So explain to me if I am misunderstanding something here

you can only spend 10 advancements in a single career before you have to move on to another career right?

why? what if I just want to be a roadwarden?

4 of them have to be +1 wound, +1 action card, +1 talent, +1 skill or specialty right?

the other 6 depend upon the options on the front of the career card right?

There seems to be 10 options, you get up to 6 of them.

If you raise a key characteristic for your career it costs a number of advances equal to the value you are raising it to - these advances count toward your 6 career advances (It says to check off an available advance for each advance spent on the characteristic upgrade) so if you raise a stat to 5 you only get 1 other advance from your career before you have to change?

Also it is impossible to raise a stat to 7, unless you raise a non career key stat?

No, you just need 10 advancements to "complete" a career, meaning you permanently get the bonuses. You could spend forever in a single career, buying stat increases, skill advancements both in and out of career. Don't forget, you can train a skill once per rank, not once per career. Once you've spent 10 advancements you are at rank 2, for example, even if you're still in the same career. At that point, you can train all your same skills again if you wish. You can also train skills which don't count for career completion, they just cost extra advancement points. And so

You only have space for 6 open career advancements on your sheet, I am interpreting that to mean you cant train any more skills.

Kaptain O said:

Yeah, I was wondering about that myself. The first 4 are fixed, then the next six are a choice from your career sheet. Each sheet has 10 choices. Once you pick 6 of them (for 10 total including the 4 fixed), you are eligible to advance to another career, but it doesn't say you HAVE to.

You can continue to buy advances from the list until you have all 10, then you could treat the rest as 'non-career advances (WFRP 37). It should be the same for other related categories. So, if it lists '1 talent', you can buy that 1 talent for 1 advance. Any additional talents you buy cost 2 advances. Same with skills. If your career card says '3 skills', you can but 3 from the list on the card at 1 advance each, after that they are 2 advances each (see non-career advances).

So, yes - you could remain a 'Road Warden', but it would just get more expensive if you stayed in too long.

At least, that's the way I'm reading it.

I was hoping someone would ask this question. I am totally confused on the matter.

I thought that you could only take advancements from a career that were listed on the front of the card. That idea conflicted with the 4 fixed advancements on the back since some of the careers have 0 wounds (even though there is a fixed advancement for wounds).

So that means you must take the 4 fixed advancements for every career you go through?

The 4 fixed advancements also don't count toward the 10 career advancements on the front of a card: Every career gives 1 wound through a fixed advancement, therefore a Troll Slayer could end his career with 4 wounds or a Student, who has 4 skill options on the front of the card, could actually take 5 skills for 1 advance each? Correct?

As much as I do love this new system, there sure are some vagaries that need clearing up.

You can only purchase skills/talents not listed on your career card as non-career advances, and from the look of the back of the sheet you can only make 2 non-career advances per career.

from page 37 "Charactersitic Upgrades"

If a character is increasing one of the primary characteristics listed on his career card, these advances count toward the ten advances needed to complete the career. In this case, the player draws a line through a number of career advances equal to the number of advances spent on the characteristic upgrade. These advances are no longer available for other uses.

Now I look at it closer, it appears you can only raise a non career characteristic to 4 since they only allow 5 boxes for non-career advances and it costs x+1 advances to raise a non-career characteristic to x.

parcival42 said:

Pretty much how I see it.

From what I see you must take 4 general advances and 6 open choices (assuming you intend to complete the career for the dedication bonus).

Actually, this thread has confused me even more.

I'm going to have to re-read that chapter again.

Perhaps we'll get a bit of clarification from an errata or official FAQ. That would be nice.

A few comments that will hopefully clarify several of these issues.

Fixed Career Advances

The four fixed advances on the top of the Advancement Worksheet do not count "against" the available advancement options listed on the front of the career sheet.

This means that a career that does not have Wound Threshold listed on the advances section on the front of the sheet (such as the Student) still has access to +1 Wound Threshold via the fixed advance slot offering that benefit.

Likewise, a career like Roadwarden (with 1 wound threshold listed in the advances section on the front of the career sheet) could acquire two additional wound threshold advances during his career as a Roadwarden -- one from the advances section on the front of the career sheet, one from the fixed career advances in the Advancement Worksheet.

Completing a Career

Once you have all ten advance lines filled/checked off on the General Career Advances portion of the Advancement Worksheet, you have effectively completed that career. You may then spend an advance to check off the Dedication Bonus box under Career Completion Advances. and receive the Dedication Bonus awards as detailed on WFRP page 37.

Note the dedication bonus is an advance, just like any other career benefit – the character has simply "unlocked" access to that special advance by completing his current career, but he must still invest in its purchase, as he would to acquire any of the General Career Advances.

Non-Career Advances

The five boxes listed next to each Non-Career Advance and the two Non-Career Advance lines are intended as limits, but these can be easily adapted by GMs should they wish their players to purchase more than two non-career advances, or invest in advancements that require more than five advances to acquire.

AAAAAHHHhhhh I see. Thanks Ynnen.

Each career has those four fixed advances plus six others as noted on their career card. Those are the ten advances needed to complete a career.

Gotcha.

ynnen said:

Thats pretty much how I interpreted it but here are some questions/ramifications.

once you have checked off your 4 general and 6 open advances, the dedication bonus, and the 2 non-career advances you *cannot* purchase any more advances without changing career?

as an addendum, if you use your 4 general advances and then raise a career stat to 6 (using all 6 of your career advances) you are then done with that career and have to move on without purchasing anything else?

also - you cannot ever raise a stat to 7 since that would be more than the 6 open advances you have per career.

please confirm/explain these consequences as I understand them (note I am talking about the RAW, obviously a GM could alter any of the rules to fit their group/game).

Necrozius said:

IIReadC its more like those four fixed plus 10 others as noted on the card. Still a bit confused here.

Naw, I'm pretty sure that all you need are those fixed four advances + six others that are immediately underneath them. Those six need to match up with the advances shown on your career card.

Once all ten of these advances have been taken, then you've "completed" your career.

You may then, if you wish, permanently purchase your class' special ability card (1 advance).

Then you can pay to switch careers.

It does seem a bit weird that I player can't take the 4 fixed advances, the 6 on the card and then also increase his stats. If you're happy being in your career, why force a change when you reach 10 advances?

I haven't read anywhere that you're forced into leaving your career.

Buying the ten advances just means that the career is completed 100%.

That means that you can permanently buy the career's special ability, whether you change careers or not.

Mind you, by staying in that career, advancement costs might be more expensive...

Well after 4 general advances and 6 career advances (and 2 non-career advances) all of your boxes will be checked - as ynnen said the boxes are *intended* to be a limit to the number of advances you can buy - but he also states you could mod the system to work however you prefer.

Kaptain O said:

Er.. yeah I always forget about space limitations on the character sheets...

Well, I'm going to dish out experience sparsely, I guess.

I like the advancement limitations. It prevents all Troll Slayers from being the same, all Bright Wizards from being the same, all Roadwardens from being the same, etc.

2 players can have passed through the Roadwarden career and come away with different talents, action cards and skills. Maybe one of them just popped into that career to advance two traits from 2s to 3s.

Well, the standard amount of XP is one Advancement point per session, with the option for the GM to add another if the party finished a "Major" plot point. I plan to stick to this, and with how short our sessions are most games, I may even make it 2 Advancements every 3 sessions.

I think I may alter the advancement system for my game, half the xp i give but have each xp give 2 advances, one for characteristics and one for skills/talents/actions/fortune/wounds/stance. Or maybe just the 6 open advances are 2:1 like that. Or maybe give one characteristc advance for free per career...

May I suggest useing the system as written for advancement and modify after you see how it works? I think the slow advancement is a better option and should be left as is.

Actually if you check out what I am considering it is slower progress than the base system

Well, there you go...

One of the things I like about the advancement system, as I know understand it after having read this thread, is that it allows for those who have finished the same career to be mechanically different due to advancement choices.

Since there are 4 "fixed" slots and 6 "variable" slots (selected from 10 available choices), it allows for players to make pretty significantly different choices. Especially if you add in the opportunities for non-career choices on top of it.

I also like that it takes 10+ sessions, in RAW, to finish a career and/or go up a Rank, but that the characters potentially develop and improve mechanically each session.

1) Advance limitations and caracteristics upgrade looks odd to me...

Well... As you have a limited number of advance in each carrier, if I enter a new carrier with a major caracteristic at 9, I'll spend all ten advances to upgrade it to 10, and must go through another carrier. So I will choose a carrier only for this in-carrier caracteristic, but i won't really enjoy this carrier, since I won't be able to upgrade another aspect of it.

2) what ? i MUST look for another carrier after 10 advances ? but I don't want to be a (whatever else)...

As there are not a lot of advanced carriers to chose after completing your beloved basic, changing carrier can be rough... When you've got an advanced carrier after, it's interesting because you have to make choice and the same carrier don't intend the same progression twice. But It's quite frustrating when you DON'T have an advanced carrier after... why getting another basic carrier ? If I continue to spend advances in a complete carrier, it become non-carrier advancement... odd.

Am I RAW about it ? What don't you think about it ? (I hope to be clear enough. English is not a carrier-skill)