The system really is the Pathfinder of WFRP. Which to me is an intense let-down ever since WotC scored gold with 5th edition. Everything about WFRP4 is maddingly fiddly and cluttered. You can't spend your XP without cross-referencing your individual score to one out of two tables, with every frickin' individual point of XP costing different things. You can't pick up a weapon other than hand weapon without having a Quality or three to check out. You can't make an attack without (very soon) having a critical table chock full of special keywords, each with their own rules, that isn't detailed right there in the table. The suggestion to "You could always print little cards with all those rules on" is not a positive - if I wanted to play cards or do puzzles,. If they expect me to follow the full PC generation rules for NPCs they are funny - the niggling little special rules for each and every talent is a nightmare for a player, who has exactly one (1) character to learn, and as the GM I have... more - so yeah, that was what drove me away from d20 in the first place.

And that presumes the basic combat engine works, and I'm afraid the jury's still out on that.

As Serket says, you roll for Weapon Skill (your Melee skill actually). Subtract the ten's die of your roll from the ten's die of your skill value to get your Success Levels. Your skill value is constantly modified, never the same. +10 from this, -20 from that, and then +10 every time you previously succeeded (until you don't). Visibility. Cover. Ground conditions. Outnumbering. Facing. Weapon Length. Called shots. Position. Space. Previous injuries. Psychology. Fifth "You get disadvantage" Edition it is not.

The GM does the same for the enemy target. If you get 3 SLs and the opponent gets -1 SL you win by 4 SLs. Remember this.

Reverse the dice to get the hit location. (Armor is by hit location)

If you roll doubles, roll again. Twice. First for another hit location, and then for the actual crit. The result can look like this: "Gain 2 Bleeding Conditions as your arm is mangled. Gain 1 Stunned Condition and suffer a Torn Muscle (Minor) injury. Take a Hard (–20) Endurance Test or gain the Unconscious Condition." This happens to you if you failed - your double was over your (modified) skill score - and the enemy if you were successful. And oh, deduct 3 Wounds.

Bleeding means "Lose 1 Wound at the end of every Round, ignoring all modifiers. Further, suffer a penalty of –10 to any Tests to resist Festering Wounds, Minor Infection, or Blood Rot" all three of which in turn have definitions later in the book.

Stunned says (an excerpt): "You are incapable of taking an Action on your turn but are capable of half your normal movement. You can defend yourself in opposed Tests — but not with Language (Magick). You also suffer a –10 penalty to all Tests. If you have any Stunned Conditions, any opponent trying to strike you in Melee Combat gains +1 Advantage before rolling the attack."

Torn Muscle (minor) is four paragraphs on page 179. Plus a reference to the rules for Amputated parts.

Unconscious is simple. Really. Honest.

Back to your attack, and calculating damage. You used an axe, doing Strength Bonus plus 4 damage, so 7, say. Plus your SLs (4, remember?). So 11. Minus the enemy's Toughness Bonus, say 3. You hit the enemy in the body location. Say he wears a leather jack, so its armour point applies. 11-3-1=7. (This particular bit is familiar to every WFRP1/2 fan)

So he loses 7 Wounds. If he now lost all his remaining Wounds he's Prone (another condition with special rules). If your damage was more than his remaining Wounds, that's a critical (potentially a second one). Remember to apply -20 to the crit roll if the damage didn't send him to negative Toughness Bonus or more, not that you ever record negative Wounds.

Since you won, you gain one Advantage, which stacks until they don't. Since he lost, he lose any Advantage he's got.

But wait! There's more.

You might not have used an Axe after all. You might have used a Pick Axe. That means you can switch out your success levels for the unit die of your attack roll. (If you roll 37 and have 50% you normally score 2 SL, but now you can treat that as 7 SL) Plus 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 also counts as crits as well as the ordinary doubles (11, 22, 33 and 44). The GM needs to remember this for monsters with pick axes.

But wait! There's more.

You might have a Talent (Reversal) where instead of gaining 1 Advantage when winning an opposed test (like the one we just executed), you take the opponent's. This also grants you one extra SL (per level of the talent) when you defend (we just attacked, mind). Or you might have a Talent (Distract) which allows you to force an opposed Test (yes, one more) which, if you win, you deny your opponent the ability to accrue Advantage. Two examples of how Talents modify the combat rules in highly specific ways. Not sure how likely you'll have both, but if you do, they do both apply.

Monsters don't have Talents for the most part. They get Traits instead. So that's another long list of little rules to learn. So monsters don't get Riposte, they get to be Champions instead. Ruleswise, however, they're exactly the same. Almost. Monsters aren't restricted to Fast weapons like heroes are.

And that's it.

Wait! I almost forgot to count the die rolls. Attack. Defense. Rolling a double means rolling a critical or fumble. Which means a separate hit location roll. So that makes four, just like Serket said. Except both can roll a double, so that's six. And if the attacker wins, damage can cause a critical too. Eight. And criticals can trigger more rolls. (Not to mention possible extra rolls activated by special rules from talents. I actually honestly don't know. Then there's traits, qualities, flaws, and conditions.)

For one attack. Now it is the monster's turn. That one combat round. For a simple one-on-one duel.

Ashitaka wrote:
Have the physical books been released yet?

 Genoside07 wrote:
I have played and collected every edition; Just seen a few things online..

How did they handle the destruction of the old world?

Anything new rules wise that sticks out.. Good or bad?

On my Christmas list but may just wait and see... that is a common theme with me anything anymore... (star wars taught me that)

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
This game is set in the Old World, so they ... didn't handle the destruction at all.

The combat looks similar to 2nd edition WFRP and also Dark Heresy. In practise it's easy;
"OK, my WS is 47. I rolled 73. That's 3 degrees of success. I get Plus 10 for a careful attack, but my opponent is behind a hedge for -20, so it's 2 degrees of success overall". In fact, our GM used to just ask for the "raw" DoS (roll vs WS) and apply the modifiers in secret, telling us if we'd hit or not.