What I'd like to see is not an Adventurer's toolbox, but a real Player's Kit. The Adventurer's Toolbox is more an expansion for the core box than it is a player's kit in my opinion. It's fine for what it is, but it really doesn't give players the full options they need to play the game. What I'd like to see in a Player's kit is included below. Please feel free to add your thoughts if you think I missed something.

A player's kit should Include:

• 1 storage box like what the Adventurer's Toolkit comes in.
• 1 full deck of careers
• 1 pad of character sheets
• 1 set of tracker puzzle pieces (center + 4 pieces and a track location indicator)
• 1 sheet containing a small variety of non-specific career character stand ups (Male and Female represented... About 12 -18 will do for various races, levels of armor and gender.)
• 2 Stands
• 1 Stance indicator for stand up
• 1 set of basic skill cards
• 1 Digest version of the Core Rules (basically just the main rulebook condensed and the rules mechanics from the tome of mysteries and tome of blessings minus all of the fluff)

I'm fine with the talent and skill cards coming in the Core Box, honestly, but why can't a kit be put together like what is detailed above? This would easily allow expansion of players. I was thinking of including dice, but those are already sold in packs, so there is no need for those anymore in a players kit.

For a kit like what is mentioned above, I can see players paying easily $40.00 to $50.00 for this.

I'm not recommending that either the Adventurer's kit or the Core Boxed Set be changed, but Player's Kits would go a long way to making this game more accessible to larger groups.

Am I alone in this?

The only problem i see with this is the complete set of career cards.

In the majority of groups this probably isn't needed, as having duplicated careers within a group isn't really that likely, and in reality using the career cards in actual play is limited anyway, all you really need them for are the talent sockets. All the other info is only really used during levelling up, so players could easily share one career card for that anyway.

Plus the set becomes out of date as soon as the next kit comes out that adds new careers.

Instead, I think I'd rather see some kind of generic talent slot sheet, that could be configured somehow to represent any of the talent slots on any of the existing cards. Perhaps this could be some kind of locking puzzle piece affair in the same way that the stance track is, but with talent slots?

pumpkin said:

That is a great idea if not feasible to include them into a Player's Kit, but I still think everyone having their own set has it's merits.

I'm fanatic about taking care of my stuff and not all of the people I've played with in the past have been. So if I'm the GM I'm a little leary about having these people leaf through my stuff and possibly bend or nick the cards.

See, the thing I was thinking about when including the character sheets it to give players access to ALL of the character classes...all the time. If they are not interested in purchasing a Core Box, they will still have access. There is information regarding the backgrounds and advancement that is still useful to the players on these cards. The sheet is not just about the talent/reputation/tactic slots.

For later careers that come out it can be collected in a future update available to GM's and Players like an Adventurer's Toolkit 2, or players will be forced to buy expansions that they come in.

A players kit that contains the basic careers ect is a really good idea, lots of players dont want to buy the whole game, or even better (I am going to flog this dead horse again), a print on demand solution, you order your career ect and have a box sent to you with the talent and skill/ability cards that you ordered in an adventures tookit style box with an option for a additional dice kit in it if you need it, these could easily sell for a 20 spot (you get that really spiffy box after all).

Your argument for including all the careers is that some people you might play with don't take as good a care of stuff, but doesn't that same logic apply to talent and action cards then? You really can't do character advancement planning without access to the Talents and Actions anyway, so without them, having all the (currently available) careers isn't all that useful. Also the casting rules/action cards are only needed by a limited subset of players, whereas more players need the melee, ranged, and social actions. The current dice packs don't give you the correct mix to be able to have your own set, even when buying multiples. Arguably, the only things in the core set that a player can do without is the ToA, monster standees, Wound deck, Insanity deck, and miscast deck. Sure they'd need fewer counters and stance pieces as well. No, the way they've designed this game, I really don't see a way to build a useful player's box that is substantially less expensive than the core set. That's probably on purpose.

mac40k said:

There are card protectors out there that take care of that. Not as much of an issue.

I also didn't think it would be substantially less expensive to make a players kit. I absolutely would be for adding in the talent/reputation/tactics and power cards, but that would increase cost as well.

You're probably right about FFG planning things this way. They probably thought that everyone would pick up a boxed set at the $100.00 price point. With D&D 3.5 you got 3 books at $30.00 apiece so it's almost like paying $100.00 for each player if we all got the DMG, PHB and MM. The benefit of D&D is you had everything in 3 hard cover books with nothing else needed except dice, paper and a pencil. They provided 960 pages of material in those 3 books together, whereas WFRP only provides 1/3 of that in soft cover book format with the rest tied up in cards and tools.

I'm not thinking that people feel they are getting the same deal.

Comparing them, I'm betting that D&D provided more powers, monsters and spells combined than what came in the Core boxed set for WFRP.

Anyway, I'm not trying to run a bash session here.... I'll stop the rant before it gets out of control.

Thanks for your commentary Mac. Not looking for agreement here just wondering if others had the same thoughts I had, or if not, perhaps sharing their perspectives. You've done exactly what I asked for. Thanks for sharing.

I think it's an excellent idea. I admit that including the all the careers might be problematic ... as the careers will keep expanding with other new releases, so there is no good way to keep up to date. However, things like: tracking tokens, stance pieces, character sheets, standups, basic action cards, all with a box (like the toolkit) would be an excellent product and allow for easy player expansion.

That said, I also think that FFG should make "career bundles" available, where you can purchase various sets of career cards. They can separate them perhaps by release, or by type, etc. (By release is probably easier). So, for example, the "Career Set 1" could include all career cards from the Core Set and the A.Toolkit. "Career Set 2" would have careers from a few other expansions that have careers combined together, and so on.

Some people are already complaining about the lack of new material or the pace at which it is being released. Do you really want to clutter up the release schedule with additional rebundling of existing product? Wouldn't we also need action and talent card packs as well as career packs? What about locations, items, etc.? You'll have those same people complaining that this doesn't add anything new and FFG is just trying to make a quick buck by getting us to repurchase the same material in a new configuration. Also, it might be confusing for buyers that aren't as fully up to speed on the game. If an uninformed gamer sees a core box and a player's box on the shelf, does he need to buy both? What about the careers pack? If a player knows enough to just buy the player's kit and later decides he'd like to run a game himself, now he ends up rebuying a lot of same stuff he's already got when he steps up to the core set and wouldn't he have been better off just buying the core box in the first place? FFG risks angering customers by providing too many ways to buy the same product, while fragmenting their inventory model.

Every time this discussion comes up it's usually centered around easily adding more players, presumably by offering just the stuff they need at a lower price. I maintain that an individual player needs so much of what is in the core set that if you cut out the GM only bits, it won't be enough of a cost savings. The only real answer is somebody needs to pony up for a second core set.

I believe it should be narrowed down to:

• 1 storage box like what the Adventurer's Toolkit comes in.
• 1 pad of character sheets
• 1 set of talent puzzle pieces (enough to do all career combinations)
• 1 set of tracker puzzle pieces (center + 4 pieces and a track location indicator)
• 1 sheet containing a small variety of non-specific career character stand ups (Male and Female represented... About 12 -18 will do for various races, levels of armor and gender.)
• 1 Stand up piece
• 1 Stance indicator for stand up
• 1 set of basic skill cards

You're completely dependent on the core set for action cards, talents and career specialty cards that there's really no point in duplicating the rule books or including separate career sheets. This would only rack up the price and provide negligible value. The player kit is only viable if it's cost is low, $25 or less.