When I opened the box, I was a bit disappointed at what I got for my money. But reading through the rules, it seems put together very well. A little clunky in places, but the Fantasy Flight web site is very useful.
I think I am going to get some more of the books and flush out the collection and give it a go. I do like that you only need a GM and 3 additional players to play. It's perfect for those days when you're a couple people short.
So outside of the core box set, what other books are recommended?
However, to answer your question, all of the WFRPG 3e books/boxes are awesome. Winds of Magic, Omens of Wars, and Signs of faith, provide extra fluff and rules related to the wizardly, knightly, and clerical professions respectively. They have a lot of key extra rules for the game (such as mutation, disease, permanent injuries, mounted combat, new professions, and rules for playing wizards/priests from the colleges/churches not covered in the core set, and members of knightly orders); those three boxes all each come with a short quest as well.
The Game Masters Toolkit provides extra advice for GMs and some new rules designed to help build your own encounters.
The Witches Song, The Gathering Storm, and The Edge of Knight are all long quests (and FFG writes quests that are quite good. A good deal better than anything I have seen from WotC). The Witches Song also comes with rules for PCs to play witches/warlocks.
The Creature Guide and the Creature Vault are a must; the Creature Guide provides all of the monster related rules from other books in an easy to reference book format, and the Creature Vault has all of the monster action cards and stat cards from other books printed in card format (which makes the game run much faster at the table, and makes it much easier to build your own encounters). Of those two products, I find myself using the Vault a WHOLE lot more than the Guide.
I hope that helps...
I think I'll have to place an order in for the rest of the books. My local game store doesn't carry anything but the boxed set.
Thanks, Cyber-Dave! (any relation to Super Dave of Super Dave Osborn fame?)
I think I'll have to place an order in for the rest of the books. My local game store doesn't carry anything but the boxed set.
Nope. No relation. My personal opinion, your order will be money well spent. My D&D group (I was running Dark Sun) recently switched to a WFRPG group when a couple of players had to drop out one after another due to real life obligations (and a couple of new players joined in turn). I have been running a warhammer game since. It has been a whole lot more fun for me. As far as I can tell, it has been a whole lot more fun for pretty much everyone else as well (there is one player I am not sure about, but the others have all explicitly expressed how much more fun they are having with the warhammer system, most of us having gotten burnt out on 4e D&D).
The action cards do give it somewhat of a 4E flavoring to it from that regards, but the similarities stop there. It has some interesting mechanics, particularly the core mechanic with the dice pools. I am definitely looking forward to trying it. Just a little disappointed in the soft cover books inside. 2 of those could have been combined into one and made hard cover.
Just keep in mind how much space the rules on the cards would take if they were printed in book format. The core box has quite a few decks of cards that are, in fact, nothing more than game rules: injuries, spell miscasts, powers, conditions, professions, talents, and so on and so forth; all of these are released in card format instead of book format (unless you buy the guides).
...I can't get past the price tag - that's two entire months worth of gaming materials budget for me, and I feel like I budget a little too much for RPGs sometimes to begin with.
Then I saw a set of dice that had all manner of different symbols instead of numbers, and it made it even harder for me to feel it was worth the $100 buy in.
...I keep hoping I will manage to walk into my FLGS while they are running a demo so I can join in, since I always manage to hit the store when either an event is in full swing and the tables are full, or there is no one around to demo with (and I would feel weird asking for a demo with only myself present)
I haven't played it yet myself, so far I have just been reading but I would be lying if I didn't admit that Im a warhammer fantasy mega fanboy. Im big into the warhammer battles game, played more Warhammer Online than I care to admit and you would be hard pressed to name a novel in the warhammer universe I haven't read. This is my first dive into the RPG though, I never tried 1st and 2nd edition though I have heard good things about it, but I suppose as a gamer there is only so much gaming you can do.
So far my impression is that the rulebook itself (not the rules) is a bit light for my taste, left me with a lot of unanswered question and I agree if it wasn't for the community and the community website I think a lot of those questions would probobly be frustrating but the resources available are really great. I especially loved the fact that the FFG community has already built a Strange Eons module which allows you to create your own cards for the game. That really allows for a lot of great customization while maintaing the "its on the card" mechanics which I think is probobly one of the best features of the system in terms of organization.
The GM guide however is priceless, I really love how it was written, its really a gem for GM's. I especially liked the concept of "Rally" in a mechanical form, something I have always kind of done in my games anyway but I really loved how its built into the system so that you can kind of plan out when the breaks inbetween scenes would be. In any case as a whole this was one of the best books in the set.
I think however of all the things about Warhammer Fantasy RPG that impressed me the most its the dice mechanic. I just absolutly love a mechanic that says more than just "succeed or fail". You get so much great information from the dice in terms of faucilitating role-playing and explaining the how and why's of any endevour. As a GM its priceless to know that "hey you succeeded but their was some problem." maybe it took longer than expected, maybe their was some drawback to the success.
I also really loved the tracking mechanic where you track different events for players to see. What a great way to build anticipation, its one of the mechanics I immediatly canabolized into my other role-playing games, just phenomenal idea.
All and all so far Im impressed but I agree I had a hard time justifying the cost, its pricey and the whole system is a real money sink. You could potnetially spend a thousand dollars on the system if you want all the guides, vaults and adventures. Given the state of the economy you have to wonder how well the game will pan out in the long run, but what they have already released makes for a very complete system and fantasy flight generally has great long term support for all their games so here is hoping the game gets embraced by the community.
Looking forward to my first session on this one.
