Our Group's Current Skill Setup

Sorry for the overlapping subject matter of the skill posts, but I just did a complete rebalancing of our skills and would very much appreciate some politely argued criticism

COMBAT
1 Battle Tide: Warrior is Immune to Panic and enemies that fail panic tests take 2 automatic hits from warrior’s weapon of choice, instead of the normal 1.
2 Duellist: Warrior gains +1 Attack on profile whenever he is fighting another Hero (not henchman) in close combat and there are no other warriors involved on either side. Cannot be used while mounted.
3 Combat Sense: Warrior automatically passes Initiative tests for charging non-visible enemies (that are behind a wall, around a corner etc.) and may successfully charge non-visible enemies up 6" away. (Instead of the normal 4".) – (Hidden warriors cannot be charged.)
4 Sidestep: All close combat attacks against warrior have a -1 WS modifier. Cannot be used while mounted. (Not active while knocked down or stunned.) - (No effect vs. spells.)
5 Swordsman: +1 to all injury rolls that warrior inflicts with Swords.
6 Veteran: Warrior may ignore a single Hand Injury (23), Eye Injury (24), or Arm Wound (25).
7 Weapons Training: Warrior may use any hand-to-hand combat weapon he comes across.

SHOOTING
1 Arms Expert: Warrior may use any missile weapon he comes across.
2 Crack Shot: Warrior completely ignores cover modifiers when using missile weapons.
3 Crossbow Master: Warrior may ignore the ‘Move or Fire’ rule when using Crossbows.
4 Headshot: Critical wounds that warrior inflicts with Pistols (any kind) or Throwing Knifes are tripled to three wounds. (Pistols fired in close combat are not affected.)
5 Mounted Marksman: Warrior ignores the penalty for 'Moving and Shooting' while mounted. (Warrior must still be able to move and fire with his weapon.)
6 Quick Shot: Warrior may fire twice each Shooting Phase with Bow (any kind), Throwing Knifes or two Pistols (any kind). Both shots will suffer an additional -1 BS modifier. (Pistols still follow normal reloading rules.)
7: ???

ACADEMIC
1 Animal Trainer: At the start of each battle, nominate one Animal (not mount or monster) in your warband. That animal has +2 WS this battle. If used by Skaven, up to two Giant Rats may be affected.
2 Arcane Lore: Warrior may learn Magic if he owns a Tome of Magic.
3 Charlatan: Roll 3D6 when looking for Henchman Experience and pick any two.(May be used even if the warrior missed the previous battle or was taken out of action – as long as he survived.) - If warrior is wearing Cathayan Silks, roll 4D6 and pick any two.
4 Haggle: Deduct 2D6 gold from the price of any single item, to a minimum cost of 1gc, once per post battle sequence. (May be used even if the warrior missed the previous battle or was taken out of action – as long as he survived.)
5 Herbalist: Warrior is Immune to Poison.
6 Streetwise: +3 to rarity rolls. (Warriors taken out of action may not look for rare items.)
7 Wyrdstone Hunter: If warrior was not taken out of action you may re-roll any one exploration dice. The second result stands.

Strength Skills
1 Cleave: Additional -1 enemy armour save in close combat. (Pistols fired in close combat are not affected.)
2 Heavy Pull: Warrior adds +1 Strength to all shots fired with Bow (any kind) or adds the 'Concussion' special rule to all injuries inflicted with Crossbows. (Treat injury rolls of '2' as Stunned.) Cannot be combined with the ‘Quick Shot’ skill.
3 Mighty Blow: Critical wounds that warrior inflicts with Great Weapon, Flail or Lance are tripled to three wounds.
4 Painbastard: Warrior cannot be critically wounded. (Treat critical wounds as normal wounds.)
5 Resilient: Warrior has +1 Toughness on profile in the first round of close combat.
6 Scar Dog: Warrior gains an additional +1 Experience each time he survives a roll on the Heroes' Serious Injury Chart (D66).
7 Strongman: Warrior uses Great Weapons and Flails as ‘Two-handed’ weapons with a +2 Strength bonus is all rounds of combat, not just the first.

SPEED
(Speed skills cannot be used while Mounted.)
1 Alley Cat: Unless part of a charging move, warrior may fall or jump down from a height of up to 6" without taking any damage with no dice rolls needed. (This skill has no effect if the distance exceeds 6”.) – (You may measure the distance beforehand unless the jump is part of a charge.)
2 Dodge: All shooting at Warrior has a -1 BS modifier. (Not active while knocked down or stunned.) – (No effect versus spells.)
3 Fleet Footed: Warrior has +1 Movement on profile.
4 Lightning Reflexes: When the warrior charges or is charged attack order is determined by comparing Initiative. (Even if the enemy is armed with a Spear or Halberd.) – (This does not prevent warriors from automatically striking last for recovering from knocked down.)
5 Scout: Warrior may make two free moves before the battle begins. (He may run and climb as opportunity permits, but he may not charge.) - Cannot be combined with the 'Infiltration' skill.
6 Wall Runner: Warrior automatically passes Initiative tests for climbing up and down.
7 ???

ROGUE
(Only availible to Skaven and Night Goblins)
1 Backstab: Additional -1 enemy armour save in close combat. (Cumulative with ‘Cleave’.) - (Pistols fired in close combat are not affected.)
2 Hide in Shadows: Warrior always counts as being in cover when targeted with missile fire. Cannot be used while mounted. (This does not affect hiding.) – (Cover is still negated by the ‘Crack Shot’ skill.)
3 Infiltration: Warrior is always placed on the battlefield after the opposing warband and can be placed anywhere, even above ground level, as long as it is out of sight of the opposing warband and more than 12” away from any enemy or scenario objective. (If both Warbands have warriors that Infiltrate, roll dice to determine who sets up first.) Cannot be used while mounted.
4 Jump Up: Warrior ignores knocked down, unless recovering from being stunned. Cannot be used while mounted.
5 Pick Locks: Warrior treats results of Captured (11) and Sold to the Pits (63) as Full Recovery (43-62) instead. <-- Needs to do more! Please Help!
6 Poison Master: At the start of each battle, choose one weapon in the warrior’s possession. That weapon is coated in Dark Venom this battle. (This counts towards the heroes’ one dose of Dark Venom pr. battle.) - (Poisonous weapons may re-roll natural 1s when rolling ‘to wound’.)
7 Quick Draw: Warrior ignores the penalty for 'Moving and Shooting' when using Short Bow.

It seems by "rebalancing," you've made almost off of them much weaker. Was your group finding the original skills too powerful? All of these skills seem "balanced" to me in the sense that none of them are too strong. Contrarily, it seems as if few of them will have much effect on the game at all. With the default skills, I usually want to roll skills early on, but after I have 3 or maybe 4 on a character, I typically don't want to roll skills anymore as the more useful ones have been taken. With the skill lists you provide, I imagine I'd only want my heroes to get 1 or 2 skills. Stats increases are just so much better in comparison to these skills.

Only the Scout, Painbastard, Arms Expert, and Infiltration skills seem to be on par with the usefulness of the original skills.

Anyways, I'm not trying to say there's something wrong with your skills. I'm just curious as to why you nerfed them so much. Previously they were roughly on par with stat increases; now they're nowhere close.

Crossbow Master is to me a sad replacement of Nimble. What happens to all those people with barely-used Hanguns? What happens to the lone Hochland rifle armed sniper on the tallest building who would usually move to get a good shot AND fire? If he can only move one turn then shoot the next blackpowder weapons seem redundant completely.

Fallen wrote:

Crossbow Master is to me a sad replacement of Nimble. What happens to all those people with barely-used Hanguns? What happens to the lone Hochland rifle armed sniper on the tallest building who would usually move to get a good shot AND fire? If he can only move one turn then shoot the next blackpowder weapons seem redundant completely.

Asp's group plays with S5 handguns/LR's, so I'm sure they still see play (and I'd wager there are other rules interactions which we are not privy to that affect the impact of these skills). Regardless, I agree with you that some of these changes seem needlessly harsh.

Thanks for the comments, guys!

I'll think about it and get back to you.

well firstly i think its important to make clear that the indiviual skills vary wildly in the original rulebook. compare step aside to web of steel, for example.

with regards to the power level of our skills we are trying to attain something weaker than the strongest skills (quick shot, step aside, dode) and stronger than the weakest skills (web of steel, streetwise)

also, identity hit the nail on the head when he said:

Quote :

and I'd wager there are other rules interactions which we are not privy to that affect the impact of these skill

i'm, trying to minimize this, to make it easy for you all to comment, but for example, to gauge the power level of dodge and step aside, translated to the vanilla engine these skills would roughly translate into additional -1 to hit vs. shooting/ cc which of course is still worse than an unmodded 5+ special save, but better than the -1 ws/bs

For instance, I think Strike to Injure and (the official) Swordsman are very viable, but not overpowered skills. Your new "Swordsman" skill seems extremely weak in comparison.

Also, the -1 WS of sidestep is MUCH different than -1 to hit. A lot of times -1 WS wont change the to-hit role at all.

I fully support your attempts to modify Mordheim into the game your group wants it to be, but I'm curious if anyone in you group wants to roll a skill when leveling. With your skill list, I'm afraid I would not.

identity, i very much appreciate your input

regarding strike to injure, forgive my muddled writing but what i meant was, that under our rules engine, -1 WS/BS is roughly equalvalent to -1 to hit. Which makes Dodge/Step Aside better than they seem (though not as good as the originals).

wei agree that the original strike to injure and swordsman are examples of adequately-powered skills

I like these rules but some seem a bit silly like arms expert isn't that the same as weapons expert????