Here are presented several new or modified rules that might come in handy in combat. The first four rule sets are related and help to manage combat so that actions occur at the right time. The others are various rules which are not at all dependent on others so they can be used freely.
Effective Initiative |
Sequencing Attacks |
Delaying Attacks |
Movement in Combat
Bows |
Pain |
Minimum Damage
Shields |
Parrying |
Disarm
Two Weapons |
Multiple Opponents |
Momentum |
A Nasty One
The scale to determine where in the round certain things happen is called Effective Initiative (EI). That is each round starts at EI 100 and ends at EI 0. This is to help determine when specific actions occur within the round and in what order.
For example, An elf wizard (I 65), a dwarf fighter (I 25 - 10 = 15, as he is using a two handed axe) and two human fighters (I 40) are fighting three orcs (I 30) and an ogre (I 20). While all others are engaged in melee, the wizard decides to cast a spell on one of the orcs and, according to RoS, spellcasting takes 40 I to complete. The EI sequence therefore is as following: At EI 65, the wizard stats casting his spell. At EI 40, the two human warriors make their attacks. At EI 30, the orcs make their attacks. At EI 25, the wizard completes his spell and releases it. At EI 20, the ogre makes his attack. And finally at EI 15, the dwarf makes his attack. In this example, all of the combatants had only one attack.
Note: This Effective initiative is not the same as presented in the Restless Dead (RD) or Apocrypha Now (AN) supplements. It merely has the same name.
When creatures have more than one attack in a round, they don't make all their attacks when it's their turn to act. Their attacks are rather spread evenly throughout the round, or the attacks are sequenced. An elf, for example, with I 60 and three attacks in a round would make those attacks at EI 60, EI 40 and EI 20. Let's look at the example presented above but now the two humans, dwarf and ogre all have two attacks in a round.
The elf still starts to cast his spell at EI 65. At EI 40, the humans make their first attack. At EI 30, the orcs make their attacks. At EI 25, the elf finishes his spell. At EI 20, the ogre makes his first attack AND the humans make their second one. At EI 15, the dwarf makes his first attack. At EI 10, the ogre makes his second attack. And finally at EI 7, the dwarf makes his second attack.
An attack can be delayed in combat to anywhere in the round. If someone delays an attack and has another (or more) attack(s) left in the same round, they are delayed by the same amount of EI. An elf that would normally make his three attacks at EI 60/40/20, but decide to delay his first attack by EI 15 Will now attack at EI 45/25/5. If he had delayed his first attack for EI 25, the attacks would be made at EI 35/15/-5. As the round ends at EI 0, the third attack would be lost. Also, subsequent attacks in a round can also be delayed even if the first one was delayed. The elf with attacks at EI 60/40/20 delayes his first attack by EI 10. Then his attacks will be made at EI 50/30/10. Then after making his first attack, he decides to delay his second attack too, this time by EI 5. That means his attacks will be/were made at EI 50/25/5. The third attack can be delayed, but by a maximum of EI 5 lest it be lost.
If doing anything at all other than abide his time (like switching or readying weapons), a character can only delay for half the time he normally could. For example, a human warrior lands in an ambush by two bandits. He got I 40 and two attacks (normally making them at EI 40/20). The bandits got one attack at EI 30. The human fighter isn't surprised but his sword is in it's sheath. According to the combat rules in RD and AN, drawing a sword takes up EI 20. As he is making an action (drawing sword), he can only delay his attacks to EI 30/10, which will do him no good as he will still lose his first attack. If he had I 80, making his attacks at EI 80/40, he could delay his attacks to EI 60/20. At EI 60 he has just managed to draw his sword and will therefore not lose any attacks.
Note that after it stops doing the action it
was doing, a creature can delay it's attacks as normally.
Movement does also count as making an action but that is dealt
with seperately here below.
This is the most complicated part of the EI rules, although I find them very easy to use. It sounds all like difficult bookkeeping but it really isn't, especially if this is recorded on the character sheet. My private character sheet has a special place for this (and many other rules presented here on these pages) and hopefully it will be made available soon. I'll just need to fix it a bit.
The movement in yards per round of a creature is divided on it's I score. And how much EI is lost per round is found simply by the distance moved. Take for example a human with M 4 (64 yards/round while running) and I 32. Dividing the I by the yards/round gives that for each EI point, he can run 2 yards. Those moving in combat can delay attacks by half the normal amount. Now, let's set up a small scenario.
This human is attacking another human with the same stats (M 4, I 32 and both have A 2) which is 30 yards away. He can run 64 yards each round so we know he can make it, but when in the round do they engage in melee and what attacks can they make? As stated above, he spends one EI point on every 2 yards running so 30 yards will waste EI 15. Therefore, melee starts at EI 17. The attacker is moving so he can only delay his first attack to EI 24, subsequently delaying his second attack to EI 8. There's no point in doing that as he will lose his first attack anyway, so he won't delay at all, losing his first attack and making his second attack at EI 16 as normally. Note that he got +10 WS bonus for charging. The defender, who is only waiting for the attack, can fully delay his attacks, all the way to EI 16/0 if he wishes and will therefore not lose any. So, he will probably delay his attacks to EI 17/1, making his first attack at the instant they are engaged.
Let's do another one to fully clarify things. An assassin with M 4, I 64, A 4 which normally attacks at EI 64/48/32/16 is engaged in melee with one opponent and there is another opponent 24 yards away, aiming his bow. Both the opponents have I 32 A 2. The assassin strikes at EI 64, killing his melee combatant so therefore he will want to move to engage the other one. Next time he can act is at EI 48 and it is then that he will start to move. He wastes one EI for each yard he runs so he will waste EI 24 by covering the distance. At EI 32, when the assassin is 8 yards away, the archer fires his bow, but luckily misses so he throws it to the ground and tries to draw his dagger. He used up half his EI by firing that bow so he can only begin to draw his dagger at EI 16. According to the rules in RD and AN, drawing a dagger spends up EI 10. So, the dagger will be drawn and ready at EI 6. The assassin engages him at EI 24 and he could delay his attacks by half normal so he can attack at EI 24/8, or twice before the archer can ready his dagger. When striking his EI 24 attack, he is also considered to be charging, gaining a +10 to WS.
The damage of all normal bows is increased by 1. The damage of crossbows is increased by 2. In addition, crossbows halve all armour values. That is leather armour is ignored. Chain mail or plate armour used seperately becomes 0/1 armour and full plate (plate over chain) becomes 1.
Firing bows (not crossbows) is a bit different. Those with two attacks or more each round can choose to fire a bow twice (and only twice, even if A score is higher than two) in a round instead of once. If an archer wants to fire twice in a round, he must state that he is doing so at the beginning of his turn. If he fires one shot, then this is dealt with as normally. If he fires two, he fires the first one at his maximum EI score and his second shot at half his EI score. Both shots are with a -30 penalty to BS which means that only the best archers can fire accurately twice in a round. The skill Rapid Fire found in the Player's Section can be used to improve this a bit.
Firing crossbows is the same as presented in the rulebook.
At less than 3 yards all kinds of bows have a +1 damage.
If someone is unarmoured in combat and is hit (or if an unarmoured location is hit), he automatically receives one W. Also, any fire or energy hits and hits where the character is totally covered (like avalanches) cause an automatic W. By receiving automatic W, I mean that even if Toughness and armour reduce the damage to zero, there is still at least one W caused.
Pain is something that's not really taken into account in the WFRP rules. Following are suggestions on how to deal with this if you want to include it in your combats.
There are two ways where a character can suffer from pain. Firstly, if he suffers more wounds than his T-score in a single blow/source and secondly, if he suffers a critical hit. If either of these conditions are met, roll on the following table.
Roll d10:
1-3 = No effect
4-7 = Hurting
8-9 = Hurting badly
10+ = Agonizing pain
Apply the following modifiers to the roll:
Location hit is head = +1
Location hit is unarmoured = +1
For each two W taken above T score = +1
Target has Combat Hardiness skill = -2
Critical hit value X = +X-3
Hurting - The character is disoriented and has a -10 penalty to all tests for one round.
Hurting badly - The character is severely disoriented and can do nothing except parry at -10 for one round.
Agonizing pain - The character is stunned in pain and cannot do anything at all (and is prone) for one round.
Shields do not provide an automatic 1 AP on all locations. Instead, they allow one free parry each round. This parry is done without any modifiers but if successful, it negates 2d6 points of damage. Same rules for bucklers apply as before.
All parrying, including with shields can only be attempted to the front and sides, and of course only if aware of the attack. When parrying from creatures using natural attacks, there is a chance to cause damage. Every time this happens, the attacker is hit by a normal blow at half damage.
Disarm according to the rulebook is a far too powerful thing. I suggest the character who is being disarmed can try to somehow prevent it. If he succeeds a test against half his combined WS and Dex scores, then he manages to hold on to his weapon. Those using two handed weapons are very hard to disarm and receive a +30 bonus to this test.
Using two weapons is a difficult combat tactic. The benefits of using two weapons is one additional attack. The total attacks of the character now are now done in turn as usual but first he attacks with the primary weapon, then with the secondary and so on. All attacks made by the primary weapon are at -10 to hit and all attacks made by the secondary weapon are at -20 to hit. Ambidextrous characters can reduce the penalty of the secondary weapon to -10.
If the secondary weapon is larger than dagger/swordbreaker size, then there is an additional -10 penalty to hit with it.
When fighting many opponents all at the same time, each of those get a +5% bonus to hit per additional opponent beyond the first. So if a character is fighting three orcs, each orc will have +10 to hit. This is due to the difficulty of fighting and watching out for many opponents at the same time. Note that opponents not directly in hand to hand combat with the character are not counted.
Sometimes a situation comes up where one creature who is attacking another has great enough momentum to receive a damage increase. This includes passing by on horse in sprint, etc. This usually increases attack damage by +1 but in some occasions, this can be increased to +2. That includes jumping on top of the victim with stabbing down with a weapon using the body weight or managing a full charge on a warhorse using lance.
If a double is rolled on a hit (WS or BS), additional damage occurs (roll of 6 and to hit roll succeeded again), damage caused and the blow not parried or dodged, then an automatic +1 critical hit is caused in addition to normal damage. If a critical would have been caused anyway, then this extra critical is ignored. For this to affect large creatures then a 6 must be rolled for the additional damage also (that is, two 6’es). Three 6’es are required for this to affect very large creatures.
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