The basic rules of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay runs on a single gesture, repeated all evening: two ten-sided dice, a percentage, and a result you need to roll under the value written on the sheet. From picking a door to a duel in an Ubersreik alley, everything is settled that way.
Here are those rules gathered in one place, in the order they actually come up at the table. The d100 and difficulty, the ten characteristics, success levels, how a combat round plays out, wounds and fate points.
The rule that governs everything.
Every action with an uncertain outcome is settled the same way: you roll two ten-sided dice for a result from 1 to 100, and you succeed if that result is equal to or lower than the value involved. A skill of 45 therefore succeeds 45 times out of 100, and the number on the sheet is your chance of success, plain and simple.
Difficulty does not change the dice, it changes the value. The game master adds or removes a multiple of ten before the roll: plus 60 for a very easy action, plus 20 for an average one, nothing for a challenging one, minus 10 when it gets difficult, down to minus 30 when the situation is truly hard. One percentage, one roll, nothing else to remember.
The ten characteristics.
It covers hitting in melee and parrying blows. The most called on characteristic the moment a brawl starts.
Bow, crossbow and blackpowder all run through it. Useful, though reloading often takes more than a round.
Its bonus, the tens digit, is added to every blow you land. It also breaks down doors and lifts carts.
Its bonus is subtracted from all incoming damage, before armour. This is the characteristic that decides your life expectancy.
It sets the order of combat and spots ambushes. A slow character finds out about trouble after everybody else.
Running, dodging, balance and stealth all depend on it. The characteristic that gets you out alive.
Lockpicking, craft, surgery and forged papers run through it. Useless in a fight, precious everywhere else.
It covers learning, reading and investigation, and casts the colleges' spells. An illiterate character is nothing unusual in the Empire.
It resists Fear, corruption and spells, and channels magic. Low Willpower turns every horror into a retreat.
Haggling, lying, commanding: in a game where money is always short, it pays better than a sword. It is also what avoids fights.
The rolls and their levels.
A d100 under the skill or characteristic value. The principle fits on one line, everything else is detail.
The game master adds or removes steps of ten depending on the situation. Very easy gives plus sixty, very hard minus thirty.
You compare the tens digit of the roll with the tens digit of the target. A 24 against a value of 55 gives three success levels.
Both sides roll and the highest total of levels wins. On a tie, the higher value decides.
A successful double triggers a critical, a failed double a fumble. In combat, a failed double often opens a critical wound.
Some tasks require piling up a set number of levels, roll after roll. This is how you play out a journey, an investigation or a long repair.
The combat round.
Combat plays out in rounds, everyone acting according to their Initiative. A melee attack is not a lone roll: it is an opposed test. The attacker rolls their Melee skill, the defender rolls theirs or their Dodge, and whoever scores the most success levels wins the exchange. Failing your defence means taking the hit.
Damage needs no extra die: the success levels of the attack, plus the weapon's rating, plus the Strength Bonus, which is simply the tens digit of the characteristic. The target subtracts their Toughness Bonus and the armour points on the location hit, and the rest comes off as Wounds. On top of that sits Advantage, plus 10 for every point gained by pressing the attack, lost the moment you take a hit.
Wounds, and death.
A character does not carry a deep pool of hit points. Their Wounds come from their bonuses: twice the Toughness Bonus, plus the Strength Bonus, plus the Willpower Bonus. A starting human sits around ten, which is two or three well placed sword blows. As long as that total is not spent, they act perfectly normally.
At zero Wounds, every further point of damage causes a critical wound rolled on a table: a broken limb, a bleed, sometimes death on the spot. That is where Fate and Fortune come in. A Fortune point, which comes back every session, lets you reroll or add a success level. Burning a Fate point never comes back, but you walk away from what should have killed you.
The rules people get wrong.
A craftsman fixing a wheel in their own workshop needs no dice. You roll when time is short, when you are watched, or when failure costs something.
The whole game runs on levels: damage, duration, quality, information gained. Settling for pass or fail throws away half the rules.
The winner is not whoever rolled lowest, but whoever gathers the most levels. One failure can therefore beat another failure.
The modifier is announced before the die rolls, otherwise the player cannot decide anything. Difficulty added afterwards is not a rule, it is a verdict.
Every success in a fight grants an Advantage point, added to later rolls. A table that forgets it makes fights last twice as long.
Fortune points come back every session, so hoarding them is pointless. They exist to reroll or to add a level at the right moment.
Applying the rules online.
Tracking Wounds, everyone's Advantage and success levels by hand ends up slowing the scene down. The game master recalculates while the players wait, and the Ubersreik alley loses its atmosphere.
Tomeus gathers the sheets, the dice roller, the backdrop and the music in a single window. You create the game, send the link, and your players arrive with their character in front of them, nothing to install and nothing written on a scrap of paper that goes missing.
Go further with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
How to Start Playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
The Old World, the d100, randomly rolled careers and lethal combat: the complete guide to start playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and run a first session.
The Lore of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
The Old World, the Empire and its provinces, the peoples, the four Chaos gods and the threats prowling around: WFRP lore explained, and how to use it at your table.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Careers
The eight career classes, the four tiers, social status, the random roll and changing careers: how WFRP careers work and how to pick your first one.
The Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Bestiary
WFRP creatures explained: reading a creature profile, the main monster families, the trait system and how to build an encounter that stays lethal.
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How to Play a Tabletop RPG: the Beginner's Guide
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How to Prepare a Tabletop RPG Campaign
Setting, central stake, factions, NPCs and per-session prep: the method to build a tabletop RPG campaign without writing everything in advance.
The Best Tabletop RPGs for Beginners
Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Alien, Monster of the Week: six easy tabletop RPGs for a first session, and how to pick the right one.
How to Create a Tabletop RPG Character
Concept, class, ability scores, skills, backstory and bonds: the full method to create a tabletop RPG character who will carry a whole campaign.
Frequently asked questions.
Which dice do you need to play Warhammer?
Two ten-sided dice are enough, one for the tens and one for the units. The whole system rests on that d100: skill tests, critical wound tables, career rolls. No special dice are required, and the starter set already provides what you need for a first session.
Is combat really as deadly as they say?
Yes, and the game owns it. Around ten Wounds, critical wounds as soon as the counter hits zero, and no resurrection within reach of your purse. Fate and Fortune offer a safety net, deliberately thin: Warhammer expects your group to negotiate, run or set an ambush rather than walk in through the front door.
How do the rules differ from Dungeons & Dragons?
The direction of the roll, first: Warhammer has you roll under a percentage value, D&D has you beat a number with a d20. Then the opposition: here an attack is settled against the defender's roll, not against a fixed armour class. And finally progression, through successive careers rather than levels.