Careers

Agent

Agitator

Apprentice Wizard

Barber-Surgeon

Boatman

Burgher

Coachman

Commoner

Dillitante

Envoy

Gambler

Hunter

Initiate

Mercenary

Messenger

Roadwarden

Scout

Soldier

Student

Thief

Thug

Troll Slayer

Watchman

Waywatcher

Zealot

Advanced Careers

Witch Hunter

Giant Slayer

Flagellant

Disciple

Acolyte

Party Types

Intrepid Explorers - Adventurers, Idealistic

Brash Young Fools - Adventurers, Idealistic

Swords for Hire - Mercenary, Infamous

Gang of Thugs - Criminal, Infamous

Servants of Justice - Reputable, Idealistic

You are Welcome

That's all ?

How am I going to convert my Runebearer-Mercenary-Veteran-Sergeant ???

Messenger->Soldier pretty much covers it for you.

Of note, all the advanced careers (as far as I can recall) require you to have completed one of the prior ones. That's 10 advances, plus however number of advances required for the actual career change. I also expect a few more Advanced careers are in the Toolkit.

That is it in the Main Box, however the Toolkit reports to have

Dockhand
Dwarf Ironbreaker
High Elf Sword Master
Wood Elf Wardancer
And
Ratcatcher

Since there seem to be fewer careers (especially advanced ones), I'm assuming that the rhythm of career advancement will be different in this edition. I wonder how this will work.

How difficult will it be to translate old careers into new careers (spells withstanding)? It's easiest to convert an old career into the closest similar career and specialize from there; but what about careers that don't seem to translate? Perhaps FFG could give us a blank career template that we can use to create new careers + print from?

HedgeWizard said:

It appears to be very easy to create needed careers. See my Minstrel/Bard post here:

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The career sheets are a simple framework. The real character customization comes when you choose your attributes, skills (and specializations), talents, action cards, stance pieces, etc. So, while the career templates are awesome, look great, and add necessary flavor, they should be easy to modify or create.

Some observations:

• There are 10 'advances' on every career in the 'advances' block - no more no less (that I've seen)
• There are an average of 5 to 7 career skills
• There are 2 primary characteristics
• There are 4 traits, and most of them have one of 'Basic' or 'Intermediary' (for advanced careers)
• Don't forget the talent sockets and stance keys

The back has flavor text, special rules (like who can enter the career) and typical trappings. Check out the designer diaries for sample career entries to use an an example.

It comes with a book dedicated to Wizards yet only an Apprentice Wizard is included in the carrers?

That seems a very odd choice to be honest.

The Acolyte and Disciple are the advanced careers for the Apprentice and Initiate.

How are advancing power levels for wizards/priests handles then, given there are only the 1 advanced career?

I am really looking forward to receiving my copy and reading through the new system. I did just get to a "Steady state" with my v2 materials (I had all the core books I felt were necessary for my campaigns), and I feel like I will be losing some of the efforts put there; but excited at the new possibilities too!

Where are my beloved Squires, Knights and Champions? And no seperate Bounty Hunter? OMG...

HedgeWizard said:

It will take them a few releases to catch up to V2 (which is... well, obvious). Looking at the core set, running games with it would be, as expected, like running games with just the V2 core book - which is to say, capable and hungry for more

As for the wizard, it would take a while to burn through both careers (around 20 sessions if you did nothing but burn strait through). However, there are a lot of options for advancements that improve your character that don't advance you in your career (so maybe a lot more than 20).

One of the coolest things about the divine and arcane casters is that you can purchase spells that are of greater rank than you are. They cost more, and are more difficult to cast, but are more powerful - so you could wield powers that are beyond you - for a price... I'm being vague because I haven't finished the caster books yet. Suffice to say, unless you start out with a very advanced character, you'll still be working through advancements when an expansion will likely come out that will allow you to advance further (I'm guessing here).

It reminds me of the basic set of D&D. From 1st to 4th level...

NezziR said:

Ahh ok, didnt catch that as I figured they were priest options (which generaly both terms refer too) as I was expecting Journeyman Wizard to be the second given they are starting at Apprentice (whis always seemed odd to me anyway).

Also note that the toolbox will be out VERY soon and it has 5 classes that we have no idea what they may be.

DeathFromAbove said:

My very same tought.

NezziR here told "It will take them a few releases to catch up to V2 (which is... well, obvious)" . Yeah, it's obvious... a new shiny product that forces you buying furthere releases to be able to keep up to the core book of the previous edition... I call it a bagarin.

Also on Wizard-Priests levels: You of course need lots of games to go beyond Apprentice + First Level... but with the core set the GM won't be able to access to 3Rd level Wizards rules to lay down and create his own recurring dastardly Warlock that could as well be the big bad guy of the campaign. Oh yes... I can houserule it, of course I'll happly do it after spending 100 Bucks on the core set.

Every news I read about it I picture more and more in detail the image of a "You have to purchase this in order to do that" spiral that reminds me very well things like Magic the Gathering...

Face the truth, this is a new generation of RPGs... Modular Collectable Role Card Games.

Ravenheart87 said:

I've stated this before - We are getting less content and have to pay more. Is the beastiary also small?

I think it is a bad direction. And I still need to see a demo session.

And after all I think Jay owes us a session demo video

I'll have to reserve judgement till I see how Careers work in the new edition.

It may be that they are slightly deeper than 2E ones, and thus having as many of them is not as necessary.

...to me a more important issue is how they work later in a character's progression, which could be problematic in 2E .

The bestiary has more entries in it than the V2 bestiary, and with out dogs, cats, donkeys, three types of thieves, etc. It also has a couple of very versatile NPC entries that can serve all types of purposes. The entries are easily changed to reflect any type of creature in that category (you can easily 'champion' them up). Each creature category contains multiple new action options only available to creatures of that type.

The character templates (cards) are a small portion of the actual customization. There are a ton of options. There are advancements that you can take that aren't part of your character progression, allowing further customization of your character. The system looks like it will handle long term campaigns just fine.

One of the coolest things about the careers is that when you change careers (ranks), you keep the old sheet. You just start a new one and copy over your attribute lines. I just discovered today (duh) that if you fold the sheets in half (which you will to fit them in the keeper), they make a killer little book looking thing. So, when you have a few careers under your belt, your character sheet starts looking like a little book. I know it's a small detail, but the game is full of small thoughtful things like that.

NezziR said:

Can you please explain me this?
Now I need a sheet for every career?

Oh my...

DeathFromAbove said:

At least it seems that PCs won't be jumping around as many careers in this system...

DeathFromAbove said:

The original red and blue boxes (blue being expert)? I think it was actually 1st to 3rd level wasn't it, but i think i actually like that concept anyway.

The idea behind the basic set was that it provided enough info to start playing (at lower levels) without seeming too daunting for beginning players. When PCs had grown beyond 3rd level, then it was time to purchase the expert set with its extra rules and options.

This is one of the concepts of the original DnD I really liked, and although I'm a whole lot older (though not neccessarily wiser) now, and won't feel overwhelmed by having all the rules and options provided at once, i really like the idea of the game starting simple and then having addtional options and ideas added with each expansion.

people who would like to be able to purchase the basic set and play with only that set for ever, might see it differently, but I'm not one of those people.

Loswaith said:

Apprentice Wizards can choose any of the great schools of magic to be trained in. If I remember right, the three included in the basic set are bright wizards, grey wizards and...star wizards? Something like that. In effect, the Apprentice wizard is three different (though similar) careers. And future expansions might easily add the other nine schools, or sorceror-types.

And really, the book is more about magic in general, which is a significant element of the Warhammer fiction which not only distinguishes it from the real world, but from other fantasy worlds, and thus might deserve some special attention.

DeathFromAbove said:

Sort of. You need to keep the old sheet to keep a record of the advances you've taken. Also, if you complete the career you keep the old career's special ability, which is a card. So, you could find an alternate means of recording the advances you've already purchased and ditch the old sheet. But why bother, since they're small enough to staple or paper clip together without being cumbersome and you won't have very many of them.

Is the beastiary also small?

33 enemies in the beastiary, if I counted correctly. It covers all the normal/primary foes first and second career characters should typically encounter, and it looks easy enough to modify any that you want to customize special.

It comes with a book dedicated to Wizards yet only an Apprentice Wizard is included in the carrers?

Apprentice and Rank2 wizards (also called Acolytes) are included in the Core Set. It also has information on the schools of magic, tips on how to play wizards of the various colleges. It also talks about higher ranks of wizards, although the Core Set doesn't contain a career sheet for them.

NezziR here told "It will take them a few releases to catch up to V2 (which is... well, obvious)" . Yeah, it's obvious... a new shiny product that forces you buying furthere releases to be able to keep up to the core book of the previous edition... I call it a bagarin.

While, granted, the Core Set doesn't have careers for the higher ranks of wizards/priests ... I will also point out that Apprentices and Initiates can both cast spells, and can in fact cast higher ranks spells if they purchase them. So, there isn't as much of a differentiation rules-wise between the ranks as far as spellcasting. Yes, it is easier and cheaper for higher ranks to cast spells. Yes, higher ranks allows higher Int/WP which allow easier casting and more power channeling, so in those regards they are superior. An apprentice Bright wizard, could, theortically, acquire and cast holocaust, for example assuming he had a high enough WP to be able to draw enough power to cast it. Deviated a bit off the original point ... but the fact is that every RPG does the same thing, include new careers/spells/etc in expansions for players to buy.

Apprentice Wizards can choose any of the great schools of magic to be trained in. If I remember right, the three included in the basic set are bright wizards, grey wizards and...star wizards?

Celestial Wizards. Yes, and each college has a unique 'career talent' that it gets, just like they were each a different career. They also share a small number of basic spells, and each college has their own unique set of spell cards it can acquire.

I don't understand something. If the Core Set only details Bright, Grey, and Celestial Wizards how can an Apprentice Wizard choose ANY of the great schools of magic. Or did you mean to say that an Apprentice Wizard can choose any of those three?

Sometimes less is more, but in this case less is less. Less careers, less spells, less <item here>, etc. WFRP 3e seems to have replaced substance with special cards and dice. Looks to me like some serious sleight of hand going on. While the players are distracted by all the nifty little doo-dads and what-not, they won't notice just how much is actually missing from the game. Thats ok, though, because just about the time they are starting to notice something is missing, FFG will pull another supplement out of their... errrm... hat to keep everyone distracted for a while longer. And on and on it will go.

Say what you want about 2e, but the Core Book never felt as limited to me the way 3e Core Set does.