Xathrodox86 reviews: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th edition, part 4: core mechanics, part 2

Welcome to the final part of my review of the 4th edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Today we'll take a look at the final core mechanics of the game.

That picture is so fucking metal

First there's Corruption which can make even the noblest of warriors fall to the whim of the Dark Gods. It's a bit different to the 2nd edition's mutation mechanics. Simply put if you'll stare long enough into the abyss, it will give you a lot of shit, as well as some tasty Corruption points. Witness a Greater Daemon in all its malefic glory, chug a warpstone brew or stand in a place suffused with Dhar and its Endurance rolling time. Fail that and gain a shiny, new mutation. If you'll get too many of these then your character becomes one of the lost and the damned and you'll need to create a new hero. Nasty, climactic and very grim. What can I say? I love this system!

Did I mentioned that you can take Corruption points to re-roll a failed test? Talk about making deals with the devil! A GM may even force you to spend a CP to shoot an ally or let that cultist escape! That's awesome!

This time there are not only mutations of the body, but also of the mind. In 4th edition we have two tables, which present a nice array of nasty chaos stigmata and mental mutations. This is seriously a very nice approach to the dangers of Chaos and they're all very atmospheric and feel just right in a setting like this.

Psyschology stuff is pretty basic in this edition, which is not a bad thing. There's frenzy, hatred towards a certain target, fear (which now makes you lose your Success Levels instead of freezing you in place), Prejudice, as well as many others. Cubicle 7 advises GM's to create their own custom psychological traits and offers a few examples of these. I especially like the addition of love, as it can make for some very interesting character developement. I've been playing WFRP for 10 years, and during all of this time my players' idea of "love" was to visit a bordello.

You can oppose the negative effects of a psychological trait by making a Cool test. Again - nice and intuitive. A big "yes" from me.

The new edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay also includes a host of old and new, nasty diseases, courtesy of Papa Nurgle. However now each of them has a few symptoms, and these can be insanely deadly. For example the Blood Rot has 3 of these, one of which instantly kills you on a failed Endurance roll and another one that gives you penalty to all physical tests! Yikes!

That said, one must be very careful with administering these to the players. In this edition ilnesses are simply too strong to be taken lightly and can greatly contribute to a Total Party Kill, if one is not careful.

Finally there's Downtime and it is one of my favorite mechanics of the 4th edition of WFRP. It is split between the Events table and the Endeavours section. All too often my players were complaining that they don't have time to do "normal" stuff during our games. You know - buy a house, find a girl, open a buisness. Stuff like that. Granted that I'm usually running a heavy on-the-rails games, but even so, it would be nice to have a mechanic for a sort of downtime.

Well now, in this newest edition of the game, we've been granted just that! Depending on the PC's decisions, they can invest their money, learn new tricks, train an animal, invent and craft new stuff, and do many other, mundane things. They can even ask for a favour from the rich and powerful of the Old World... or the ordinary folk! Now it's really worth to help people on the road, as you'll never know if one day that merchant, whom you've rescured from a bunch of goblins, will be able to help you during some though times.

There are different Endeavours for each of the classes, presented in game and for the elven races, due to their isolation from the other folk of the Old World.

I also love that right after the end of an advenute, the party needs to roll on a whacky Events table and see what kind of (mostly harmless) trouble they've gotten themselves into. These sometimes can effect the Endeavours, which occur in-between quests.

I honestly think that this gives a very realistic feeling to the game, making the world more believable and more immersive.

All in all these mechanics are simply awesome. I would be careful with illnesses, as they have a potential to break the game of an unwary Gamemaster, but all in all, these are great. Next time it will be Grimvember time! You know what that means?

Reviews. Lots and lots of reviews. I will be talking about both the official and custom content, including some of the brand, new 4th edition stuff.

Until next time!

Xathrodox86