Quick question regarding exiting the zealot career. The zealot is allowed to attach an insanity card to itself instead of a tactic and then its career ability uses that card to generate extra fortune points. However when you max out the career and exit no other class except flaggelant is allowed to use insanities as tactics so is there no point to retaining the class ability?

It just seems bad to not only be stuck with the negative of the insanity just for picking the class, but also not even be able to use the ability when you go through the entire career especially when Witchhunter requires zealot as a prereq...

witch hunter requires completed Zealot OR a permanent insanity; so its the same either way, the witch hunter has a permanent insanity, that confers no benefit.

If you want to keep the "benefit" of having an insanity, you got into flagellant instead.

Once in witch hunter you could presumably try and cure the insanity using the normal rules, although I reckon the next career in that path if and when released (witch hunter general?), will also require a permanent insanity.

So from a pragmatic point of view, since I wanted to play a Witchhunter class initially, but was unable due to it being an advanced class, I should instead of completing this career just immediately change as soon as possible?

Or just start a new class, stress myself out during combat to the point where I get some random insanity then complete that career gaining the benefits of that class instead of getting nothing with the zealot? That just seems like I'm being railroaded into gaming the system instead of going from a class and using it's abilities to strengthen the next...

Well yes, except that being a witch hunter as soon as possible doesn't really confer any super benefit. In previous editions moving onto advanced careers normally gave access to higher total stat bonuses compared to basic careers, so it made sense to try and get into an advanced career.

Now however, the advanced careers only seem to be there as an opportunity for someone who has exhausted specific basic careers to move onto something new and keep the character concept consistent (flagellant, giant slayer, and the advanced wizard and priest careers certaintly fit this bill)

Other pcs can quite happily move around in the basic careers and still get the same kind of advance opportunities, without the need to get into an advanced career.

Now admittedly, witch hunter does have more skill options to choose from, which if you complete it could make the dedication bonus a bit better, but overall its not much different to any other basic career, from an advancement option point of view.

I think this could change in the future when FFG add the next stage in the career paths as I assume as you get further up the path there are more talent sockets on the career cards and possibly other bonuses not yet realised. Once that happens then completing witch hunter becomes an important stepping stone on that career path, but for now getting into it from a purely mechanical point of view, doesn't make that much difference.

From a fluff point of view though, to answer your question (!!), i reckon yes, if your concept is that you want to be a witch hunter, then move into that career as soon as you have picked up a suitable insanity.

Be wary though, because if you complete it before FFG bring out the next level of that career path (assuming they have the concept of the next level in that career path, but I would think that must be in their minds), then you won't have a mechanical way to progress your fluff concept...

It is being rail roaded slightly, but provided the insanity gain is suitably story driven, for instance simply being a tortured soul in any other career who looks for revenge for the murder of family/village/whatever and role playing that should mechanically provide an insanity soon enough, and then the transition to witch hunter will seem more natural, even though you have artifically engineered it.

Not sure what your GM is like, but discussing this kind of concept with him/her so that they can prepare suitable adventures/encounters to aid this transition is probably a good idea.

Its not really any different to a troll slayer who goes off looking for a troll to kill. From a mechanical point of view, that's needed for them to move into giant slayer, the player and GM are just adding fluff around that and role playing it out to make the mechanics of the game feel less contrived.

Well it seems it would probably take at least 10+ sessions to max out that character that so could take a while. I think the proper thing to do is just reroll and start over in a class that would have abilities a Witchhunter could actually use. However it just feels weird that they would make it an intended career exit and then not let it use its entry's strength where most other classes can... It makes classes that are structured like that inherently "worse" since they will be less useful when you leave them for something else unless you stick to an extremely rigid path.

I'm totally fine with the insanity aspect and think it fits well. I just take objection that if I started out as say a boatman or a scribe I could use its class ability as a reward for maxing out that career when I go to Witchhunter but when I go from zealot (which is one of the two prereqs for that advanced class) I gain nothing but a useless card.

Yes, it does seem a bit pointless.

Perhaps though that further along the witch hunter career path the careers will have insanity talent slots that only someone who completed Zealot will then have access to.

Its a bit of a long shot, mind!

Does the Zealot come with an insanity or does he buy it like a talent card? Or just can attach it after gaining one?

Radish said:

I would replace "insanity talent" with "an insanity", so that an ex-zealot can exhaust any one insanity in exchange for fortune points. Since the class ability says it can only be used once per session, I don't think this would be overpowered in any way.

FTracer said:

Yes he is allowed to take an insanity. I like that since you can choose something that fits where you're going with the character istead of just getting something random.

sudden real said:

Yeah I think certain special abilities of careers should be transfered as well as the class card since they already let mages do it to some extent. I'm still probably just going to start over entirely with that character since it's just overall less hastle...

Thanks for the help guys.