As my Dark Heresy game cruises towards a new break point or the players plunging headlong into a new, intense chapter I'm going through my WFRP stuff and come to a shocking revelation.

Despite specifically including both wood and high elves and racial careers open only to them there are no magic using careers open to elves?

What in the Phoenix King's name is going on? Yes, yes, I can rig up my own easily and I'm sure at some point FFG will publish something about elven magic, but I should not have to do the work or wait until Verena knows when for it.. Elves are the most magically inclined of the player character races. While the Colleges of Magic are awesome, that the game should have that giant smoking hole in it is really disappointing.

Cynical Cat said:

The game has 3 products released for it as of today. I have full confidence you will see Elves with magic careers. You might be able to make the arguement "that should be in the core box" while others make the arguement "all the colleges need to be in the core box" but if they included ALL that in the box, we'd be magic heavy and everyone would be made about the magic careers getting all the love. I suspect they holded off for a entire magic box set.

I make the argument that "magic and religious careers for humans and no magic careers at all for both types of elves" was a bad choice. While I wanted all eight types of college magic up to rank 5 in the core box (but my avatar probably told you that) I'm not criticizing them for not having them.

What sections of the core set would you have dropped to include elven magic?

For example: Only two magic and two divine classes for humans. Would that have been a better choice?

Wasn't this already discussed elsewhere? Elven magic is simply too powerful compared to humans'. Also if you haven't noticed all races and careers are suited for the Reikland - what would an elven mage do there? Join a group of merry adventurers? Hunt down a few cultists and help the local nobles? It just doesn't make sense!

What we need now are third and fourth rank careers (especially the tiered ones). ...which brings another question - anyone remember how long it was between FFG first announcing the Adventurer's Toolkit and releasing it? Asking because we're probably looking for the same wait time here and FFG haven't announced anything WFRP related recently... Ideas?

Fresnel said:

For simplicity I would follow v2 precedence and allow HE the same career options as humans. Hopefully the omission was on purpose because the designers are setting up some unique stuff for elven magic. The downside being we have to wait until it released.

As to the wait times I would not judge the release of the Adventure toolkit as a baseline. The toolkit was released on time, the GM kit was released early, but the Gathering Storm has been delayed. So for v3 releases you have 1 on time, 1 early, and 1 late.

If I remember rightly, there were no Elven speciality magic careers in the Second edition. The FFG guys are probably trying to work out how to make a Tower Of Hoeth Elven Mage usable in the system, without overwhelming it, with either power or options. Maybe an Elven mage will have a wide range of powerful spells to choose from, but they will cost so much that a mage can only learn one per level or nothing else, skills, talents or action cards . Who knows!

Not all elves use High Magic. The Dragon mages, for example, only use Bright Magic and some one training for that position would make an excellent adventurer. I'm talking about adding a couple of career cards. As for what would an elf mage do in Reikland, what is every other high and wood elf doing? If a Swordmaster can be rambling around having adventurers and learning intersting things so can a junior mage.

Cynical Cat said:

And the current system fully supports that. The only reason Elves are to be dealt with separately is because they can a) channel the forces of Magic more effectively, b) have innate Magic Sight c) are not limited to 1 school of magic and d) can learn High Magic. So releasing any new material that didn't address those points would lead to even more of an uproar in my belief.

I can see it happening as some sort of Ascension type package where both Human, Dwarf and Elven careers and powers are released aiming at the epic-style campaign.

None of those objections are relevant to the issue of including starting magical careers for elves. Magical sight is a non issue (covered in the skill system), elf skill at channeling and spellcasting is covered by the game mechanics already (notice the good stats in those areas), multiple colours and High Magic is only relevant to more advanced casters (and not all of them).

I think I'm more disappointed that the DWARVES are listed and no Runekeepers are done. You can always make a Dwarven loremaster from a scribe, but otherwise, where are the runebearers???

In regards to elves, I'd like to hear what people think a Rank 1 "high elf / high magic" apprentice should look like in comparison to a human wizard's apprentice. Should a high elf magic apprentice be broken in comparison or balanced?

jh

People have already pointed this out, but I will reiterate:

Elven Magic (and dwarven runekeepers) are more advanced topics than what are covered in the Core Set. They require a lot of additional work and a lot of additional cards (more than just some career cards) to operate. I expect, at some point, that Elven Magic and Dwarven Runes will get some attention ... but for the Core Set (which is a *very* Basic) these are just not appropriate. I personally would consider even starting apprentice Elf mages to be far above the typical casting level and expertise of a starting apprentice human mage. Thus, while maybe not an "Advanced Career" from a game rules perspective, they are advanced as far as the Core Set is concerned. So, I would hardly say it was an oversight. The Core Set tried to pack in as much basic stuff as it could, and it couldn't even fit everything in that they wanted and keep the price point (hence the toolkit). Anything that wasn't firmly in the basics category had to get pushed to a future release.

Dwarven runecasters definitely deserve some love, but they aren't comparable to beginning elven magical careers since elves would share almost all the same rules and cardsets with the human casters already included. High Magic is irrelevant. It is used by some, not all, High Elven magicians and thus isn't an issue for a careers for neophyte high elves and wood elves who wouldn't be using it anyway.

As for what those hypothetical neophyte careers would look like we already have a good model in the human wizard careers. The elf versions would have titles and backgrounds to reflect their appropriate status (i.e. their equivalent positions would be less senior and closer to dabbler or amateur status) and similar skill and attribute sets. Improvising my own is dead easy, but I think it's a serious oversight that I have to.

ragnar63 said:

Yes, but elves could still be wizards. In fact, rolling career randomly 7% of all elven PCs start as Apprentice Wizards, as oppose to 2% for humans. Elves also started with Aethyric Attunement and either coolheaded or savvy so they can choose at start +5 to INT or WP.

So most starting Human Apprentice Wizards would usually choose Aethyric Attunement over Fast Hands at Character Generation and Savvy over Very Strong. While elves will have both Aethyric Attunement and Fast Hand and because they can take Savvy as a Apprentice Wizard Talent they can take Coolheaded as thier racial talent.

Putting them at +5% INT, +5% WP with Fast Hands and Aetheyric Attunement. While not amazingly better at being starting wizards, it definately gives them an edge coming out of the gate. (especially since all the starting skills for a Apprentice Wizard are either INT or WP based).

In WFRP3E, they cant even be wizards at all.

High elf magic is much too powerful to be in the hands of player characters.

Gallows said:

The elven charletans of 1st and 2nd edition were lame and not really working with the idea of how powerful high elf magic is.

((Ehh what just happened... tried to edit.))

I keep hearing why this wasnt inculded or when are we going to get this with our game. Give them time to work on the product and I feel we shale receive. This isn't a remake of 2ed but a complete new system, and in away Im glad they'er not flooding the game system with crude. Remember how much just plain bad stuff was choking D&D 3.x shelves, let FFG make a solid rule set for the magic so we dont end up conflicting rules. The game is only been out for 4 months, in that time we had Adventure Kit and GM toolkit. We know there is going to be a Magic box, Empire box, Chaos box, plus multiple adventures and so on, let them develop these products.

As for High elf mage our party has young one(by elves' standards), and the rules he under work fine. Unlike humans he can switch in to other Careers and back again. He must master his current wind to learn the other winds, he need to travel back to his homeland to learn another wind. To be a High Mage he must have Mastered all eight winds so Im not to worried about it happening all to quickly. On par I award on 1 xp a session and we play every two weeks.

In 2nd Edition, High Magic was WAY above the level of anything characters in the Old World could do. To introduce that into a game would have been irresponsible and game breaking as far as balance was concerned. That's possibly even a reason why Ulthuan was never detailed in any of the Products. It also makes sense from a fluff perspective as the elves of Ulthuan were almost xenophobic as far as letting anyone else inside the borders of their kingdom and if allowed, it was only generally as far as the doorway cities.

The fact that Teclis taught humans any magic at all was to help keep them in the fight against Chaos. Without humans as a buffer Chaos would destroy the Old World and make way towards Ulthuan. The Elves already had enough to deal with cleaning house with their dark elf brethren.

Just my opinion

Oh I agree whole heartly that high magic is way to strong, thats why I made the path the way it is. There four stages to the wizard career five if you inculde arch-lector. So just the first wind will cost 44 advancements (yes I feel if you dont complete the career on the wizard side you dont advance in the career.) and that is if you dont spend xps on boosting stats like Willpower and Intelligence or anything else outside your career. I never ran a game pass a year because by then I ready to play instead of run, or there is some new system I want to try so Im not to worried about her achieving high magic. She is happy playing elf mage on her way to great power.

No one is saying anything about novice characters starting with High Magic. As for it being overpowered even for powerful characters, the party line is that its too powerful but I have to say I don't buy that. It's not needed (High Elven colour magic users have been detailed in a number of products covering the Warhammer World) but having it as an extremely expensive option for high powered characters isn't out of the question. A novice with High Magic is not the equal of a Wizard Lord of the colleges. That the novice might be more badass in a hundred years might be true, but doesn't affect game play.

Iffo said:

If this game is going to limit itself to Reikland only, then to hell with it. What a narrowly minded game in such a vast and fantastic world. All my players are dissapointed with how narrow the game is and want so much more from it. The game is being shelved soon for us as it's not offering a whole lot to us anymore and we are going to wait for them to actually put out some more meat into this game.

In my game, one the player is a high elf envoy in the empire (trader, ambassader) who lives adventures in the Reikland. He also could have practice magic, or he may start it later.

I'll have a look on the magic books from v1/2 and adapt some of it if nothing comes... As I'll have to do with Dwarves runes.

Ok I am confused. I bought this to play with my kids and I am just now reading the rules.

My son wants to play a dwarf fighter and my daughter wants to be a high elf wizard.

I dont have the stuff near me to look it up but are you telling me elves can't choose apprentice wizard as a career?

Peacekeeper_b said:

Yeah that sucks. but on the other hand I don`t see any reason why you can`t play an elven wizard apprentice. just other than ignoring the trait: human only. I find no other possible rule violations by doing so. And it would be in the spirit of the previoius editions. Not unless FFG are planning something very special for elf magicians. So I would say ignore the HUMAN ONLY trait on the career card and go ahead play a elven wizard if you like. And maybe give them the talent card Aethyric Attunement for free, to give them that particular edge.

btw nice to hear from you Peacekeeper. how is the game going?

PanzerKraken said:

Hang on. I don`t think FFG just want to stick to a small part of the empire (unless that was part of the lisence...heh let`s hope not). I think we talk more of narrow-minded debatants, rather than narrow minded game.

the previous editions had all kinds of exicting sourcebooks, like the icy Kislev, the rotten Bretonnia, and the cursed sylvania. I just think its matter of time before we see some of that appearing. maybe in 2011.

I am concerned about the slow rate FFG is producing materials for WFRP. If everything is going to be boxes with cards and nifty tokens than it will take time before we see anything outside the empire. 2nd edition under Black industry published as much as 8 books a year, but FFG is down to 5 products,(3 large and 2 small) let`s hope the fans are patient enough.

Good gaming Panzerkraken (btw kewl name)