Hi Guys!

It took me a while to gather a few parties together and testplay a few rounds with different parties and after that I have to say that I am a little frustrated with the new system...Or let me put it a bit clearer: I think the system is the craft of a genius, but for the system to work the main box would have had to include about 10 times as many talents, action cards, skills, etc.

Most annoying point: In every single of my groups I had at least one, most of the times even two, players that where hitting to something that just was not there... Quote: "I love the belief system... I want to play a priestess of Verena. Where are the cards?" ... Ähm... not there.... "I want to he a Hierophant. How do I start?" Ähm... Not at all.. And I am now only talking about things that are already widely introduced in the main books, not even thinking about the shiffering idea of someone wanting to play a Dwarf runesmith or something like that...

I have not yet been able to lay my hands on the adventurers toolkit, as it was sold out before I could get it from the FFG store and over here in Europe we don't have it in stores yet, but I desperatly hope it gets better with that... Or with something that is close to come. Right now I have to lock away the Tome of Mysteries and the Tome of Blessings to keep frustration levels down...

I would appreciate hearing your throughts for that, or perhaps get a direction pointed to something I missed...

Thanks

Lucifer

If you check the component list available in the download section, you'll see that there are 10 additional career sheets in the AT. All of these are Basic careers and none of them are additional Faiths or Orders, so you'll still be waiting on future supplements for that.

I've noted elsewhere that one of my biggest concerns is the release of additional material that I think we'll need to support long term campaigns. While there are plenty of basic careers and many characters can spend a good amount of time bouncing between them, for Wizards and Priests, who are more likely to move up within their career path than to switch to another Basic career, there are currently only two careers in their progression before they hit a wall. 10 Career advancements to complete a career, one for dedication bonus, and zero advances to change to the next level (since they share 3 of 4 traits and Reiklanders get to reduce this to zero), means that after 22 advances total, barring any advancements spent on non-career advances, the character has nowhere to go. For a weekly game, that's less than half a year if you stick to the 1 XP per session guideline and never hand out any bonus XP. So in less than 6 months time, your game goes on hiatus waiting for additional material to be released (if it hasn't been already) or you are trying to figure out an in-game reason to support the PC abandoning his Faith/Order for a period of time to switch to something else. While this is mechanically possible and the FAQ even supports former priest/wizards still being able to invoke blessings/cast spells, it also points out that such a career transition is highly unusual in the setting. While the option of playing a wizard that has abandoned his order and is now hunted by Witch Hunters may be an interesting storyline that some players may enjoy, I daresay it isn't one that most would like forced on them because the option to continue playing a wizard isn't available to them.

I, too, have concerns as far as careers go. I'm not even going to bring up the whole waywatcher, swordmaster, wardancer basic career issue I have (previous post). It seems though this new system of careers for this version of wfrp is seriously flawed. It is nothing but bouncing from one basic career to another basic career. All you are doing is "stacking" careers. There really is no sense or feel of a career and its progression.

Now I've been told to be patient and wait for new material for advanced careers but advanced careers are not what we might be expecting. All advanced careers are, are rehashed versions of the basic career, with nothing really added to them. You are literally picking the same advancements over again (see the slayers careers they are practically the exact same thing).

So expect all careers to be basic and start getting into the mindframe of players really having to make some oddball career changes to make a pretty unstructured mix and match character.

Expect the possibilties of running a player like this.... coachman to noble to ratcatcher to gambler to intiate. Doesn't seem like a very good character but that's how it is now. Yuck!

Players just don't have any real career path to follow. The way FFG is designing advanced careers so far....every basic career will need an advanced version of a basic career. Champion Ratcatcher anyone?

PM me with your email address if you want a career card that's form fillable.

As for doing up "cards" you're still on your own there

jh

With such a vast player pool I see no reason why we couldn't create something to tide us over until something official was released.

In some parts it is most likely feasible to "use" the community for that. With non-magic (including non-faith) careers it's even easier as there isn't much you have to watch anyway, as the careers are all pretty much the same, but I would never go to the extend of writing my own magic spell deck... (or faith deck for that sake) Beside the fact that this is quite some effort and for sure not balanced if I do it myself I am more than sure that the official version will be far away from that when it finally arrives and then I am stuck with characters that are not usable any more...

Had a long talk with some potential players yesterday (a group that wanted to play a priest-only partie). After about two hours of discussion we put away WFRP and went back to Dark Eye... And I guess that's what I will keep doing with all groups that include character in this direction, as well as with groups that plan to play extended campaigns.

It would really surprise me, if anybody in any career, was satisfied with their stats after character creation. A priest or wizard character, if they wanted to have 4's in their career stats and 3's in all the rest, would need to spend 20 points on stats in character creation. Yes you could just spend 10 xp and then transfer to the relevent advanced career, but you would be missing a trick. I am sure most beginning characters have at least one non-career stat on a 2, and there must be at least one non-career skill they feel is relevent for their character. To get these will cost 6 XP. Also I suspect that a magic (priest and wizard) supplement will be out by the summer, such a supplement is definately intimated in the future plans announcement. FFG would be making a major mistake if it isn't.

ragnar63 said:

Hmm, it's really not too hard. You have 5 points left after spending 20 on Characteristics. I'll assume that neither an Apprentice or Initiate needs to spend any creation points on Talents, so that just leaves Wealth, Skills, and Actions.

A Wizard can afford to start Poor, taking the free hand weapon and spending just 10b of his 50s on a staff. He can spend 2 CP on Skills to train Spellcraft, Channeling, and either Education or Discipline. That leaves 2 CP for 3 Action cards. Since he doesn't need armor anyway, he could forego the hand weapon that being Poor grants him and just start out Broke with a staff, freeing up a CP for a 4th action card or 4th skill (and additional specialization).

A priest has it slightly harder since he needs to acquire and train Invocation and Piety if he wants to start out being able to use blessings, so has to spend 3 CP on Skills. He can start poor and take the hand weapon for free then spend 45 of his 50s on Brigadine armor and a round shield if he want to be combat capable as well. That leaves 1 CP for 2 action cards. Alternately, if he wants to focus more on healing and not combat, he can start broke with just a dagger and free up a CP for another action.