Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4e: Dice & Strategy Guide

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th edition (WFRP 4e), published by Cubicle 7, drops you into a dangerous, disease-ridden Old World as a rat-catcher, agitator or down-at-heel soldier. Its dice engine is a percentile roll-under system with a smart twist that grades how well you did, turning every test into a story beat rather than a simple pass or fail.

The dice and the core mechanic

WFRP 4e runs on percentile dice (d100), read as two ten-sided dice for a “tens” and a “units” digit, producing 1–100. Your characteristics and skills are percentage values, and the core test is roll-under: to succeed you roll equal to or under your target. Your target is your relevant characteristic (such as Weapon Skill or Fellowship) plus your skill advances in whatever you are attempting, adjusted by a situational difficulty modifier the GM sets. The number you are aiming at is, in effect, your percentage chance of success.

Success Levels and how a roll resolves

WFRP 4e doesn’t stop at “did you make it?” It measures the quality of the result with Success Levels (SL). Compare the tens digit of your roll to the tens digit of your target:

• If you succeed, your SL is roughly the tens of your target minus the tens of your roll — the more you beat the target by, the more positive SLs you earn.
• If you fail, you earn negative SLs measuring how badly you missed.

Positive Success Levels make a success cleaner, faster or more damaging; negative ones make a failure worse. This tens-digit comparison is what makes a “bare pass” and a “triumphant success” mechanically different. Rolls of doubles (like 11, 22, 33) are often flagged as dramatic criticals or fumbles, adding a jolt of Old World misfortune or glory.

Many important actions — especially combat — use opposed tests, where both sides roll and compare Success Levels; the higher SL wins, and the difference in SL feeds into the outcome, such as how hard a blow lands. This makes fights swingy and tense, exactly as the setting demands.

Advantage, fortune and resilience

Combat introduces Advantage: as you gain the upper hand — landing hits, seizing good position — you accrue Advantage that adds to your subsequent rolls, letting momentum snowball for whoever is winning the exchange. Losing ground can strip it away. Alongside the dice, characters have Fortune points (spent to re-roll or nudge results within a session) and deeper Fate/Resilience reserves that can, in dire moments, save you from death. These are your pressure valves against a lethal system.

Effective strategy

• Stack Success Levels, don’t just pass. Because SL drives quality and damage, anything that lifts your effective target — higher characteristics, more skill advances, favourable conditions — both wins more tests and wins them bigger. Aim to beat targets comfortably.
• Fight for Advantage. In combat, the side building Advantage gets rolling bonuses that compound. Open aggressively to seize it, use positioning and tactics to keep it, and be wary of actions that surrender it.
• Lean on your career. WFRP 4e characters advance through a career system; your current career shapes which skills and talents you can improve cheaply. Progress along careers that reinforce the tests you make most, so your key targets climb steadily.
• Spend Fortune wisely. Fortune points refresh, so use them — a re-roll on a pivotal opposed test or a nudge to your SL can decide a fight. Hoarding them all session wastes a renewable edge.
• Guard your Fate. Fate and Resilience are your lifeline against a genuinely deadly game. Save these deeper resources for “get out of death” moments rather than routine setbacks.

Beginner tips and common mistakes

• Remember you want to roll low. As with other roll-under systems, a low d100 is the good result — and the lower under your target, the more Success Levels you bank.
• Read the tens digit. SL comes from comparing tens digits, so get comfortable eyeballing the tens die. It is faster than it looks once you practise.
• Combat is opposed. Don’t treat attacks as a flat roll against a static number — most are opposed tests where your foe rolls back. Position and Advantage matter as much as your skill.
• The Old World is lethal. Characters are fragile and infection, injury and bad luck are real threats. Caution, teamwork and knowing when to run are survival skills.
• Use your resources. New players often forget Fortune and Advantage entirely. They are core to the maths of the system, not optional extras — work them into every fight.

Enjoy grim percentile systems? Read our Call of Cthulhu dice & strategy guide.