I've might have missed something here but...

When a character has a talent, let's say Silver tongue (a Reputataion talent) with his first career.

Later the player decides to do a different career that doesn't have a reputation talent slot.

So far as I can tell, this mean that he looses the ability to use the Silver tongue talent.

To me this does not make sense, that the character looses the use of the Silver tongue talent.

Did I miss a rule somewhere?

I was thinking this myself the other day when I was reading the rules... I think however you keep both Career sheets and are able to use any 2 talents on either sheeet but I'm not sure (it's how I would rule it however)

I'm pretty certain that when you change careers you remove your old and thus potentially end up with talents you can't use anymore - however there is still the party sheet which may have a suitable talent slot and maybe there'll be advanced careers with all 3 types of talent slots.

As a storyteller I might allow the other players to purchase the unusable talents that the other players may have so you don't end up with a really good talent being unavailable because someone changed careers.

Yeah, you'll lose any previous talents that applies to your previous career when you advance and do not have available slots for them. I can see the logic behind why you feel that way though - it is hard to imagine how one can lose a personal trait like 'silver tongue' once he/she changes a career, but one may see it from the point of view of a person changing over time due to the change in social responsibilities and environment, etc. For example, a silver tongued merchant may lose this quality once he has had the harsh life of a roadwarden. That being said, there's the problem of being unable to reconcile that fact that you lose the reputation IMMEDIATELY upon change of career, whereas there is some time needed in a new environment before one changes in character.I guess that's something that we need to be able to justify in game terms.

Perhaps the gm could allow the user to keep the reputation on a case by case basis for approximately 2-3 weeks of game time before it being lost.

Im not positive because I dont have the ruleset yet but I think there was some discussion in some other threads related to this.

I think if you complete a career (all 10 advances...?) before moving to another then you retain the career ability(s) as a reward. Again, Im working from the memory of something I 'think' I read on these forums.

Theory is that if you stick at the career till you complete all available advances then you take that experience with you. The analogy was someone who works in a partciular job for a short time is less likely to retain those job skills than someone who works in a particular profession for an extended period of time.

I might be off base and I dont know if there is a difference between 'talents' and 'class abilities'. Im pretty sure the discussion Im thinking of was referring to these retained skills as class abilities.

WuumHammer said:

Class abilities are abilities that your career specifically gives you. Talents are seperate abilities that you purchase during character creation and advancement. So the rule that says you keep the experience with you due to your 'dedication' refers to the class ability only. Any other incompatible talents are lost with the new career.

Well I thought of this overnight.

I'd say that after first level the character gets one free slot for each type of talent.

1st. eg. 1st career has talent slots, focus and reputation. the next career has two tactic slots. The character would also have one focus slot and one reputation slot.

2nd. eg. 1st career has two talent slots of tactic.the next career has one focus slot and ond reputation slot. The character would have one tactic slot to use his tactic talets that he learned from the previous career.

I just can't get around the idea that one of my players characters can't use his flanking manoevure talent he learned from a previous career while locked in deadly combat.

That goes for any other special talent cards. The Zealots insanity slot comes to mind.

Bear in mind that the available Talent slots should act to further refine a character's choice of subsequent career. I'm okay with the limitation that if they want to switch to a career that doesn't have a Talent slot capable of using a Talent they gained in an earlier career, they can't use it. They have to balance that with the benefits to be gained from switching to the new career.

I can see it is a balance issue. The players are faced with the choice of keeping the use of certain talents over others.

As a GM (which I am 99.99% of the time) I think it would be fun to have to make the hard disision on what career path to take,and what talents do I want to keep using.

I also know my players (which I GM'd for over 20 years). They would not like it. Their point of view would be that there charatcter shouldn't suddenly forget the Talents that he learned in the past.

to contradict myself: If I was a retired warrior of sorts and I found myself in combat, I'd be using some of my old tricks to keep myself from getting killed. I don't think I'd forget them just because I've become a...a....(****! don't have the character sheets with me!!) ...let's just say a student.

In other words I do see both sides of the coin.

Well I think I'm going to have to make a house rule about it.

I have been wondering about this myself.

If you're an Acolyte for example but then decide not to go on to more spellcasting careers instead become a scribe (yes, only more expensive in advances then going to to wizard), what happens to your Order Slot?

It doesn't specificially say you loose the old career card on WFRP Page 38, only that you make a new sheet for tracking things.

But does that mean that with each new career you actually increase the number of talents to slot in total? Effectively as you go up in Rank you have more talents in play at once?

Rob

valvorik said:

I tend to like this approach.

It seems less logic-bending and "gamey" then some of the other options. I don't see a problem with more slots available, it seems to serve as a means to make a character more diverese as they "grow" in experience, and gives them a larger pool of talents to draw upon as they evovle.

Interesting, I think it's clearly not how it works RAW but by adding the extra talent slots you give your chars a reason to buy new talents - otherwise once you got a few of the "best" ones why would you ever buy more?

Well, it would help if the RAW made any sort of sense in explaining how they work, in regards to something vaguely resembling reality.

Instead it just kind of "handwaves" lost talent away, with little Explanation........"Um, you just can't do it any more 'kay?"

Somewhere there has to be a happy medium, for people that are willing to suspend disblief only so far, and don't want to chuck logic & reason out the window, for the sake of RAW.

I

No, I understand, by RAW you lose the ability to utilise the talent - one answer is, then don't pick a career that doesnt let you use the talent. Playing by the RAW has some downsides though.

• You just forget how to do something - as you say it doesnt really make sense.
• As I brought up, if you never need more than 2 talents you just never have to buy them, and it removes an aspect of development.

One thing you need to be careful of though is "overpowering" characters by giving them a ton of extra talent slots after completing a few careers. If you house rule it so they got to keep the 2 slots that could really add up - also what about priests/wizards who have an order slot - that would not give them any additional benefit as they only ever have the one order talent to slot. Maybe make it so that when you get dedication bonus you may a single talent slot to keep?

I Agree on having a few extra slots open so the characters can use those talents that the players payed for.

I would like to know for sure what FFG's ruling for it is though. Not that I'd follow it, unless it made sense, but it would be nice to know.

Oh well the game's not perfect. FUN though and to me that's important!

FFG's position on Talents is clear. You can't use Talents you don't have a slot for and you can only use talents when they are socketed to either a career sheet or a party sheet. If you have more than two, you can only use those that are socketed. During story mode you can swap out Talents freely, but during an encounter it costs a maneuver to do so and you cannot swap out Talents while they are recharging after having been exhausted, further reducing the attractiveness of purchasing multiple Talents. Talents seem to be overly restricted in their use which makes action cards more attractive as advancements since there is no limit to the number of action cards one can use. It's probably still useful to pick up at least two of each Talent type, one combat oriented and one social, so that you can always have two useful Talents regardless of career. Hopefully, you can stick one of your unused Talents in the party sheet and still get to use it that way, but I agree that Talents appear to reach a point of diminishing returns rather quickly.

The idea is that players should pursue careers that play to their strengths, since they pay more advancements to go to unrelated careers. A character who is strong in fellowship and has reputation talents would be best suited by pursuing a career that builds on their existing abilities. Why would they throw out everything they're good at right in the midst of things?

Just like in real life - you're more likely to get into a career if you already have a talent at it. Someone with a high fellowship, and with Reputation related talents, going into a career that doesn't care about a persons reputation and has entirely different focus is like someone quitting being a politician to become a systems analyst, then quitting that to become a rock singer, then quitting that to become a gymnast. These are entirely different skillsets, and it would make more sense to concentrate on the strengths and build up related groups of skills instead...

So it's not unrealistic for someone to lose access to different traits when they change jobs. It's not like the ability is lost, it just doesn't apply to their current job. If they resume a career that focuses on their fellowship, their reputation talent is still there and can be polished off and used again.

mac40k said:

There are a few careers where the inability to get more talent slots becomes very strange:

• The Wizard: Any wizard who changes career to a "non-wizard" career can't slot his order talent anymore which means he can no longer cast any spells.

• Th e Zealot/Flagellant: Their career special abilities are dependant on the fact that they can slot an insanity as a talent. If they can't, then there really is no point for a Zealot/Flagellant to get the dedication bonus since their career's special ability is totally worthless unless they stay within the Zealot/Flagellant careers.

How to solve the Wizard problem: Once a wizard, always a wizard. You can't choose a "non-wizardly" career once you've gone down this path.

As for the Wizard, I guess story-wise it would be pretty hard to explain how a wizard would ever choose a non-wizard career. Once a wizard always a wizard. If a wizard ever leaves the colleges of magic, he's hunted down and killed as a hedge wizard.

From a roleplaying point of view, i just can't see a wizard going in any other direction (read career) then deeper into the mysteries of magic (getting the next wizard career in line). This can be a problem right now though (at least until the magic supplement arrives) since there are just 2 "wizardly" careers in the game.

A wizard going into other "non-wizardly" careers just doesn't fit well with the way the game depicts what being a wizard actually means, its a life-time choice (or rather a "non-choice" since they pretty much have to join the colleges if they have any magical abilities) with no way out of it, except death. (It guess it actually is a "non-choice" since a human that shows any kind of magical abilities pretty much has no choice but join the colleges of magic or risque being hunted down as a hedge wizard.)

In none of the warhammer novels i've read (and i've read quite alot of them) did I ever read anything that supported the idea of a wizard "exploring" other career options. They're all very much into being wizards and becoming even more wizards. It's like being a wizard becomes their identity and who they are... they live, breath and die for magic, the winds changing them forever, and all that.

How to solve the Zealot/Flagellant: I don't know how to solve this one, without giving characters access to talent slots from careers they've left behind. And if you do allow this, then the flagellant would suddenly have 2 insanities slotted; one which he gained when he was a Zealot, and one from his current career of being a Flagellant.

The Flagellant special ability reads "... by the severity of the insanity you have attached to your career sheet." That sure doesn't sound like you could have more than one insanity card attached.

Summary: Currently there aren't any rules in the game that seems to be a solution to the very strange fact that Wizards suddenly can't cast spells when they change to a non-wizardly career and that the zealot career ability is totally worthless to get as a permanent dedication reward (since they no longer can slot an insanity).

Edit: Just realized that the priests have the same problem as the wizards. They can't cast blessings anymore if they change career to a non-priestly one, since they wont be able to slot their Faith.

Kaptain O said:

Indeed the real danger of this is over powered characters. I am not sure how I would work it, if I went this route.

Off the top of my head I think I'd say: You still only have 2 slots available to your character, but you can choose based on what slots are presented on current/past career cards.

So for example if your character had Repuataion/Focus on the past Career card and Reputation/Tactic on the current card, you would have to pick 2 from those choices to be "Active". Rep/Rep, Rep/Focus, Focus /Tactic, Etc.

Would they get much more "overpowered" with an additional talent slot (or 2) per fully completed career?

i mean how many careers do you think they would get through? Are the talents a big deal and powerful enough that having a 3rd would cause imbalance issues - especially assuming the players will be coming up against tougher foes?

One of the WotC developers posted an interesting review of the new WFRP. One of the things he pointed out was that by limiting the slots, FFG just has to balance the various Talents against each other as they put more out and doesn't have to deal with issued raised by stacking. If more slots are available, stacking abilities becomes an issue and potentially opens up unbalancing combos. It's something a game designer would think of that most of us wouldn't and was one of those "ah-ha!" moments for me when I read it.

As for Wizards/Priests/Zealots, I agree that once a PC makes a decision to become a Wizard that isn't the type of career one turns ones back on, although in the case of the Priest while this is likely also true in most cases, you can more easily justify the loss of blessings since they have turned their back on their god. In reality, no player is going to give up spells/blessings to pursue a different career, so it's probably a problem that doesn't need solving. I can only assume that there will also be additional advanced careers in the Zealot/Flagellant tree which will allow the Career ability to continue to be used. Bear in mind though that since the Zealot/Flagellant gives up a normal Talent slot to be able to socket an Insanity, assuming they have one, and that they suffer the effects of the Insanity as well as benefit from it, I can more easily see a player giving up this ability for a different Talent slot.

The the FAQ update answers all that fine.

Though I think it puts pressure on FFG to publish more wizard and priest careers (don't have to all be upwards in tier, more basic, more advanced fine) as it means wanting to keep progressing through those to order and faith cards!

Rob

Kaptain O said:

I dunno. Like I said if I was to do this, I'd have to think about how to work it so players don't beome to powerful.

As far as how many careers do I think a character will go through? In the games current state, two. Maybe three. It doesn't strike me as a game with much character longevity as it is now. In the future it will probably change, but right now it looks like characters have limited viable advacements available.

Well it costs at least 11 advances to complete a career and get dedication bonus - that's 3 months of playing 1/week. At the end of it they get an extra talent slot? They get another every 3 months?

I'd really have to see what FFG has in mind for the advanced classes - see if there is a ramping up of power level as you get up there.

Well now that I read the updated F.A.Q.. I see that you loose the use of the talents (Pg. 7). if you have no socket for them.

Well thank you FFG for answering my question! And thanks to all for some interesting view points.

It looks like I'll do what's best. I'll disscuss it with my players and see what they think; after all, it is their game too.

And if the game gets to imbalanced; I'll send a troop of giants after them to mash the extra Talent sockets out of them!!