I don't think they "deliberately" left out a set of advanced careers. They wanted to release the basic set and provide the advanced careers soon after.

Once again, would you rather that they not release the basic set for another year, include all these components you want, and charge $180 for the basic set?

Considering that Jay Little was the lead developer for the WFRP2 Career Compendium, I do find it unusual though that a better advanced structure wasn't laid out initially. Irregardless, there's a lot of potential 'for advancement' as it were.

If it was 10 years ago, there'd already be a ton of supplemental material already out in one magazine or another..

jh

..

I got the game two months ago but am now opening it up to prepare to play in three months. I firmly believe that you shouldnt play a game until at least 3 months after it has come out. That usually gives you at least a GM screen type thing as well as something on the way.

My gaming group rotates through games for this reason. We played L5R 3rd edition for 8 months. Then we played Dark Heresy for 4 months. Then Warhammer 2nd edition for 2 months. Then Rolemaster 3 months. Now we are back to Dark Heresy for the last 2 months.

What this does is allows us to go through the gaming material that is currently out without running out of things and it stops us from burning out on a game. I dont kill their characters, I save the character sheets and if they liked the campaign (such as Dark Hereesy) we go back and play it later once more books come out.

I think Warhammer is perfectly set up for that style. Play the game for 3 to six months and then take a break. FFG has a decent enough release schedule that if you wait some, enough new stuff will be out you can go back and play again. Do that through 5 or 6 games and never will a game get stale or where you will run out of things to do or progress.

GravitysAngel said:

If they decided to provide the advanced careers later, then they were deliberately left out.

They have the old careers already from V2. Would not have taken a year to add a few more advanced ones.
And would not have doubled the price. Or at least should not have if they were not out to milk your money with costly extras.
I expected a decent set of careers that can cover a character for at least an aveage campaign length. And I am not sure I got it with 3rd.

More importantly though to me, they have added a number of careers as basic that should have been Advanced to sart with.
Ironbreaker, wardancer and Swordmaster in particular should in no way have been Basic careers. You aspire to be a swordmaster, not start off as one. What do you do after you become a Swordmaster? Go work as a rat catcher?
One of my first house rules will be to make those three advanced careers.
Afraid a bit too much Warhammer Online creeping in there methinks... (Wonder if Adevnturers pack two will have White Lions in it... hmmm)

Here's a house rule...

Set aside preconceived notions of what the game should/shouldn't be based on your experience with a now out of print/cancelled edition of the game.

Try it on its own merits, don't make it into another game (even if the other game is the previous edition). Then, come back and tell us, based on it, not its comparison to something else, what's wrong with it.

Trying to compare WHFRP 3e to 2e is like trying to compare D&D 4 to D&D 3.5 or WH40k 3e to WH40k 2e or Warmachine mk2 stats to Warmachine mk1 stats. You can't get an accurate comparison because each has reimagined itself in a new way. This may or may not be the way the collective player base thinks things 'should' be but it is the way it is.

I'm personally loving it, looking forward to the releases as they come, rather than expecting it all to come in one 'box'. Find me an RPG that does it these days (a current, in print one) and I'll gladly look at it.

pumpkin said:

If you fine folk have room in your clubhouse, I'd like to join. You've summed up nicely everything I was going to add, right down the the "voice of reason" epithet for Mac40k. Thanks for saving my keyboard-weary fingertips the effort!

keltheos said:

+1, and then some. I think if more people could set aside their preconceptions there would be a lot fewer complaints about this edition.

Since PCs in this system start off far more capable than in other or previous editions, my friends and I have agreed to slow down the rate of advancement.

By that I mean we won't be handing out 4-5 exp points per story. We'll instead grant other rewards, like boosts in reputation and material wealth.

That should hold us over until more material comes out.

Necrozius said:

Not really, I would take a lot of gaming sessions only to complete one career, so I wouldn't be worried... unless you play like once a week or more (is there anyone that can afford more than a session per week anyway?! unemployed or teenagers, maybe?). By the time your players would get advanced enough, I'm pretty sure a complement will be out.

Silverwave said:

The adventure in the Core Rules, takes the average group around 2 sessions (excluding character generation) and dishes out up to 5 XP ( 1 per chapter, 1 for the cultists, 1 for the demon ) in addition to session XP. You earn 1 XP for being physically present, 1 more if all had fun and played well. At best that are 9 XP in 2 sessions (or if you have a fast group and a long day, 7 XP in one session).

If your group takes 3 sessions for that adventure (which is quite slow), there should be enough time to at least get the cultists or the demon, and at least have 2 session where the players got the "fun and good play" award. 3 for the chapters, 1 for the secondary goal, 3 for presence, 2 "fund and good play". Thats nets you 9 XP in 3 sessions. So completing your first career in 4 sessions (roughly a month) is in no way impossible or even hard, with the awards from the core adventure its even probable.

rparavicini said:

That's an extremely generous reading of what the xp guidelines say, and generous awards even in those terms.

In any case, I think a decent rule of thumb is simply 1 point per session.

Too much XP compared to the Tome Of Adventure's suggestion : 1XP per game session to each player. No difference of XP between them. NEVER, because there's no competition here, only team spirit, partying and collaboration.

I give an extra XP when a player has done something for the game outside of the game which make me think that I'm not the online one to spend extra time on our Warhammer game (write her Dwarf Saga, or her High Elf envoy's diary, buy a toy weapon for her character, cook a magnificient meat for us, recorded a song, draw something, cook a cake...)

monkeylite said:

I agree.

If you insist on dishing out more rewards, give them in other ways, like: MONEY, a free specialty, a unique item, fame and reputation etc...

For example: if the PCs heroically saved a Reikland village from a Goblin raid, give them bonus fortune dice to social interactions in the region due to their spreading fame. Or maybe the mayor tells the PCs that they can always find hospitality (free room and board) in their village forever.

Iike so many other things in this edition (which I definitely like) it's up to the GM how fast he wants his characters to advance XP-wise. Like Necro said, there are plenty other ways to reward players outside of XP.

My group of 3 took three sessions to complete An Eye for an Eye and got a total of 5 XP for all three sessions. (1 per, plus 1 upon completion of the whole story with a bonus 1 for the night we fought the cultists because everyone did an awesome job of roleplaying, teamwork, and descriptive narration).

monkeylite said:

nope ... it simply reading what is printed in the book

excerpt from the adventure:

If you’re playing one very long session, an experience point for every Chapter completed is a good rule of thumb.

How would you read it less generous ... without ignoring it?

rparavicini said:

The recommendations per chapter, istm, are instead of the session awards. If you play really long sessions, then give the awards by chapter, otherwise you effectively lose out by having longer sessions.

I've toyed with the idea of converting the XP system into something a little more complicated, but much more manageable as far as giving rewards for actions.

Just turn each WHFRP "XP Point" into 100 XP points. By that, I mean you need 100 XP per advancement. That lets a GM give out 10XP for certain actions, or 50XP fora session, so your players get a reward but you can limit progression nicely. It does mean they have to write down a bit more, but it seems to help out.

I like that characters have the chance to advance every single session. If you stick to 1 xp per session, then it will take over 100 exp to max out your character.

Even with just 100, then it's 100 sessions. Lets say 6 hours per session. That's 600 hours or a whole year if you play two sessions a week of 6 hours.

I don't really think progression that that fast.

Just stick to the 1 exp per 6 hours and then everything is fine.

Well, my system isn't so much to limit progression (Though it can be used for that). It's more to be able to reward players for things without giving them a full XP point. Under the current system, if one player does something particularly impressive, be it a roleplay session, something they made and brouht to the game, etc., you basically have to give them a full advancement point or nothing at all.

It also helps me because we tend to play only 1.5-2 hours per session, so it lets me split up the XP gain over those shorter play periods.