We played a campaign of about 10 sessions or so that were a collection of small dungeon hacks. The GM had a strategy guide for Icewind Dale and used the maps from that book for our delvings. There were only 2 PCs, i was an Outlaw, and the other PC was a Smuggler. We survived the campaign. Then again, we had easy access to guns and bombs - the bombs certainly made the encounter with 20 skeletons a little bit easier!

Quote from: RPGPundit;279925RANT

I'll just back away slowly from this argument and let you continue playing your hackfest version of WFRP in peace. It's about doing whatever makes you happy, after all.

Quote from: One Horse Town;279966We played a campaign of about 10 sessions or so that were a collection of small dungeon hacks. The GM had a strategy guide for Icewind Dale and used the maps from that book for our delvings. There were only 2 PCs, i was an Outlaw, and the other PC was a Smuggler. We survived the campaign. Then again, we had easy access to guns and bombs - the bombs certainly made the encounter with 20 skeletons a little bit easier!

Now that truly sounds like the very essence of a fun gaming experience!

RPGPundit

Quote from: Drew;279964Also, comparing WFRP 2E with low level AD&D 1E - which has been out of print for roughly 20 years - doesn't really say much beyond things being somewhat different in ye olde days.

I didn't know we were talking specifically about WFRP 2E. Or that WFRP 2E is fundamentally different from WFRP 1E in power level. And since the matter at hand is dungeon crawls, it's perfectly valid to bring up the era of D&D when dungeon crawls were most popular.

WFRP 1E and D&D 1E were contemporous. And they weren't intended to provide fundamentally different play experiences, just a different tone. If some of the fanbase of WFRP (especially the online fansites) have turned to a different style of play, that doesn't mean WFRP wasn't or can't be used to run a game with dungeons and lots of combat.

Quote from: Drew;279964And even if we did use early D&D as a metric, by 10th level your character has pretty much outshone his third+ career WFRP 2E equivalent in every way.

In early D&D, 4th level was mid-level (modules for 4-6th level were marketed as 'mid-level' adventures), and 10th level was very high level. It took maybe a couple years of weekly play to reach 10th, what with all the dying at low levels and starting again. Most campaigns played by the book never reached that level.

How many sessions would it typically take in WFRP to make it to a second career? 12-15?

Twelve to 15 sessions into a 1E D&D campaign, the PCs are probably 4th level.  I don't think the power levels of a group of 4th level D&D characters and a group of WFRP characters in their second careers are all that different.

I was bored and went back reading through this whole thread and though there are a couple opinions to the extreme.  The mid ground for WFRP is that it is a game that supports both ends of the spectrum.  It has an excellent career/skill basis to which you can run intrigue style games where combat is the finality of a conflict and not the main assumption.  It can also support combat heavy dungeon romp games just as well.  The key to the later being that people wanting to play that way are going to be making characters and encounters that facilitate that style of play.  So a group of rat catchers in an Orc infested dungeon, probably not a good idea.  But a group of warriors and some magic support will fair fairly well.

The one thing that I've always noted in discussions about WFRP with fans on the net or in person is that everyone generally has a decent respect for the system and the setting, WFRP fans generally get it.  That's not to say they don't have different opinions, as this thread has shown.  But overall no one here is really disputing what can be done with the game this whole debate is closer to the point of what should be done with the game and that's just silly.

WFRP doesn't scale the same as D20 but that's not to say that you can't play high ended epic level games in WFRP.  An end level WFRP character isn't going to be as world sweeping as an end level D20 character if you compare them directly.  However within the scope of WFRP and end level character is insanely powerful.

End level WFRP characters can face demons and dragons and all manner of badassness and fair well.  That's no different then what's expected of end level D20 characters.  The big change, and in my opinion what makes WFRP superior, is that end level characters still need to be respectful of starting level encounter types.  The Conan's of WFRP could still mechanically fall victim to a stray arrow or that thief in the alley way.

I long ago have lost interest in D&D mechanically it just doesn't do what I want it to do.  Encounters have to scale to match the characters to put up any kind of challenge.  It's not that low level encouters -could- pose a risk for higher level characters is more a case of them mechanically not being able to.  Which means that most D&D games play like video games, this to me has never been more evident then in 4e.  But I'll explain exactly what I mean by that.  In most video games you start out in the level 1 area and you clear out those monster types and move onto the level 2 areas.  Once you hit level 2 areas you usually have a whole new set of monsters to fight or some level one area monsters that have been upgraded.  WFRP doesn't suffer from that.  An orc's still an orc and can still pose a problem.  I also don't mean ubber orcs or anything like that just orcs they can still hit you and hurt you.  WFRP gives you the freedom to make a consistent world with a level power structure.   You don't have the newb area of the world - the high powered area of the world.  It's all the same.  Which means it's lends itself better to creating more grounded stories and goes along way to removing itself from the arms race that D&D falls into.

Pick almost any D&D thread and you'll see some discussion about ways to effectively gimp it or play within some sweet spot where the characters aren't over powering yet not useless either, typically people will say it's the level 5 - 12 range of play where D&D is best.  WFRP by contrast is always in the sweet spot.

Quote from: kryyst;280086I was bored and went back reading through this whole thread and though there are a couple opinions to the extreme.  The mid ground for WFRP is that it is a game that supports both ends of the spectrum.  It has an excellent career/skill basis to which you can run intrigue style games where combat is the finality of a conflict and not the main assumption.  It can also support combat heavy dungeon romp games just as well.  The key to the later being that people wanting to play that way are going to be making characters and encounters that facilitate that style of play.  So a group of rat catchers in an Orc infested dungeon, probably not a good idea.  But a group of warriors and some magic support will fair fairly well.

The one thing that I've always noted in discussions about WFRP with fans on the net or in person is that everyone generally has a decent respect for the system and the setting, WFRP fans generally get it.  That's not to say they don't have different opinions, as this thread has shown.  But overall no one here is really disputing what can be done with the game this whole debate is closer to the point of what should be done with the game and that's just silly.

WFRP doesn't scale the same as D20 but that's not to say that you can't play high ended epic level games in WFRP.  An end level WFRP character isn't going to be as world sweeping as an end level D20 character if you compare them directly.  However within the scope of WFRP and end level character is insanely powerful.

End level WFRP characters can face demons and dragons and all manner of badassness and fair well.  That's no different then what's expected of end level D20 characters.  The big change, and in my opinion what makes WFRP superior, is that end level characters still need to be respectful of starting level encounter types.  The Conan's of WFRP could still mechanically fall victim to a stray arrow or that thief in the alley way.

I long ago have lost interest in D&D mechanically it just doesn't do what I want it to do.  Encounters have to scale to match the characters to put up any kind of challenge.  It's not that low level encouters -could- pose a risk for higher level characters is more a case of them mechanically not being able to.  Which means that most D&D games play like video games, this to me has never been more evident then in 4e.  But I'll explain exactly what I mean by that.  In most video games you start out in the level 1 area and you clear out those monster types and move onto the level 2 areas.  Once you hit level 2 areas you usually have a whole new set of monsters to fight or some level one area monsters that have been upgraded.  WFRP doesn't suffer from that.  An orc's still an orc and can still pose a problem.  I also don't mean ubber orcs or anything like that just orcs they can still hit you and hurt you.  WFRP gives you the freedom to make a consistent world with a level power structure.   You don't have the newb area of the world - the high powered area of the world.  It's all the same.  Which means it's lends itself better to creating more grounded stories and goes along way to removing itself from the arms race that D&D falls into.

Pick almost any D&D thread and you'll see some discussion about ways to effectively gimp it or play within some sweet spot where the characters aren't over powering yet not useless either, typically people will say it's the level 5 - 12 range of play where D&D is best.  WFRP by contrast is always in the sweet spot.

Well, in D&D "levels" were tiers of a measurable increase in power.  Yes, it does scale up rather quickly compared to some other game.

To take your example to the extreme, when gaining levels does not really contribute to your effective power level (read: the ability to overcome challenges) then what's the point of having them?  If orcs will always be dangerous regardless of your level, it just means that gaining levels doesn't contribute much to your survivability.  That's fine.  A lot of people (myself included) think D&D plays best at the extreme low levels... level 4 and under.  That gritty feeling of death around every corner really works for the game.  I suppose my point is that if you want that gamut of power, you could have it.  Just stop play at low levels, slow down the rate of growth, or both.  I hardly see how someone can fault a game for supporting (character power-wise) as much and more than some other.

As for the "unrealistic" and "video game" aspects of D&D... sorting the world by challenge level has its advantages, in some ways.  It allows the players to manage their own risk/reward structure.  "Do we venture down to the second floor (where the treasures are twice as good), or are we not strong enough?"  For a dungeon, this idea works great.  It's a bit more contrived for your run of the mill wilderness campaign though, but only a bit, and only if the DM railroads the players around.  After all, a group of peasants won't set up a farm near a demon's pit... if low-level adventurers can't win, some pitchforks certainly won't.  It only makes sense that relative civilization (low challenge) would be FAR away from monster town (high danger).  This sort of game works best when the players aren't led by the nose, and left to discover which is which on their own.

You can't blame video games either.  Video games were created to emulate D&D, not the other way around (until just recently anyway).  THAT's the reason D&D's levels feel video-gamey... it's the very system the games were modeled after!  The problem is that a video game is a bit different than a roleplaying game, but players who were galvanized on the former come over expecting the same experience.  It's part of the reason the hobby's full of powergamers who couldn't care less about having collective fun instead of tweaking their character sheet and shopping for kits/presitge classes for hours.  They don't see the difference.  Of course, they're not solely to blame... but that's a topic for another day.

Quote from: wiseman207;280118To take your example to the extreme, when gaining levels does not really contribute to your effective power level (read: the ability to overcome challenges) then what's the point of having them?  If orcs will always be dangerous regardless of your level, it just means that gaining levels doesn't contribute much to your survivability.  That's fine.  A lot of people (myself included) think D&D plays best at the extreme low levels... level 4 and under.  That gritty feeling of death around every corner really works for the game.  I suppose my point is that if you want that gamut of power, you could have it.  Just stop play at low levels, slow down the rate of growth, or both.  I hardly see how someone can fault a game for supporting (character power-wise) as much and more than some other..

I always find it amusing when people defend D&D and say 'but oh it can do XYZ' if you just ignore this rule and that rule and make an exception here and....

Further to the point having orcs always being dangerous is a completely separate argument from your characters improving.  WFRP characters improve and can tackle orcs with more gusto as well as tougher opponents.  But with the general nature of the mechanics it always means that stock orcs can still be a threat.  That's very different from D&D's approach of leveling out of the danger from one level area and moving on to the next.

Quote from: kryyst;280132I always find it amusing when people defend D&D and say 'but oh it can do XYZ' if you just ignore this rule and that rule and make an exception here and....

Further to the point having orcs always being dangerous is a completely separate argument from your characters improving.  WFRP characters improve and can tackle orcs with more gusto as well as tougher opponents.  But with the general nature of the mechanics it always means that stock orcs can still be a threat.  That's very different from D&D's approach of leveling out of the danger from one level area and moving on to the next.

They might be separate, but they are related.  Personally, I don't see the problem with it.  In fact, one could argue that WFRP is odd in the fact that an orc can kill a high-level character.

Quote from: kryyst;280132I always find it amusing when people defend D&D and say 'but oh it can do XYZ' if you just ignore this rule and that rule and make an exception here and....

So it's funny that people customize their game? My car is less a car because I tint the windows? Or add after market seats? So why is my game less fun, or less of a game if I decide I don't want to dick with encumbrance rules, which no one in my group cares about?

Do you see where I'm coming from here? You might be right, when splitting hairs, but really do we want our hobby to be defined by petty semantics?

QuoteFurther to the point having orcs always being dangerous is a completely separate argument from your characters improving.

I agree that it can be.

Quote from: Haffrung;280066I didn't know we were talking specifically about WFRP 2E. Or that WFRP 2E is fundamentally different from WFRP 1E in power level. And since the matter at hand is dungeon crawls, it's perfectly valid to bring up the era of D&D when dungeon crawls were most popular.

WFRP 1E and D&D 1E were contemporous. And they weren't intended to provide fundamentally different play experiences, just a different tone. If some of the fanbase of WFRP (especially the online fansites) have turned to a different style of play, that doesn't mean WFRP wasn't or can't be used to run a game with dungeons and lots of combat.



In early D&D, 4th level was mid-level (modules for 4-6th level were marketed as 'mid-level' adventures), and 10th level was very high level. It took maybe a couple years of weekly play to reach 10th, what with all the dying at low levels and starting again. Most campaigns played by the book never reached that level.

How many sessions would it typically take in WFRP to make it to a second career? 12-15?

Twelve to 15 sessions into a 1E D&D campaign, the PCs are probably 4th level.  I don't think the power levels of a group of 4th level D&D characters and a group of WFRP characters in their second careers are all that different.

Fair enough. You don't see much of a difference, and that's ok.

My experience of combat in WFRP (both editions, across multiple careers) and D&D (all editions, across the level ranges) has a significant impact on which I'd like to play or run a campaign for on any given day. I've found that each system provokes markedly different attitudes toward PC suvivability, which in WFRP manifests in a more cautious, situationally aware approach. Whilst I acknowledge it's possible to have a WFRP-like experience with D&D at certain levels - sans fate points, persistently low PC health, easily available magical healing, lingering disabling injuries, being one-shotted as a clear and present threat throughout one's career and going insane just from getting hit too often, - as far as I'm concerned the two games present differences that go far beyond the percentile-roll-under/d20-roll-higher resoloution divide. When I'm  deciding which to play my choice is meaningful, both in terms of combat resoloution and overall lethality.

I've wondered whether the WHFRP could host dungeon bashes like D&D X-edition or even Warhammer Quest. In my opinion: it can. The second edition rules has a plethora of bonuses and penalties which can be applied to a combat encounter ( if memory serves right, it ranges from +30 to -30). A group of dungeon-crawlers can in theory increase their chances of survival by manipulating the circumstances of each fight. The system grants bonuses for flanking, cover, surprise attacks, ect, ect. While DnD character's are stronger due to traits and feats, Warhammer characters are forced to be smarter fighters. This may make a dungeoncrawl way more interesting and tactical than a hit-and-miss DnD crawl.
Now that I think about it, it would be pretty damn cool to do a WHFRP Dungeoncrawl in the sewers under Middenheim, during the Storm of Chaos, where sewerjack (PCs) face clans of Skaven, random cultists, and even a daemon at the end. The game would requiere some special considerations: what happens if the PC completes a career smack in the middle of a 4 session long dungeon? But I don't think it's nothing that could potentially break the system.

Ok, Magic users don't really fit into this Mega-Dungeon idea. I'm afraid that playing a magic user maybe pointless because of the danger of mutations. Magic Users in the typical Dungeons and Dragons party serve as range attack specialists. They provide cover fire from behind the lines. A Warhammer magic-user can't be use a magic missile machine gun. It's too risky. The taint of chaos is likelier to kill a wizard than the most badass of orcs. Why would someone play a wizard or cleric? They aren't particularly good in conventional warfare and magic (or clerical powers) in the rulebook aren't necessarily great when it comes to dungeon crawling.
Given the paradigm the typical imperial citizen, a wizard that displays any sort of mutation must be put to the flame. Remember: don't suffer a witch to live.

Quote from: vomitbrown;280437Ok, Magic users don't really fit into this Mega-Dungeon idea. I'm afraid that playing a magic user maybe pointless because of the danger of mutations. Magic Users in the typical Dungeons and Dragons party serve as range attack specialists. They provide cover fire from behind the lines. A Warhammer magic-user can't be use a magic missile machine gun. It's too risky. The taint of chaos is likelier to kill a wizard than the most badass of orcs. Why would someone play a wizard or cleric? They aren't particularly good in conventional warfare and magic (or clerical powers) in the rulebook aren't necessarily great when it comes to dungeon crawling.
Given the paradigm the typical imperial citizen, a wizard that displays any sort of mutation must be put to the flame. Remember: don't suffer a witch to live.

So you haven't read the rules perhaps?  Wizards can be extremely powerful, though they run the risk/reward slope.   So true you can't be a magic missile machine without some serious risk.  But in D&D a wizard can only cast a limited number of spells in a day so they need to pick and choose.  WFRP wizards can cast unlimited spells so they don't have to ponder their resources just the risk.  They also have the ability to cast and attack in the same round which can be very devastating.

Further to the point if this is a dungeon crawl the wizard has even more freedom to cast spells since he doesn't have to worry so much about the prying eyes of the public.

Quote from: kryyst;280780So you haven't read the rules perhaps?  Wizards can be extremely powerful, though they run the risk/reward slope.   So true you can't be a magic missile machine without some serious risk.  But in D&D a wizard can only cast a limited number of spells in a day so they need to pick and choose.  WFRP wizards can cast unlimited spells so they don't have to ponder their resources just the risk.  They also have the ability to cast and attack in the same round which can be very devastating.

Further to the point if this is a dungeon crawl the wizard has even more freedom to cast spells since he doesn't have to worry so much about the prying eyes of the public.

Ok, so WHFR Wizards may have more freedom than their DnD counterparts. Then what happens when they roll their first doubles. Even better, at higher levels they may roll triples or quadruples. What will happen to the adventuring party when they see their wizard becoming a mutant or inadvertedly casting a daemon of the Warp into existence.

1set set of doubles, followed by like a 99% roll followed by another bad roll and yeah you could be all mutant like.  Typically though starting casters do things like spoil milk, make babies cry and cause animals to freak out.  As for what the group does, depends largely on the group.

I could ask the same what's the D&D group do to the cleric who doesn't want to cast healing spells because they are so busy buffing themselves to outshine the fighter.  It's always a question of what if's.  

But at the end of the day no reason why mages + dungeons + wfrp wouldn't work.  If anything they are more effective because they don't have to worry about recharging or rationing their spells.  Of course I'm comparing to 3e since 4e the spell rationing now is quite different and your mage is now nothing better beyond a magic missile machine gun.