Role Playing and the Mordheim rules

My wife and I are part of a gaming group that plays most Friday nights. The vast majority of the time we play D&D (for years now, 3.5/Pathfinder), but we have on many occasions played collaborative Mordheim campaigns (last time was the Vampire Hunters campaign brother Jim wrote). Occasionally, the D&D campaign has bumped into the Mordheim rules and even Warhammer. In particular, for one lengthy section of our longest-running campaign the brave adventurers were sucked into a major war (they didn't start it - they were miles away. That's their story and they are sticking to it). I made "Mordheimized" and "Warhammerized" versions of their PCs, which some sessions we used for larger-scale skirmishes and three major battles. It worked pretty well, overall.

A year ago, for a variety of reasons (including the GM, moi, sort of painting the party into a corner) the D&D campaign stalled out. We decided to try some different RPGs for a bit. We spent a few months running a Victorian Africa campaign using the G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. rules, but it was not completely satisfactory. So I decided to start a new fantasy campaign - by making the Mordheim rules into a set of RPG rules. We pretty much plunged in the moment I had worked out some character generation rules, so a lot of things are being worked out on the fly. So far it seems to be working pretty well - certainly we are having fun.

I thought that people here might be interested - and also that you all might have a lot of extremely useful suggestions. I will start posting the rules that I have worked out so far. All feedback is welcome!

-Michael

CHARACTER GENERATION

Characteristics:

The following characteristics work exactly as they do in Mordheim. More or less.

M (Movement): your movement, in inches, when on foot.

WS (Weapon Skill): your skill with melee weapons.

BS (Ballistic skill): your skill with missile weapons.

Str: (Strength): your physical strength.

T (Toughness): your general health and endurance.

W (Wounds): how much damage you can take before going out of action.

I (Initiative): determines the order you strike or take action in melee. (Also used for “spot checkes”)

A (Attacks): the number of attack rolls you have during melee combat.


Additionally, characters have the following characteristics (2 – 12 score, rolling under the score is desirable when making a skill-based check):

CoCo (Combat Command): your ability to inspire troops in combat.  A PC or NPC within 1” of the character may use the character’s CC skill instead of his own BR (Bravery) skill to make a Fear check.

BRV (Bravery): used for your Fear checks.

CHR (Charisma): your charm/ability to BS, etc. – CHR affects how others may react to you.

APR (Appearance): your physical appearance.

GRA (Grace): your manual dexterity, agility, physical coordination, etc.  

EDU (Education): how much education you have (4 = illiterate peasant, 12 = college degree/head of your class).

INT (Intelligence): your innate smarts/common sense (note your EDU score cannot be higher than your INT score).

SOC (Social Standing): your class standing (your EDU cannot start higher than your SOC rank):
2  Rural Peasant
3  Urban working class
4  Common Artisan (cooper, carpenter, etc.)
5  Common merchant (grocer, tavern-keeper, etc.)
   6  Artisan (blacksmith, armorer, etc.)
7 Wealthy Merchant
8 Knight
9 Lesser Nobility (baronet)
  10 Nobility (baron, count)
  11 High nobility (duke, marquis)
  12 Royal Family

GRep (General Reputation): how well known you are among the general public (what they know about you is based on your background and actions).

ARep (Adventure Reputation): how well you are known among soldiers, adventurers, rogues, etc.

Character Types:

Choose a character template, and then spend any Character Improvement Points (CIPs), if any, that come with the template.

Templates:

Human Warrior
Combat Profile       M:4     WS:2    BS: 2     S: 3     T:3     W: 1     I: 3     A: 1   CoCo: 6    BRV: 7
RPG Profile         CHR: 6     APR: 7     GRA: 6     EDU: 4     INT: 7     SOC: 2    GRep: 0     ARep: 0

Skill Lists: Choose three from Combat, Shooting, Strength, Speed
CIPs: 6


Human Rogue
Combat Profile       M: 4     WS: 2    BS: 2     S: 3     T: 3     W: 1     I: 3     A: 1     CoCo: 5    BRV: 6
RPG Profile         CHR: 6     APR: 7     GRA: 8     EDU: 4     INT: 7     SOC: 2    GRep: 0     ARep: 0

Skill Lists: Rogue Skills, plus two additional skills lists from Combat, Shooting, Strength, Speed.
CIPs: 6


Human Scout
Combat Profile       M: 4     WS: 2    BS: 2     S: 3     T: 3     W: 1     I: 4     A: 1     CoCo: 5    BRV: 7
RPG Profile CHR: 6 APR: 7 GRA: 7 EDU: 4 INT: 7 SOC: 2 GRep: 0 ARep: 0

Skill Lists: Scout Skills, plus two additional skills lists from Combat, Shooting, Strength, Speed.
CIPs: 6


Human Cleric
Combat Profile M: 4 WS: 2 BS: 2 S: 3 T: 3 W: 1 I: 3 A: 1 CoCo: 5 BRV: 7
RPG Profile CHR: 6 APR: 7 GRA: 6 EDU: 6 INT: 7 SOC: 4 GRep: 0 ARep: 0

Skill Lists: Academic Skills, one additional skill list from Combat, Shooting, Strength, Speed.
Spells: the cleric starts with one minor Cleric spell (choice) and has access to the Empire Cleric’s Spell List.
CIPs: 4


Human Wizard
Combat Profile M: 4 WS: 2 BS: 2 S: 3 T: 3 W: 1 I: 3 A: 1 CoCo: 5 BRV: 6
RPG Profile CHR: 6 APR: 7 GRA: 6 EDU: 9 INT: 8 SOC: 6 GRep: -2 ARep: 0

Skill Lists: Academic Skills, one additional skill list from Combat, Shooting, Strength, Speed.
Spells: the wizard starts with one minor Wizard spell and has access to the Empire Wizard’s Spell List.
CIPs: 2


Dwarf Warrior
Combat Profile M: 3 WS: 3 BS: 2 S: 3 T: 4 W: 1 I: 2 A: 1 CoCo: 6 BRV: 8
RPG Profile CHR: 6 (4) APR: 6 GRA: 5 EDU: 6 INT: 7 SOC: 4 GRep: -2 ARep: 0

Starting Skills: Hard Head, Armor, Hates Orcs and Goblins  
Skill Lists: Dwarf Skills plus two lists from Combat, Shooting, and Strength
CIPs: 0


Elf Warrior
Combat Profile M: 5 WS: 3 BS: 3 S: 3 T: 3 W: 1 I: 3 A: 1 CoCo: 6 BRV: 7
RPG Profile CHR: 7 APR: 8 GRA: 8 EDU: 7 INT: 8 SOC: 4 GRep: -2 ARep: 0

Starting Skill: Excellent Sight.
Skill List: Elf Skills plus two lists from Combat, Shooting, Speed and Strength
CIPs: 0


Halflings: Halflings can be warriors, rogues, or scouts.  Use the same list as for the human equivalent except they receive +1 to their Ballistic Skill, Initiative and Grace characteristics and -1to their Toughness and Strength characteristics.  Halflings cannot choose to take the Strength skill table.  They are also Naturally Lucky (effectively they have a built-in Lucky Charm); if they have a physical Lucky Charm on them, roll two dice when they are first hit in a fight and if either roll = 4+ than the hit is negated).

Character Improvement Points.

Starting characters who receive Character Improvement Points must spend them when the character is first created. They may be spent as follows (each improvement may only be purchased once):

Add one Skill table from the allowed lists: 6 CIPs.
Add +1 to EDU: 1 CIP
Add +1 to SOC and EDU: 1 CIP
Add +2 to SOC and +1 to EDU: 2 CIPs
Add +2 to SOC and +2 to EDU: 3 CIPs
Add +3 to SOC and +2 to EDU: 4 CIPs
Add +4 to SOC and +3 to EDU: 5 CIPs
Add +1 to CHR: 2 CIPs
Add +1 to APR: 1 CIP
Add +2 to APR: 3 CIPs
Add +1 to BRV: 2 CIPs
Add the Career Planning skill (when rolling an improvement, you may choose to reroll a result; you must take the second roll): 4 CIPs.


There are five players (besides myself, the GM) running characters. They are:

Breta: human scout (now comes with Horrible Scars!)
Leif Harfoot: human cleric
Galdor Tableleg: elf
Malachite Silveraxe: dwarf
Locke: halfling rogue

I tried to balance the starting templates, but I am sure I was not completely successful. However, I don't think any of the players went rooting around for the most powerful option - everyone chose a character consistent with their favorite D&D race and class. Well, except for the cleric - that player loves to run dwarf clerics, but I did not allow elves or dwarves to have classes as I thought it would be far too hard to balance.