I'm a little confused by this, as it is written in different ways throughout the book.

So, I attack, and take the successes, add the Ability score from the attack, and add the DM of the weapon. Let's say that number is 6. Now I have to roll 6 dice, and get a 7 plus on a die, to deal damage? So if I roll no 7s on the damage roll, I deal no damage, even with a successful hit?

Or, do I just deal 6 damage, no roll needed (I prefer this, seems simpler, and deadlier)

Use the Attack Roll Example on pg 182. It's the most complete walk through of combat in the book.

But yes, once you roll your attack roll you take any excess successes (above what you needed to equal or beat the target's Avoidance), add your weapon damage modifier, and add those dice plus either your Strength dice (for melee; Agility if using a Quick weapon) or Agility (for Ranged or Marksman). If the target has Armor, subtract that many dice from your damage pool. Now roll.

Count your successes (7s or above, unless you have a talent that allows otherwise) and there is your damage.

So yes, if you roll no successes, you do no damage.

Tom

Ugh...that's going to extend combat do into ridiculousness.

I think I'll try just having the successes above Avoidance + weapon's DM modifier (and other modifiers) - Av = damage dealt. Anything that would reduce damage dice reduces this damage value instead. I'll have to try a few mock combats.

You will make combat *way* more lethal that way. For instance, if you succeed by 2 Extra + Weapon DM of 4 - AV 2, then you're doing 4 Damage Automatically. 1 hit and the target is likely Nicked already (with a Toughness of 2) and another hit takes them potentially to Wounded.

As long as you're using those rules in home games, you are free to do what you will. However, for campaign games, it has to be done as written in the rules.

John

Caul,

Is this a problem you've encountered in play, or is this just a case of you reading the rules and think, "no, no, this is all wrong." I can tell you in six months of play, I haven't encountered any problems with how damage is rolled, and almost no wiff factor. If you are worried about the latter, the easiest house rule I would recommend is that a successful attack always does at least 1 point of damage.

Think about this: at best, a beginning character could have an Avoidance of 4 and Health Tracks of 8 each. After 16 points of damage, they need to roll an Unconciousness roll @ -2 penalty. At best, that's a dice pool of 6 (this example has a character with 3 abilities at 4 which is not very likely). Personally, I worry about PCs going down too fast!

The game already has several gauges to control combat length. Most encounters will be against minions. They don't take damage, instead you need to roll enough successes against them to drop them (2xThreat drops a minion).

For lieutenants, I've found if I want to speed up combat, the easiest way is to manage their health tracks. I believe by default, minions have 3 health tracks. Limiting them to 2 health tracks drops them even faster.

Against the players, it's a matter of competency. Threat 1 minions are not going to be much of a threat. But a band of 3+ threat 2 minions with a bit of a melee bump will leave a mark. Lieutenants with a 7+ attack pool can bring the pain, especially if he has minions to run interference. If you need tougher minions, I posted a thread around here with a few minion talent ideas you are welcome to test out.

Either way, I think what you perceive to be a problem is really no problem at all. Give it a go with the RAW for a few sessions and see how things shake out. I'm not saying your solution won't work better for you and your group, but I'm not sure you'll find a problem here at all, especially once your players start making aggressive attacks and using weapon tricks to bump up their damage rolls.

Tom

Not trying to ruffle feathers, and no I haven't played RAW yet (nor do I play official campaign games, I only play privately with my own group), but I am an experienced gamer and look for games that limit the actual rolling of dice, so to my tastes a separate hit and damage roll is a time waster. Now I will test it both ways, and put it to my group which they like, but the warning of more deadly combat does not deter me, rather it excites me. Thank you for the continued clarification, and I hope I'm truly not upsetting anyone, but I'm a tinkerer, and I seldom play a game as written.

Caul,

No feathers ruffled. I'm all for house ruling and experimenting. But after 10 years of Savage Worlds, I've grown fond of the "play the game a few times before house ruling" mantra. The only house rules I've added to my game (outside of GM-level background stuff that is meant to be invisible to the players) are a handful of skill additions (and only one new skill), expanding the assist ally rules to cover skill tests as well as combat, and porting the inebriation rules from 7th Sea (because one of the players wanted an "Able Drinker" Talent). Most of these tweaks grew out of regular play. The core of the game hasn't been an issue to us. The Skill Summary table recently caused a bit of an uproar, which is why I went ahead and updated it in my reference materials. The more we play, the more I'm experimenting with different Skill/Ability combos.

I can certainly see the benefit to taking one roll out of combat, and your math doesn't sound bad. However, I've found that players LIKE to roll damage, especially when the numbers get high. The real trick is to minimize the whiff factor – which I haven't found to be an issue in WH. If I were going to house rule damage in my game, I'd probably go with one of these two ideas:
1) A successful attack always does 1 point of damage. (My first choice: super easy, intuitive, and does the job without breaking anything).
2) A weapon's damage modifier becomes automatic, so a damage roll becomes (Ability+Excess Successes)–Armor; add your weapon DM to your damage roll for points in damage. So a great sword would always do X points of damage, plus whatever you rolled. The problems I immediately see with this are it doesn't affect minions and there is even less incentive to carry a light, gentlemanly weapon. The upside to this is that damage USED to work this way in the previous edition, so it might make the rules less confusing.

You could also always go back to first edition combat and just institute the Consistent Defense Talent from Grand Tome of Adversaries across the board to replace the new defenses.

But for me, how damage is determined is a big chunk of the game. If I need to change that, I'm gonna have to balance it against the existing Defense, Armor, and Damage Value rules. And I just don't have time to do all of that these days.

But by all means, go crazy and let us know how it works out! I run a home game, too, so don't let these WHR players get you down.

The rules as written are actually quite fast when playing face-to-face. (They're no slower than nWOD combats which use almost identical mechanics). An attack should take about 10 seconds to resolve.
Roll Attack -> GM tells damage modifier (+successes -armour) -> player rolls damage dice.


Play-by-post does have issues with the mechanic, but our GM is going to try a house rule to speed things up (otherwise 1 attack may take 3 days to resolve with timezones).

I plan on trying it RAW first (I'll be doing a demo at my FLGS's once a month RP day soon), I just cringe at so many rolls on a personal level. I've been playing Fate and Edge of the Empire too long I guess...

Well remember, most of your combatants are going to be minions. So you are really only talking about one roll in probably 75% of all cases.

When fighting minions, the player makes an Attack roll and, for every group of successes equal to the threat rating, the player drops a minion. So let's say you have a witch hunter fighting a group of 5 Threat 2 minions (a respectable fight, especially if you give the minions a +2 or 3 bump to their Melee pool). If the player rolls 2+ successes (Trivial), minions start dropping. With Threat 1 minions, it's possible to drop a whole band of 5 in a single exchange (5 successes).

Lieutenants and villains are going to be your named adversaries. So you're probably talking about maybe 1 for every 2 or 3 players. If you are looking for a quick fight, stick to Lieutenants. If you are looking to put the group up against a solo beastie, make it a villain. Lieutenants have staying power, but work best when they have support.

The first edition of WH had a stable of generic minions (something sadly missing from the new edition). Looking at the list of entires and their threat rating should give you an idea of what the writers/designers intended as a minion:
Cardinal's Guards (4*)
Cultists (2)
French Musketeers (3)
Mercenaries (3)
Pirates (2)
Savages (1)
Spanish Conquistadors (3)
Thieves (1)
Bear (5*)
Crocodile (4*)
Great Cat (lions, tigers, pumas, etc.) (2)
Wolves (2)
Sharks (3)

*In 1st edition, Threat Ratings went to up to 4, though they could go higher in special cases (the bear).

Tom