends on your group. Some folks (like me) grouse and ***** at the smallest annoyance. Some other players, especially casual gamers and newer gamers, won't complain. They'll just leave the campaign. Or stick around, but not say anything till it's really festered and unsolvable. Maybe they don't realize that changing the rules is an option. Maybe they're there mostly for the social aspects of the game, and don't want to "ruin" someone else's fun by complaining. It's tempting to assume everything's fine if no one's complaining. Tempting, but not always correct. If my instincts are saying there's trouble brewing, I'd broach the subject with the group, and ask for input and feedback. Being proactive is a hallmark of a good GM. Small problems are best solved quickly before they have time to grow into something larger. You might at least bring up the notion that you might have to eventually house-rule the card. Otherwise, every session that goes by sends the implied message that everything is fine as-is. The longer that message is sent, the less likely they'll be to see it from your perspective if and when it gets bad enough you feel you have to house-rule.I learned this the hard way many years ago.

     

    That said, taking away a players toys usually means someone is going to be unhappy. So, if you do house-rule the Double-Strike, you'll want to give it a silver lining. Give them some other bonus to compensate, or let them swap the card out for a different one. Or give them an extra XP so they can pick up a second action to alternate with it. Maybe some other 1-xp equivalent, like a Stance Piece or a Fortune Die or something that's completely outside the advancement scheme. Maybe something in-character instead of mechanical. Figure out what you're willing to offer to compensate, and have it in mind before you bring up the topic of house-ruling their main attack. How long they've been playing it should be a factor here as well. If you could tell the card was broken from the first fight scene, there's probably no need to compensate. But if they'd been playing it that way for 5 or 10 sessions before the problem became obvious, they'll be more attached to the card. That's part of why I suggest nipping it in the bud. 


  17. Well, the game doesn't have nearly as tight timing rules as something like Magic: The Gathering, so it's impossible to say for certain what the intent was, unless someone on here goes and asks somebody at FFG.

    But I can see two arguments pointing in two different directions:

    • The cost depends on the severity value of the crit, therefore you need to know what the crit value is and you can only know that if the card is revealed. Therefore, you should get to see the card first.
    • The gromril armor is really good. Really good. There's a thread around here somewhere about just how hard it is to do any damage to an Ironbreaker. Letting them see the crit before making the decision just amplifies the thing that the career is already better at than all other careers. They don't need that boost.

    I'm inclined to say the first point more closely matches the designers intent, and the second point more closely matches the reality of the game mechanics. Which means picking between them is essentially a matter of taste.

     

    I'd look at the dynamics of your group. Know your group, and you'll be able to rule the best way for your game.

    If all the PCs are combat-characters, then I'd rule that the Ironbreaker gets to look at the crit first, as the extra bit of power will help distinguish that character from the others. The gap between PCs is small enough that giving the dwarf a shot in the arm will be a benefit to everyone.

    If the party includes characters that are definitely not fighters, and never will be, then I'd be inclined to say they have to use the power before they find out the nature of the crit. It reigns the power in a bit. The reason you'd want to do that is to take a bit of the sting out of the gap between PC capabilities. If you've got an Ironbreaker and a Scribe, foes that are the least bit challenging for the Ironbreaker will one-hit-kill the Scribe. While that certainly fits the gritty feel of Warhammer, it can be really hard to GM that well over a long time. (The abstract movement rules let you the GM get around this from time to time, but in a long campaign you might not be able to make drama and mechanics work in synch 100% of the time.)

    The most pertinent question might not be "what is the cards intent?" Instead it might be "what will play best for our group?" If there's a couple squishy social PCs, will they be happy trading off spotlight time with the tank based on whether or not there's a fight going on? Or will they decide that to stay competitive they need to take soldier as their second career and pile on the armor, leaving their original character concept in the dirt? Will the Ironbreaker in the group be willing to trade (or allow them) spotlight time, or is he (or she) the type that likely to get bored during social scenes and pick fights with the NPCs? Will the Ironbreaker revel in being the unkillable main target of the enemies, or will that player get upset that all the best attacks keep hitting him? Make the decision that leads to the most fun for your group.

     

     

    In the absence of any other factors, I'd rule in the favor of the Ironbreaker, and let them look at the crit before deciding to use that power. There is, after all, a good chance that the Gromril Armor was the reason they chose that career. You don't want to create a situation where they made a significant character investment (choosing that career) expecting a certain benefit, and now feel cheated (or just let down) because the card doesn't work the way they thought it did.


  18. I have Creative Thinking and I socket it in to the Focus slot on our Intrepid Explorers party card.

    One of the other players, who doesn't have a Focus slot on his Career, exhausts the Creative Thinking card. Does he pick one of his talents, or one of mine, to put with it? I'd think he picks one of his.

    So he puts one of his Tactics talents in the slot, or maybe even a Trick. Either way, it now sits in play until the Creative Thinking is done recharging. (And per the rules talents on the Party cards only refresh when we spend fortune points on them)

    Kinda weird, huh?


  19. Haggard said:

    I suppose you could interpret the card as saving you the maneuver, but at that point you are both stretching the wording of the talent and watering down its effects to an almost useless level.

    Thank you for being my sanity test. Sounds like you agree with me about the most likely interpretation of how the card is supposed to work.

     


  20. fnord3125 said:

     Not if she wants all the basic cards.  Apprentice wizards can take 2 action card advances, plus the 1 fixed action card advance.  That's 3.  There are 4 basic spell cards.  Obviously she's going to NEED Channel Power.  That leaves 2.  If she wants to do "magical stunts" she'll need Cantrip, and if she wants to defend against magic she'll want Counterspell.  Aaaaaand you're done.  :)  Anything else, anything particularly interesting would actually need to be bought after moving on to Acolyte or some other career.

    Most players in that situation would take some other action instead of Counterspell, and some would take something other than Cantrip as well. They're still gonna be tight on spells, but just not in quite the specific way you're suggesting.


  21. I know a lot of GMs have posted on this forum and say they use up as much A/C/E as possible in an "alpha strike" at the start of the battle.

    I just don't picture myself ever doing that.  At least not without some special circumstances - maybe in an ambush, or something?

    Burning through the whole pool in a round or two kinda feels like it's running counter to the point and purpose of the A/C/E pools, IMHO. I suspect the point of the pools is twofold:

    1) Reduce GM prep time, since you don't have to stat out specific skils and talents for each individual monster.

    2) Give the GM a flexible tool to customize the encounter on the fly.

    With those goals in mind, I tend to spend the points piece meal, responding to circumstances in the game, rather than front-loaded. I may spend a bunch at once sometimes, but only if it seems especially warranted by the circumstances. I use the A/C/E to control pacing, simulate morale effects, provide color and character to the encounter, etc.


  22. Jericho said:

    Also, I tend to divide monsters in groups that equal the party in number. So say 12 Goblins attack a party of 4, I'll spread them out into 4 groups of 3 Goblins for initiative purposes. After each and everyone of the monsters initiative slots, I'll remove recharge tokens from actions. So actions for monsters are shared, but recharge faster than the RAW dictates.

    I like that idea, and may use it myself.


  23. I've got the Gathering Storm. Picked it up a couple days ago. The adventure looks pretty good, and it's got lots of great little bits.


    My favorite part is the "Creative Thinking" talent. That is, assuming it works the way I think it does. It's a Focus talent that reads:

    • "Exhaust this tlent to choose and equip a new talent that you possess of any type in this slot; that talent remains equipped until Creative Thinking recharges."

    There's two ways to parse that statement. One is "pick a talent of any type and put it in this slot". The other would be "pick a talent of any of the types that fit in this slot, and put it in this slot". I'm guessing the former interpretation is the correct one, but it could have been phrased better. I'm not 100% certain this is what they meant for it to do, more like 98% certain. I may be reading things into it based on my desire to not have previously purchased talents be rendered unusable.

    Interpreting it the first way, this lets you use any talent you have. So if you used to be a Soldier and now you're a Student, you can exhaust this Focus talent to temporarily use one of your old Tactics or Reputation talents. I'm pretty happy with that as a solution to the "lost talent slot" conundrum that can come from career changes.

     

    So, the question is, do you agree or disagree with my interpretation of the talent?

    Is there any reason NOT to let PCs use Creative Thinking to access previous talents of other types? The only good argument I can think of is that it makes careers with Focus slots much better advanced choices for the long-term characters. That's not necessarily a problem, but it is a little weird. Before this came along, you wanted to pick secondary careers that matched your original slots. Now, you want ones with the same slots or Focus.
     

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