Enemy in Shadows - Warhammer Fantasy (Inactive)

Game Master Aubster

Seeing to some bookkeeping for the recent purchases:

Adelaida bought a warhammer with a base price of 3g. Her Haggle check beat the merchant's by +1 SL. Normally I'd think that was a 10% discount, but Aubster's post suggests it might be 25%. So we're spending either 45/- or 54/- on it.

Also buying two throwing knives for 30/- based on the pricing here. That's already a sizable discount, so I don't see a need to haggle further on it. As far as I'm aware only Landolf and Ruprecht expressed interest in the knives, so I'm thinking one can go to each. I think Valghaz decided that his ballistic skill was too bad to bother.

Also, Landolf is swapping his foil for a rapier based on the throwing knife post. Goodbye undamaging trait!

Sounds right to me. Also, at some point I'll be needing to buy a mail shirt, given Valghaz's upcoming career shift. That costs 2gc, and Valghaz only has 1 gold 13 silver. So when the time comes, he might need to dip into those party funds. Hoping that we can land into some decent coin soon enough, as I'd rather have a mail coat to protect his arms as well...but that's a princely 3 gold.

Are we skipping a step if we just go to the warehouse? Earlier, the idea was to get back to Captain Gellor. I think we're supposed to have enough time to try to reach him, though the way Bogenhafen is spiraling into Chaos makes me wonder...

Also, Landolf had been saving xp to get his third rank of the Luck talent, but this doesn't seem like a time to be hoarding. So Landolf will buy advances 3-7 in Weapon Skill & 8-10 in Fencing for 180 xp. That should bring his Melee (Fencing) skill up to 50 and take up his remaining xp.

If you can slip away from the Watch, you’d have time to go to the temple of Sigmar and then make it to one of the warehouses before midnight. If you’re being chased by the Watch, the guards at the temple would stop you from entering the grounds.

The problem is that we're taking the worst rolls, which means rolling 4 times and taking the worst, where everyone has a 30% chance of success. We're going to need some serious luck to all pass.

As for this time, I think Valghaz passes if I am right in that fortune can be used to add +1 SL.

Did I miss a Fortune re-fill along the way? I've Ruprecht down as having zero Fortune left.

So, I started thinking that it must really be awful for Valghaz to have a slow weapon and always go last...but then I remembered his Initiative. It's like not having a penalty on your weapon!

Very true! I’d say that there is a reason it is a traditional Dwarven weapon. :)

Hit Valghaz and he will hit you back harder. :p

Edit: I just thought of something. WFRP is a system that recreates exactly why heroes win in movies.

BBEG sends in minions against the hero. The minions only attack one at a time. Every round the hero's advantage increases due to beating a minion in combat. By the time the minions are all gone, it doesn't matter how tired the hero is, because when he faces the BBEG he has +20 advantage.

Very true! I’d say that there is a reason it is a traditional Dwarven weapon. :)

The fact that Adelaida and Valghaz both have slow weapons could be an issue since at least half the group goes after the bad guys. It kind of raises the stakes for Landolf and Ruprecht to hit otherwise the bad guys could build up enough of an Advantage that it’ll be tough for Adelaida and Valghaz to make a hit.

That dynamic was actually what I was leaning into, tactically. There's some risk involved, but engaging an opponent with a charge has a decent chance of yielding some Advantage for defense & would allow the rest of the team to charge if the enemy stayed with Landolf.

Did the mutant not need to spend Advantage (or do something else) to disengage with Landolf?

Aubster, do you want to allow the +1 SL usage of Fortune on Simple Tests? Since SL doesn't exist it'd probably just be a +10 bonus to the test.

(sort of relevant if Landolf decides to use Fortune on his Athletics)

Aubster, do you want to allow the +1 SL usage of Fortune on Simple Tests? Since SL doesn't exist it'd probably just be a +10 bonus to the test.

(sort of relevant if Landolf decides to use Fortune on his Athletics)

Sure, it's fine to spend a fortune for a +10 or +1 SL on a simple test, whichever is most advantageous to the character.

That dynamic was actually what I was leaning into, tactically. There's some risk involved, but engaging an opponent with a charge has a decent chance of yielding some Advantage for defense & would allow the rest of the team to charge if the enemy stayed with Landolf.

Did the mutant not need to spend Advantage (or do something else) to disengage with Landolf?

The mutant should have had to spend Advantage, I missed that. For some reason I was thinking a successful Dodge means you are not engaged but that's not what the rules say. Since, Valghaz made a very successful healing roll it didn't matter in this case.

One way or another, The Enemy in Shadows portion of the Enemy Within Campaign is drawing to a conclusion. The next installment is called Death on the Reik. A couple of questions...

1) Do you all want to keep the campaign going? I'm happy to do so if you all are interested.

2) It's been suggested that we need 1 or 2 more players. I was hesitant to do that in Bogenhafen considering it's so close to the end but if you all want to keep going it does open up a good opportunity to add player(s). To finally get to the question, should we add players and if so 1 or 2? My only requirement is that they already have familiarity with the setting and the rules. All of us together kind of figured out the crazy rulebook as we went along and learned to play it together but I don't think I want to have to teach a newbie how to play.

Let me know what ya'll think. It's your game, I'm just along to cause your characters trouble ;-)

(1) If we stop here it will break my heart.

(2) And I’m open to another, but it’s not a hard point for me. I just don’t want to TPK ;)

(3) It is *our* game!

Can't help but agree with all of Valghaz' observations :)

#2 Yeah, at least one more. Just remembered we also lost Talther along the way...The issue as you say is the rulebook, might be hard finding players familiar with this version.

Regarding other players: it has taken longer than I wanted to catch up with Markus. He wanted me to catch him up on what was happening first and I took too long trying to write that out. The slowness is my fault.

I think he's still interested in the game broadly, but he's worse positioned to pay attention to the game now than when he started I think. So best not to count on him.

*

I definitely want to continue the game. One new player might be nice, though it could be tricky to find someone that knows the system.

Two ideas:
* We could try finding players in a WFRP-specific forum or discord.
* We could also try bringing in Axel from the game I'm running.

I want to continue, of course, and would gladly add one player

I’m really pleased that you all want to carry on, especially since I already bought the Death on the Reik books :)

Alright...our party is not very sneaky. If we all try to sneak in, then it is going to fail. I can't believe that they would be so dumb as to have a giant blindspot in their defenses with no guards.

We also are not known for our ranged potential. Shooting out of the fog just sounds like a great way to miss.

So, that leaves one option, does it not? Charge! Let them come in waves, so we continue to build up advantage. ;)

Or we can try the water entrance, which probably isn't guarded tightly.

Or is an evil GM plot.

Twelve guys is a lot & the advantage choo choo might break down. I'm kind of in favor of an attempted water entrance.

We could do that as well. My fear was that if we sneak in then the 12 outside would be coming in after we hit their bosses. Which, on retrospect...could work in our favor anyways. Because if we kill the leadership then we can always run away.

Right. I change my vote to the water entrance.

Much work to do, will post tonight or tomorrow morning I hope.

Or Gm could roll for me to hasten stuff (Base cool 51) (willpower 41, Cool 10)

We’ve reached the finale of your adventure in Bogenahafen.

A couple of rules to keep in mind.

Spending Resolve
You may spend a Resolve point to draw upon your inner reserves: maybe confronting a terrifying Ogre without flinching; or ignoring the effects of even the most powerful of blows. Your choices are:
• Become immune to Psychology until the end of the next round.
• Ignore all modifiers from all Critical Wounds until the beginning of the next round. • Remove one Condition; if you removed the Prone Condition, regain 1 Wound as you surge to your feet.
Resolve is regained whenever you act according to your Motivation. During play, whenever you feel you have done this, you may ask the GM if you can recover one or more Resolve points.

Spending Resilience
You may also choose to spend Resilience point to defy the corruption curling within, or to succeed where it would seem certain you should fail. Here, you have the following two options:
• I Deny You!: You may choose not to develop a rolled mutation. Because you do not mutate, you do not lose any Corruption points. See Corruption on page 182 for more on this.
• I Will Not Fail!: Rather than roll the result of a Test, you choose the number instead, allowing you to succeed in even the direst of situations. In an Opposed Test, you always win by at least 1 SL. If you cause a Critical, you can choose the Hit Location struck rather than randomising it. You can even choose to do this on a Test already failed.

Example: A bandit leader is on the rampage, having built up 10 Advantage while evading the party's blows. Things are about to get messy! Salundra decides to attack the bandit, but loses the Opposed Test by 7 SL, which is going to hurt a lot. So, she spends a permanent Resilience point to invoke ‘I Will Not Fail'. This means she automatically wins the Opposed Test by +1 SL. She also chooses the result of the roll to be 11, causing a Critical. The bandit leader will take some Wounds and a Critical Wound. More importantly, his rampage comes to an end as he also loses all 10 Advantage as the fight turns in the heroes favour.

Just spent resilience. Second time doing so. How can I get it back? Or is it just gone forever?

Resilience never comes back. It is possible to get more, but getting Fate & Resilience are supposed to be rare events. IMO, spending Resilience to dodge a point of Corruption is probably not worth it.

Ah...in that case I rolled. Back up to resilience 2.

In addition, I've always read Resilience as being able to be used after the Test is made.

In addition, I've always read Resilience as being able to be used after the Test is made.

That’s 100% correct. In fact the example above with the bandit shows using resilience after failing an attack badly and changing it to a critical hit.

Boo on no way past the scary monster.

Does anyone have tactical ideas for our weird initiative order other than what Landolf tried vs the recent mutant?

1. Charge (if able) & hope to survive a round, modestly protecting the rest of the party & give them an advantage when their turns come up. I'm unlikely to try that here even if I can make the Cool check because it might be daemon + 7 cultists on Landolf.
2. Throw a knife. Not likely to be effective here, but not silly. Aubster, what is the range to the cultists & to the daemon?
3. Full defense for +20 to defense checks.
4. Act after some of the enemies come to us. Assuming they aren't using Fast weapons & I can act however I like.

Edit: Leadership check to try to help with Fear. Those have been embarrassing in the past but they still aren't crazy.

Edit: followup question on the daemon. Is it Large?

Ok, so...

(1) Rolled for fear. Passed! Does this mean that Valgahz can move closer to the daemon without having to take another cool test?
(2) If a cool test is failed to move closer, can someone then spend resolve to become immune to psychology and thus move closer?

Boo on no way past the scary monster.

Does anyone have tactical ideas for our weird initiative order other than what Landolf tried vs the recent mutant?

1. Charge (if able) & hope to survive a round, modestly protecting the rest of the party & give them an advantage when their turns come up. I'm unlikely to try that here even if I can make the Cool check because it might be daemon + 7 cultists on Landolf.
2. Throw a knife. Not likely to be effective here, but not silly. Aubster, what is the range to the cultists & to the daemon?
3. Full defense for +20 to defense checks.
4. Act after some of the enemies come to us. Assuming they aren't using Fast weapons & I can act however I like.

Edit: Leadership check to try to help with Fear. Those have been embarrassing in the past but they still aren't crazy.

Edit: followup question on the daemon. Is it Large?

It’s essentially human sized

Ok, so...

(1) Rolled for fear. Passed! Does this mean that Valgahz can move closer to the daemon without having to take another cool test?
(2) If a cool test is failed to move closer, can someone then spend resolve to become immune to psychology and thus move closer?

1) Correct, you’re still afraid (-1 SL on all tests to affect the object of the fear) but can move towards it as you please

I thought we'd decided before that Fear wasn't a Condition and couldn't be removed with Resolve (but Broken can). If Fear can be removed with Resolve, Landolf wouldn't have rolled twice to try and not get it.

I thought we'd decided before that Fear wasn't a Condition and couldn't be removed with Resolve (but Broken can). If Fear can be removed with Resolve, Landolf wouldn't have rolled twice to try and not get it.

You’re correct. I completely forgot about that. According to the rules the conditions are:

Sorry, will catch up in the morning....

Considered & cast aside a few mostly suicidal options over the last day. Based on the assumption that Landolf will go first, I think he'll just take a defensice action to weather an expected full assault by the cultists. Maybe moving to cover Ruprecht & present as tough a front line as we can manage. (Landolf isn't a hugely better fighter than Ruprecht normally, but +20 from defense could change that.)

That might be a mistake if the cultists continue the ritual rather than press the attack, but I think it's too dangerous to charge them until we know what their plans are.

Does that sound right?

I could also charge the daemon so it can't charge us. That would be fairly suicidal if the cultists all pile on Landolf though.

Aubster, do we know how far we are from the daemon & cultists?

Maybe bluff them? They heard a gunshot. Yell to the fictional witch hunters outside. It might make a few cultists move to defend against foes who aren’t there or to maybe even flee. A good enough bluff can beat a critical sword hit

Rules question.

Magic Resistance (max 1: You are resistant to magic. You must Oppose any incoming spell with your Willpower, just as if you were a spellcaster using Language (Magick) to dispel (see page 237). Further, you may never learn the Arcane Magic, Bless, Invoke, Petty Magic, or Witch! Talents)

Does this include magical traps and the like? As in, a wizard casts a spell to put a magical trap on anyone who opens a door. Valgahz opens the door. Does he get a save against it?

Also, does magic resistance have any affect against magic which isn't directly cast as a spell? As in, if a place is infused with magic, does magic resistance allow a dwarf to roll WP against it?

Rules question.

Magic Resistance (max 1: You are resistant to magic. You must Oppose any incoming spell with your Willpower, just as if you were a spellcaster using Language (Magick) to dispel (see page 237). Further, you may never learn the Arcane Magic, Bless, Invoke, Petty Magic, or Witch! Talents)

Does this include magical traps and the like? As in, a wizard casts a spell to put a magical trap on anyone who opens a door. Valgahz opens the door. Does he get a save against it?

Also, does magic resistance have any affect against magic which isn't directly cast as a spell? As in, if a place is infused with magic, does magic resistance allow a dwarf to roll WP against it?

Another wonderful rule from our friends at Cubicle 7.

It seems like this is strictly used to stop a spell from being cast. It forces an opposed check with your willpower vs the casting roll of the wizard. If you are successful the spell never happens even if the wizard passes his spell check. That’s true for an AoE spell too if that spell includes you as a target. Basically, a wizard should never cast a spell at a dwarf.

For a magical trap, the wizard has already cast the spell successfully so the dwarf may not oppose it with willpower since that already cast spell can’t be dispelled.

Magical resistance wouldn’t help against anything that is not an incoming spell. So a place being infused by magic isn’t effected by the dwarf.

An interesting note is that a spell that’s beneficial for the dwarf still must be opposed. It’s not some thing that dwarf can turn on or off. Opposing the casting of a spell is always on.

Good to know! So it really isn’t magic resistance. It’s that being a dwarf makes it harder for magic to take shape, but doesn’t do anything against magic that is already formed.

Just relooked at Fast and it actually says that Fast users act whenever they want outside of the initiative order. That supports my "go last this turn & first next turn" plan. I'm still nervous about letting the bad guys all go first but don't have a better idea. Let's do it.

If you look at the gameplay tab, you’ll see that Teugen basically blew up the party in one stroke. I’d like to get everyone’s opinion about some things.

1) Determinng SL for an Arcane Spell. An Arcane spell has a difficulty level that must be reached to make the spell a success. Bolt has a CN of 4, causes 4 damage and Teugen roll was a SL of 6 so since 6 is greater than 4 the spell worked. My first thought is what should be used for the SL for Damage calculations. Should it be 6 because that’s what he rolled of should it be 6-4=2 since that’s how much he beat the target by? Originally I was thinking that the SL for damage should be 2 in this case but decided that didn’t make any sense. It’d actually make the arcane spell bolt no better than the petty spell Dart. Dart has a CN=0 and causes 0 damage plus the SL. If Teugen cast Dart the damage would be 6-0=6 plus willpower bonus. The damage for the Bolt spell could be either 4 + 2 = 6 or 4 + 6 = 10 depending on how the SL is calculated. So the only way that the expensive and more difficult to cast Bolt spell does more damage is that the SL is 6 and is not decreased by the difficulty.

2)After 1 above, I’m confident that the SL for an arcane spell is not reduced by the CN. One of the things that made the Teugen spell so damaging was his use of Warpstone which doubles the SL of a spell. I’m thinking that it was a mistake on my part to give him Warpstone to use. If he doesn’t have Warpstone then Landolf would take 11 Wounds which is bad but not overwhelming...thoughts on that change?

3)My last discussion point is should we leave the spell as it was done originally and have it cause massive damage. Warhammer is supposed to be hard and you all have Fate points which would allow you to avoid the hit altogether. Considering this is the last battle of the first part of this campaign maybe it would be better to have you all use a Fate point...thoughts?

First thought: These guys are shockingly powerful. A Language (Magick) skill in the 70s is probably possible for a character in our tier, but only if they pile absolutely everything into it. After I saw their Initiative numbers, I was hoping that they were just really high on that stat. It doesn't look like it.

Second thought: if the book doesn't give them Warpstone, then probably it isn't a good idea to add it, especially with those stats.

Third thought: I'm not at all surprised in retrospect that we're having questions the moment someone casts a spell with a Casting Number. They are entirely different beasts than Cantrips.

Fourth thought: I'll agree that the book is less than helpful with regard to figuring out the relationship between Casting Number and Success Levels. Bolt does look kind of weird in comparison to Dart if the Casting Number is directly subtracted from the Success Levels. I'd actually always read Casting Numbers as being subtracted from Success Levels as kind of a tax to cast a more powerful spell (Issues with Bolt aside) but in the 'Casting Test' section on page 234, nothing says that. The damage probably ought to be the full SL without subtracting CN.

However, that idea left me with another paradox. If fully extended, it would also mean that successfully casting a CN spell (I'll just use Bolt) means that any such successful cast would be automatically Overcasted. That...doesn't sound right. I checked the language on Overcasting (page 238) and it doesn't specifically state that CN is subtracted from SL for any purpose, but the example given in the second paragraph heavily implies it.

For instance, if you achieved +4 SL above your Casting Number on a spell with a Target of 1, you may now Target 3 individuals.

I think that quote makes it clear that Casting Number should be subtracted from Success Levels at least for the purpose of Overcasting.

**

I'd propose three options, with a spoiler that I think the first is not at all viable given what I posted above:

1. Casting Number is not subtracted from either base Success Levels or from Overcasting Success Levels.
2. Casting Number is subtracted from Overcasting Success Levels but not from base Success Levels
3. Casting Number is subtracted from Overcasting Success Levels and from base Success Levels.

Option 2 is my current best reading of the book & also preserves some usefulness for Bolt. It makes it a higher-damage but less-easily-spread spell than Dart. We could consider taking the question to Cubicle7, like you suggested. The book doesn't directly make a distinction between base Success Levels and overcasting Success Levels like I am here.

**

Minor re-think: Bolt might still have some utility even if it looks like a bad Dart, but I'm not sure I've thought through it yet. The tenuous, minor advantage would be that Bolt could be Channeled while Dart couldn't? The question mark is intentional.

**

If the spell hits Landolf as laid out in the initial post, I don't think his situation is quite as bad as Aubster might be thinking. He could spend one Resolve to remove the Bleeding Condition and another Resolve to stand up and return to one Wound. That's...crazily dangerous and it would spend a bunch of Resolve that he needs to fight Psychology right now. But there are five enemies left to go and the enemy spellcaster may just keep casting Bolt on following rounds. Also 75% of the party is in a similar situation even with that 'recovery plan'. So that isn't much comfort.

**

Assuming that the book didn't give Teugen Warpstone, I'd suggest retconning the Warpstone possession and applying my option 2 reading above. We'd still be in a heap of trouble, but not looking like a TPK after the very first enemy action. I'm prepared to use Fate & Resilience to clear this battle if needed, but we might still need to do that even with the changes I'm suggesting above.

I don’t know nearly enough to say anything besides that Landolf’s interpretations sound reasonable.

also...I’d rather spend a date to ignore the spell of doom than to spend resilience to stand up and fate next then because my character was left at such low health.

Been a while since casting anything with Hanna in the other game.
The main difference between dart and bolt is the CN and the damage, +4 for bolt.

That's why I never used Bolt, needed the +4 SL to be successful ,and never had the opportunity or saw the need to channel in combat.

Aubster rolled well and we suffered for it!

Ret-conning the warpstone will perhaps only prolong the inevitable:) But, I vote for prolonging the inevitable :)

Without the warpstone it will be...

Landolf: 4 + 6 + 6 - 1 - 4 = 11 13-11=2 wounds left
Ruprecht: 4 + 6 + 6 - 2 - 4 = 10 14-10=-4 wounds (is it correct that you are currently at 8 wounds? Because if so you'd be at -2. But Valghaz, at least, would have tried to heal you if you were obviously injured)
Adel: 4 + 6 + 6 - 2 - 4 = 10 15-10=5 wounds

Our company would be standing, but very much worse for wear!

Yeah I must have been up to full...

The spell's Overcasting might not support hitting three targets anymore if we go with my current reading. It doesn't look pretty though.

In the same vein as the missing Wounds, Ruprecht: you Fortune shows zero. I only remember you using two Fortune right after we told you about the refresh. Did you spend Fortune after that?

Nope...so 1 left :)